One of the reasons that London Metropolitan University lost  the right to sponsor international student visas was the concern that a “significant proportion” of the international students did not have good English:

Case in point at today’s protest…

Via Old Holborn & Blottr

When she isn’t speculating that Kate Middleton might be up the duff or suggesting that girls should be spared from prison, it seems Claire Perry has porn on the mind. But the Tory MP’s campaign to control what we can and can’t watch on our computer screens was laid bare today after its dodgy stats were rumbled. SafetyNet claim that one in three ten-year-olds have viewed online porn. It turns out they lifted the figure from an obscure magazine, which has admitted using a sample of 14-16 year-olds from just one school in north London. So in other words her figures are about as academic as a show of hands in a pub. Maybe Perry should spend less time worrying why all her sucking up failed to land her a job, and a bit more time on the facts. 

Guido had not forgotten the chaos he caused down Wandsworth way this summer by revealing more than £50,000 in suspected fraudulent payments to the local Conservative agent. Two years after concerns were first raised internally, an independent investigation has been called and the suspect – Councillor Robert Morritt – has been suspended. The details of the inquiry have been released today:

The Conservative Party in Wandsworth and Wimbledon is establishing an inquiry into allegations appearing in the media concerning accounting irregularities during the period (2006-10) when Robert Morritt was in its employment.   The local Conservative Party is organised in four Conservative Associations in Battersea, Putney, Tooting and Wimbledon.  These Associations pool resources in the Wandsworth & Wimbledon Conservative Group.  Rob Morritt was employed by its predecessor organisation, known as the Wandsworth Conservative Group.

Cllr Ray Puddifoot, the leader of Hillingdon Council, has been asked to: Conduct an independent review of the professional activities, including recent media allegations, of Robert Morritt during his employment with the Wandsworth Conservative Group. The review should be thorough, evidence based and should make observations, draw conclusions and recommendations as appropriate. Cllr Puddifoot will report his findings to the Group Management Committee of the Wandsworth & Wimbledon Conservative Group, who will then make a detailed public statement covering the allegations that have been made.  Cllr Puddifoot will conclude his investigations as soon as practically possible but the importance of a thorough investigation precludes a set time limit.

 Cllr Puddifoot has been Leader of Hillingdon Council for 12 years and is a past Treasurer of the Uxbridge Conservative Association. He is by profession a Chartered Accountant and served for many years, on a voluntary basis, as a General Commissioner of Revenue and Customs.  He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.  Cllr Puddifoot has no previous connection with the Wandsworth or Wimbledon Conservative Associations.

A professional outside auditor would have made more sense, especially given that elements Conservative Party have already systematically covered this story up already. Two investigations already compiled have found over £50,000 of unaccounted funds, yet they were ignored by Wandsworth Conservatives – instead they promoted Morritt. Guido has offered to make all the evidence he has in his possession, and it’s a lot, available to Mr Puddifoot.

He looks forward to hearing from him…

Read the full story here.

Ed’s back to school interview in the New Statesman is a growing source of amusement this afternoon. The Labour leader used an interesting choice of words to attack the former Prime Mentalist’s government:

“There’s one way that says you just set lots of targets centrally and that’s the way you make public services work. That’s the Brown model, slightly caricatured. If we came along and said ‘look, we can just carry on like the last Labour government did’ – I mean it’s politically crackers to do that, because we wouldn’t win the election and we wouldn’t deserve to win the election.”

Meanwhile it seems the party’s new mantra for the coming months will be “predistribution not redistribution”. As Dave said at PMQs, they had all summer to come up with that…

PMQs pic via @OnTablets

Save the Children’s new ad campaign about child poverty in Britain has a heartbreaking storyline:

“Alex pretends he is a brave prince. It’s a game his mum and dad have invented because they want to shield him from the reality of living in severe poverty — a reality shared by 1.6 million children in the UK. So instead of worrying about living in a freezing house with no heating, the brave prince imagines he has taken a journey to the Land of the Polar Bears. Instead of feeling sad because he doesn’t have a bed, the brave prince creates an indoor tent where he sleeps on his many adventures.”

Awkwardly the charity have just confirmed to Guido that young Alex literally was pretending to be a brave prince – he and his mother are actors. Not that Save the Children have acknowledged it in the ad or on their official YouTube page as you might expect from the charity. They would never get away with using child actors in a guilt-trip ad campaign in Africa, so how can they do it here?

Declaring in tonight’s Standard that the race to succeed David Cameron is very much on,  Matt d’Ancona has coined the definitive word for Boris supporters: “BoJo-vians”.

Guido will be hereby adopting the phrase, but who should make the list?