Vegetarians - they're everywhere and must be stopped!

Speaking of Tory Boys (see below) one of the highlights of tweeting through the Speaker contest was the apoplectic response of one Tory Bear. I suspect he calls himself Tory Bear because his real name is Rupert but I may be wrong. Not a happy bear at all. His blog is worth checking out, if only to remind yourself that such people exist (and also just in case he becomes Speaker in 30 years time).

Today his guest contributor, Working Class Tory, poses the question... Do Labour hate meat? (Which sounds grammatically incorrect... ?) Here's an extract:

"The Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is Hilary Benn - is a hardline vegetarian, who seems to be able to convert those around him to his anti-meat cause. In the reshuffle earlier this month, the new Minister for Food and Farming was Jim Fitzpatrick - another vegetarian. Understandably, the farmers of this country, already put under ridiculous financial strains by the recession, are fearful their concerns will fall on deaf ears."

Some questions... What exactly is a 'hardline' vegetarian? Does he mean the type who doesn't say 'I'm a vegetarian but I eat fish and sometimes chicken?', i.e. someone who isn't a vegetarian at all? And what evidence does he have that Hilary has converted anyone at all to his 'anti-meat cause?' Is the public gallery in the Commons now swamped at Defra question time by adoring disciples in "Meat is Murder" T-shirts? Are farmers up and down the country putting down their pitchforks and adopting their pigs as pets? I think the public should be told.

(Jim, I assume, being a grown man, has been a vegetarian for some years and hasn't been brainwashed into it by the mung bean munching Benn. But who knows? It's a shame he wasn't in post when I did my recent debate on livestock's contribution to climate change, rather than Jane Kennedy who seemed rather underwhelmed by the case I was making).

Anyway, Working Class Tory and his friend have missed the real scoop. 10 Downing Street is, I understand, also introducing a meat-free day once a week in its canteen. Tom Watson obviously got out just in time! (Actually just clarified this with someone - it's not compulsory, but there's a meat-free promotion each Wednesday).

This week "self-confessed" vegetarians the McCartney family launched their Meat-Free Monday campaign - http://www.supportmfm.org/ which is linked to this http://meatfreemondays.co.uk/ I'm tempted to start lobbying for a Meat Free Monday in the Commons dining rooms. If there's one thing guaranteed to get Tory blood boiling - even more than a Bercow Speakership - it would surely be that.*

*As with backing JB for Speaker, this would not be the primary motive, but an added bonus!

Update on Speaker election

Hadn't realised it had been a whole week since I blogged. The advantage of Twitter is that you can do it on the move, or in those brief moments while you're on hold waiting to be put through to someone's office, or while you're waiting for the start of a whips meeting. Blogging requires rather more effort. Being in the whips office also involves fairly early starts (not particularly early compared to 'normal' jobs, but early when you don't get in from work till 11pm the night before), so I'm trying to be disciplined and not stay up late at night blogging as is my usual wont.

Anyway, have obviously missed a fair bit during the past week, although I did tweet my way through the Speaker contest on Monday, which seemed the best way of covering it. Despite ludicrous press reports of a whipping operation in favour of Margaret Beckett, which seem to have been triggered by the simple fact that one whip happened to express a preference for her candidature, I ended the contest as I began it, by backing John Bercow, as did some other colleagues in the whips office. Apart from anything else, you can't whip a secret ballot. How could you?

Although convention dictated that we shouldn't really elect another Labour Speaker, that wasn't much of a factor in my decision to vote for a Tory. (Definitely the first and almost definitely the last time in my life I will do so!)

If there had been a Labour candidate who I thought fitted the bill, with the right mix of experience and commitment to reform, I would have backed them, probably over and above a similar Tory. But I thought it would be wrong to back Margaret Beckett, who had for so long, and until so recently, been a member of the executive branch of Government, and who didn't seem to me to be particularly enthused by the cause of parliamentary reform. And Parmjit simply hasn't been in Parliament long enough.

One of the parliamentary sketch writers - probably Quentin Letts who seems to loathe Bercow with a vengeance - said that Labour MPs voted for Bercow 'to spite the Tories'. Again, not true. OK, I knew they weren't enthusiastic supporters of his, but even so I was surprised by how truly ungracious they were after his victory, which was met by rather unparliamentary applause from the Labour and Lib Dem benches (and the Nats and Independents), but sullen silence from the Tories. In the end Cameron had to force them to their feet for the standing ovation, and many of them still sat stubbornly in their seats. Since Monday I've overheard several conversations between Tories who are absolutely seething.

So what has he done to upset his colleagues? Was he really a socialist Trojan horse in the Tory ranks? No, I don't think he was. Have a look at what Steve Richards in the Independent is saying. I think he's got it spot on. The Tories almost universal dislike of John Bercow is not a reflection of how far to the left he's moved since his (awful) Tory Boy days. It's a sign of how far to the right the Tories under Cameron still are.

Stalinists and socialists in the Tory ranks!

"We all know that the expenses crisis is a massive problem, but it has brought out clear evidence of what all of us had sensed and feared, namely that the party in parliament has ceased to be a team effort and is now just run and dictated to for the personal advantage of David Cameron and George Osborne. We are concerned that the parliamentary party is just being used and abused by the leader and his inner circle. They are treating the party as if it is their private property. Action is being taken to respond to the expenses scandal but its main purpose actually seems to be to build up a position for themselves of permanent power. Colleagues are threatened with expulsion, older members are being forced out, untested candidates are being invited to apply from nowhere, and all of it is designed to assert a Stalinist hold over the party. The importance of parliament is being sacrificed to help them." So say some anonymous Tory MPs...

Meanwhile, Nadine Dorries is up in arms at the prospect of John Bercow becoming Speaker because his wife is, whisper it.. a socialist! In fact she seems to be suggesting that he is on his third. "John Bercow’s wife is reported to be a socialist. Does this matter? I think it does, a great deal. The position has been held by socialists twice already."

If only I could sell myself.... (updated)

...the way that even I would buy.*

A little while ago there was a bit of a rumpus in the blogosphere about the fact that Lib Dems seemed to have paid for a Google ad which led to a BBC piece having a bit of a go about the Labour MP, Dawn Butler. See Hopi's take on it, here and here.

Well it seems that Bristol Conservatives have now got in on the act. Here's a not particularly interesting piece from the Telegraph about a Lib Dem PPC who has defected to the Tories for what seem to me to be entirely careerist reasons, but that's beside the point. Have a look at the ad at the bottom. Care to comment, James?

PS While we're kind of on the subject of the Tories nicking other parties' candidates, in Blackburn they seem to be looking to the BNP to boost their gene pool. And here's what the candidate has to say about it:

Mr Holt told of his shock at being approached.
He said: “I had no real interest in the town council but they sort of sold it to me... I was a little bit surprised they asked me. I never volunteered it. I still subscribe to the BNP’s principles, but I was taking a break from it. When the Conservatives approached me it seemed like the right thing to do. But I have never renounced the BNP and I never would. They were happy to have me. I laughed at first but they persuaded me.”

So if the Tories had no idea who he was, and didn't know anything about his past involvement in BNP politics - which it what they've claimed, but is rather implausible given how frequently he'd stood as a BNP candidate in Blackburn - then why did they make unsolicited overtures to him? Do they just randomly approach complete strangers and ask them to stand as Tory candidates? Or did they get into a conversation with him on the doorstep and thought he sounded like their kind of guy? Someone's got some explaining to do.

*Soulwax, Too Many DJs, in case you're wondering.

I have a letter in the BEP today

Tory has missed the bus on fares

"I read with interest the Conservative candidate for Bristol East's Feedback piece on bus fares in Bristol ("Bristol MPs say bus fares are too high", April 15).

I know she has only recently started taking an interest in local politics, which perhaps explains why she suggests that Dawn Primarolo and I have only just "woken up to the cost of travelling on First buses". The truth, as Post readers will know, is that both of us have been campaigning on this issue for a long time. This has included talking to ministers, meeting with successive managing directors of First Bus, talking to employee representatives and the local authority, and yes, writing letters to try to pin down First to give some firm commitments as to how it intends to improve our bus services. We have made it clear we believe that First must shape up or ship out.

Ms Shafi talks about the prospect of another company coming in to provide a bus service in Bristol, and yet her party, the Conservatives, voted against the Local Transport Act and the new Quality Contract scheme which would make this a viable option.

She also proposes an Integrated Transport Authority, which again was included in the legislation her party opposed. I have long been an advocate of the need for Bristol and the surrounding area to have its own transport authority, and I am glad that she has now come on board. Perhaps she could talk to her Conservative colleagues on the other three councils and persuade them of its merits now?

Finally, I note that Ms Shafi signs off by saying that letter writing is not taking 'proper action'. Perhaps she could inform us what she has done personally to campaign for better transport in Bristol (other than writing her letter, of course)?

Kerry McCarthy, MP."

I did a debate with Ms Shafi at St Brendans Sixth Form College the other week. When she started complaining about the buses, I challenged her on the above points. Her reply? "I'm not here as a Conservative, I'm speaking as someone who wants to use the buses but can't..." I expect I'll be hearing that line frequently over the coming months.

One of the students asked a cracking question, about how could a Conservative frontbench stuffed full of Old Etonians claim to speak for young people like him? Ms Shafi posited herself as an example of just how much Cameron's Conservative Party has changed - at which stage I urged the students to take a look at the Rees-Mogg progeny, Jacob and Annunziata, who are both fighting very marginal seats in nearby Somerset.

Charlotte Leslie, another Bristol Tory PPC, uses the same response in debates - look at me, I'm young and blonde, and I've been selected for a marginal seat; look how much the Tories have changed. Yes, I mutter under my breath, but you're still rather posh Charlotte, aren't you?

The change we don't need

Conservative Future.... more than a little weird.

Here today, gone tomorrow

Francis Maude is coming to Bristol East on Wednesday. But is he going to tap dance?