Luciana's broken promises

I was stopped in the street the other day by a total stranger who recognized me from this blog. He berated me for letter Luciana get off the hook for breaking one of her campaign pledges.

Apparently, and I must have missed this, Luciana publicly pledged at various hustings meetings during the election that she would just concentrate on being Wavertree's MP. She wouldn't be taking on any portfolio or doing outside jobs.

So how does she square that with being made Shadow Climate Change spokesman as part of her reward for backing the right Rubberband? Or her lucrative writing for public relations magazines and survey filling.

A broken promise, absolutely. 100% commitment to Wavertree, well as one would have been candidate for the seat would say, "My Ar$*"

Luciana & the landlord

Rich friends are always helpful in politics, even if you sometimes have to hold your nose while trowsering their cash. Just watch out when they come back to you after the election though.

Joe Anderson has run a very successful line in taking cash of private developers, and not worrying too much about what they might expect in return for greasing your way into power.

Luciana too is not afraid to accept money from friends with interesting reputations.

Private Landlord Anwar Ansari handed over £4000 to help fund Luciana, despite his involvement in a major donations scandal in 2008 when he helped fund Alan Johnson's bid to be Labour deputy leader, as reported by those well known Tory rags, the Daily Mirror and the Grundian.

According to reports, a penniless migrant who arrived on a student visa, Waseem Siddiqui, handed over thousands to Johnson's campaign despite not knowing who the now Shadow Chancellor was. He later admitted that he was acting as a proxy. Purely by coincidence Mr Siddiqui's landlord just happened to be one Anwar Ansari.

This isn't the first time Mr Ansari has been caught in controversy. In 2006 he was selected to be a Labour candidate in Croydon's council elections. Mysteriously he was vetoed as a candidate by Labour's ruling NEC. No explanation has ever been given but Labour insiders suggested to the Mirror that a person's fitness for office was a possible reason for the NEC taking this unusual step.

Neither has there been any explanation as to why Mr Ansari should choose to donate to a candidate standing so far away from Croydon.

In what we are sure is another astonishing coincidence, an Anwar Ansari has submitted a number of controversial planning applications (including one for a 63 bed hostel) in Liverpool that have been refused.

By yet further coincidence, someone by the same name has also got property and planning application interests in Greater Manchester, where Mr Ansari also happens to spread his benevolence towards the Labour party.

Isn't it amazing the sort of coincidences that can be found when one spends a few minutes researching on the internet? It's a pity Liverpool hasn't got any investigative journalists, instead of leaving it to a poor old border collie to dig up the dirt.

Oh and proving she hasn't given up her Camden links, another major donor to Luciana's campaign was Baron Mitchel of... Camden. You couldn't make it up.

Joe Who?

More news from China, and Liverpool's disastrous £380,000 Liverpool day.

A major cock up on the communications front meant that many of the invited chinese bigwigs where unaware that Joe Anderson was leader of the council. Joe Who they asked, as they binned their invitations, deciding not to waste their time listening to anyone other than Warren Bradley!

Further damage was done to Liverpool's reputation, after Anderson broke with protocol and pushed in to speak before local civic dignitaries and then gave a dismal speech made without once looking up from his notes.

In what was perceived as a further snub, Anderson also used his time there to attempt to court a rival chinese city, a move widely seen as rude and disloyal towards his hosts and our twin city.

In the words of one officer speaking on condition of anonymity, "It was a diplomatic disaster! One visit (by Joe Anderson) has wrecked much of the goodwill built up during the rest of the Shanghai expo."

So another fine investment by Labour then!

Perhaps Joe should have watched some of those HSBC adverts demonstrating how a little local knowledge, and respect for local culture and etiquette, can stop you looking like a complete arse.

Joe picks Manc champ

Despite a flourishing Liverpool Chinese community and the oldest Chinatown in Britain, Joe Anderson drove up the M62 to find a champion for Liverpool's Chinese business community.

Appointing Dr Lee Kai Hung, who is Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, Joe outraged many in the city's chinese community, many of whom are based in his own ward, after he failed to consult with them before picking Dr Hung to be their champion.

Purely by coincidence, Dr Lee Kai Hung is founder of Leepark Properties Ltd, who have been a major donor to the Manchester Labour Party this year, in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Lib Dem MP John Leech.

Is Joe now courting Dr Hung to become part of his growing portfolio of property developers that have been bankrolling the local Labour party?

‘Surely the rich have suffered enough?’

While the coalition are at least working to make sure the pain of clearing up Labour's economic mess is shared out (such as the latest £10bn tax haul from Brits with Swiss bank accounts), a telling line from the Labour-Lib Dem negotiations in May shows us the rich would have got off lightly if Labour were trying to fix the economy.

An outraged Mr Balls, objecting to nasty Lib Dem plans to cut taxes for the low paid, raise pensions and introduce a pupil premium argued 'We have all these expensive Lib Dem pledges,' said Balls, 'but how do we fund them, and cut the deficit?'

Lib Dem David Laws then explained: 'Look, Ed, as you know we are proposing that the higher personal allowance is funded by progressive tax reforms of the type I would have thought Labour would support - higher capital gains tax, a new mansion tax and reform of pensions taxation.'

An outraged Peter Mandelson spluttered, 'Surely the rich have suffered enough?'

So there we have it. A 4th term Labour government would have been too frighted of upsetting their rich friends, do nothing for the poorest in the nation, and leave everyone in between to pick up the tab for the financial mess.

In fact the only financial concession made was by Ed (tea-boy) Rubberband who stumped up for tea and pastries.

Amazingly, even the Tories were more willing to tax the rich and ease the burden on the poorest in society. And so children, that is how all the left wing policies that Labour refused to consider, found their way into government policy.

And we are all still waiting to see how Labour would propose cutting the deficit, while making cuts that didn't really hurt anyone, least of all the rich.

Greedy mini-Joe

In taking on his new role as "people and organisational change champion", Joe Anderson's right hand man and "enforcer" mini-Joe Hanson has been awarded a £6,500 Champion Allowance.

Apparently his role involved many arduous meetings with unions, although how much of that is truly Council business instead of Labour party business? And if the job is to lighten Anderson's load, shouldn't the swag come from the pile big Joe has grabbed for himself?

I have since been passed some interesting information that will surprise many of the Labour councillors who voted for Hanson's handsome pay out.

It seems that, despite claims that this new champion role has become a full time job for mini-Joe, he claims FIVE salaries from council tax payers!

£10,000 as an ordinary councillor

£5,600 to represent Liverpool on Merseytravel

£4,500 as chairman of a Merseytravel committee

£3,600 as deputy chairman of another merseytravel committee

and now a £6500 Champion payout.

Making a grand total of over £30,000 a year, on top of his Jaguar pension.

I'm sure Joe thinks his pay rise is "champion" as they say in Yorkshire, but will that view be shared by day centre staff soon to face the sack? Or the many Labour backbench councillors kept in the dark and on a shoestring?

All he wants is a little respect!

Don Anderson has been working hard to cement his position as head of the Labour Mafia in Liverpool.

Already proving himself to be "untouchable" after he escaped investigation for apparently (according to the Echo) tipping off Labour councillor Ben Williams about a child porn investigation, allowing 207 files to be deleted before the cops arrived.

Now he's bullied the police into dropping charges of using a mobile phone while driving with claims that our hard pressed police made it up and were prepared to lie in court - well it's hardly a charge of tax evasion, but it would have done for starters!

Last night, I'm told, he stood up in the council chamber and publicly threatened the inoffensive and universally popular councillor Pat Moloney, with a warning that he would "see him on the streets later!"

I believe a police report may be pending, but will untouchable Don Joe have his collar felt?

Meanwhile I fear for my former pal Dude, lured over to the dark side after Don Joe made him an offer he couldn't refuse, he recently confided in me that he's been questioning his decision to jump into bed with the Labour Mafia.

Now no one seems to have seen him for the past few days and I am starting to fear that he might have received two pairs of concrete paws from his new colleagues.

If anyone out there has seen or heard anything, please let me know as we are all worried about him.

Save our jobs

Lovely Luciana and our other courageous Labour MPs voted to spare themselves from a "vicious cut" that would reduce the number of MPs by 50!

Critics say that MPs shouldn't be spared when everyone else is facing cuts, but surely we need more MPs not less. Liverpool MPs wouldn't be able to cope with anymore workload, and have effectively already suffered a massive pay cut now they can't claim for food or speculate in property at the taxpayer's expense.

After all, MPs like Luciana are now having to fill in surveys to raise extra cash, as Sally rather unfairly pointed out.

Worse still, Luciana could be the one to who faces the sack. Under the plans Liverpool is likely to lose one MP, and just a glance at the city's political map shows that Luciana is the obvious "piggy in the middle". Will any of the other four be willing to walk the plank for her?

Now I'm going to get myself a banner and protest. Save our MPs!!!

At last! One Labour liar gets caught out

It couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke, well perhaps Joe Anderson, but a senior Labour minister has been found guilty of spreading lies and racial hatred in a bid to hold on to his seat.

Phil Woolas will now be booted (we can only hope literally) out of parliament and face a massive legal bill, thanks to a campaign described by his own campaign team as designed to get white working class sun readers angry.

It clearly throws into doubt the judgement of Ed Rubberband for making him a Shadow Minister when he knew the judges were still considering their verdict. It's even more insulting to make someone your spokesman on a sensitive subject like immigration, after a clearly and blatantly racist campaign. Perhaps he will now join the BNP where he should feel more at home.

Clearly there are a number of parallels with Luciana Berger's campaign, designed to portray the Lib Dems as somehow running an anti-jewish campaign against her. In one case, she even ran off to the Jewish Chronicle with an anonymous leaflet, which she tried to portray as being from her Lib Dem opponents, even though she knew that it was the Lib Dems who had reported it to the police.

My sources tell me that this has carried on since the election, with a few Lib Dems building up a dossier of evidence for a slander case from a number of people who have heard her label them as "anti-semitic".

Better start filling in more surveys to help cover those legal costs.

Nice work if you can get it

As if being an MP wasn't highly paid enough, the enterprising Luciana Berger has found out that there are even more lucrative sidelines to be had.

While many of her constituents would have to work a 12 hour shift to earn £75 just so they can put food on the table, Lucy is able get the same payment by simply "filling in a survey" - 20 minutes work by her own estimate or £225 per hour!

Some have to stack shelves to make ends meet, but filling in surveys has become a nice little earner for our Lucy, some earning her up to £150 - nice work if you can get it.

She also earns £200 an hour writing bimonthly articles for Public Affairs News - no I've never heard of it either! Apparently it advertises itself as "essential reading for lobbyists" now there lies a can of worms waiting to be cranked open! She even twitters for them!

Still, you can't expect a girl to get by on a mere £64,000 a year, not when there is a collie keeping a beady eye on your expenses!