Blog
A week on the road
As you can imagine, I have had a busy week working on the Euro election, in fact I was in a different county in the Eastern region almost every day. Conservatives are feeling very positive and looking forward to the grassroots work in the constituency which MEPs and...
Working on the Euro election
I have a very busy few weeks ahead of me as I am working on the Euro election as Conservative Press Officer for the Eastern Region. Getting media coverage will be particularly challenging because the regional press has been slashed with considerable redundancies and...
The charming Sir Clement Freud
I know I shall not be alone in missing the dry and warm wit of the lugubrious Sir Clement Freud, who has just died aged 84. He was always superb on Just a Minute, and I remember hearing him bantering away not so long ago. He was also very charming company and I first...
Defamation and the law of blogging
There could well be a perception that blogging is lawless following the latest "Smeargate" sensation. In fact, that is not the case. Responsible bloggers know that they also have to adhere to the laws of libel and slander, they wouldn't put their neck on the line. A...
Why “Smeargate” will run and run…
Here is one good reason why "Smeargate will run, and run... Just wait till Iain gets his response for FOI information about whether a smear campaign was also being planned against him. This is what he wrote on his blog a few days ago: "Two weeks ago, on 27 March, I...
Top 20 Tory Twitterers
This is Iain Dale's list of top 20 Tory Twitterers ranked by their number of followers: 1. Boris Johnson 24,3412. Conservative Party 5,453 3. Iain Dale 3,0254. James Cleverly 1,7015. Jonathan Sheppard 1,4826. Grant Shapps 8147. Steve Green 7938. Tim Montgomerie 7619....
Labour’s black Easter
What is there left to be said about the tawdry, squalid smear campaign hatched by Damien McBride and Derek Draper and their slanderous emails against leading Conservative politicians? It's been splashed across the front of every paper today. Is this the kind of "best...
Preparing my next Toastmasters speech
You may have noticed that a side panel with my Toastmasters speeches has vanished. That is because I am no longer preparing them in the same way. And they had been there a while anyway and were pretty old. I used to write my speeches in full and learn them almost word...
A video tour of the European Parliament
I thought you might be interested in having a look at some scenes I recorded of the European Parliament in Brussels. When I last visited four years ago, there was much building work taking place to provide accommodation for MEPs and staff from the new eastern European...