Why do teenagers eat the Twilight novels? Why do they follow the adventures of young Bella and her vampire lover Edward? What do they think they see? Last night, I encountered some fans. "You are attracted to it because it is dangerous," says Camila, 13. "There is something that sucks you in." "I have Twilight written on my hand right now," says Morag, 11, whispering...
MP for Mid Bedfordshire says former No 10 spin doctor has settled with her for unconfirmed sum A Tory MP who was targeted by the so-called "smeargate" emails has said that she has been paid damages by the Downing Street adviser who resigned over the scandal. Nadine Dorries welcomed the decision by Gordon Brown's former spin doctor Damian McBride to settle and expects it to strengthen her...
Nadine Dorries , that noted flag carrier for lying and libel, has managed to wring a whole £1,000 from Damian McBride over the supposed libels he sent to Derek Draper while they were considering the setting up of the now infamous "Red Rag" website. McBride, fairly enough, decided it wasn't worth the potential cost of going to court, even though these remarks about the sainted Ms Dorries...
Yesterday Tom Watson , the former Minister for Digital Engagement and close ally of the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, received £50k in damages from the Mail on Sunday (MoS) and The Sun Newspapers over an article written by top political blogger Iain Dale. In the MoS article written by Iain Dale it was asserted that Tom Watson had been cc'd on the Smeargate emails between Damian McBride and Derek...
Newspaper apologises after falsely alleging that Tom Watson was involved in a plot to smear the Conservatives The Sun has apologised to Labour MP Tom Watson in the high court today and agreed to pay substantial damages after it ran articles earlier this year claiming he was involved in a plot to smear the Conservatives. Lawyers for Sun publisher News Group Newspapers, a subsidiary of News International,...
Apologies for the delay in the write up but TB had some serious sleep to catch up on. The last weekend at Wellington College for YBF6 was an extremely sound gathering of some of the brightest minds in the grassroots movement of both today and the next generation. It was a refreshingly honest look at where conservatives in this country really are at. Behind those closed rural doors people were a lot...
Lefty gossiper Political Scrapbook is on particularly good form today: "After a difficult 48 hours which saw the law firm under assault from the blogosphere, politicians and the media, Carter-Ruck is to undertake a PR charm offensive with redeveloped online content and endorsements from “brand ambassadors”. The campaign has enlisted the support of celebrity Labour blogger Derek Draper....
I spotted Guido Fawkes – the man who claimed the scalp of Derek Draper and Damien McBride in the Smeargate scandal – as he left the Conservative conference and asked his views about David Cameron’s speech. I finished by asking whether he would vote Conservative. You will have to play the video to find out his [...]
Yawn. Over at the New Statesman, James Macintyre, desperate to prove that someone somewhere considers him a journalist, even a remarkably poor journalist, or even just talks about him a little teeny weeny bit, is trying to whip up enthusiasm for the idea that he has been 'smeared' by a Conservative Central Office press officer. The offending alleged 'smear' by Will Hutton to the Daily Telegraph's George...
This is a written response from Tessa Jowell to Francis Maude published on October 5th. Mr. Maude: To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office how many times (a) Mr Derek Draper and (b) Mr Charlie Whelan has visited the Cabinet Office/Downing Street complex in the last six months. Tessa Jowell: I am not aware of any meetings involving Derek Draper or Charlie Whelan. He didn't ask if she was aware of...
A small outbreak of written answers has just occured. Nick Gibb (Con): To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families pursuant to the answer of 16 December 2008, Official Report, columns 747-51W, on geography: GCE A level, how many and what percentage of the maintained mainstream schools that did not enter any pupils for an A level examination in geography entered at least one pupil...
I met a very cute boy named Greg and we held hands and hugged and I was going to ask for his number but then he started smoking *gross* and totally went and ruined everything :S I had such a laugh that day, it was epic. I got some really lovely presents, i think that the funniest was a self help book called "life support" by Derek Draper. It's actually a very good, calming book, it's just...
Jon Cruddas and James Purnell kick off the Fabian fringe at 3pm, in conversation with Mary Riddell. I have a commentary on LabourList previewing the Next Labour fringe event - suggesting that the Cruddas-Purnell dialogues have been important both in the tonality and their content in framing the longer-term debate that Labour needs to have. Establishing that equality and the distribution of substantive...
I am a big fan of the work Progress does in providing a space for debate in the Labour Party, though I've always regretted that the cash generously provided to it by Lord Sainsbury has gone exclusively on these kind of think-tanky activities. The original concept floated to me by its founder Derek Draper (are we allowed to mention him anymore?) in 1995 when I was a humble NOLS representative on Progress'...
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