Tag: Brexit

A Milder May

As Theresa May’s lead in the poll halves and Jamie Oliver criticizes her policy on universal free school lunches for infants, we call on voters to act with their feet and remind the Tory leader that moderates still deserve to be heard

There’s no point denying Theresa May will win on the 8^th June and there’s no doubt she’ll win big. The ‘alternative’ – not that Jeremy Corbyn’s pathetic excuse for a party can even be called that – is beyond bad but, with news that the Conservative Party’s lead has halved to 9 points in a week, comes good news for those that do not subscribe to a desire for a one party state.

With the prospect that Mrs May – whose attempt to make her ‘Strong and Stable’ campaign about ‘Theresa’s Team’ rather than using the name of her own party is starting to backfire – will not have as big a majority as she expected, there is a chance there will be at least some form of opposition to the vicar’s daughter’s hectoring ways.

In constituencies like Kensington, for example, ‘Remain’ supporters should vote against a shown-to-be lazy MP, Lady Borwick, and back Annabel Mullin of the Liberal Democrats – a lady who issued several video messages yesterday pledging to ‘#HoldToriesToAccount’. A protest vote in this Tory stronghold would send the most powerful signal of all to Mrs May that her “red, white and blue hard Brexit” needs to be tempered and it would act as a reminder that the 48% must still be heard.

Elsewhere, food campaigner and restaurateur Jamie Oliver spoke for the majority when he put his head in his hands and told Channel 4: “Oh, it’s awful. It’s awful. She will regret that” of the Conservatives’ plan to scrap universal free school lunches for infants in their first three years at primary school. He continued:

“Well, first of all, I’m apolitical. So don’t go thinking I’m ranting about one thing or the other… As far as I see it, and I believe I’m someone that’s had my hands dirty for twelve years now and I know what I’m talking about, right? It’s completely short-sighted. It’s completely short-sighted”.

“And I want her [Theresa May] to be a brilliant Prime Minister. I want a brilliant female Prime Minister. Fundamentally, what she’s doing is taking from teachers and taking from the kids”.

“If you speak to Mark Carney and the people at the highest level of economics, if you speak to Oxford Cambridge University on the modelling, the economic modelling of public health and the cost of ill health and the investment. Like, it’s the best bang for your buck you’re going to get. Don’t take from the kids. Don’t take from the teachers”.

May 21, 2017
Poore Borwick

New contributor Mark Newton shares his views on the “dubious record” of Lady Borwick, Conservative parliamentary candidate for Kensington

Kensington, Kensington, its name beats the drum of the Conservative heartland of London. Tory grandees have worked long and hard to be fortified in this Bastion with greats like Alan Clark, Michael Portillo and Malcom Rifkind amongst its previous tenants. To be given Kensington is to be awarded one of the safest, and most convenient seats in the land – a prize to be won by only the hardest working, and most industrious of MPs and this, to my mind, makes the continued selection of Lady Borwick (née Victoria Poore) as the Tory candidate even harder to understand.

Known locally by the epithet ‘Lazy Borwick’, this latest MP is cast quite differently from the usual Kensington mould. Lady (‘Call me Victoria’) Borwick’s stance on Brexit, lousy debate participation and letter response history, questionable use of public funds and ongoing links to shady businesses is creating quite the heated storm in the chattering leafy private gardens of Kensington. Over the next three articles, I’ll be taking a look at Lady Borwick to try to get to the bottom of how and why one of the safest Tory seats of the land came to be held by the one of the least worthy occupants.

Lady Borwick succeeded in getting her hands on Kensington after Malcolm Rifkind stepped down at the 2015 General Election. The circumstances of that coup are somewhat strange, not least because of the history of Kensington in selecting high profile and hard working MPs. What seems to have happened is simple nepotism. Lady Borwick, having twice failed to make the selection list for London mayor during Steven Norris’ candidacy, finally slid into the London Assembly in 2008 as one of three London-wide Conservative members. From there it was an easy promotion from Boris Johnson to the Deputy Mayorhood, and it seems no-one less than the great ‘BoJo’ himself shoe-horned her into the Kensington seat ahead of better qualified and more industrious candidates.

So why then is the epithet ‘Lazy Borwick’ doing the rounds in the Royal Borough? Surprisingly, it has very little to do with her controversial Brexit stance in a strongly Remain constituency. What’s got Conservatives up in arms is her uselessness as a constituency MP. According to the MP tracking website TheyWorkForYou, Lady Borwick’s response rate to written enquiries is just 18% – an abysmal score that places her 618^th on a list of 641 responding MPs. If there’s one thing the well-to-do residents of Kensington don’t like it’s an MP who is too busy or lazy to respond to their well-meant enquiries, particularly a Member of Parliament who manages to be significantly less efficient than her much busier, high profile forbearers.

So, what, might you ask, is taking up so much of Lazy Borwick’s time that she can’t manage to get to her mail bag? Some suggest that it may be her tireless work for charity, yet, strangely, Lady Borwick’s parliamentary voting record seems to spit in the face of the charitable causes she purports to support. Recently, she has jumped on the laudable activities of @CleanAirLondon, a much needed initiative to clean up London’s diesel rich environment, yet in the Commons ‘Lazy Borwick’ has consistently voted against climate change measures, and against a greater public control of bus services. Hard to reconcile with the self-promotional pictures of her backing smart energy meters.

Lady Borwick also claims to support local hospitals and to regularly visit the elderly residents of Kensington. She even spoke at a recent debate in favour of mental health and mobility support. Yet in the House of Commons she has almost always voted against paying benefits to those unable to work due to illness or disability and has consistently voted against the terminally ill being given assistance to end their lives.

Finally, there are those who suggest ‘Lazy Borwick’ may simply be too busy with parliamentary duties to answer constituents’ letters, yet she spoke in just 15 debates in the last year, well below average amongst MPs, and dramatically lower than previous high profile Kensington MPs.

Whatever it is that keeps Lady Borwick entertained, it can’t then be serving the interests of her constituents, so to get answers we need to dig further, into her bizarre and odd beliefs about Europe, and her odd use of public funds and ties to ‘Big Data’ business.

Coming up next – ‘Brexit Borwick’ and residents’ anger in Kensington; the constituency with the greatest proportion of EU nationals of any London borough.

Pictured above – ‘Woman of the people’ Lady Borwick – a “director and member of Poore and Second Poore Ltd; holding companies limited by guarantee” – aboard a 40-metre yacht in 2014 with Sunseeker Cheshire’s Jonathan Kingsley. At the time Mr Kingsley commented: “It was a wonderful opportunity to promote our iconic brand and reinforce the British success of Sunseeker to this high profile, influential Lady. She, and her son, adored the boat”.

#LazyBorwick

May 18, 2017
Nick Harrington

Racist Tory councillor Nick Harrington tweeted: “You can keep your f***ing gypsies” after Ireland gave Britain ‘nul points’ in the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. The bigot, magistrate and director of Ambay Software Ltd. then added: “Hard border coming folks!” but showed no remorse when contacted at his £400,000 home in Weston-under-Wetherley, near Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Though Harrington was subsequently suspended by the Conservative Party and has now taken his Twitter account down, other social media users subsequently exposed previously highly inappropriate posts that this vile shocker had made elsewhere .

May 14, 2017
Hero of the Hour – Chuka Umunna

Chuka Umunna MP speaks sense on Britain’s membership of the Single Market

This morning, Chuka Umunna spoke for many when he was interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme.

The Labour MP commented:

We’re saying from the point of view of London where you’ve got over 600,000 jobs that are linked to our membership of the Single Market, whether you voted to Remain or Leave, you didn’t vote to be poorer.

Our membership of the Single Market was not on the ballot as it were, during that EU Referendum campaign. We’re saying that yes you can be outside of the European Union and be in the Customs Union, like Turkey for example and you be outside the European Union and in the Single Market like Norway.

You can actually reform the ways freedom of movement works within that context. For example, at the moment there’s one thing that we don’t do that could do now under free movement rules – which have never, by the way, been unconditional. So, for example, if somebody comes here, and they’ve been here for three months, they haven’t got work, and there’s no prospects of that, they can be asked to leave. We don’t do that at the moment.

And there are counties in the Single Market like, for example, Lichtenstein who have actually been able to apply quotas to the number of EU citizens coming. So, I don’t accept this kind of binary explanation of how things work.

We can actually stay in the Single Market, have the benefits it brings but also reform the way our immigration arrangements work.

Yesterday, Umunna was joined by sixteen general election candidates to launch a pamphlet called Stop Hard Brexit: Why London needs the Single Market. He should be saluted for this bold move and for his wise words today also.

May 13, 2017
Bob Marshall-Andrews QC

A “libertarian-left” Labour MP between 1997 and 2010, distinguished barrister and novelist Bob Marshall-Andrews defected to the Liberal Democrats in 2017. Described as “an irritant” to his former party whilst they were in government, multi-millionaire Marshall-Andrews built and owns “one of the most innovative houses of the 20^th century – the famed ‘Teletubby House’ in Druidston, Pembrokeshire – and is chairman of the George Adamson Wildlife Trust. In 2013, of him, Chambers Legal Directory remarked: “Juries love him… I’ve never seen a jury eat out of anyone’s hand as much” whilst he amusingly references himself as “the complete antidote to political humbug”. Of Labour, this “intellectually brilliant” individual added: “They’re a basket case…They effectively abdicated all responsibility [on Brexit]”.

May 13, 2017
The Tossers vs. The 48%

The 48% must make themselves heard at the 2017 General Election; they must vote tactically and do all they can to prevent the landslide ‘Queen Bee’ Theresa May is headed for

With UKIP’s first MP on trial for 14 counts of electoral fraud, 30 individuals connected to the Conservative Party facing potential prosecution in connection to the ‘2015 Battlebus’ scheme and the Electoral Commission investigating Leave.EU’s dodgy finances, one could question the reasoning for Theresa May’s enthusiasm for a General Election.

Right now, British politics stinks and with a hopeless and hapless Labour Party that had to rely on a Coronation Street ‘star’ with an obsession with the word “toss” to get their campaign going yesterday, Mrs May’s home run is now sadly virtually in the bag. Her timing – brilliantly executed and Lady Macbeth-like in fashion, even her critics will admit – ensures she can “bury bad news” Jo Moore-style and ensures she’ll be able to make her woes go away. The vicar’s daughter and the kowtowing garden gnome she calls husband will likely get the landslide they want and with the Queen Bee and her party campaigning in previously deemed ‘unwinnables’, Theresa May is truly going for the jugular.

All right-minded people want to do right now is sit in horror with their heads in their hands, but actually, in fact, there is something we can all do. We must use our votes wisely and must use them tactically. This is not an election about “the many, not the few” and its not one about the “strong and stable” leadership of “Theresa’s May’s team”; it’s about Brexit and we must all use our votes to ensure Mrs May doesn’t forget that the 48% still deserve a voice.

#MakeJuneEndOfMay

May 10, 2017
Brenda from Bristol

Pearl clad pensioner ‘Brenda from Bristol’ became the Gillian Duffy of the 2017 General Election when she shared her views about politics with a BBC reporter. This 75-year old retired secretary spoke for the nation in remarking: “You’re joking? Not another one!” Oh for God’s sake, I can’t honestly… I can’t stand this. There’s too much politics going on at the moment. Why does she [Theresa May] need to do it?” and later added: “There’s hardly anybody in any of the parties that you’d put your life on the line for. We need somebody who’s got a little bit of guts to get us all going”. Brenda is entirely right: It is time that politicians stopped bothering us.

#BrendaForPM

May 8, 2017
The Busy Borwicks

Son of Kensington MP Lady Borwick’s curious connections to the people who ensured both Brexit and the election of Donald Trump revealed

On Sunday, Carole Cadwalladr of The Observer published a lengthy and well researched article that, amongst other things, examined the connections between The Hon. Thomas Borwick – the son of the Conservative hereditary peer The Rt. Hon. The Lord Borwick and Kensington’s Member of Parliament Lady ‘Call me Victoria’ Borwick – and the controversial US hedge fund titan and backer of Donald Trump, Robert Mercer.

A director of a multitude of companies, in spite of being just 29 years old, “new media expert” Thomas Borwick – whose mother was forced to apologise “after using City Hall resources to promote her husband’s [now defunct] electric vehicle business” in 2009 – it now transpires, was not only Vote Leave’s chief technology officer but previously worked with SCL/Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ. Borwick currently touts himself to his 202 followers on Twitter as the founder of a political canvasing consultancy named Kan.to, an organisation that he boldy claims “will out-organise, out-plan, out-leaflet, out-twitter, out-work and out-vote all of its opponents”.

Mercer, one of the owners of the far-right Breitbart News Network as well as being a major shareholder in Cambridge Analytica, is a man whose “sinister” connections to both Trump and Nigel Farage have rightly been widely criticised. On that basis, that the son of fervent Brexiteer Lady Borwick – a woman whose constituents voted 69% to ‘Remain’ and whose domain was home to a greater proportion of EU nationals than any other London borough in 2016 – has links to this billionaire and his activities should only encourage the voters of Kensington to ditch her and her out-of-touch party.

We urge Kensington based readers to support Annabel Mullin of the Liberal Democrats on 8^th June. This principled lady is the only person who can realistically unseat Lady Borwick and she is the only candidate who will support the beliefs the majority in this constituency continue to hold dear.

#DumpLadyBorwick #VoteAnnabelMullin

May 7, 2017
Viscount St Davids

A statement from Matthew Steeples about the man who, in a London courtroom, called him a “wanker”

Yesterday, in London, in a stained tweed gilet more appropriate to Wiltshire than Westminster, Viscount St Davids – amusingly referenced in court as plain old ‘Mr St Davids’ much to the disgust of him and his and his somewhat pointless American barrister chum, Andrew Rinker – called me a “wanker”.

According to much of the mainstream press – including The Guardian and The Sun – Viscount St Davids has now been banned from using social media and prohibited to contact me. I have yet to be informed of exactly what this means and have not seen any transcript of the court’s decision, but, in view of the fact that this thrice bankrupt individual decided to allegedly “laugh” as he was told of the conditions of granting him bail, I hereby record that I am proud to be the individual who first reported this intolerant individual to the police last year.

I will be very happy to give evidence on 10^th July and look forward to witnessing justice run its course. What is posted on social media, in my terribly humble opinion, does not stay on social media.

Comments on this article will be moderated for legal reasons.

May 3, 2017
Picture of the Week – Chippy May

Images of Theresa May eating chips prove to be her ‘Ed Milliband moment’

Theresa May likes to refer to her “red, white and blue Brexit” and “Corbyn’s coalition of chaos”, but yesterday, the hectoring vicar’s daughter had a moment of madness when she decided to allow herself be photographed eating chips in Cornwall.

The Prime Minister – now the winner of the “most awkward photo of a politician eating ever” – was subsequently lampooned on Twitter and of the image, one user named @iBreezeblock brilliantly remarked: “Theresa May eats chips like a disturbed seabird eats her own young”.

#Awkward #MakeJuneEndOfMay

May 3, 2017