The Crisis. What next? John Rees

Via YouTube by adycousins

Link: YouTube link

We are the egg men - The Tory Party and their "money" friends

We are the egg men - Morning Star by Solomon Hughes - (The Tory Party and their real friends).

What kind of Britain do the Tories want? If you take their own self-image seriously, a Tory Britain is one where the free market rules the economy and where rural Britain is preserved.

The Tories should be a party of sharp, competitive urban entrepreneurs with whizzy small businesses bringing exciting innovations to the cities and sturdy farmers maintaining centuries-old holdings and traditions in the country.

But we all lie to ourselves a little when we look in the mirror. If you look in the Tory accounts, you'll find what looks like the opposite of these two values.

One of the latest donations to the Tories listed by the Electoral Commission came from Deans Food Group, which slapped a whopping £50,000 into David Cameron's kitty.

The sum of £50,000 is significant because it is the membership fee for joining the Conservative Party "leaders' club."

This is a bit like joining eHarmony or one of those other dating agencies they advertise on the telly, only with slightly higher charges.

After paying your money you get to go on a series of dates after checks for those "key dimensions of compatibility."

In particular they find that very rich people are compatible with Tory shadow ministers.

You could even get a date with Dave. According to the Conservatives, "members are invited to join David Cameron and other senior figures from the Conservative Party at dinners, post-Prime Ministers questions, lunches, drinks receptions, election result events and important campaign launches."

One of the groups that gets to hobnob with the Tory top nobs is Noble Foods.

And who are Noble Foods?

Well, this is an appropriate story for Easter - they are the egg men.

Noble Foods packs and delivers 60 million eggs a week. If you are eating Goldenlay, Woodland or Big & Fresh brands, your dippy egg and toasty soldiers are, I'm afraid, funding Cameron.

The Tories are tucking into a big money omelette whipped up in kitchens across Britain. Noble Foods boss Peter Dean has done well out of chickens - he has an estimated wealth of £72 million.

However, the egg business is not a very free market. Noble Foods was formed by a 2008 merger of two companies - Deans Food Group and Stonegate - which gave the new company control of at least 46 per cent of the egg market, and possibly more.

The Competition Commission ruled the merger would cause "substantial lessening of competition."

Competition Commission boss Dame Barbara Mills said the new group "would be in a notably strong position, accounting for over half of both sales of shell eggs to retailers and the supply of liquid egg."

At the risk of putting you off your soft-boileds, liquid egg is big business, with the food industry buying eggs delivered in a tanker load rather than in the shell.

So Cameron gets his cash from the would-be monopoly master of liquid eggs, the man who wanted to get the free market out of free range.

Noble Foods did not take the Competition Commission's warning lying down - it went ahead and merged anyway, with a promise to de-merge later.

This is within the rules, but it's a robust response.

Mills had two egg-based worries. First, she said: "We think it is likely that the merged company would be able to increase prices to its customers, knowing that many would be unable to respond by buying from another supplier.

"Ultimately these prices rises could feed through to the consumer."

So now you know who to blame for high-priced eggs.

Mills's second worry was that "the merged company's size could have an adverse effect on egg producers, giving it the ability and incentive to use its buying power to reduce prices."

The Conservatives' big new funder dominates egg farmers, even without the merger.

And how are egg farmers faring?

Alex Renton of The Observer newspaper investigated the egg market in 2008 and found egg farmers were doing pretty badly.

What the newspaper called "shady middlemen" seemed to be making all the money. These middlemen are the packers, and the dominant packer is Noble Foods.

Renton found that Noble just won't talk to the press. The egg farmers were reluctant to speak up as well.

One told him on condition of anonymity, "it is just too dangerous to put your head up. Most of us sell to one packer - you might say all our eggs are in one basket."

He added that "if the packer found out I'm complaining to the media, I could lose all my business overnight."

This all suggests Cameron's new chum is not looking after rural Britain, although I should say that Noble Foods by contrast claimed it paid and charged a fair price for its eggs and was pleased about the increased cash it gave to egg farmers.

Link: The Morning Star

I REMEMBER THE TORIES … …

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Thanks to Socialist Unity for thr idea by Unionstogether from YouTube.
Link: YouTube

Respect Party needs you!

Respect Party needs you!

A message from Abjol Miah and George Galloway MP.
Join us this weekend on the campaign trail!

Last weekend's activity was a great success with over forty new and old supporters from across London and the South East helping George and Abjol get the message out across Tower Hamlets. One comment from a new activist shows the welcome you will get and the enthusiasm that is generated:

'Had a very good time with you guys in E1 last Saturday, will see you on the campaign trail again this week'.

Come and get a taste of the positive politics in East London!

We are active again this weekend: meet at 12 noon on Saturday at Jeet Restaurant (the Bethnal Green and Bow campaign base), 49 Hanbury St, 50 yards eastwards off Brick Lane,Tower Hamlets - nearest tube Aldgate East.

Why not join with us?

For more info on the local campaign call 07505742522.

A reminder - If you cannot make this weekend but are keen to help, please email respectlg@talktalk.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to be put on our campaign mailing list.

BIRMINGHAM Respect also need help!

Salma Yaqoob is regularly taking to the streets on weekends and wants you to support her General Election campaign. Join her and the team as they leaflet wards in the Hall Green constituency and talk to local residents.

You can meet Salma and the team at 11.30am every Saturday and Sunday at Birmingham Respect’s new office on 95 Walford Road, Sparkbrook, Birmingham B11 1NP. There is a map here.

From now to the end of the campaign all of Salma’s campaigning activity will commence from 95 Walford Road in Sparkbrook.

Please come along and bring others. For more info or updates, please call: 07812172887.

Manchester Respect campaign can be found HERE

Link: Greater Manchester Respect
Link: Birmingham Respect
Link: Tower Hamlets Respect
Link: Respect Party

Back to the pocket borough

Back to the pocket borough Morning Star comment.

No matter how much the Tories twist and turn, the saga of their own not-so-little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow continues to haunt them.

Yes, it's the Lord Ashcroft saga that has turned up yet again to demonstrate just how far a good Tory will go to secure a few bob for the party. And that seems to be quite a long way, all things considered.

Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, better known to most of our readers, one suspects, as Brenda Dean, ex-Sogat general secretary and chairwoman of the Housing Corporation, told MPs yesterday that, as a member of the vetting committee that approved Lord Ashcroft's peerage, she had been shocked to learn 10 years later that he was non-domiciled for tax purposes.

She said the political honours scrutiny committee that vetted Lord Ashcroft had been clear that it wanted him to be a permanent resident.

The Baroness added: "It looks like the commitments and undertakings given were not carried through."

Lady Dean was not the only person to give evidence to the parliamentary inquiry on the granting of the noble Lord's peerage.

And listening to Sir Hayden Phillips, the Whitehall mandarin who oversaw the granting of the peerage, was like taking a peek into a set of dusty attitudes that most people thought and hoped were long dead.

Sir Hayden, who at the time oversaw peerages as Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, agreed that "good chaps" would abide by an agreement and claimed that it had not been made "explicit" to him by the PHSC that it had concerns about where he was domiciled.

Now we may be getting a bit absent minded at the Morning Star in our 80th year but, asking around the office, no-one can remember any other issue in Lord Ashcroft's peerage than his domicile, which was an extremely high-profile question at the time.

One can only imagine that such mundanities didn't penetrate the rarified atmosphere of the gentlemans' clubs inhabited by top civil servants.

But one is surely entitled to expect that a senior civil servant would be aware of the controversy surrounding such a high-profile issue.

Especially since Michael Ashcroft had been twice refused a peerage in the past, partly because of concerns that he was a tax exile.

William Hague, who was then Tory leader and is now shadow foreign secretary, admitted yesterday that he had been wrong to declare that Lord Ashcroft would pay "tens of millions of pounds" more in tax as a result of the deal in 2000, a declaration that indicates the he, along with the peerages committee, believed that Lord Ashcroft would become fully domiciled.

In short, the whole issue has become a Tory exercise in rewriting history to cover Ashcroft's arse.

It wouldn't be necessary except that Lord Ashcroft is clearly reluctant to relinquish a peerage awarded to him under very dubious circumstances, to say the least, and the Tory Party is just as reluctant to upset him.

And that certainly isn't a surprise when one remembers that his company Bearwood Corporate Services has funnelled millions into the Tory Party's coffers to fund election battles in marginal seats.

Lord Ashcroft's company is reported to have made donations ranging from £5,000 to £27,230.08 to 19 swing seats in the 2005 general election.

While no-one could complain that these donations were illegal, their morality is certainly at issue.

The whole business reeks of privilege and the abuse of democracy by those who believe that they can buy their way into power.

It carries the stench of rotten and pocket boroughs, a poison which one might have wished consigned to history's dustbin many generations ago.

"Good chaps," buying peerages with donations, expat tax dodgers funding election campaigns - wasn't this all disposed of in the 20th century?

The answer to that seems to be a resounding No.

Link: TUSC
Link: Respect Party
Link: Morning Star

Tory Party non-dom Deputy Chairman Lord Ashcroft faces new claims of tax avoidance

More tax avoidance by the Conservative Party non-dom Deputy Chairman?

From The Guardian by David Leigh, Rob Evans, Polly Curtis and Nicholas Wat

Lord Ashcroft faces new claims of tax avoidance.
(Ashcroft commissioned polls from YouGov and Populus, believed to have cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.)

Exclusive (The Guardian): Bills for huge opinion polls for Conservatives 'sent to peer's Belize firm'

"Fresh concerns about Lord Ashcroft emerged tonight when he was accused of "systematic tax avoidance" by exploiting his offshore status to avoid paying VAT on opinion polls he commissioned for the Conservatives.

Ashcroft privately ordered what he boasted was the biggest political polling exercise ever conducted in Britain in 2005, in order to aid the Tories as they targeted marginal seats. The cost of the polls, commissioned from YouGov and Populus, is believed to have approached at least £250,000.

But sources familiar with the transactions told the Guardian that the bills were paid by one his companies in Belize, meaning he did not pay VAT.

Tonight, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman, Vince Cable, said: "This is quite serious. We are now not talking just about Ashcroft's non-dom status, but about systematic tax avoidance in funding Conservative party activities such as polling. How far were the Conservatives aware that Ashcroft did not pay VAT, as would have been incurred by any normal polling activity?"

The new allegations came amid growing concerns in David Cameron's circle over the handling of the affair by William Hague, his shadow foreign secretary.

It emerged earlier today Hague kept Cameron in the dark for at least a month after he learned that Ashcroft had renegotiated the terms of his peerage and acquired non-dom status. Cameron found out the truth about Ashcroft's tax affairs less than a month ago. A party spokesman confirmed that Ashcroft did not even reveal his tax status to Cameron when in December the leader approached him to discuss plans to ban non-doms from parliament, despite the fact that he had already told Hague.

The Tories also became embroiled in a row with the Electoral Commission after its official inquiry into Ashcroft's donations via his company, Bearwood Corporate Services, found it had not breached any donor rules but criticised party officials for refusing to give evidence in person.

Discussing the Guardian's VAT revelations, polling company sources said a single poll of a sample of 2,000 people typically cost £20,000 to £25,000. Ashcroft not only commissioned a series of tracking polls day-by-day in the run-up to the 2005 election, but used enormous samples of up to 10,000. One pollster said: "Such polling projects in the commercial sector frequently cost more than £250,000." This means that VAT in excess of £40,000 could have been avoided.

At the time, Ashcroft was resident in Britain and depicted himself as having paid for the polling personally.

One source said instructions had been sent by Ashcroft to the polling companies to send invoices on the basis they were "export" orders from outside the EU, and thus not to charge VAT. "It was invoiced to Belize and therefore didn't attract VAT," the source said.

Ashcroft subsequently published his detailed results in a book called Smell the Coffee: a Wake-up Call for the Conservative Party, as a result of which Cameron gave him the influential position of deputy party chairman, in December 2005.

He said in the introduction to his book: "A research programme of this scale has been an enormous undertaking. The expert pollsters from Populus and YouGov have been extraordinarily professional and great fun to work with."

His findings, which strongly influenced Cameron's subsequent tactics, were that most people believed the Tories to be "out of touch", "opportunistic", "don't care about ordinary people", "stuck in the past", and "care more about the well-off than the have-nots".

The sums of VAT saved by a manoeuvre that was not illegal, were relatively small to a multimillionaire like Ashcroft.

But he explained his business approach in his own memoirs called "Dirty Politics, Dirty Times" when he describes selling doughnuts to fellow schoolboys at an undisclosed profit: "There were probably people then as now who – if they discovered exactly what I was doing – might have found my practice a little sharp.

"I looked upon it as simply working to find an edge, the sort of advantage I would search for time and again."

Ashcroft's spokesman declined to comment today on the allegations that the wealthy businessman had not paid VAT to the polling companies, and that he had spent at least £250,000 on the projects. Neither YouGov nor Populus was prepared to comment .

Tonight a Conservative spokesman disavowed responsibility for Ashcroft's tactics, saying: "We do not recognise this as Conservative party polling." (Editor: Try saying that to a High Court Judge!!)"

See also: Tories 'did not help over Ashcroft'

The Conservative Party refused to allow its staff to be interviewed as part of an inquiry into donations from its non-dom deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft, ......... more

Link: The Guardian

Has the Tory Party used illegal overseas funds to finance its election campaign?

Poster by Left Outside
Has the Tory Party used illegal overseas funds to finance its election campaign?

From The Guardian by Rajeev Syal, Ian Cobain, Jamie Doward and Polly Curtis

Electoral Commission set to clear Lord Ashcroft donations to Tory party.

Commission expected to conclude inquiry into Bearwood Corporate Services – the vehicle through which Ashcroft has funnelled money to party – due to lack of evidence.
(In recent years, Lord Ashcroft's donations to the Conservative party have been made by Bearwood Corporate Services.)

Donations to the Conservatives by a company owned by the party's billionaire backer, Lord Ashcroft, are set to be cleared today following a 14-month inquiry.

The investigation, one of the longest ever held by the commission, has concluded because of a lack of evidence, according to sources close to the inquiry.

The Guardian understands the Electoral Commission will announce its long-awaited findings later today following an official 14 month investigation into Bearwood Corporate Services, the vehicle through which Ashcroft, the Conservatives' deputy chairman, has funnelled money to marginal constituencies, Tory headquarters and David Cameron's personal office.

The conclusion of such a long inquiry which fails to state that the donations are permissible will prompt concerns that the investigators could not unravel Ashcroft's complex financial affairs.

The initial complaint, sent by John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, claimed that Bearwood was in breach of electoral law because it was not trading in Britain when it gave money.

Donations from overseas companies are prohibited by law. The ultimate source of the Ashcroft millions that have helped bankroll the Tories in the past appears to be Belize, the Caribbean tax haven that the billionaire has claimed in the past to be his home.

But the route that the money follows on its 5,200-mile journey from the impoverished country to Conservative HQ – and then out to Britain's marginal constituencies – is highly complex. The Electoral Commission is set to rule there is insufficient evidence to suggest it is unlawful.

In recent years, the tycoon's donations to the party have been made by Bearwood Corporate Services (BCS), a company registered in the UK and with a registered office at the offices of its auditors, BDO Stoy Hayward, in Southampton.

During the year ending March 2006, BCS received £4.79m in cash for shares that were bought by its holding company, Bearwood Corporate Holdings.

Bearwood Holdings had received that money by selling shares in itself to another company, Astraporta UK, for £5.54m.

Astraporta, in turn, appears to have received its funds, around £6m, by selling shares to a company registered in Belize called Stargate Holdings. Where Stagate receives its funds is unclear. It is registered offshore – at a registry controlled by an Ashcroft company. When the Guardian visited the registry's offices in Belize City to inquire about Stargate, a registry official said: "You will never know who owns Stargate."

Astraporta and Bearwood Holdings were put into liquidation last year and were formally dissolved on Monday, just as Ashcroft was making his announcement that he was a so-called non-dom.

The Electoral Commission was planning last night to release the report this morning. However, the sources close to the inquiry said that jitters within the Commission had become so intense they may choose to hold it. With all the political pressure now surrounding the case, the Commission is behaving like a "rabbit in the headlights", the source said.

This morning it was also announced that Ashcroft will be invited to appear before MPs to explain his version of how he came to be awarded his peerage in 2000 on the basis of a promise to become a permanent resident in the UK and how he subsequently renegotiated that deal to avoid paying taxes on his international earnings.

The Public Administration Committee is to conduct an inquiry before the election, starting with a hearing on 18 March at which senior civil servants will also be quizzed on their role in the affair.

................................................

Question: Will the House of Commons demand that Lord Ashcroft, Vice- Chairman of the Conservative Party tell the truth so that the Electoral Commission can complete its work?

Qustion: Will David Cameron assure the House of Commons and the people of the UK that no illegal oversees funds have been used to finance the Tory Party election campaign and that UK tax has been paid on all Tory Party campaign funds/donations?

Link: The Guardian

Tony Benn writes on the death of Michael Foot

Tony Benn writes on the death of Michael Foot from The Telegraph.co.uk.

Tony Benn, the veteran former Labour MP, shares his memories of Michael Foot, the ex-Labour leader, who has died at the age of 96.

“I got to know Michael Foot best after the 1974 general election – he had been offered by Harold Wilson the job of private secretary and it was just at the end of the miners’ strike.

“I was at industry, and we used to meet every weekend and have a meal together: we called it the husbands and wives’ dinner because our wives would come too. It was an opportunity to go over what was happening. We became very close then.

“That good friendship lasted until the 1979 general election, which Labour lost.

“After that, he stayed within the mainstream, and I took the opportunity to say a few things that I had been thinking about – after that we weren’t as close.

“Michael was very keen to get Labour back into office, whereas I was more eager to put forward a few ideas based on my experiences, but there was no ill-will there.

“Of course, Michael inherited the leadership at the most difficult time for the party.

“Two things happened that made it impossible for him to win the 1983 general election.

“The first is that Roy Jenkins and Shirley Williams and others left Labour and set up their own party, the SDP, which did a great deal of damage.

“The other was the Falklands War, which made Margaret Thatcher hugely popular – before then she had been a very unpopular prime minister. Put together, it made it impossible for Michael to carry victory.

“Whenever he spoke in the House of Commons the House would be filled up because he was known to be speaking authoritatively.

“He was a strong advocate of peace and civil liberties. He was also a very able journalist, and a great speaker; wherever he went he inspired people, but it wasn’t enough to overcome those obstacles. The personal attacks didn’t matter – he didn’t succumb to them.

"He was a very formidable writer and a very powerful speaker, electrifying audiences.

"He was a very, very scholarly writer and a passionate advocate in public meetings. I have heard him in huge meetings and he held them in his hands.

"He was a socialist and he believed in working closely with the trade unions as leader of the Labour Party.

"He was a great credit to the Labour movement. I know he did not win the election, but the fact that he became leader and fought the election puts him in the top list of figures in the history of the party.

“Michael was a great believer in party unity. He wasn’t very keen when I challenged Denis Healey for the deputy leadership, but I was entitled to stand just as he was entitled to be critical of that.

“I told him I as going to stand, and he wasn’t pleased, but I felt you had to offer people a choice.

“After that, I would see him occasionally, and he was always very friendly – in politics there are different opinions, and we both understood that.

"I think people will feel a genuine sense of loss when they hear this. Being 96 and having been ill for some time, his death won't come as a shock, but it will cause great distress."

Link: Telegraph.co.uk

Was UK tax paid on Tory Party election campaign funds?

Was UK tax paid on Tory Party election campaign funds? Poster by Go Fourth

At last New Labour takes the axe to the Tory Party and about time too! From The Guardian :

Mandelson calls for inquiry over Lord Ashcroft tax promises.

Business secretary is the most senior member of government to call for inquiry into non-dom Tory peer.
(Lord Ashcroft admitted yesterday that he was a 'non-dom' who did not pay tax in Britain on his overseas earnings.)

Lord Mandelson has called for an inquiry to establish whether Lord Ashcroft broke the promises he made when he was ennobled in 2000 to become a full UK taxpayer.

The business secretary wrote to Lord Jay, chair of the House of Lords appointments commission, last night urging him to investigate Ashcroft's claims he had fulfilled his promise to become a UK resident after the government confirmed becoming a "long-term" resident instead of a "permanent" resident would suffice.

Mandelson is the most senior member of the government to call for an inquiry into the peer.

The Conservative leadership faced fresh demands last night to reveal what they knew about the tax status of Ashcroft after the billionaire Tory donor admitted he was a non-dom who did not pay tax in Britain on his substantial international earnings.

Ashcroft and the Tories have refused to answer questions about when he fulfilled the less onerous task of declaring himself a long-term resident, which allowed him to continue to be a non-dom paying tax only on his UK earnings and avoiding giving tens of millions to the tax office on his substantial international estate.

The Guardian put seven questions to Tory central office about its deputy chairman, asking what David Cameron and Hague knew about Ashcroft's financial arrangements. The leadership refused to answer any of them.

Ashcroft's admission yesterday broke a 10-year silence and appeared to show he had reneged on a "solemn and binding" promise to the then Tory leader, William Hague, that he would become a permanent UK resident in return for his peerage.

Mandelson said the category "long-term" resident had only existed in tax law since 2008 and therefore the peer could not have fulfilled the promise in 2000, when he took up his seat in the House of Lords.

Mandelson's letter, released this morning, said: "I am writing to ask you – in the public interest – to shine a light on this issue and to investigate whether Lord Ashcroft is currently satisfying the conditions that he was required to meet in order to be appointed to the House of Lords."

He mentions the "solemn and binding" undertaking Ashcroft made in 2000 to William Hague to become a "permanent resident" of the UK that year and Ashcroft's unsubstantiated claim that the government later confirmed this could mean he becomes a "long-term" resident.

"However this cannot be the condition he was required to meet in 2000," Lord Mandelson writes, "because the 'long term resident' rule was only introduced in April 2008 – eight years after he made his promise."

A spokesperson for the appointments commission said this morning it had no powers for retrospective investigations. The commission was established after Ashcroft was ennobled, replacing the political honours scrutiny committee that originally vetted his application, suggesting any inquiry would have to be independent.

The spokesperson said: "The commission received Lord Mandelson's letter yesterday evening and will consider it. The vetting of Lord Ashcroft, however, took place before the commission was established in 2000 and the commission has no documentation on this case and no retrospective powers to investigate. The commission will now only vet individuals who are already resident in the UK for tax purposes and commit to remaining so."

The rules were changed in 2005 to ensure all new peers paid full tax and strengthened in 2008 to force them to commit to permanently paying UK tax on all their earnings.

Jack Straw, the justice secretary, said yesterday: "He was only granted his peerage on the basis he would return to live in the UK, become fully resident, and pay tax in the UK on his wider income. Lord Ashcroft has been forced to admit that he has not complied with this promise and that for the last 10 years the Conservatives have been concealing the truth. Instead of paying tax in the UK on all his earned income, he has been channelling millions into the Conservative party to help them buy this election."

In a statement published shortly before the disclosure of material as a result of freedom of information requests, Ashcroft indicated he would relinquish his non-dom status in line with new Tory policy to remain in the Lords. A spokesman for Ashcroft insisted the peer had fulfilled his promises to become resident in order to take up his peerage. "[He] has never broken a promise and he has never gone back on an undertaking," he said.

Gordon Prentice, the Labour MP whose FoI request prompted the statement, said Ashcroft should be stripped of his peerage, while Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat frontbencher who has campaigned against non-doms in parliament, said he should step down.

The former Labour minister Denis MacShane added: "Some kind of full inquiry is needed to account for the missing years of Ashcroft's tax affairs when he was dictating the course of this election."

Cameron said: "I have always taken the view that someone's tax status is a matter between them and the Revenue and I've answered that question many times, but I'm delighted that Lord Ashcroft has made these statements and has answered these questions, so I think that now we can get on with the election."

He attempted to turn the spotlight on the Labour peers who are self-confessed non-doms, including Lord Paul, who was also recently appointed to the privy council by Gordon Brown.

And the question that still needs to be asked:
Was UK tax paid on Tory Party election funds donated by Lord Ashcroft?

See our other article on Tory Party funds now taken up by other media outlets lower down this page.

Link:Michael Anthony Ashcroft, Baron Ashcroft, KCMG, - Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party - Wikipedia
Link: The non-doms can stump up - Morning Star
Link: The Guardian

George Galloway: Why the Tory toffs are being hunted

Why the Tory toffs are being hunted - by George Galloway from the Scottish Daily Record.

A ball hasn't yet been kicked in the political Old Firm match and already the underdog Gordon Brown is almost even with the Flashmen of Cameron's old Etonians.

And like the affair at Ibrox yesterday, it's going to turn nasty.

It's an astonishing turnaround which owes much to the smell of Gosford Park about all the Tory wannabes.

Their slogan is "change" but the first three cabs off their rank are: Relief for 3000 of their immediate neighbours - and all too close relations - from inheritance tax on big estates.

The legalisation of tearing warm-blooded animals to pieces for the edification of tally-ho toffs - making flesh of Oscar Wilde's description of such barbarism, the unspeakable in hot pursuit of the uneatable.

And finally, for the time being, the defence of an unelected House of Lords.

I believe it is helped, too, by the rabid personal attacks launched by guttersnipes in the Murdoch Press who have bitten the biter.

This started last autumn with the fake ferocity over Brown's handwritten letters to bereaved families of war dead.

The more they vituperated about Brown's dodgy eyesight, the clearer people could see this was just unfair, bullying even.

The equally fake furore over the shrinking Blairite violets working at Number 10, allegedly phoning bullying helplines because a PM in the midst of international crises shouted at them, has ended up boosting the standing of the hitherto rather desiccated calculating machine image of Brown.

In the last few days, it has turned even uglier and the Tories have reverted to type as the prospect of an overall parliamentary majority vanishes like sna' aff a dyke.

Doorstep canvassers are cranking up the immigration issue with lies and exaggerations and statements which the BNP wished they had copyrighted.

It has the repugnant taint of the 1964 general election campaign in Smethwick in Birmingham when the Labour shadow foreign minister Patrick Gordon Walker was defeated by a Tory racist called Peter Griffiths whose slogan was, "If you want a n***** neighbour, vote Labour".

Above all, the British people are not fools. Blunder, crime and capitulation the Blair-Brown story might be. But people know a Tory government of sleazy, olive Martini lounge lizards and brothel creepers would be much, much worse. I say this to Scottish nationalist readers- nothing could be more irrelevant, in this election at least, than the SNP.

Let's wipe the Scottish Tories out. (Editor: and those in England as well!)

Link: Respect Party
Link: Scottish Daily Record