The Press Complaint committee has upheld two complaints from Electoral Reform Services Ltd that the Chancellor George Osborne, as reported in the Daily Fail and the paper that shall not be named, LIED (OK the language used is that he was wrong) about the use of machines and that Electoral Reform Services Ltd would benefit from a Yes vote on 5th May.
Of course the whole issue of cost was a central tenet of the No2AV teams campaign. It was their opening batsmen, their leading goal scorer, their Oscar winning script, all rolled into one. Of course referendum communication we learnt during the campaign are not held by the Advertising Standards Agency code of conduct. But the PCC has found that the Chancellor has told untruths to fight this campaign, he may argue that he was merely echoing the statement from the No campaign. But if that was based on such a falsehood surely the Chancellor should have been more careful about what he said.
As I've pointed out before, such a breach by the Chancellor of the Treasury's own advice may actually be in breach of the ministerial code. While the PM take action against so senior a member who has broken the code. He restricted the role of the Business Secretary over the BSkyB takeover, about to take place tomorrow apparently, because he said publicly that he wasn't about to bow the knee to the mighty Murdoch. Yet his Chancellor has bowed the knee to the head of the Tax Payer's Alliance and their usual tactics to spread falsehood for political self preservation.
The only part of Westminster voting reform that was up to the public was the voting system, the Conservatives had already secured a reduction in the number of members which favoured them unfairly under the current system and required a change in voting system to provide a check and balance.
Well done George mission accomplished on that one, though it's hardly cricket. More Eton Wall Game. Oops did I spot that.
Showing posts with label lies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lies. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 June 2011
Tuesday, 21 June 2011
One final lie #No2AV
There is nothing more frustrating than your political opponents claiming poverty when you knew that their glossy leaflets had to have cost more than anything you were putting out, they were putting them out to every door (using the free* post option through the Royal Mail).
What is worse is the when they say none of the tax payers money is spent on printing a leaflet, while telling lies about how tax payers money might be spent if you vote the other way. One does wonder how Matthew Elliot the chair of the No2AV campaign can face his colleagues now he is back to his day job at the Tax Payers Alliance. When I first saw a certain leaflet when I returned home from work at the Yes to Fairer Votes office I knew there was a cost involved that they were hiding. Now we know how much.
So here is a fisking of that leaflet with a couple of corrections in red.
Hat tip to Stuart Bonar
* A misnomer as the cost while free to the campaigns is actually taken up by the tax payer.
What is worse is the when they say none of the tax payers money is spent on printing a leaflet, while telling lies about how tax payers money might be spent if you vote the other way. One does wonder how Matthew Elliot the chair of the No2AV campaign can face his colleagues now he is back to his day job at the Tax Payers Alliance. When I first saw a certain leaflet when I returned home from work at the Yes to Fairer Votes office I knew there was a cost involved that they were hiding. Now we know how much.
So here is a fisking of that leaflet with a couple of corrections in red.
Hat tip to Stuart Bonar
* A misnomer as the cost while free to the campaigns is actually taken up by the tax payer.
Thursday, 5 May 2011
The Politics of the Gutter - Or #No2AV This is Your Campaign
For many weeks now I've been getting angrier and angrier with George Osborne and David Cameron's actions and word in the AV referendum .
Before March 16th when we had the deal that would to the referendum we have spend the last 15 hours voting on David Cameron was insistent that he like Nick Clegg were not going to be heavily involved in the front line of the debate themselves, but would get on with leading the Government in this very trying time. All seemed to be sweetness and light if in different corners on the substance of the debate.
But the No campaign then went into personality attacks on the leader of the junior partner in the coalition government. David Cameron had made a promise to Nick Clegg that it would be a reasoned argument on his part, but Cameron and Osborne quickly joined in on the mudslinging at the man they have to work with in Government rather than arguing the merits or otherwise of the two systems that were on offer.
The worse thing was that they joined in with the lies that the No campaign were spurting out. There were questions in the House to try and get the truth to be acknowledged. As nobody can accuse another Member of the House of being a liar this had to be done through the formality of asking questions. Of course I and many others were shouting lying at the TV screen at any point that the lies were being re-iterated, any time that a loaded question from Conservative or Labour No MPs were asked in PMQs, especially the Labour ones as they wasted a chance to hold the government to account.
Cameron has actually taken liberties with the actuality in the House by stating some of the downright lies that have been part of the No Campaign's strategy. Two months ago they were trailing in the polls. So they started, as they had already been doing but with people like the PM in the starting line up now, to get these lies out. The problem is when the PM tells a lie it takes a long time to counter it.
The PM says there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq many people believe him.
The PM says that there will have to be voting machines to count an AV count many people believe him.
The PM says his Deputy once said the words miserable little compromise, solely about AV, not the lateness of the offer, or whom it was aimed at, or the desperation of the outgoing previous PM to cling to power and of course it was a miserable compromise it came 12.95 years into a 13 year term of power.
But to stand by posters that attack a member of your cabinet. To stand by an referendum broadcast that talks about broken promises (aimed squarely at one party in coalition) instead of what actually as you said last year of coming together for the common good of the country, both putting things on the shelf. This is shoddy politics from the man who claims he has a good working relationship.
If I had been elected last year I do not know how I could have sat on the same benches as some of Conservatives who were repeating this bile. I may very well have crossed the chamber to sit as an non-Coalition Liberal Democrat, giving my friend Alistair Carmichael a headache in how to discipline me. Maybe it has been because for the last six months I have been living, breathing and making decisions for the Yes Campaign rather than politics as a whole that I feel this way that some colleagues in Westminster haven't got to the stage Chris Huhne allegedly did in cabinet on Tuesday.
Whatever happens tomorrow I know that we have faced the dirtiest opponent in my entire political career. That is probably because most of my other opponents know they will have to go to the polls again within 5 years. The No campaign don't have that constraint on them, they only had to win once, they only had to stop a change. They didn't offer anything positive, some of what they tried to offer was better reform.
If they have won what they have done is kill any hope of electoral reform before I reach the age of retirement maybe even before I reach 100 (and that is two generations away).
Note I told you I'd let rip, bet you didn't guess this early.
Before March 16th when we had the deal that would to the referendum we have spend the last 15 hours voting on David Cameron was insistent that he like Nick Clegg were not going to be heavily involved in the front line of the debate themselves, but would get on with leading the Government in this very trying time. All seemed to be sweetness and light if in different corners on the substance of the debate.
But the No campaign then went into personality attacks on the leader of the junior partner in the coalition government. David Cameron had made a promise to Nick Clegg that it would be a reasoned argument on his part, but Cameron and Osborne quickly joined in on the mudslinging at the man they have to work with in Government rather than arguing the merits or otherwise of the two systems that were on offer.
The worse thing was that they joined in with the lies that the No campaign were spurting out. There were questions in the House to try and get the truth to be acknowledged. As nobody can accuse another Member of the House of being a liar this had to be done through the formality of asking questions. Of course I and many others were shouting lying at the TV screen at any point that the lies were being re-iterated, any time that a loaded question from Conservative or Labour No MPs were asked in PMQs, especially the Labour ones as they wasted a chance to hold the government to account.
Cameron has actually taken liberties with the actuality in the House by stating some of the downright lies that have been part of the No Campaign's strategy. Two months ago they were trailing in the polls. So they started, as they had already been doing but with people like the PM in the starting line up now, to get these lies out. The problem is when the PM tells a lie it takes a long time to counter it.
The PM says there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq many people believe him.
The PM says that there will have to be voting machines to count an AV count many people believe him.
The PM says his Deputy once said the words miserable little compromise, solely about AV, not the lateness of the offer, or whom it was aimed at, or the desperation of the outgoing previous PM to cling to power and of course it was a miserable compromise it came 12.95 years into a 13 year term of power.
But to stand by posters that attack a member of your cabinet. To stand by an referendum broadcast that talks about broken promises (aimed squarely at one party in coalition) instead of what actually as you said last year of coming together for the common good of the country, both putting things on the shelf. This is shoddy politics from the man who claims he has a good working relationship.
If I had been elected last year I do not know how I could have sat on the same benches as some of Conservatives who were repeating this bile. I may very well have crossed the chamber to sit as an non-Coalition Liberal Democrat, giving my friend Alistair Carmichael a headache in how to discipline me. Maybe it has been because for the last six months I have been living, breathing and making decisions for the Yes Campaign rather than politics as a whole that I feel this way that some colleagues in Westminster haven't got to the stage Chris Huhne allegedly did in cabinet on Tuesday.
Whatever happens tomorrow I know that we have faced the dirtiest opponent in my entire political career. That is probably because most of my other opponents know they will have to go to the polls again within 5 years. The No campaign don't have that constraint on them, they only had to win once, they only had to stop a change. They didn't offer anything positive, some of what they tried to offer was better reform.
If they have won what they have done is kill any hope of electoral reform before I reach the age of retirement maybe even before I reach 100 (and that is two generations away).
Note I told you I'd let rip, bet you didn't guess this early.
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Even the PCC are Making Jan Moir a Special Case
Of course Jan Moir's article would have to be published on a day I was exceedingly busy then out having a good time. Indeed by the time I got home this evening the article appears to have been pulled from the Daily Fail website and the Press Complaints Commission (PPC) actually on their page about making a complaint saying, 'if you want to make a complaint about Jan Moir's article click here'. Apparently their website was down earlier so this may be to avoid too much overload on one server.
If you really want to read the full contents Cardiff Blogger has the full sorry piece with his commentary here.
I read it and logged a complaint with the PCC under three of their clauses. Accuracy, Intrusion into grief or shock and Discrimination. As the last of this has been widely covered elsewhere in the blogosphere I'm going to blog about the later.
Jan Moir writes:
Well I'm sorry they do. At only a few years older I thought I may have been facing something like that. My case was even more bizarre, I'd just left the gym, I may not have been in the peak of fitness but I still was pretty fit, but I experienced my first diagnosed cardiac episode, although I may have been having them for 20 years before. So yes I may very well have been one such person, so I question you accuracy.
When I was 16, one of our school friends did go to sleep and never wake up the day before our second Maths O'Level paper. So the whole school knew and the was there together to hear the news. The whole year was in shock at after the first hour when people could leave the hall, over half of my year did. Those of us who stayed couldn't settle for a good five minutes. At my 10 year reunion we marked the passing of 5 of our year, that is out of 200 or so pupils, as well as the one above 3 others were of natural causes. We had only just started to turn 28 never mind 33. Jan Moir must really have led a charmed life if she has never encountered someone young who has just passed away in their sleep.
As for her total disregard of the official cause of death, well as others have covered that heavily as well what more need I say. Her insinuations that there is something dark and sinister behind everything would mean many gay men should never again offer a bed or sofa for the night to a friend who has missed their last train, or can't be bothered waiting for the long queue at the taxi rank*. But then it appears that Ms Moir doesn't think that a member of Boyzone could be overflowing with the milk of human kindness, let alone the rest of the gay community.
The intrusion into grief and shock is maybe the hardest of the three clauses to apply. In the code it states:
Now of course, Ms Moir seems to correlate the tragic death of Stephen Gately with the death of Kevin McGee the former partner of Matt Lucas. So maybe she does think it was a suicide despite all evidence to the contrary. So she does manage to avoid using excessive detail about the method used, firstly as there wasn't any, but more to the point she just makes it up.
The more solid ground of course it point about publication being handled sensitively. There is no way on this earth that this piece in the Daily Fail this morning cold possibly have been considered sensitive. To also publish on the eve of the funeral on the day that the body is returned to Ireland merely heightens the crassness of the piece as well as the timing.
Stuart Sharpe told me there was no point me blogging about this as I was heading out. Then when I got back that there was nothing new under the sun to add. I'm not sure if I have gotten a new take on this ridiculous woman's poisoned pen piece, but it certainly is mine and avoided too much of the obvious.
* You have been warned if you see the two of us out over the next few weekends lads. No can do, Ms Moir might get the wrong idea, the canasta game is just not going to happen.
If you really want to read the full contents Cardiff Blogger has the full sorry piece with his commentary here.
I read it and logged a complaint with the PCC under three of their clauses. Accuracy, Intrusion into grief or shock and Discrimination. As the last of this has been widely covered elsewhere in the blogosphere I'm going to blog about the later.
Jan Moir writes:
"The sugar coating on this fatality is so saccharine-thick that it obscures whatever bitter truth lies beneath. Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again."
Well I'm sorry they do. At only a few years older I thought I may have been facing something like that. My case was even more bizarre, I'd just left the gym, I may not have been in the peak of fitness but I still was pretty fit, but I experienced my first diagnosed cardiac episode, although I may have been having them for 20 years before. So yes I may very well have been one such person, so I question you accuracy.
When I was 16, one of our school friends did go to sleep and never wake up the day before our second Maths O'Level paper. So the whole school knew and the was there together to hear the news. The whole year was in shock at after the first hour when people could leave the hall, over half of my year did. Those of us who stayed couldn't settle for a good five minutes. At my 10 year reunion we marked the passing of 5 of our year, that is out of 200 or so pupils, as well as the one above 3 others were of natural causes. We had only just started to turn 28 never mind 33. Jan Moir must really have led a charmed life if she has never encountered someone young who has just passed away in their sleep.
As for her total disregard of the official cause of death, well as others have covered that heavily as well what more need I say. Her insinuations that there is something dark and sinister behind everything would mean many gay men should never again offer a bed or sofa for the night to a friend who has missed their last train, or can't be bothered waiting for the long queue at the taxi rank*. But then it appears that Ms Moir doesn't think that a member of Boyzone could be overflowing with the milk of human kindness, let alone the rest of the gay community.
The intrusion into grief and shock is maybe the hardest of the three clauses to apply. In the code it states:
5 Intrusion into grief or shock
i) In cases involving personal grief and shock, enquiries and approaches must be made with sympathy and discretion and publication handled sensitively. This should not restrict the right to report legal proceedings.
*ii) When reporting suicide, care should be taken to avoid excessive detail about the method used.
Now of course, Ms Moir seems to correlate the tragic death of Stephen Gately with the death of Kevin McGee the former partner of Matt Lucas. So maybe she does think it was a suicide despite all evidence to the contrary. So she does manage to avoid using excessive detail about the method used, firstly as there wasn't any, but more to the point she just makes it up.
The more solid ground of course it point about publication being handled sensitively. There is no way on this earth that this piece in the Daily Fail this morning cold possibly have been considered sensitive. To also publish on the eve of the funeral on the day that the body is returned to Ireland merely heightens the crassness of the piece as well as the timing.
Stuart Sharpe told me there was no point me blogging about this as I was heading out. Then when I got back that there was nothing new under the sun to add. I'm not sure if I have gotten a new take on this ridiculous woman's poisoned pen piece, but it certainly is mine and avoided too much of the obvious.
* You have been warned if you see the two of us out over the next few weekends lads. No can do, Ms Moir might get the wrong idea, the canasta game is just not going to happen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)