"Frankly Mr Shankly, I've never heard of you!"

Luciana certainly had one of the worst first week's for any new parliamentary candidate in living memory.

However my favorite had to be the Echo local knowledge test in the Echo on Friday.

Luciana Berger takes Liverpool test

by Ben Schofield, Liverpool Echo

LUCIANA Berger was slammed by party colleague Peter Kilfoyle for not having enough local knowledge to represent voters in Wavertree.Leaping to her defence, a Labour official claimed everyone who had met her was 'impressed by her experience and local knowledge'.But not satisfied with that, the ECHO decided to test Ms Berger with a local quiz. The result: 'must try harder'.Here's what we asked and her answers.Who gave their name to Liverpool's airport?Answer: John LennonHow many Mersey tunnels are there?Answer: At least twoWho performed Ferry Cross the Mersey?Answer: I've no ideaWho was Bill Shankly?Answer: I don't know. On hearing who the Anfield legend was, she said: 'You can't ask a girl a football question.'Score: 2 out of 4

Well sister, you clearly ain't no Liverpool gal. Round these parts you're expected to know about such things.

So I will make you an offer. I will let you take me for a walk, and we can have a nice girlie chat.

I will tell you everything you need to know about Liverpool, such as the history of our 3 Mersey tunnels and I will give you the girl's guide to football - essential if you're going to survive here. And you can tell me all about Primrose Hill and why we should turn a blind eye to Israeli human rights abuses.

Speaking of which, I have been criticized for quoting the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, so for good measure here is a more mainstream article by the respected Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown on shadowy influence and LFI's role in dodgy fundraising. And another on Spinwatch.

Poor showing

I'm told that the greens on Wednesday night tried to introduce a pay cut for councillors who fail to attend 70% of their meetings.

This was roundly defeated, not least by aspiring Council leader Councillor Anderson who attended only 57% of his meetings in 6 months.

Ah wait, I hear you say.

A busy and important man like Councillor Anderson must have lots of meetings to attend, he can't be in two places at one!

Well, he has made a point on keeping his commitments to time consuming meetings to a minimum. Therefor he was only expected to attend 7 meetings, just over one a month. And yet he attended just 4 of them.

Is this the same man who wrote to an independent panel demanding a pay rise for himself? No wonder they rejected him saying he wasn't worth it!

And this is the same man who's big policy idea for the last election was to give himself £50,000 a year to run the council.

So how much is he worth? Well currently we pay him over £20,000 a year. So for the last 6 months he has been paid more than £2,500 per meeting.

Meanwhile, hats off to Lib Dem Malcom Kelly, who attended 64 out of his 70 meetings in the last 6 months. Now there is value for money.

Have a fun weekend, lots of love and licks,
Sally

Dude the Dog is in refusing to come out from behind the sofa.

Do the Tories even know where Liverpool is?

After continual reminders from Dude the Dog, the Tories have finally updated their website to bring it into the new decade.

No longer are they building up to the 2008 local election, instead they have woken up to the idea of there being another election in town.

So now they are up to date and know what they are doing, right?

Wrong. The website now proudly displays a list of photos of their new parliamentary candidates "for Liverpool".

Adam Marsden - Walton
Richard Downey - Garston & Halewood
Dr Kegang Wu - Liverpool Riverside
Cllr Pamela Hall - West Derby (surely not a Liverpool Councillor)
Sohail Qureshi - Bootle (eh?)
David Dunne - Knowsley (what?)

Bootle and Knowsley in Liverpool? Is this some Tory policy we don't know about yet? Or are the Tories so out of touch with cities like Liverpool that they don't know where the boundaries are?

And surely they have not forgoten about Alf Garnett standing in Wavertree? I understand it was only incorporated into the city of Liverpool in 1895, so we can't expect you to have caught up yet.

_________________________________________

Meanwhile, Wendy Simon was spotted on Matthew Street drowning her sorrows... her friend and supporter Cllr Baldock nowhere to be seen.

Dude the dog is still away, come back I need I.T support!

It's civil war

Luciana's first three days as a candidate haven't been happy ones.

Day 1: Roger Phillips show taken over by angry Labour voters who don't want an MP from London imposed upon them. Jane Kennedy forced to call in to defend Luciana's selection, admitting that she is a careerist politician and "highly ambitious for herself."

And spare a thought for poor Wendy, described as local mediocrity by a Wavertree Labour activist who phoned in to defend Luciana. And as a "Dismal Chump" by regular Labour poster Ronnie de Ramper.

Day 2. Daily Post headline Liverpool Labour infighting after 28-year-old candidate chosen for Wavertree

Peter Kilfoyle questioned her "outspoken views on Israel" and branded her "a student politician" - online readers fill comments section with more angry views.

Day 3. Joe Anderson forced to come to her defense in the Echo, suggesting Peter Kilfoyle was "past his sell by date". I can't see Peter letting you get away with that one Joe. Yet more Labour members join in to attack Kilfoyle, as Labour threaten to tear themselves apart. Oh yes this battle is going to run and run.

Meanwhile I found this from MPACUK - the UK's leading Muslim Civil Liberties group, who take a similar line to Kilfoyle.

Shocker as Labour Zionist Stands in Large Muslim Area

How many Muslims in Camden will vote blindly for the Labour Party this year? How many Muslims in Camden will vote for innocent Muslims in Palestine to be massacred? How many Muslims in Camden will vote for Israel to get away with whatever they please? Hopefully the answer to all three questions is none.

Luciana Berger is a well-known Zionist who has supported the cause of Israel for many years and is currently the director of Labour Friends of Israel. Moreover, on her website Ms Berger has, as one of her "favourite sites" the Neo-Cons at "Harry's Place", which currently has an article running saying "the Quran is a problem"

Imagine my surprise when I established that Ms Berger is the Labour Party candidate for next year's local elections in the London Borough of Camden, where she is standing in St Pancras and Sommers Town ward. According to the 2001 census the ward has a Muslim population of 22.9%. The Jewish population is 0.8%. What on earth was the Camden CLP thinking when it selected her and where were the Muslim members of that branch on the night of her selection?

Interestingly, the Camden Labour Party fails to mention the word Israel on their website when promoting Luciana Berger. Guess what they say? "Luciana is Director of an organisation concerned with Middle East Policy".

Let's hope all the Muslim organisations, community centres and Mosques in Camden have a healthy debate about the merits of being represented by the likes of "ambitious" Luciana Berger.

Will they won't now get a chance to vote against Luciana, but what will local groups such as the very active branch of the Stop The War coalition going to have to say?

The row shows no sign of dying down.

Dude the Dog is away, chasing sticks.

Overexcited

I was greeted yesterday morning with the disturbing sight of Labour students on heat following Luciana's appointment as their candidate for Wavertree.

I do hope someone has a bucket of water ready for when they try and start rubbing up and down her leg.

Just look at their facebook page here

"Liverpool Young Labour are itching with excitement as Luciana Berger is the PPC for Wavertree"

Seriously guys, you really need to get some cream for that. Perhaps Nurse Baldock will help rub it on for you.

Only a few days ago "Morticia" Berger (nice one Dude) was due to set pulses racing in Labour's safe Council Ward of Somers Town.

"I didn't know Liverpool had such a ward," I hear you say!

Of course it doesn't. This is Camden Town in London, where Luciana's pro Israeli activities failed to impress the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, issued a rallying call to the wards 23% Muslim population.

I'm sure she will get an equally warm welcome in Liverpool, with local people fighting amongst themselves at Lime Street on election morning to help her with carpet bag as she gets off the train.

Dude The Dog is away.

Seriously creepy Luciana

So now it is all over, and we know who will be the second place candidate in Wavertree at the General Election.

So thanks to the reader who sent me this seriously creepy lookalike of the vampish Luciana, who is no doubt hoping to follow in the footsteps of her mentor Jane Kennedy, and become a Health Minister...if only to get control of our blood banks.
Shockingly, Uncle Fester is supporting her opponent, surely this has got to be causing some family ructions?

But have a look at the video and see what other Labour family members you can spot?

Yipeeeee!

What great news, it's Berger after all!

As you would expect, I'm particularly fond of a Burger, so I'm very pleased that one has been selected for Liverpool Wavertree.

There was a brief scary period when even I thought Ms Berger might not get in, despite being the sole Luciana on the Luciana only shortlist!

The thought of having to find anything interesting to say about monochrome Wendy was too hideous to contemplate. To be honest, I had already decided to hang up my collar and lead and stop blogging if Wendy was selected - there is that little worth saying to her.

Now you can rest assured I will carry on with gusto and you can look forward to weeks of juicy Luciana revelations to keep you in stitches.

It's time for a lookalike methinks... come back tomorrow and all will be revealed. Let the game commence.

Publicity shy

So the Tories finally got round to selecting their candidates in Merseyside on Wednesday, and all appeared for a photo shoot alongside Chris Grayling.

All except one!

A certain Mr A Garnett, whose mugshot we are still waiting to see, and will be standing in Wavertree.

Now fair play to them, at least the Tories have a candidate in Wavertree, unlike Labour.

But you can't help thinking Alf has already decided that he's wasting his time, after all it isn't the same constituency that Randolph Churchill fought in the famous by-election.

The only question is, will he keep his deposit in the big squeeze?

Oh and their website still says that they are building up to the 2008 local election. Come on catch up, we're all waiting for you!

Ringing endorsement

It's been much commented on that Joe Anderson's Rose Party now like to pretend that they have nothing to do with the Labour Party nationally, except when they want to find a way to take the credit for those things the council does which are so great that even rent-a-rant Joe can't attack them.

However, Wendy Simon's endorsements page takes the dog biscuit.

The following is a genuine endorsement taken from http://www.wendysimonforwavertree.co.uk/we-want-wendy-for-wavertree/ from a Labour party member who I am told is a several times Labour candidate and close friend of former Labour minister Jane Kennedy.

Angela Glanville of Picton ward says
“I think Wendy is the best candidate for Wavertree because so many local people are disillusioned with our Labour Government and feel they are not addressing the real issues so many of us are facing.”

Well yes Angela, I'm sure there is nothing in that statement that anyone could disagree with. In fact I would go as far as to congratulate you on your honesty.

It still doesn't explain why we should have yet another Labour MP who will toe the party line and remain silent on the issues that matter to Liverpool.

Hardly a ringing endorsement, and somehow I doubt they will be putting that one on the election leaflets.

Really Wendy, is this the best you could get?

Making house calls

Ever since Sesame Street Bert banned council employees and members from visiting this site, I have been besieged with requests for an alternative way for you to pick up my little messages.

I am told I have regular readers amongst many councillors, senior officers, the "committee services" department and the press office. Many of whom are now deprived of my wit and wisdom.

So at last here are three solutions.

You can try using google reader, it's easy to set up an account if you haven't already got one. Then just click on to the "add a subscription" button at the top of the page and insert the code below:- http://dudethedog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

For the more technical among you, you can use that same code in any RSS feed program of your choice.

Finally, if the above is too complicated for you, drop me a line at dudethedog@playful.com and I can add you to my daily e-mail list, with my messages sent straight to your mailbox.

You can unsubscribe at any time by e-mailing me.

So never fear. If you can't get to Dude the Dog, Dude the Dog will come to you.

Impersonation

The blogsphere has been awash with rumours that my nemesis Louise (Lou-Bo) Baldock is throwing in the towel, started I have to admit, by a scurrilous visitor to your favourite blog site posing as the lady herself.

You will be as revealed as I am to here that these rumours are not true, and Ms Baldock does indeed intend to lose her seat in May at the ballot box... sorry that should have been fight!

The rumours were speared on by news that she is yet again being investigated by the standards committee for yet another foul mouthed outburst, this time in front of residents, as exclusively hinted at on these pages in the autumn.

You will remember how she was slated for referring to all Liberal Democrats as b*stards, so we can only guess how a second more serious offence will be dealt with.

I will end with a word to our mysterious commentator, I know you are reading.

Impersonation is never nice, it's not clever, and you have put a lot of people to unnecessary stress and worry.

You have let me down, you have let your own pets down, and most of all you have let yourself down. And when I find out who you are, you will be banned from this blog.

You have been warned!

Wendy gets serious

So Wendy has decided to stand, has twisted arms and now has the public backing of her ward colleagues.

So that you can better imagine her as an MP, this lookalike image has been provided.


And to prove that she is really a serious political heavy weight, she tells us that her favourite pass time is playing with her two kittens. Ahhh!

The question is, will this be enough to truly turn this into a two horse race against the lovely Lucy?

Know your ward

If there is one thing a councillor needs to remember before making a 13 second video about his or her ward, it's to get the name of the ward right.

Unfortunately, Princes Park's Anna Ruthery didn't follow this simple guide.

As the first candidate to announce her intention to seek the nomination for Labour's Wavertree PPC nomination (but also the first to withdraw) you would think this rule would be drummed into her.

Incompetent plotters

Sorry for the delay in today's post chaps and lady chaps, I didn't feel well this morning and was sick on the carpet. I knew I shouldn't have eaten that abandoned curry I found while out for my walk last night.

Which reminds me of another story I forgot to fetch for you.

It was little noticed that one of the Curry House plotters against Gordon Brown was none other than our very own Jane Kennedy, who's relationship with chief plotter Jeoff Hoon is well know.

As reported in the Grundian, in September Jane had been part of a plot to oust Brown, offering to run to be chair of the parliamentary party, but between her and the two other potential candidates they couldn't decide who would do it, and the plot fell apart.

Hoon then held back on criticising Brown, until he found out if Brown was going to give him a job he wanted.

Yet Jane stepped forward unto the breach to be part of the latest incompetent plot last week.

Surely this isn't the same Jane Kennedy who told Roger Phillips on 21st September that "the time has gone" to remove Gordon and that instead "for the sake of Liverpool, we have to persuade voters across Britain that it is worth sticking with Labour."

With Labour diving back in the polls again, it seems a funny way of doing that.

A complete Pilnick

Since I posted the picture of the unidentified young man schmoozing in a wine bar with the lovely Luciana, many of you have come forward to identify him as Kevin Pilnick, who is running her campaign.

For a council employee, he does seem to enjoy having a high profile in political circles, as you can see here.



One wonders why he doesn't run for office himself, unless of course he is this Kevin Pilnick, also of West Derby, that appeared before Liverpool County Court in 2008.

Public service

I know that local councillors are often called upon to do duties way beyond their job description. But this one seems way and beyond the call of duty.

One of my rival bloggers and occasional commentator on this site, Professor Chucklebutty, spotted Colin Eldridge and team out with shovels on Allerton Road in south Liverpool over the weekend.

What was he doing? Clearing ice off the pavement so that local pensioners could get to the shops.

Now that is what I call public service! And I found the following photo yesterday on Dale Street Blues.
I have to ask, were Luciana and Wendy out hacking back the ice this weekend, or where they at home in front of the fire, playing with kittens?

3 star Hilton

OK he's not a politician, but he's paid almost 20 times more than the average councillor, and the public don't get a chance to get rid of him every four years.

Yes it's Dale Street's very own 3 star Hilton who, I am told, has a more than passing resemblance to Bert, the boring, pigeon fancying, paper clip collecting resident of Sesame Street.


Unfortunately Colin won't be able to see this lookalike as he has banned your faithful canine correspondent from all council premises, meaning that Bert won't be able to access this from his local library either.

But to show there are no hard feelings, I have decided to promote Colin's latest music video on this site for your entertainment.

Quietly plotting

Since the Luciana only short-list was announced, Wendy Simon has made a big splash of her bid with her campaign website at http://www.wendysimonforwavertree.co.uk, complete with heart warming tales of how her hobbies include playing with kittens, ahhh!

Meanwhile Luciana's campaign, unofficially backed by Jane Kennedy, has been continuing rather quietly, so quietly that her prospective constituents in Camden still have no idea that she plans to abandon them.

So thank you to one of my regular readers who obtained secret footage of Luciana and a male friend plotting in a dark corner of a wine bar in Mossley Hill.


The romantically inclined of you however, might just assume that this handsom young beaux is her replacement for Euan Blair!

Meanwhile, many questions have been raised as to why only two people are interested in a seat that has a sitting Labour MP.

"Ah", we are told by Labour insiders. "There there are better seats in the region that are attracting more interest, such as Wigan and Ashton in Makerfield."

What do they mean by "better?" Is Liverpool so hated by prospective Labour candidates as a potential place to live and represent? Or do they mean that Labour's approved candidates simply have written off Wavertree as a seat that Labour have any realistic chance of holding at the next election?

Free publicity

You've got to wonder who came up with the Green campaign strategy.

Their entire campaign now seems to be devoted to chasing their own tails as they seek to rebut Lib Dem leaflets, but is reprinting everything your opponent says about you really the best way?

For instance, until I checked their website and saw a reprint of this very funny postcard delivered to St Michaels Ward, I was unaware that their loony leader had said that families who jet off on holiday are as bad as criminals who stab people in the street.You would really want to keep such things quiet rather than rebroadcast it to everyone who missed it the first time round.

And I'm told there was even more fun at last month's council meeting, with Cllr Coyne demanding that the leader of the council notifies him every time he meets people in his ward.

Considering Warren is a firefighter for the area, I do hope he will be ringing Cllr Coyne at 2am to invite him along to emergency call outs.

Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way

I am told that in years gone by, a certain lady called Barbara Woodhouse regularly graced our television screens, teaching viewers how to train and control unruly dogs.

Unfortunately this training wasn't passed on to one badly behaved Labour pooch in the north of the city who, I am told, has had his collar felt for assault.

Surely Joe Anderson wouldn't tolerate another candidate with a criminal record?

Chip off the old block

As if Joe Ando's tall stories weren't bad enough, we now have a Jo Anderson standing for Labour in Old Swan.

Yes, you guessed it. Jo is the daughter of Joe and seems to have the same problem as her father when it comes to getting facts straight.

Jo-Do seems to believe that those nasty Lib Dems are cutting fire engines at Old Swan fire station, ignoring the small detail that Merseyside Fire Authority is actually run by Labour and Tory Councillors.

So while her dad's colleagues vote to cut fire engines, she gets overheated pretending to be single handedly fighting to get the fire engines back.

Councillor Evil

He has an evil plot to take over the city and give himself a massive pay rise.

Liverpool will be held to ransom, council tax will go through the roof and jobs and investment will flee, just like last time his henchmen were in charge.

Of course, when it all goes wrong he has his escape plan in place. BSE (Blame Someone Else!)