Labour’s part-time Campaign Chief Tom Watson is clearly regretting his outing on LBC this morning where he said: “Those Lab voters thinking of going to vote for Boris, hold your nose, vote for Ken.” Realising his mistake, Watson rushed to his blog to try to blame his own loose tongue on the vast right-wing conspiracy of a Standard hack tweeting the comment. In justifying his words, however, he has dug himself further into a hole:
“There are a number of people who tell us on the doorstep that they would vote Labour if there was a general election tomorrow but are currently considering voting Conservative because they either a; like Boris Johnson or b; don’t like Ken.”
The Deputy Chairman of the Labour Party, with the responsibility for campaigns, casually concedes that his own voters are not backing their candidate. Stick to the Murdoch-baiting Tom…
UPDATE: In other news Ken is now said to be rowing back from his promise to release full set of earnings signed off by an accountant. Quelle surprise!
UPDATE II: LBC have made the full quote available:
“For once, I’m being totally candid with you. I’m saying to you, those Labour voters that are thinking of going to vote for Boris Johnson, hold your nose, vote for Ken, because that’s the way that you will help Labour. Let me also say, that having worked with Ken Livingstone, looking at his interview in The Guardian this morning, he has a beautiful dog. He’s got a Labrador. I shouldn’t say this, but there is an American maxim that when a politician is in trouble, get him a dog.”
Guido thinks Watson doth protest too much…
Jeremy Hunt may have bought some time yesterday but he is by no means out of the woods yet. Miliband is touring the studios this morning calling him a “firewall” for David Cameron. Andrew Mitchell was sent out to Newsnight to defend Hunt last night and deployed the ‘Gordon Brown didn’t go when his SpAd resigned’ line. True, but two wrongs do not make a right…
Mitchell was curve-balled with a quote by the Home Secretary Theresa May from last week. Her words on the deportation saga are being pushed around this morning: “If any of my officials made a mistake, that is my responsibility…”
On the day the recession returned with GDP coming in at what Gordon Brown would describe as “negative growth” the Labour Party released their first fancy Obama-style infographic on Facebook.
Unfortunately it was what is known in the trade as a ‘SMOG’ – a Social Media Own Goal. The bar chart was all too positive…
The Speaker has been forced to deny allegations that he had harassed an openly gay male staffer. The adviser claims that he was only hired “for the purpose of pursuing a sexual relationship” and was harassed in person and by text message. Australia’s Parliamentary Speaker Peter Slipper has stood down temporarily, but strongly denies the allegations, saying they came as a complete surprise…
The one time LibDem DCMS spokesman Don Foster said in the House earlier: “Politicians have been cosying up to the media for too long. Given press perception and actual impartiality, it is improper for politicians to make decisions about media ownership”. He would know:
Are the LibDem’s hands really clean here?
They have their own people in Murdoch’s world – take Sky’s Head of Policy David Wheeldon who was a former senior member of LibDem policy unit. Despite it being a matter for BIS and then Culture, the emails released yesterday are full of meetings with Jonny Oates – Clegg’s adviser who is a former director of Bell Pottinger and one of two controversial lobbyists at the heart of the Deputy Prime Minister’s team. Vince’s team were also calling Fred Michel unsolicited. There is no doubt that Vince hated Murdoch, but to suggest the LibDems are somehow saintly is a joke. They are trying to pretend they didn’t go to the News Intrnational party out of choice, when in reality they were not invited…
Ken Livingstone has a tendency to shoot his mouth off and says things which are inadvisable, like criticising politicians for cosying up to News International when he himself is no stranger to Wapping:
Incidentally when Guido tweeted this picture yesterday twitter-idiots claimed it was a fake. It is absolutely genuine.
At the London Jewish Forum last night under pressure about his tax affairs Ken promised again that the certified Silveta accounts would be published online “shortly”. No sign of them yet. Only 20 days since he first promised he would..
