Unfair banking charges!

You would think that someone would be able to manage their finances on £104,000 a year, particularly when also receiving a lavish expense account on top of that.

Not so for Jane Kennedy, ex Financial Secretary to the Treasury, whose own financial management was so poor that she apparently exceeded her overdraft limit.

Shamelessly, she then tried to claim her interest and banking charges on her expenses - Not just once, but in August, September, November and December last year.

And when they were refused, she sent back terse notes on the claim form, telling the fees office that they should pay up because it was their fault she was overdrawn, as they had been late paying her previous month's expenses.

Is there any limit to the greed and brazen arrogance of Labour MPs?

And is it any wonder the nation's finances are such a mess, when they were being managed by someone who couldn't keep her own finances in the black while earning four times the average wage of her constituents?

But Scousers are nothing if not generous, I'm sure if she had let us all know that things were that tight for her, we would have had a whip round.

YOUR money for HER life

So people say that MPs have become the modern day highway men, but their latest trick to emerge is to take your money for their life insurance.

High on the list seems to be Wavertree's Jane Kennedy, who already announced she was standing down because of the fall out from the expenses scandal.

In June the Fees Office sent her this letter telling her that they could no longer pay for her life insurance cover with Barclays, at £7.50 a month.

But can someone tell me why the taxpayer was ever footing the bill for this? It was hardly a second home expense. Did she give this to herself as part of her employment incentive package?

Perhaps she regarded it as danger money, after she found herself without the 24 hour protection from Special Branch when she ceased to be a Northern Island Minister?

Stand and deliver!

Billy Clein

It's often been said that the Clein party is the third largest group on the council, and we may have just found another of them.

Perhaps it is just the beard? But there is certainly more than just a passing resemblance between these two?

Behind the times

As you know I regularly trawl the web looking for juicy titbits to offer you, my lovely readers, with news, gossip and entertainment that you may have missed.

Not surprisingly, I don't check the irrelevant Liverpool Censervative website very frequently, and clearly nether do they.

Any Conservative voter wanting to know how their campaign in Liverpool is going, can check their site here, and you will be pleased to know that "The City of Liverpool Conservatives' campaign for the May 2008 Local Elections is now in full swing with a programme of canvassing and leafleting well underway."

So how does that work then?

Ding Dong! "Good evening madam, I was your conservative candidate in last year's local elections. I was wondering if I could have been able to count on your support? Oh, OK you're still thinking about it. Well don't forget, the polling station closed at 10pm, 588 days ago."

Give them another five years and they will be looking forward to increasing their share of the vote in the 2010 General Election.

We've all been BANNED

Davey B was chasing his tail with joy last week at news that his blog has apparently been banned by Liverpool Direct (although my Council sources tell me it hasn't been blocked from any computers in the Municipal Buildings or local libraries).

Meanwhile, I conducted one of my regular checks on local MP's websites, only to find that Garston's Maria Eagle appears to have banned the entire city from accessing her site.

I assumed it was a temporary problem, but having tried every day for over a week all I can get are imposing FORBIDDEN messages and news that I "don't have permission to access this site."

You would think that this close to a General Election an MP wouldn't be so shy about promoting herself.

Unless of course she is about to announce she is standing down to spend more time in her lavish new £7,140 bathroom, part funded by the taxpayer before she flipped her second home allowance back to her London flat?

Talk about "splashing out" at our expense.

So far she has been allowed to get away with it, remaining, ironically a Justice Minister!!!

Party Season

It's that time of year again, with everyone having to worry about Christmas cards, presents, the office party, it's just a ceaseless round.

I enjoy a good office Christmas party, think of all those cocktail sausages and sausage rolls.

However those nice Liberal Democrats have taken the time to help organise a Christmas party for pensioners, and Wavertree's next member of parliament is dropping in to lend a hand as he does the usual MP's round of community fun days, village fetes and sheltered housing visits.

Yet one cheeky group of pensioners in Kensington recently invited Colin along to their party, but asked he could attend as their male stripper!

He agreed to attend, but (un)fortunately a sense of decorum prevented him agreeing to provide them with their raunchy entertainment. So Colin won't be doing the dance of the seven towels any time soon.

Another Labour selection row

Labour is facing another neopotism row over attempts to impose another young female candidate with family connections to Gordon Brown on a constituency party.

Helen Holt has pulled out out of the contest for the Sherwood constituency in Nottinghamshire , claiming that the selection process has been skewed in favour of the fiancée of a close aide Brown.

Telling The Times that she believes she has been the victim of dirty tricks by supporters of Emilie Oldknow, girlfriend to Brown’s political secretary.

“I feel I have been totally stitched up. My face does not fit. I believe I am being used in a process that from the outside looks fair but is a way of parachuting a candidate into the position because she has family links to Gordon Brown,” she said.

A similar case happened earlier this year when the leadership attempt to place the 22-year-old daughter of Blair's favorate advisor Philip Gould in the safe seat of Erith and Thamesmead.

Of course, it couldn't happen here.

The very idea that a Labour selection process in Liverpool could be rigged to favour a young woman because she has links with a Labour leader is, well, completely unthinkable.

Roy Rosie Brown

Another one sent in by a reader in West Derby. Personally I think this one is a bit too cruel. But I'm sure Mr Brown is used to being insulted.

Feline lookalike

I know it's not Monday, but I couldn't wait that long to show you feline Hitler lookalike that one of my regular contributors saw while delivering.

Most stupid statement ever

No it isn't! No it isn't! No it isn't! No it isn't! No it isn't! Got the message yet you stupid mutt?

Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.

Under cover campaigner

Ornithologists have been reporting that global warming has affected bird migration and we are seeing our feathered friends venturing much further north than ever before.

One ambitious little bird, deeply rooted in the south, was spotted hundreds of miles from home in Wavertree last weekend.

The frequently spotted Berger was seen dashing about the constituency in a rushed attempt to raise her profile before she lands in front of a selection panel in January.

All of this is very hush hush of course. There has been no mention of this in her blog or any of the leaflets going out with her name on in London.

It wouldn't do to alert the voters of her safe ward in Camden that she wants to abandon them, before they have even had a chance to vote for her. People might actually question her loyalty and commitment.

They might feel hurt, they might feel betrayed, they might not care. But it seems that the highly ambitious Luciana is quite prepared to land an enormous bird dropping on her colleagues in St Pancras & Somers Town Ward, and the residents she claims to be committed to fighting for.

Perhaps therein lies a warning for her new colleagues in Liverpool and her prospective electorate oop north.

The clock is ticking

Eyebrows have been raised at the news that Labour won't even decide the process for selecting a candidate for Wavertree or Sefton Central until the 17th December, meaning that Labour still won't have a candidate until well in to the New Year - possibly as late as February.

OK so Gordon has until June to hold an election, but with increasing rumours of an election being called in March they could be said to be cutting it a bit fine.

Of course, conspiracy theorists within Labour are starting to suspect another motive. The closer the selection process is left before the election, the easier it is to impose a candidate from London on the local party.

That's democracy - Labour style.

A tale of two tashes

At the risk of ending up with guacamole on my face, I found a strong similarity between these two moustached individuals, when digging through my archives the other day.

Yes this is the fourth of my promised Lord Mayor lookalikes and the de-facto Prime Minister (the only title he hasn't actually got)who according to legend mistook mushy peas in a Hartlepool chip shop for an avocado-based dip.


The biggest difference of course is that Paul Clark is a winner, not a spinner!

Follow The Dude

I was rather shocked when I sneaked into the cinema last week.

Before the big picture, we were presented with the following short film encouraging you all to live more like me.

I would have fallen off my seat if I hadn't actually been laying under it!

Serial Loser

Winter's tail

Trotting down Edge Lane the other day I got a text message inviting me to the preview of the excellent Go Penguins exhibition.

It really is all very exciting and good to see that so many local school children have got involved with the project.

I am looking forward to trotting round town to see them on public display, but these three chaps agreed to be photographed with me while still in "cold storage" so to speak.

They were very friendly and certainly well worth a visit.

You can download a copy of the penguin trail map here.

Shutting up shop

We keep hearing rumours that Labour have all but given up on Wavertree, well this could be the proof.

Thanks to one regular reader who send in this photo last week of Labour HQ on Prescott Road, with a For Rent sign outside.

Office space and print room to let? Available from May 2010.
For reasons not entirely clear, Gravy Train Jane rents this office from the owners of Liver Launderettes and, of course, charges this to her expenses.

Of course that this is also Labour's campaign office for the city, complete with taxpayer funded risograph printing press and phone bank (naughty naughty) so the loss of this facility will surely hit Labour hard after the election.

Maybe Lib Dem Colin will put in an offer to house his new office?

Goldringer

I have really really got to stop people sending their own lookalikes in. This week's posting is really starting to stretch the imagination.

A few weeks ago Labour deputy Paul Brant paid for a lavish 007 themed 40th birthday party for himself, hiring the Mersey Ferry for the evening.

How much it cost, we may never know. But perhaps all the money Paul saved over the years by misusing his council parking pass will have helped lessen the wear on his bank balance.

As the night wore on one guest, by this time rather drunk, was actually willing to mistake these two characters for Labour councillors.

A slap in the face

Long serving Labour party members where left seething and insulted after Lou-Bo and Gravy Train Jane invited an "intimate" group to hear David Mili-bland in a meeting at the Devonshire Hotel.

The first most Labour members heard about this was on Dale Street Blues where Mr Bartlett picked up on this secret meeting after my blogging nemesis "bragged about it on her blog," and hailed the availability of FREE tea and biscuits.

Bartlett's blog is now full of comments from angry Labour members who felt they had been slapped in the face by their own party.

Lou Bo, desperate to undo the damage, then claimed every Labour member in the North West had been invited by e-mail. Only for Labour members to respond, "oh no we haven't!"

One member, who was important enough to be invited, tried to defend the decison saying, "Foreign Sec's visits can't be too highly publicised as he needs added security".

So never mind chaps, your only good enough to go out delivering in the rain and the snow. They couldn't invite you because you might be "a security risk."

Go stuff some more envelopes, do some more canvassing, and you might get invited to have a mince pie with Joe Anderson.

While he was here, Bland (who is not a Mili) praised our very own Gravy Train Jane as the saviour of the Labour Party.

Apparently this upstanding woman who, we are told (mainly by her), almost single handedly fought Militant in Liverpool, is the same lady who claims she is quitting politics because those nasty Lib Dems make fun of her expenses.

Ah didums!

Labour thow in the towel

Prospective Labour candidates eyeing up Gravy Train Jane's seat might think twice after reading this article in The Times.

Labour is now so strapped for cash, and so certain of defeat, they are writing off 60 seats where they currently have MPs.

Seats with majorities of 3000 or less face being cut off completely, while others with larger majorities are being made to show evidence of campaigning in order to stand a chance of getting funding.

Meanwhile Labour MPs are complaining about being "fobbed off" with DIY tool kits and three quarters of Labour's 80 seat phone bank is lying empty, as the party has only funds to staff 20 phone lines. "Drastic cut backs" are being made as expected donations "fail to materialise."

It all begs the question if Liverpool Wavertree, notional majority of 3038, has escaped this list?

There has been little evidence of campaigning over the past 4 1/2 years apart from what can be paid for on Jane's taxpayer funded "Communications Allowance". Are the extra 38 votes really enough to save this seat for Labour?

Surprise Berger bash attendance

Odds have shortened on the surprise potential candidate for Wavertree, Luciana Berger, who was spotted sitting next to MP Jane Kennedy at a Labour fundraising dinner at the Devonshire Hotel last week.

Was this a trip to case out the constituency? With this probably being her first visit to Liverpool, it would be interesting to know her impressions.

Jane's obvious favouritism is believed to be causing some annoyance amongst other potential candidates, some of whom have been working with JFK for years.

"We've given up"

With all the current excitement I forgot to tell you all about my recent trip to London.

I popped into a meeting of the Improvement and Development Agency, just to find out what was going on.

From my vantage point under the buffet table I was astonished to spot two vaguely familiar faces, who looked amazingly like councillors Jim Knokes and Claire Wilner, discussing Labour's chances in Wavertree with another councillor.

"We've all but given up holding Wavertree," they said!

Come on, where's your fighting spirit?

Cats and Dogs

Another lookalike send in by a regular reader. Two campaigners on the Liberal-left.

Actress Susan Sarandon campaigned against the war and is a UN goodwill ambassador but I best remember her as the voiceover of Ivy, the stray Saluki, in the film Cats and Dogs. She was really hot!

My fellow blogger, university lecturer and former Journalist Paula Keaveney however is apparently more of a cat person. But I won't hold that against her.

Who would pay for a website like this?

Take a look at Peter Kilfoyle's website.

I know what you're thinking. A rather quaint website from the early 90's that someone forgot to close down? Wrong! It appears to have been created in 2008...yes 2008!

Incredibly he paid £176.25 for this (on expenses of course!) Quite possibly the worst website of the century. Someone saw him coming.

Kilfoyle's Blackwash

Like Jane Kennedy, Peter Kilfoyle is another expert in the art of "blackwashing" receipts.

See if you can learn anything from this one?Thought not. You have to wonder what it is they are so ashamed of?

Keep it in the party?

While the spotlight is on Peter Kilfoyle, I though I should have a look at his expenses.

Under his "communications allowance" we see a £312.50 invoice for the delivery of 5000 leaflets on 25th March 2008.

"£62.50 per thousand? That's a bit steep," I hear you say. Well yes it is, particularly when Trinity Mirror was charging him £17.70 per thousand to deliver the same leaflet in the rest of his constituency.

The invoice was from Breckfield and North Everton Neighbourhood Council Ltd, which has one former Labour leader of the council on the payroll and has another Labour councillor on the board.

Was this declared anywhere?

Keep it in the family

Peter Kilfoyle is under investigation for allegedly paying his daughter taxpayers money to produce an "Independent Report" supposedly proving the need for an elected mayor in Liverpool.

The report goes on to complain about "conflict of interests" and claim there is a "closed and incestuous shop". Would that be the same store you went to for your research Peter?

That anyone could be so stupid to try this on in normal times would be bad enough, but in the current expenses climate anyone with two brain cells to rub together would have realised how this would rightly blow up in your face.

As Joe The Pitbull would say, he should resign or be sacked by his party.

The arrogance of a safe seat perhaps made him think he could get away with it, but it could well mean another Labour held seat looking for a candidate in a few weeks.

Of course this leaves a dilemma for Steve Rotherham, Roz Gladden and others thinking of seeking selection for Wavertree. Why take on a seat you will probably lose, when a seat with a much larger majority might be just around the corner?

Three horse race

Despite Jane Kennedy declaring the "Two horse race" knackered and demanding the vets be called in to put the animal out of it's misery, its looking like there are only two or three serious candidates to replace her.

With a wafer thin majority and a new candidate faced with just 4 months to build a profile and catch up with 6 years of campaigning by Colin Eldridge, it's not expected that Labour will have people battering the door down to get selected. Not when there are safer seats going vacant elsewhere.

I have talked to Labour insiders over the past few days, and here are the odds for the most likely runners.

Roz (married to one of the militant 47) Gladden 4/6

Paul (parking pass abuser) Brant NON RUNNER

Steve (M'lord) Rotherham EVENS

Unknown outsider imposed from London 10/11

Malcolm (ex husband) Kennedy 14/1

Joe (The Pitbull) Anderson NON RUNNER

Anna Rothery 16/1

Liam (St Annes) Robinson 18/1

Luciana (Euan Blair's ex girlfriend) Berger 20/1

Ollie (Boot Camp) Martins 22/1

Nick (Twice Monthly) Small 35/1

Wendy (Pussy Galore) Simon 44/1

Susan (Sue-Bo) Boyle 60/1

Louise (Gratuitously Offensive) Baldock 100/1 outsider

__________UPDATE___________

There has been widespread disappointment (in the Lib Dem camp) as Louise Baldock has announced she will not run. Instead she says she will be behind her candidate, kicking ass big style!!! Ouch!

Runaway Jane

As first suggested (exclusively) on Dude The Dog in August, Jane Kennedy is quitting parliament at the next election.

Among her stated reasons for quitting are the thought of a bitter contest to hold her seat, not wanting to be forced to give up her second (third?) home to live "in barracks", she added that not being allowed to employ her boyfriend after the election was also a factor.

Bizarrely she also claimed that she had tired of “highly personal attacks” from Liberal Democrats. I don't recall leaflets going out directly attacking her boyfriend. Only leaflets questioning her record as an MP and (very mild) questioning of her pay and expenses. In my book that's called public accountability.

Another factor must be the thought of having to dip into her own pocket for a very hard election campaign. Estranged from the leadership, with a tough battle ahead, and a party running on empty, she surely realised that she could count on little help from Labour nationally.

Tomorrow we will have a look at some of the runners and riders to replace her.

In the meantime, I offer her and her new puppy my sincere best wishes for their retirement. Hopefully her large severance payout (her third in as many years) and generous parliamentary pension will make the transition easier, and allow her to spend more time in her French villa.

Salute et encore merci pour le saucisses! Honnêtement, bonne chance et meilleurs vœux pour l'avenir!

Long arm of the law

Another lookalike has been sent in for your amusement, one used to be a law enforcer while the other was a law breaker.

Actor John Savident used to be a policeman before appearing in the cop show Z cars.

Joe Anderson however felt the other end of the long arm of the law, with his publicly self confessed "criminal record" for stealing cash from a parking meter, before later becoming a pub landlord. Yet legend has it that Joe's pub was a million miles away from the cosy Rovers Return.


Keep those lookalikes coming in!

Bonfire night

Bonfire night - not usually my favourite night of the year, although I understand the council have organised some great displays for humans to enjoy.

The loud banging doesn't bother me much, but I'm usually left to comfort friends who find the night too stressful.

Tonight I've been asked to look after my new neighbour Sandy, while his family host a bonfire party.

So yet again I have been using the Dude The Dog patented method of keeping canines calm and peaceful on the loudest night of the year.

And as a public service, Sandy has kindly agreed to have his picture published in the hope that other members of our species will benefit.

The train to nowhere

Now the dust has settled, I thought it was time for an in depth look at some of the individual details of local MPs expenses claims.

Part 1: The train to nowhere.

The idea of publishing expenses is to show that our MPs have nothing to hide. Obviously you would expect things like credit card numbers to be blanked out but Gravy-Train Jane's staff do seem to have gone mad with the marker pen.

Several train tickets such as the one below appear (bizarrely) under the "Communications Allowance" with such basic information as the date travelled, the destination, and even the point of origin blanked out.It's bad enough we don't know who was travelling (Gravy-Train Jane's boyfriend perhaps?) but to cover up the date and destination only adds to the suspicion.

I know train tickets are expensive, but a quick search on trainline shows an advance ticket for even a peak journey to London tomorrow can be had for far less than £82 - but surprisingly a single from Liverpool to Brighton can be had for that very price.

Was the journey for a member of staff to attend an important meeting in Westminster? Or was it for a dirty weekend in Brighton? We may never know.

Sausages and Gravy

Perhaps I misjudged Gravy-Train Jane?

In her latest appearance in parliament Jane Kennedy launched a scathing attack on vegetarianism and a brave defense of British Sausage Week - yes even I missed that one!

Rural Affairs debate 29th October: "May I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to reinforce what he said in the earlier part of Question Time by gently saying to Lord Stern that, during British sausage week, we celebrate a varied diet and the value that it brings; that it should be a question of "all things in moderation"; and that if it is being suggested that vegetarianism will save the world, I am not sure that it is a world in which I want to live?"

Well said Jane, this sausage eating canine salutes you. Although part of me wonders if this is just a cynical attempt to win over your greatest critic.

Gravy-Train Jane went on to attack ministers for their failure to tackle the nations badger menace, linking it into the rising number of farmer suicides. Another hot issue in Wavertree.

More bizarrely, a week earlier she claimed that "many ordinary people in Iran" have been e-mailing her to share their concerns about their country's nuclear programme.

Considering only 47 out of 129 of her constituents who used "writetothem" to contact Jane say that they even got a reply, why they would choose to write to her is anybody's guess.

Terror on fright night

Yet again the Echo have leapt to the defence of poor picked on Joe who was "attacked" by Graham Sankey on Halloween.

As Joe Anderson and his son cowered in terror within their locked car in a traffic jam, Joe was called an "F***ing Grass" and suffered two small dents to his car.

This must be the first time in history a small dent on a car has made it to the front page in such dramatic fashion.

Sankey has (rightly) been picked up and charged for denting Joe's car, but wouldn't it be nice if the rest of us could count on such police and media protection. Just ask anyone who received a car dent or an egg at the window over the weekend.

Meanwhile the Echo refuses to investigate why Joe (according to the Echo's own report) appears to have tipped off a fellow Labour councillor about a child porn investigation (following which hundreds of files were deleted from a computer the day before that councillor was arrested) won't report that Joe is being investigated for bullying a council employee, and for 8 years have flatly refused to print any letter or story criticising Joe Anderson.

Friends in high places?

Another Clein?

If times ever get hard for former Beatle and Thomas The Tank Engine voiceover Ringo Starr, he could always try his hand as a professional Eddie Clein lookalike.