Will Labour be Flushed Away?

Bit light on the blogging over the weekend due to a malaise of the stomach which leads me onto another story.

Ian Dale is covering the Euro and Local elections this coming weekend on PlayRadioUK , the side banner on this site gives more details. Hopefully, as the the polls are predicting, Labour will confirm they have been flushed away by the UK public and the Lib Dems will be dumped by the Scottish public.

Worth tuning in because the last time Iain covered the elections back in 2007 for 18 Doughty Street the coverage was worth listening to apart from one slight hiccup, or at least a similar bodily fumction.

Please Iain remember to turn your microphone off this year!

Iain Dale's Diary: Election Results: Calling all Political Bloggers

Iain Dale makes a boo-boo - Clegg 56% Huhne 44%

Looks like Iain Dale made a Boo-Boo and inadvertently published an embargoed Poll for the Lib Dem leadership race on Blogger and then changed it back to being a draft. Now the details are there for all to see if you search Blogs in Google and type in "Clegg" or similar or just follow the link. Anyway its shows the following.

The poll of 678 Lib Dem members finds Nick Clegg ahead with 56% of the vote among all those naming a candidate. However, the results show that Chris Huhne (44%) is still able to beat the front-runner as half the membership (52%) has not ...

I should know I inadvertently did this on one of my blog entries this week and found it could still be seen on the blog search.

Hat tip to Will on Political Betting

Football-mad drivers bid for "WE57 HAM" plate

I wonder if the esteemed Blogger and West Ham supporter Iain Dale will be bidding for this registration plate for his nice Audi Convertible. I suspect it may go for around 40,000 pounds, cheap to any fervent supporter.

However Iain may be more interested in the following after West Ham losing their last two games Lot 835: "LOS 3R", which has a reserve price of 900 pounds.

Apparently the top 10 prices for Football related registrations sold by the DVLA is as follows:

1 - AR53 NAL (36,000 pounds)

2 - V1 LLA (35,000 pounds)

3 - ALB 10N (19,000 pounds)

4 - DER 8Y (14,500 pounds)

5 - S41 NTS (11,500 pounds)

6 - PRE 570N (9,400 pounds)

7 - 1 WBA (8,400 pounds)

8 - W1 GAN (7,700 pounds)

9 - EVR 70N (6,400 pounds)

10 - S9 URS (4,600 pounds)

Why this item should be in the Scotsman I have no idea.

Scotsman.com News - Latest News - Odd - Football-mad drivers bid for "WE57 HAM" plate

Alex Salmond to Unseat Gordon Brown?

Brown shows what he would like to do with Alex Salmond's testicles

I see Mr Dale is suggesting that there are serious discussions ongoing within the SNP about putting Alex Salmond against the Clunker in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath if a general election is called soon.

Whilst I can see Iain's point about it being not a good idea for Alex as it would demean his role as Scotland's First Minister I think it would definitely be fun to watch this one play out.

With the best will in the world it is unlikely that Alex could overturn Gordon's majority of over 18,000 but if he did it would present Labour with a bigger problem than when they voted in Michael Foot.

Nothing is certain in Politics and there is in my opinion a strong swing in Scotland against the Labour Party and Gordon Brown in particular.

Iain Dale's Diary: Alex Salmond to Unseat Gordon Brown?

Crap Coverage

Friday was a bit of a bad day for personal reasons I'm not going to mention, but a bit before that all happened the event mentioned happened, and I must admit I was a bit bemused at the time and wondered if I had really heard it right.

Anyway 12 hours later I remembered about it and thought it was worth mentioning as it was definitely the funniest moment I could recall in the election coverage, even surpassing watching our Jack stumble through his acceptance speech, the Arran boat saga, wondering why Ms Sturgeon should be called "Gnasher" and the debates on what Mr Eugenides should drink (A flaming anti-freeze, margarita and toilet duck cocktails with a brolly and a twist of lemon).

I thought Iain might ignore it, I would have, but he fessed up really well. As one of the comments on his blog says

I can't imagine any politician except Iain being honest enough to say 'had to answer a call of nature'.

That honesty is the main reason I look at your blog every day, Iain - though, admittedly, hearing you fart and so on was a little too much realism :)

If only these politicians had brain enough to learn that honesty is what the electorate long for. Spin and scripted presentation - even when designed to appear unscripted - are just massive turn electoral offs.

Politicians, burn your bloody scripts, forget the over-sculpted, apparatchick hair styles and personas and please, please, please speak from the heart - if you have hearts, that is.

Thanks for the moment Iain, I just don't want to dream about it again.

Iain Dale's Diary: Great Television Moments: No 94

Iain Dale forgets to turn off Microphone

Funniest part of the Election Coverage must go to Iain Dale at about 11ish this morning, whilst listening to the audio feed on 18DS he announced he needed to go and left his fellow announcers rather rapidly, sounds of them carrying on but in the background sound of walking , door banging and thunk, then loud, long fart and a good groan and then silence, thank god he was cut off in his prime, anyway couple of minutes later he arrives back in the studio saying he had urgent call of nature. One of the guests says "hope you turned your Mic off"

He hadn't! Priceless.

P.S. Was enjoying the coverage on 18DS before this.