Lord Mandelson is Speaking in Parceltongue

Lord Mandelvort seems to be somewhat confused in what has actual happened since Wednesday/Thursday of this week. He says that the surge is because people are turning to 'the Lib Dems, whatever they might stand for'.Thing is that over the last few days they have seen that it is the Labservatives that are Dallying and are not clear about what it is that they believe in.

He then really does speak parceltongue that most confusing of languages to mere muggles in giving three reasons why people should vote.

For three reasons. Voters will be reluctant to embrace a party that would cut tax credits, scrap Child Trust Funds and even offer an amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Second, a hung parliament may seem attractive to some but it may give disproportionate power to a small party holding the balance of power and bring its own danger. Important legislation, for example on fighting terrorism which the Lib Dems are likely to oppose, would be difficult to get through.

And third, in these uncertain economic times, we need a strong, centred and united government – not one that might be rocked from side to side by Lib Dems chopping and changing their point of view.

We Fought the War and Well It Sort of Won Itself

So David Cameron's latest claim is that the Tories won the cold war. That must have been the Tory MP for Berlin East in the by election night of 9 November 1989 in that case I'm sure you'll remember the night well.

Peter Snow: Here are the new graphics for the Eastern reaches. Margaret Thatcher is looking to secure a big win here, with the help of Helmut Kohl and the late addition or Perestroika and Glasnost. Some opinion is that we shouldn't expect anything tonight. Some are saying that the Hungarian relaxation may take some time to whittle through the the rest of the seats out here so we shall wait and see.

However, if Margaret Thatcher does secure a victory expect to see me use this graphic as a surge of Blue rosettes charges through the wall and secures victory in the war that was cold.

David Dimbleby: Neil Kinnock what do you make of that?

Neil Kinnock: I think it is ludicrous David. It is obvious that if there is a result tonight it will be the people that will have spoken. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Iron Lady.

DD: But wouldn't that be bad news for Socialism and indeed your own party.

NK: The enemy of idealism is zealotry, sadly too many of my socialist friends have taken themselves too zealously and forgotten the people. Socialism will survive because it is the people that will decide.

DD: Prime Minister what do you say to that?

Margaret Thatcher: Marxists get up early to further their cause. We must get up even earlier to defend our freedom. The Labour Party believes in turning workers against owners; we believe in turning workers into owners. As young man on our staff in our research department also called David said to me just the other day. If the people of East Berlin rise up to own their city twenty years from now whoever leads our great party will say "The Conservatives won the Cold War on this night.".

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families. And you know what David, I think the families of Berlin will be reunited tonight in that victory for the Conservatives.

Now I may have missed something but that wasn't how I remembered it. The people rose up in Berlin, in Moscow, in Timişoara. It wasn't so much won by anybody but lost by the behemoth of Central Planning. I remember my second term of my second year Economics degree the entire political philosophy course was meant to have focused on the socialist philosophy, systems and structures. Ten weeks of lectures became three and the third was a "What next?" hastily put together lecture.

We'd battled for years in a cold war state. In the end it turned out that maybe Sting was right in the song Russians.

Mr Reagan says we will protect you
I don't subscribe to this point of view
Believe me when I say to you
I hope the Russians love their children too

I think it was indeed more hope, more luck and a love from the Eastern Europeans for their own rather than anything we did that led to the end of that particular war. There was very little being done except to hold the lines.

(On a side note as for Cameron attacking Brown for wearing a CND badge at the time, I think that speaks for the Tories Nuclear policy now. Or Brown bringing in Ashcroft to an unrelated area of questioning, truly shows up how disconnected both the main party leaders are with the mainstream opinion on how they should behave.)

Question For Iain Dale "Why Aren't the Tories Doing More?"

I see that Iain Dale is talking about the Conservatives doing stuff about ethnicity balance since the year nought AD (After David). He says that the Conservatives have selected five Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) Candidates in safe seats, and that they will have at least 11 BME Tory MPs or as many as 16.

He asks what are the Lib Dems doing about it? Well in month 1 AD I posted this about our Reflecting Britain Campaign. So whoops on point one we've been working at it since the years BC (Before Cameron and Clegg).

He also is using raw numbers. Always a bad thing to do with a statistician on the loose. And ignoring as LibCync points out that Operation Black Vote have said that there are 1-3 BME Lib Dems in potentially winnable seats, indeed under the title "The future's bright for Lib Dems".

I trust that Iain Dale is still expecting the Tories to hold the majority to lets take a look 11 BME Tories out of half the House of Commons comes in at 3.41% of the total (16 is 4.95%). Three Lib Dems of our current number 63 is 4.76%. So in real terms we are looking at doing pretty well, indeed either ahead or equal with the Tories on projections.

But that is looking at the figures without checking one other thing the possibility to get candidates into winnable seats. I can imagine the bulk of Lib Dem MPs laughing at the thought of their seat being a safe seat for starters.

However, lets consider the longevity of the current crop. 12 Lib Dems seat (19%) are currently being contested as held for the first time and a further 8 (12.7%) only for the second that is 31% of the current MPs. Indeed 43* of the seats we currently hold (68%) we have only be held since 1997. So many of these seats are not looking for new candidates. The Tories of course are looking for 125 gains and have a substantially higher number of retirements this time around than the Lib Dems (I believe, and will no doubt be corrected that we only have three MPs stepping down).

So actually Iain should really be asking " Why Aren't the Tories Selecting More BME Candidates in Winnable Seats?" theirs is by far a greater opportunity for change if the opinion polls are to be believed.

Read also: Mark Reckons points out to changes in the electoral system. While Sunder Katwala says that the Lib Dems need to start selection non-white candidates in areas where there is isn't a natural ethnic vote. While that would probably be the Labour and indeed Conservative way of parachuting candidates in, the Lib Dems are more likely to grow local candidates to contest local seats; it is after all our local parties that have full and democratic say on the candidate selection.

* It may be more I'm just taking the raw figures without going through the gains and losses in detail.

Giuliani Rewritting History of War on Terror

I'm going to change topic for this post. I'm heading a little further West.

During his failed Presidential nomination Rudy Giuliani the former Mayor of New York didn't stop reminded the people of America that he was there during the 9/11 attacks on his city. It was his claim to being the man to deal with the big questions.

Today however, he is getting so caught up in Republican rhetoric against Barack Obama that he is trying to turn the attempted Christmas Day attack against the President. On Good Morning America this morning he claimed, "we had no domestic attacks under Bush — we've had one under Obama."

Now as I and the rest of the world seem to recall in a school room in Florida President Bush was alerted to the fact that there was a potential incident going on in New York. I checked, my memory wasn't failing me. YouTube backed it up.




The Republicans are full of negative campaigning. They don't seem to ask what Jesus would have done about healthcare. Reading my new testament not once does he ask "Do you have insurance?" before performing a healing miracle. Yet they insist that the man who was accused of mixing with sinners and prostitutes would have condemned then to Katrina, or Asia to the Tsunami that hit.

Now they are even deleting history to try and point the finger at a Democrat. Hardly being truthful and certainly not WWJD.

It's not the Champagne that is the Story

I agree with Mark who reckoned this morning that the fact that David Cameron had a full champagne flute in his hand last night at a Spectator fringe event was largely a non-story. At least I agree that supping the champagne in itself is a non-story, I trust it was a decent example of the vintner's art.

What made the whole thing a story is that the Tories have been trying, and failing, to control the media agenda at this, which for them, is a crunch conference.It is the conference before a General Election and as a party looking to take over the UK the Conservatives want to get their message across. Yet they are trying to do just what Labour did in the run up to 1997 and thereafter control the beast that is the fourth estate.

A flute of champagne at a Conservative Party Conference would never have been a front page headline and full page story apart from the fact that Eric Pickles had ordered, yes the Tories can be authoritarian too, all the front bench spokespeople not to be seen with champagne. The Alistair Campbell impersonation that the Tory media machine is attempting is where the story actually lies.However, that media machine is failing whole heartedly. Last night on Channel Four news the Tory Conference story was Ben Summerskill, director of Stonewall not turning up at the LGBTory Conference Pride event, it was backed up by Stephen Fry being interviewed about the open letter that was sent. The morning the papers ran with the champagne storied and Europe continues to hang like the sword of Damocles over the whole shebang. We've all seen the panels on Newsnight in which the PPCs are even not allowed to say 'anything' when the Europe question is posed, how different from the Lib Dems at Bournemouth.

Even when it comes to policy they are seen as stealing and then not too well. Millennium Elephant points out the plagarism of a poor student that Osborne has perpetrated to fill the void of a lack of substantive Economic ideas that his party had before the crunch started to bite. Like any mediocre student he went to the library and looked up what the master had written, taken some key points out of it, tried to pass it off as his own work, but fell short as the whole thing doesn't fit right together. The comments in the side when Osborne receives his work back would probably say 'you have grasped some of the key principles but failed to understand the mechanics behind them to create a coherent, comprehensive answer'.

As Millennium wrote:

"At the Liberal Democrat conference, just a fortnight ago, we were having debates and arguments and even out-and-out scraps about which of our MANY well-established, long-standing, democratically approved, POPULAR policies we could STILL AFFORD to place front and centre in a manifesto.

"It was PAINFUL. It was DIFFICULT. It was what REAL "tough choices" actually looks like.

"The Conservatories, by contrast, have NOTHING.

"There are NO policies that they have had to say "we can't do that"; there were NO polices there in the first place."

So while the age of spin spins inexplicably out of control under the Conservative masters the lesson learnt from that flute is that the media is an uncontrollable as the bubbles in the glass. They will always be there ready for the fresh excitement of being unleashed. While you think you have control as you hold the glass however, the bubbles themselves will do whatever they want.

Target Seats were Based on Evidence at the Time Irfan

Irfan Ahmed (who no longer deserves links for stupidity) is today asking 'Who Picked the Lib Dem Target Seats?'. Why? Because leading Tory blogger Iain Dale is questioning the decision.

Now I don't have my scrawlings on me from 6-8 May 2005 from when I started to see which seats we were strong in after the last General Election. Nor have I been too up on the change to boundaries in England, with Scotland pretty settled for Westminster this time, I've been more concerned with council and now Scottish Parliamentary boundary changes. However, I'm sure I’m not the only Lib Dem anorak who drew up an order of attack of winnable seats.

It must be remembered, although I doubt Irfan looked at it like that, that in 2005 the Tories made little inroad into Labour after making none at all in 2001. They had pretty much at that time flat-lined. Of course Labour have since gone into freefall which somehow in our two party focused media makes no idea’s Tories the team to push rather than the brimming with ideas Lib Dems.

Also the reason that most of the targets were Tories is that we lost a few of our seats narrowly to the Conservatives in 2005. They were places of strength that we could fight to win back. A lot of our gains were also in Labour seats. So by winning in Labour seats and losing to Tories a policy of equidistance to both parties obviously leads to the conclusion that I, other and the campaign team did of which were the most winnable seats next time out.

Or course electoral calculus is a constantly shifty art as opinion polls can rise and fall like the spring tide. But to set out to win a seat is a task of years Of course there are also the few surprises each time based on local conditions, remember Manchester Whittingham, did any Lib Dem see that coming? The fact is the list is split 16-14 Conservative to Labour is based purely on swing required to win, of course there are others on the list of target that Mr Dale hasn't even listed.

Irfan before you put all your faith in Conservatives talk of targeting seats look at a few object lessons. Personally I present Edinburgh South. In 2005 two of their held wards (under the old single councillor boundaries) moved into the Scottish seat. They were still only third in number of held wards in the seat but they said they were going to win. They missed by about 4,000 votes the Lib Dems missed by 405. They still consider it a target seat but across the Scottish seat they trail the Lib Dems by 6,000 votes now as opposed to 5,000 in 2003 dropping to 4th in the process, and that was a bad night for us. Of course the Tories want to talk up their chances against us as much as possible, we are in election year after all. Not everything that the party of 'honesty' has been saying recently should be taken at face value it is loaded to the core.

So object lesson before you start to question based on opposition propaganda best to look at the facts from the time decisions were made. Look at how poorly the people spreading the propaganda also get things wrong.

Iain Dale's Hoisting by His Own Petard

Iain Dale has got rather shirty about the Lib Dems selecting April Pond who was the the PPC for Broadlands as the PPC for the by election in Norwich North.

Now there is one thing about by elections that differs from General Elections. Any party that doesn't scour for the best candidate available is stupid. And if there is a good local candidate selected for a more winnable seat already selected they may well be the best person to take the extra pressure of national attention that most General Election candidates do not encounter.

But the irony is that the Tories themselves are the experts in flying in candidates. At least April is from the same county.

For the last Westminster by election in Glenrothes Maurice Golden was parachuted in. He's now the PPC of the more winnable Central Ayrshire seat. Having failed to get selected for Dunfermline and West Fife by election, but was on theMid Scotland and Fife list* he has now abandoned Fife so soon after been proud of saying he was '28 years old and [had] lived in Fife all his life' on his by election literature.

Of course that Dunfermline and West Fife selection caused some controversy as local party members boycotted the selection when Tory Group leader on Fife council Cllr Stuart Randall was not shortlisted. The candidate Carrie Ruxton had stood in 1999 for Dunfermline East for Holyrood but by 2001 had cropped up as Westminster candidate in Northavon where the 34.7% of the vote she gained just wasn't enough to unseat Lib Dem Steve Webb after being parachuted in as a token female in a target. In actual fact the swing was from Conservative to Lib Dem.

As for Glasgow East whoops Iain. Davena Rankin had been selected for Glasgow South before then being selected for East. But guess what Iain she lost and in your own word went 'crawling back to' Glasgow South Conservatives to 'beg for them to have her back'. Oh and they did. Does Iain wonder 'what on earth will' Glasgow South 'voters make of her whoring herself across' Glasgow? No I don't think so either.

There is something about people in glass houses. I'm reckoning the glass house at chez Dale must be very draughty this evening.

UPDATE: There is now a classic comment posted on Iain's blog at 9:31pm that points out that his use of the word 'whoring' once selected as a PPC for somewhere to then stand somewhere else in a by election means he has just called Winston Churhill and Margaret Thatcher whores. Double oops.

*Number 9.

Beckford Needs to Retract, Apologise and Resign on Argyll and Bute

I notice this morning after mounting criticism from amateur geographers in Scotland and beyond still list Alan Reid MP for Argyll and Bute on their list of shame with the extract:

Alan Reid claimed more than £1,500 on his parliamentary expenses for staying in
hotels and bed-and-breakfasts near his home.

These were hardly just up the road from Cardross. Nor when taking in the island nature, CalMac timetabling, weather rescheduling at standard of roads in much of the outlying reaches of Argyll and Bute.

There has been growing outrage over MPs making outrageous claims. But not call for Martin Beckford (pictured left) to apologise or dare I say it resign for the inaccuracies and misleadings of his article. I for one think he should and am wondering why none of the letters that I'm sure have been sent along with mine complaining about this have been published in the Telegraph.

Michael Beckford what say you?




Update: A quick bit of research, almost as quick as looking up the Wikipedia constituency map, shows that Martin Beckford is social and religious affairs correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. He's not really a political mover and therefore may have little knowledge of the working of constituency politics.

Therefore I call on Benedict Brogan (right) the Chief Political correspondent on the Telegraph who must have overall editorial control over the revelations over the last week to answer some questions.

1. Did he have final editorial say in what went into the 6 pages per day coverage in the Telegraph?


2. Did he look at each of the articles to see if there was justification to call the MP to account?


3. As he failed to answer last night on BBC's Question Time how exactly did he come to have in his procession what are stolen goods? And has he handed details of his source to the police who are investigating their theft?


4. Does he have nay idea how beautiful, vast and awkward to get to bits of the Argyll and Bute constituency actually are? Or do any of the 25 members of staff he claims on these stories have such knowledge?


5. Why wasn't such knowledge either used or checked before publication?


6. Why is there still no apology, no retraction or no other action over these spurious claims?

Dun in: Salmond Caught Out

At FMQ's yesterday Alex Samond tried to claim that Dunning Primary School in Perth was commissioned and built entirely under the SNP administration. Fail!

This PDF dated January 2007 lists some key milestones in the work highlighted are 4 stages which may well have started or were planned to before the SNP were elected in as the biggest party on the 3 May 2007.

Problem is Alex that information wasn't all that hard to find. So don't try and hide the wool over our eyes when we all can fact check. This was a project already rolling when you took over as First Minister. Yeah you may well have finalised the contractor but that was a stage down the way from the start of the works. This project started in the previous admistration.

Annan Smith Lecture Burns Salmond

You'd think that an economist would know the difference between the author of The Wealth of Nations and the writer of Auld Lang's Syne.

You expect it even more is said economist were a Scot.

Even further if said said was the well briefed on Homecoming Year.

Yet somehow the First Minister Alex Salmond got these two mixed up as to what former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was coming to Scotland to give a lecture on.

For the record this is Burns Scotland's bard.

This is Adam Smith one of the founders of Economics as we know it today.

However, as this one appears on a Bank of England note the MP for Banff and Buchan may not have seen it much as he rarely turns up at Westminster these days.

The Truth, the Advice, but Only if it Meets Nat Policy

It's not just the questions of the opposition MSPs that Alex Salmond decides to ignore, or answer erroneously. Apparently the great ego presiding over his devolved fifedom of Scotland is also ignoring his advisers.

At this time of economic crisis he should be being praised for assembling consulting his Council of Economic Advisers made up of leading businessmen, economics (some of whom are Nobel laureates) and chaired by a former chair of the Bank of Scotland. Such a panel of wise men should be able to steer the financial future of Scotland. However, the First Minister's response to these sages was to reject anything in their report issued this week which did not fit into SNP policy.

Meanwhile the enquiry into whether the First Minister and his cohorts are actually answering their questions based on fact is getting off to a slow start. The now named Truthgate (or is that Faithgate)* inquiry is unlikely to get underway until the next meeting of Parliament's Standards Committee which convenes on 27 January.

*Will settle down to Frast v Nixon, which I got free in today's Inpendent later, for calmer times when there was only one -gate.

Probe into First Minister's Answers

There have been regular claims that Alex Salmond regularly misleads the Scottish Parliament with his answers. He seems to always have an answer while other leaders whether in Holyrood or in Westminster always have a little with at least the occasional answer.

However, at last weeks FMQs when asked by Tavish Scott about redundancy notices having been handed to staff of the Scottish Interfaith Council, Alex Salmond immediately without hesitation shot back ,as is his style and want, that the issue had been solved. This did take the wind out of Tavish's sails somewhat. Until during the week it became clear that this issue was not resolved last Thursday when the First Minister said it was but was still ongoing. The presiding officer yesterday said it wasn't an matter for him to be involved with.

However, at the end of today's FMQ's when the issue was again raised the PO Alex Fergusson said he would be investigating the accuracy of ministerial answers to questions.

Here is what Tavish Scott has got to say on the issue.

Oh Dear! Inverse Snob Connarty

I see that Alan Cochrane in the Torygraph has had a right go at local Labour MP, and speaker's defender-in-chief, Michael Connarty about his utterances on Sunday's Politics Show on BBC Scotland.

Frankly Alan took exception once Connarty went off the cue cards issued from the Whips' office i.e. the points that MPs couldn’t be immune from the law and that serious crimes had to be investigated without fear or favour, and turned it into a class issue. Connarty apparently went on to say that the crux of the matter for his friend the speaker Michael Martin was that he was under fire because he was working class.

"The establishment", said Michael M, choosing to forget that it’s Labour that’s been in power for the past 11 years, didn’t want a "working class man in the job." He said he recalled the Tories putting forward someone for the post of Speaker on the basis that he was an Old Etonian and "of the right class".

Well Cochrane quite correctly pointed out that the speakers during the last 16 years of Tory governments, run by the daughter of a grocer and son of a trapeze artist, including rather more working class speakers that Michael C would like us to remember. George Thomas, later Viscount Tonypandy, 1976-83 was the son of miner and a Labour MP to boot. Bernard "Jack" Weatherill (1983-92) may have been a Tory started his adult life as an apprentice tailor. Then there was the former shop assistant from Yorkshire, who became a high-kicking tiller girl for yes Betty Boothroyd (1992-2000) was also Labour.

Maybe Connarty is going as far back as the previous appointee John Selwyn Lloyd (1971-76) who after all went to a Public School, before going up to Magdalen College, Cambridge. So obviously being a Oxbridge graduate and Old Fettesian must not be the right combination for Michael C and we should all clearly leave off Micheal M. But isn't that just the sort of person that he served under as Prime Minister for 10 years, OK the University is wrong but the school is an exact match.

Personally I think it is a speaker who is a friend of Labour whether willfully, through ignorance or through looking the other way, allowing Labour's draconian anti-terror laws to be used yet again too heavy handedly. That has only one thing to do with class and that is failure to behave with any not how one was "brung up".

I'm only upset that I missed the original airing of the programme, but then again I'm liable to have been shouting at the screen or worse if I'd heard such clearly ungrounded drivel. So I spared my neighbours a good old rant no doubt.

Just Who's For Eating Humble Pie?

In the 2005 General Election the Lib Dems in Scotland stood on getting 1000 more police on the streets. I remember it well as I erroneously gave the break down of these stats for Lothian and Borders at the hustings in Bo'ness when of course I should have given Central Scotland figures: only to have Michael Connarty correct me. So of course I fully support any increase in police officers that the SNP can manage.

However, the SNP when elected last May also promised 1000 more police for Scotland. They claimed they would do this by the end of this parliament. However yesterday when it was announce that there were either 118 or 74 additional officers the SNP spin machine has changed their definition in their target to recruits not additional officers:

"In addition to the 150 additional recruits which were recruited in 2007/08, a
further 450 additional officers will be recruited by the end of this financial
year, 200 additional officers in 2009/10 and 200 in 2010/11. This will bring the
total number of additional recruits to 1,000 over the life of this Parliament."

But hang on same statement does acknowledge that:

"We inherited the lowest recruitment since devolution with many officers due to
retire. We've tackled that challenge head on, and although these latest figures
are reassuring, there remains much work to be done."

and goes on to say:

"We have set out plans to deliver a more visible policing presence on Scotland's
streets and make an additional 1,000 officers available in our communities. We
are not just delivering on this but going substantially beyond, by also looking
at recruitment, retention and redeployment."

Well no doubt the Nats will take whichever thousand they want to as they have mixed up the two willy nilly through this statement of course redeployment may well meet a target of 1000 extra officers available in our community. Part of the Lib Dem pledge in 2005 was to do away with a lot of the red tape, provide better resources to free up more police time for them to be out on the beat. However look at what the Nats actually promised last May (page 58):

"That’s why we will set out plans in our first Budget for Scotland for 1000 more
police and will encourage Chief Constables to focus these new resources on
community policing."

There it is in black and white 1000 more police, not 1000 recruits, not 1000 more on the streets and actual increase of 1000 officers. Bearing in mind that in 2008/9 271 officers will reach retirement age and some 708 more before 2010/11. That's 900 officers that cannot be retained or redeployed leaving a net gain on the promise of 1000 recruits to be about 100 by the end of this parliament or 10%.

So when a spokesman for the Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill says:

"Labour and the Liberal Democrats are going to have to eat a big slice of humble
pie now that police numbers have increased to record levels – well over 100
above the position we inherited from them."

Maybe they should dig out their own recipe, check out exactly on off target their promises are and find out just what the facts are.

Labour Still Ignoring Whole Picture

Apparently Gordon Brown is going to carry on the Labour trend of picking out fictions about Local Income Tax rather that looking at the whole picture when he address the Scottish Labour conference in Aviemore this afternoon.

Even the press are picking up that Labour are using fictional figures. Nothing new there is was a tactic I first came across in the 2005 Genreal Election, then it really came to a head in the Livingston by-election and every election in Scotland I've been involved in since. Labour pick at random one set of people who will be affected at this moment by Local Income Tax and ignore the vast majority who will either benefit or not be affected.

At least not as much as they have been by 11 years of Labour Chancellors.

You Know They're in Trouble When

The Scottish Secretary evokes the name of the late MP to encourage out their vote in what should be a safe seat.

"I ask everyone who lives in Dunfermline and West Fife to preserve [Rachel Squire's] memory by voting for Labour."

"Do it for Rachel. And do it for every hard-working family, every pensioner and every child in your community."

Alistair Darling

Actually Alistair the people of Dunfermline vote for themselves. If they are not happy with how you and the rest of Tony Blair's cronies are running things they can vote against you and vote you out, such is the joy of democracy.

Yesterday, Tony Blair accused David Cameron of flip-flopping while brandishing a Conservative leaflet from the Dunfermline by-election a dangerous thing to do Tony considering the amount of flip-flopping Labour has done over road tolls and bridges as a result of the same election campaign.

Too Many Fights For Labour

One of the excuses Labour are spinning for losing two votes on the Religious Hatred Bill last night, apart from Tony going home for his Cocoa, is that a number of MPs were absent from the House campaigning in Dunfermline. There are differences of opinion over how many Labour MPs were in Fife, the BBC say 15 however The Scotsman is saying as many as 25.

Now I have two questions for Labour.

1) Why were so many of your MPs away from such important business in the House of Commons, especially as George Galloway was there voting with the majority of the Labour Party? Especially as many of your members criticised George for not attending to Parliamentary business while locked in the Big Brother house.

2) With so many MPs away in Dunfermline during the working week are you scared of losing Dunfermline and West Fife to the challenging Liberal Democrat candidate Willie Rennie on 9 February?

I doubt I'll ever get the straight answers but I'll let you draw your own conclusions. However, I'm looking forward to seeing looks of anxiety on Labour faces on polling day judging by all that has gone before.

Or course some may have opted for Dunfermline to avoid having to vote in such a controversial and illiberal bill, if so I applaud them.