Wednesday 30 April 2014

Exclusive: Second Labour MP Caught Out Editing His Wikipedia Page?


The results of an investigation handed exclusively to this blog have sensationally revealed that Chuka Umunna may not have been the only Labour MP to have been caught out editing his own Wikipedia page.

Simon Danczuk the Labour MP for Rochdale, who clashed with Owen Jones over the welfare system, also appears to have potentially been spending his time editing his own Wikipedia page.  The findings of the investigation handed to this blog detail numerous examples of Parliamentary IP addresses being used to edit the content of Mr Danczuk’s page.



The most recent Parliamentary edits show the construction of a comprehensive record of the articles authored by Danczuk.  On five occasions between 31st March and the 7th April the page was edited from a computer in the parliamentary network. The edits show Mr Danczuk’s extensive collection of articles for media outlets being publicly displayed just before the launch of his publishing career.  #ThingsElliottSays finds it very odd another MP, or their Staff, would so meticulously and publicly catalogue his articles almost immediately after they went live. Doesn't Mr Danczuk have other things to do whilst being an MP.


Perhaps most damningly in 2010 the same parliamentary internet id was used to remove an allegation made about him covered by some media outlets in the run up to the 2010 General Election.  Danczuk, whose office describes the allegation as “frankly libellous”, refutes the allegation in the strongest terms.  After being threatened with legal action by a member of Mr Danczuk’s office and consulting legal advice this blog has decided not to publish the substance of this allegation removed from Wikipedia by parliamentary computers.

This already bizarre series of events only got more so when we reached out to Mr Danczuk’s office. One of Mr Danczuk’s staff suggested that our reporter was a “very strange person and that they received a lot of calls from very strange people who defend paedophiles”.  Upon discovering the political persuasion of this blog he changed his tone, we were then “protecting Tory Establishment paedophiles”. He argued that at “a time where Simon is uncovering an institutional paedophile” we could only have one motive.  Asking questions about Labour MPs breaking rules is not defending paedophilia. We didn’t appreciate the insinuation. #ThingsElliottSays would like an apology from Simon Danczuk.


The one thing above all Mr Danczuk’s staff were sure about, despite not knowing if Mr Danczuk had made the edits, was that even if he had edited the page “he’s not done a Chuka”. #ThingsElliottSays is not so sure about that.

Wikipedia’s own rules on this subject are very clear:

“Editors should not edit articles in which they have a political conflict of interest. Examples include: 1) government employees should not edit articles about their agencies, government, or political party, or articles about their political opponents, opposition groups, or about controversial political topics with the intent to slant or spin an article in a manner that is politically advantageous to their employer; 2) political candidates or their staff should not edit articles about their electoral opponents; 3) reliably-sourced, notable material written in a neutral point of view should not be deleted from articles with the intent of protecting the political interests of your party, agency or government.”

One rule for us another for them.

Also isn't this a waste of parliamentary time. Hasn't Simon Danczuk got more important things to do than big himself up on Wikipedia?

Of course Mr Danczuk could claim it is not him, or his staff, that has been editing his Wikipedia page in parliament. But who else in Westminster would want to do that, especially up to such a meticulous level? Who is it likely to be?

Simon Danczuka?

Mr Danczuk’s office said they’d get back to us as to whether he or his office had “done a Chuka”, they haven’t so we’re publishing anyway.  That’s what you get for being aggressive.

courtesy of @samwarmstronghttps://twitter.com/samwarmstrong

Tuesday 29 April 2014

Come Campaigning With The Twickenham Tories And Syed Kamall MEP


Are you busy on Saturday? Well if you have just about recovered from your Road Trip hangover you can go out again and campaign in the wonderful London Borough of Twickenham.


On 3rd May, starting at 10am, the Twickenham Conservatives with Syed Kamall MEP are out and about in Teddington canvassing for the Euro and Borough Elections. Free lunch is on the Twickenham Tories if you come out to help. Hopefully this will also build the base to kick out the anti-business secretary Vince Cable, if any extra incentive was needed for Conservatives to come help.

Help kick out Vince Cable.

Allrik Birch, who is helping run the campaign day, has said "this will be a big day for getting our message out in a crucial London Borough, if we win in May, it will give us a fantastic platform to take on Vince Cable in 2015."

Twickenham Tories out campaigning.

If you're able to come please say you're 'going' on the Facebook event.

Monday 28 April 2014

Enfield Road Trip [Video]


Road Trip 2015 has made another great video summing up the day. It was good to see 130 activists out in Enfield. Let's hope we can beat that when the fourth Road Trip is organised.

Sunday 27 April 2014

Enfield Road Trip


Yes, it is back. Road Trip 2015 made it three massive successes in a row with a mass campaign day in Enfield for Nick de Bois MP. Thanks to Mark Clarke and the team for another smashing day out. I saw Mahyar, the awesome AJ, Charlotte Kude (who is currently looking after Mahyar in his campaign to become the councillor for Lee Greem) and a whole host of others. It was certainly worth coming down from Nottingham, even though it took me several hours to get home and I had to leave the party early. 

The awesome Antonia Jade



It took me a good few hours to travel from Nottingham down to Enfield in the morning. Some people seemed to have a more eventful morning though.



What surprises me most about that tweet is Stephen Canning somehow was not involved. But anyway,I was taken from Oakwood tube station with a few others by Nick de Bois to leaflet one of the best areas in Enfield for the Conservatives. At the moment, as all my Conservative friends in London keeps reminding me with notices of elections advertising their candidacy, it is the London Borough elections fairly soon. Enfield is obviously no exception. With Labour only having a majority of 9, a lower turnout than in 2010 which pushed the Labour vote up (for obvious reasons), and very few UKIP candidates, there is a good chance the Conservatives could re-take Enfield council.


Other teams were also out doing their bit:





After that we had lunch, a good mix of biscuits and beer essentially, where I got to chat with the peeps I know from across the country. In total it was worked out that 130 activists had come to help in Enfield. Which was much more than Labour had out on that day



During this time Grant Shapps turned up to inspire us all with a great speech about what was coming up in the next few days, weeks and months. 





Then there was a competition of who could get the best #ShappsSelfie here are most of the entrants.





















We then went out for the big group photo someone even put a making of video on Vine. 





We the went out for a bit more leafleting or in my case canvassing of the people of Enfield. 






But it was then on to the bar where we tried to drink dry the Jolly Butcher in Enfield. They had a very good selection of beers and I caught up with George Hopkinson who has also produced another decent article about the Road Trip on Conservative Student, which has been quite for a while. George says it will be starting up again soon so you may see me taking up my virtual pen and writing for the blog.

After this we then went for a Curry. 




However there was one problem. There was so many of us the curry house quickly ran out of seats for us to sit down in. After a Kissinger style negotiation between the restaurant owners on one side and Mark Clarke and Andre on the other, two sittings were organised to feed the 5,000. As Nick de Bois said in his speech after dinner, or before dinner in my case, "Mark told me there would be 100 activists with 70 for curry afterwards. I told him not to exaggerate and that he would be wrong. I was right. 130 activists turned up and over 100 came for a free curry."

Nick de Bois in an overflowing curry house.

After dinner I had to go off home, but it seems everyone was still able to have a fantastic party afterwards. 



Mahyar shows he is still a child at heart.

We really did some excellent work yesterday. Nick has a 1692 majority in Enfield North, obviously we need to hold this seat for a majority government. I hope though that come the General Election there will be a big swing to the Conservatives here.


I must thank again all the Road Trip Team for the fun day with the free drinks, free curry and all the satisfaction of helping to beat Labour. The question on everyone's lips though is, "where's next?".

Wednesday 23 April 2014

Come To The Enfield Road Trip

Not yet convinced by the free alcohol, dinner and Grant Shapps to come to the Enfield Road Trip this Saturday? Well perhaps the latest video creation of the Road Trip team will make you flock to the London Borough. Details of the Road Trip can be found here.

Tuesday 22 April 2014

Exclusive: Grant Shapps Joins The Enfield Road Trip



The Conservative Party Chairman, Grant Shapps MP, is confirmed as coming to the Enfield Road Trip on Saturday 26th April to join a massive campaign session. The organisers of the Enfield Road Trip are expecting there to be over a hundred other Conservative activists to join the Party Chairman.

Those who go on the Enfield Road Trip can expect to leaflet and canvass thousands of homes in the London Borough. Activists will also receive free drinks, a free dinner and now the pleasant company of the Party Chairman.

Over 80 activists went on the Road Trip to Harlow.

The last Road Trip to Harlow was very successful. Over 80 activists, one coming as far as Edinburgh, joined Robert Halfon MP to deliver over 30,000 copies of the Harlow Star and canvass two council wards. Robert Halfon said that the Road Trip 'provided a welcome boost to our local campaign'. The Road Trip's organisers are expecting a much greater 'boost' in Enfield.

To join the Road Trip to Enfield click here

Monday 21 April 2014

Campaigning Photos With Samantha Clark



Over the last few days I have been out with Samantha Clark who is the local Conservative candidate for the Roman Bank by-election. Sam and her campaign team have been all over the area leafleting, canvassing and posting letters. I have been struck by how well Samantha is known in the ward. No joke, around 50% of all the people I call upon know who she is. Her family and friends live in all the villages, especially Newton where she is a parish councillor.

Here are the photos from the last few days of campaigning:

Samantha was campaigning in the estates just off Sutton Road on Tuesday. She got a good response from the locals.

On Wednesday Sam spent more time in Leverington with helpers from across North East Cambridgeshire. She is that liked and respected.

Sam stopped for a quick drink at the Rising Sun after a long morning of canvassing on Tuesday.

Sam was on High Road in Gorelfield earlier today seeing what was going on.

Sam also visited the local shop in Gorefield and treated us to a snack.

Sam was also out with a team of helpers in Leverington to do a mass leaflet of lots of houses and deliver postal vote letters.

Sam was joined by more helpers later on today.

Sam has really been putting the effort in these last few days and will tomorrow be spending time seeing and talking to people across the ward who she has not yet had contact with. Sam and her team will hopefully have seen everyone in the area at least once soon.  It's good to see that local people are getting behind Sam because she really cares about the villages of Tydd St Giles, Newton, Gorefield, Foul Anchor and Leverington (as well as all the people living in the houses in between). She does live there after all. Her concerns are your concerns. 

Residents of Roman Bank, please choose Samantha Clark to be your district councillor.

Sunday 20 April 2014

#easterclegg


The Labour Party have had the egg-cellent idea of selling a 'completely hollow' chocolate Nick Clegg 'guaranteed to leave a bad taste in your mouth'. I have ordered one for Seb, my sadly and madly Lib Dem housemate. I think Labour has been too kind to Cleggers.

TPA in Lee Green


The TPA were out yesterday campaigning against the ever wasteful Lewisham Council, which is currently run by the Labour Party. What a surprise.*

For a long time Lewisham Council has been increasing taxes whilst cutting services, not very good for the residents. The TPA team of Sonia Khan and Mark Malik went to the high street of Lee Green to inform the residents of this waste. They were joined by Mahyar Tousi, CF big wig and CCHQ Pizza thief, as well as other activists. Those who were there have told #ThingsElliottSays that the day went really well with lots of people surprised by the amount of waste there is in Lewisham. The Lee Greeners had their eyes opened for sure.



Mahyar has exclusively told #ThingsElliottSays "we received a lot of positive feedback, both from those local residents who were aware of local issues and those who didn't' know that Lewisham council are constantly increasing council tax whilst cutting local services. Over the next few months, as a local activist, I will continue my research and campaign to find out exactly what they do with our money and how we can encourage them to cut waste."

However, there are those who were not happy with the TPA's campaign. The local Labour councillor of Lee Green came over and took a leaflet from the stand. Obviously not happy with the TPA exposing his councils waste he got together a gang of people, including some Lib Dems, and tried to cover up their waste by telling people that the TPA was spouting a load of nonsense. Charming.



Sonia from the Tax Payers Alliance is encouraging as many people as possible to join the TPA action team to help fight waste in local and national government. The TPA hope to do more campaign days across the country to highlight misuse of tax payers money. The 'War on Waste' starts now.


*This is not to say that all council waste is created by Labour but that all Labour run councils waste money. I have yet to see an example where this is not true.

Tuesday 15 April 2014

Notes From A Young Fogey


I am doing a plug for my friend Joe who I debate with on the Big Picture. He has started a blog called Notes From a Young Fogey which I quite like and think you should add to your bed time reading list along with the Road to Serfdom. Joe is a proper conservative, which is code for he is the love child of Peter Hitchens and Simon Heffer (not that they would agree with that sort of thing).



Notes From a Young Fogey is most definitely worth a read. I'm looking forward to more blog posts from the Joe hopefully with a more patriotic middle England spirit.

Canvassing in Newton



Today I went out with a group of local Conservatives to canvass for my friend Sam Clark who is standing as a candidate in the Roman Bank by-election. She hopes that the people of Leverington, Newton, Tydd St Giles, Foul Anchor, Tydd Gote, Gorefield and Four Gotes (yes that is a lot of villages) put their faith in her to become the District councillor for the area. It was a lovely day and we had an equally good response from the people we spoke to.

Sam with Cllr Steve Tierney in Newton.


The team split up into half with myself, Sam and my Cllr Steve Tierney canvassing in Newton whilst the others leafleted Tydd St Giles. Newton is a lovely village with some equally great people. They also all know Sam. Seriously, I knocked on so many doors today and virtually all of them knew who she was. Sam is a resident of Newton and also a parish councillor. Sam also organises lots of the villages events and helps people in the community with her job as a carer. It's no wonder why she is very well known then. Sam is also very well known in the surrounding villages for her community efforts. She is a real champion of the people and does a lot for them. Just think about all the other things she could do if she was elected as a Fenland District Councillor.



As you can probably can guess, we got a very good response  on the doors. People are very keen to vote for Sam and the Conservatives, which is always good to see. The leafleters also had a very good day doing a large portion of the ward. All in all we probably canvassed 1/5 of the ward and leafleted 1/4 too. A very successfully day. But we will not stop until all the votes are in and Sam has hopefully been elected to serve.

Residents of Roman Bank please vote for Sam Clark on the 8th May. She is a local champion who will help sort your issues.

Saturday 12 April 2014

Euro Action Day In Wollaton


For the last few weeks the Nottingham Conservatives have been out every Saturday in Wollaton canvassing local opinions with residents' surveys (sadly I have been too busy the last few weekends to help until today). However this Saturday was slightly different as we combined our normal survey about local issues with a message concerning the European Elections on May 22nd. To defend the national interest and to Let Britain Decide, vote Conservative for the Euros.

Getting ready to set off.

We had a fair number of activists out, some coming later in the day, ready to get listen to the problems and concerns of the good people of Wollaton. Also there was Jane Hunt the Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Nottingham South. Jane is a really lovely lady and had a very successful time in picking up complaints she will try to sort on the door. 

Jane off to meet some more residents.

There were a number of issues in Wollaton that were raised by residents. One that kept cropping up was state of the pavements and roads. One lady told me she had been living in Wollaton for 42 years and in that time the roads have not been properly resurfaced at all. In my opinion that is an unacceptable amount of time. The problem with actually getting a mass repair of pavements and roads in Wollaton is that the council for a long period have refused consistently to give a lot of money to this project. A few areas have been patched up by the local Conservative councillors with a small pot of money they have, but it is clearly not enough. I have no idea why the council have not been so unhelpful. Some residents told me they were biased against Wollaton. I hope this is not true, it would seem a unfair.

Brendan and his jacket outside the Hemlock Stone and Dragon Pub.

We were later joined by Brendan Clarke Smith, the 5th Conservative MEP candidate on the list for the East Midlands. Brendan is the local Nottingham candidate for the Euros. He lives in Clifton, where he has been a councillor for some time in the past, and is a teacher of politics at a secondary school. Brendan turned up to help in the afternoon, wearing a very 1980s pastel green jacket, after helping Ken Clarke MP in the morning. Ken had been campaigning with Brendan in Rushcliffe on a street stall. There seems to have been a lot of Euro Election campaigning across the country by the Conservatives today. I hope the British public will listen and vote wisely taking into consideration that it is only the Conservatives that will Let Britain Decide over Europe on May 22nd.



There was another prominent local Conservative out in Wollaton too. We were joined by Cllr Roger Steel from Clifton North who always works very hard for Wilford, Silverdale, the Grove and the northern part of the Clifton estate. Roger took some time out from helping his constituents to aid his Conservative friends in Wollaton today. I think it's good to see the local Conservatives working together.  

Jane with Clifton North councillor, Roger Steel.

Another new member of the team was Ifte. He has recently joined the Conservatives and is very keen to help us get a majority government. He has told me he was persuaded to help the Conservatives because of Dave's long term economic plan*. He seriously wants to defend our strong economy as its the only way for people, especially the young, to get back into employment.

Jane and Ifte.

People of Wollaton please vote for the Conservatives and an EU Referendum in the European Elections on May 22nd.


*I hope you're happy Lynton with that line drop, although Ifte genuinely joined the Conservatives for Dave's good economic handling.

Friday 11 April 2014

Up Sajid Javid

Up Sajid Javid a real success story. His father was a bus a driver. He then studied hard at school leading him to get a place at the University of Exeter. Javid then became a banker where eventually he earned £3 million a year. He then decided to become a public servant by taking a huge pay cut to become the MP for Bromsgrove. Now he has finally joined the Cabinet the first Asian ever to do so and first person from the 2010 intake. Up Sajid Javid, a true Thatcherite success story.