This entry was posted on
Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 at
10:46 pm and is filed
under The Political Weblog Movement.

The Tories appear to have been caught breaking electoral law in Ealing Southall.

That well-known Conservative propagandist political commentator Iain Dale is going to be out of action for most of the evening and perhaps even some of the morning for reasons that may amuse some people, so here’s a rare chance for Teh Little Bloggers to ‘scoop’ Dale by being the first to publish the official spin on their expert opinion on this affair.

Here’s my effort:

ULTRA-MULTI-EXCLUSIVE! Last minute stunt by Lib-Labs falls flat on its face

Tories allegedly breaching suggested electoral guidelines?

This just didn’t seem possible to me, so I went straight to the source and pressed Tory HQ for answers. I can now reveal in a statement that’s EXCLUSIVE to this weblog that Grant Shapps suspects that an unknown Labour or Liberal Democrat activist (most likely the partisan scumbag and pretend-blogger Tom Watson) has somehow posed as an unnamed Tory source thereby defrauding Telegraph reporter Jonathan Isaby…. which is AGAINST THE LAW!!!

This just didn’t seem possible to me, so I went straight to the source and pressed Jonathan Isaby for answers. I can now reveal in a statement that’s EXCLUSIVE to this weblog that Jonathan Isaby suspects that an unknown Labour or Liberal Democrat activist (most likely the partisan scumbag and pretend-blogger Tom Watson) has somehow hacked the Telegraph’s weblog via the ingenious method of guessing the username and password (‘jamesbond’ and ‘007’)…. which is AGAINST THE LAW!!!

This just didn’t seem possible to me, so I went straight to the pixies at the bottom of my garden and pressed them for answers…

Award-worthy… wouldn’t you say?

(You wouldn’t? Well, tough. I’m writing The Official One and Only Book Of Funniest People tomorrow and I’m only settling for 2nd place because I’m so damn modest.)

UPDATE – BBC – Police begin Southall vote probe: An investigation has been launched after a complaint from the Labour Party about alleged electoral offences in the Ealing Southall by-election. It relates to a Daily Telegraph website blog entry which claimed to show how many postal votes each candidate had won ahead of Thursday’s ballot. The Telegraph Media Group said this was removed as soon as it was pointed out that it could breach electoral law. The Metropolitan Police said the matter is being “thoroughly investigated”. The article on the Daily Telegraph website quoted “a source inside the Tory campaign”. However, a spokesman for the Conservative Party said: “Our agent in Ealing Southall hasn’t published any such information or spoken to the Daily Telegraph.”

Of course, only the churlish would treat that denial with contempt (by, say, scrutinising its rather specific nature)… so let’s allow it to scamper free and unfettered for a few hours.

UPDATE (19 July) – Ahahahahahaha! Again, I demand some form of prize. It turns out the BBC cut the above quote short;

Guardian – Police investigate alleged Ealing byelection leak: A Conservative spokesman said: “We haven’t seen this blog so it’s difficult to comment. The fact that the blog has now been removed speaks for itself. Our agent in Ealing Southall hasn’t published any such information or spoken to the Daily Telegraph. We suspect that this is mischief making by our opponents.”

There’s your ball… all that remains is for Dale to run with it.

Oh, and the specific nature of that denial? I’m assured by insiders that each party is allowed two representatives at the postal vote openings in a by-election, and this denial relates specifically to the party agent. It is also possible that the party agent or their fellow team member present at the openings related the data to a third party who then contacted the Telegraph. It is even possible that the data is entirely made-up (still against the law in this context). This denial means very little, and even less if it comes from Grant Shapps.

UPDATE (12pm) – Tut. Iain’s leaving town leaving no more than a sniffy comment behind. There goes my propaganda-disguised-as-comment trifecta.