Sarah Cawood and Mz Bratt on the National Bullying Helpline

So, Sarah Cawood has resigned from her post as patron of the National Bullying Helpline. When I reported this yesterday, I hoped that she'd release a statement. The Press Association has quoted her thus:

"In light of the recent events where confidential phone calls were made public,
I feel it is no longer a campaign with which I would like my name to be
associated."

It's not much, but it's better than nothing.

In weirder news, the only "patron" of the charity not to have made a big song and dance about leaving has been Mz Bratt... who is a singer, apparently. (I'm 29). Her name appears last on the National Bullying Helpline website's list of patrons, but her management is denying that she is one, or has ever been one. Bratt herself is claiming (on her Twitter feed) that media enquiries about the scandal have come completely out of the blue.

*Scratches chin*. Hmmmm... anyone would think there was something dodgy going on.

Sarah Cawood on Brown's "bullying"

You probably know that the last few days have seen Gordon Brown accused of bullying his staff. Since these allegations have surfaced, Christine Pratt of the National Bullying Helpline has been speaking to the media about her charity receiving "three or four" calls from Brown's staff.

This piece by Ben Goldacre addresses some of the reasons why Christine Pratt and the National Bullying Helpline shouldn't necessarily be trusted. For one thing, the charity isn't exactly politically unbiased - there are quotes from David Cameron and Ann Widdecombe on the website's homepage, for instance. And it seems more than a little strange that such a tiny charity should have received so many calls from one workplace.

Pratt is unafraid to breach the confidentiality of her callers by revealing who their employers are, but hides behind her so-called privacy policy in her many interviews now that she's out of her depth.

"Why does this have anything to do with Sarah Cawood?", I hear you ask. Well, the delightful TV presenter (and part-time actor - she was in Velvet Goldmine with Ewan McGregor) has been patron of the National Bullying Helpline since August 2009.

She probably joined the charity because she thought it represented a good cause, and perhaps bullying has affected her own life. But she was incredibly quick to take action on this: her PR has just announced that she has stepped down as patron. This may or may not have anything to do with her political opinions - it could be about her own image - but it shows that she doesn't agree with the charity's actions, and that's definitely a good thing. Well done, Sarah.

Let's hope she backs up her decision with a statement soon - if she feels she has enough influence to represent a charity in the media, she should be equally happy to set a good example by speaking out when that charity does something she disapproves of.

Jason Manford on Labour election promises

Another Twitter exchange for you...

Ed Miliband (Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and MP for
Doncaster North): I want to hear your ideas on what you want to see in our
manifesto.

Jason Manford (comedian): I want a Lemonade fountain on every street corner
& rope slides instead of buses.

Ed Miliband: Thanks! I'll see what I can do.

Jason Manford: Think @EdMilibandMP just won my vote, top fella.

I'll be looking out for this in the Labour manifesto. By the way, I'm not saying Manford is a moron for doing this - he's drawn attention to Miliband's generous offer, probably among lots of young voters, which is brilliant. I, for one, am currently working on a list of policies to send in.

If you want to make any suggestions, follow this link or contact him on Twitter.

Ewan McGregor on corrupt politicians

Hmmmm, it seems that Ewan McGregor has got a bee in his bonnet over the UK's "disgusting" tabloids and "despicable" politicians.

Now, if we examine this story very closely indeed, we can see why McGregor might call the tabloids disgusting. For a start, they are: they spread vicious rumours, they pry into people's personal lives, they tend to be sexist, racist and homophobic, and they have a very low opinion of their readership. They also recently (and I know you'll find this hard to believe) exposed a story about a certain Scottish high-profile actor who's been having it off with some bird behind his wife's back. Allegedly.



So at least he has some first-hand knowledge of how awful the tabloid press is, which makes him more than qualified to comment. But why would McGregor launch a similar attack on politicians?

"I'm not that interested in politicians," he said. "I don't really believe
in them very much. In Britain, anyway, they seem to prove over and over that
they're people that are not particularly trustworthy. I find them just to be
fairly despicable people."

He has a point - the expenses scandal, in particular, has proved that some of our politicians are corrupt beyond belief. But Ewan, you can't express an opinion that tars every single politician in Britain with the same brush, just moments after you've claimed not to be interested in them. If you have no interest, you're just spouting nonsense to your susceptible fans, of which there are many (I LOVE YOU, EWAN!).

The more people believe that politicians are all the same scum-sucking bottom-feeders underneath the spin, the fewer people turn out to vote. Or worse, they vote BNP as a silly "protest".

Having said that, he was brilliant in Shallow Grave, and I met him once and he gave me his autograph. So I am pretty torn up inside over this issue.

Russell Grant on local government

Astrologer Russell Grant has just appeared on The Daily Politics to discuss how local government administration erodes our sense of identity. Honestly, I was just watching it. Ask Andrew Neil - he'll back me up.

Grant had made a little introductory film on the subject (you can watch it here) in which he strode around a model village like something out of Attack Of The 50ft Camp Vicar, making jokes about sat-nav. His point seemed to be that, sometimes, people's bins are collected by a council that isn't their own, and this way madness lies.

He seems to know what he's talking about (he's even written a book on all this), but this is what happens when you're the only person in the UK who cares about a particular cause - suddenly you're the country's leading expert.

And it's hardly surprising that he assumes he'll be taken seriously - the man has built a career on talking nonsense while everyone around him tries to keep a straight face. "Oh really, you say Pinner is in Middlesex not Harrow? How interesting. And what's this about the moon being in Uranus? *Splutter*... I'm sorry, I had a bit of sandwich in my throat. Do carry on."

Jane McDonald on immigration

A couple of direct quotes from Jane McDonald (the brunette one on the end), which she made during a typically in-depth Loose Women discussion on 'broken Britain' today*:

"I know I'm going to get absolutely anihilated for this, but everybody in the
world thinks we're 'great' Britain, and that's why everybody's coming here. All
we want in Britain is fairness for the people who live here."

"We are known as a soft touch. Everybody knows they can come here and get
housing and benefits and everything else, and I think we should start looking
after our own a little bit now."

Of course, she didn't get anihilated for either of those comments - there wasn't time. To her credit, presenter Kate Thornton (youngest ever editor of Smash Hits, fact fans) did point out that McDonald had a slightly Daily Mail-skewed view of things, and that many of the doctors and nurses who work in the NHS she'd just been praising had entered Britain from the other side of the Channel.

McDonald responded by babbling some incoherent rhetoric about "somebody" - "one of our governments, don't care who they are" (what?) - who she implored to "sort it out". She got a round of applause.

* Technically yesterday, but if Jane McDonald can ignore the details, so can I.

Richard Madeley on the campaign trail?

MADELEY ALERT.

Since he burst onto the political scene last week with his astonishing and poorly-filmed opinion on Iraq, Richard Madeley has been causing a furore all over my moron radar. In the style of a lazy tabloid journalist, I've been following his tweets. See if you can tell where this is going...

"A little casual abuse coming in on Daily Politics appearance;pretty childish
stuff."

"Just 4 t record,I'm totally a-political.Not partic struck on Cons this time,but
Lab exhausted.Any party wd be after 3 terms.'97 again."

"Revealing tweets to my earlier ones about coming election.Most of you utterly
disillusioned by whole process;no enthusiasm for any party."

"Being muchly asked if I wd stand as indy MP.Nope!Pointless.No influence in
HC,Speaker never calls you,no-one cares after election.Invisible."

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? His ego's a bit dented by perfectly rational people like me having a go at him for his stupid Iraq thing (CHILDISH MY ARSE), then his idiot fans suggest he'd make a good independent MP...? He might say it's "pointless", but he's clearly put some thought into it.

And when people start replying to that last tweet with "Aw but Richard you'd make a brilliant MP and you wouldn't be invisible to me LOL", who knows what might happen...


Further reading: how to become an independent MP.

N-Dubz on family values

On a recent edition of This Week, two members of N-Dubz (frankly the holy grail of celeb halfwits) talked out of their arses for ten minutes after an introduction that suggested they might be about to discuss David Cameron's family values policies.

One nugget of information on their political leanings could be salvaged from this: They seemed to agree with Cameron's stance that parenthood is about being nice to your children, not just shoving money in their tiny faces. Next week I expect them to appear on The Sky at Night to nod along while Patrick Moore says something about it being quite black if you look upwards.

Ending on a high, the two gentlemen claimed that they were appearing on the show to make politics more accessible to The Youth. This is very noble of them and, come election day, I hope N-Dubz will lead by example. Rather than getting distracted away from the polling booths by, say, a Deal Or No Deal marathon or a man waving a stick.

The full horrifying interview can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/8461100.stm

(Thanks to Chris for the reminder).

Daniel Radcliffe on voter apathy

Last year Daniel Radcliffe, star of some pervy play about a horse, gave an interview to Attitude magazine in which he declared himself a Lib Dem. You couldn't make it up.

Well, he started off saying he was a Lib Dem, claiming "I don't like the New Labour thing", and "David Cameron is barely distinguishable from Tony Blair". So what makes the Lib Dems different, Radders? Come on - inspire us! "I rather like Nick Clegg", he opines. Well that's me convinced.

He goes on to say, "I think the reason why people don't vote is because the politicians are all so central now, it doesn't seem to matter who you vote for." Quite right, and who better to get us away from that boring middle ground than the Lib Dems?

To be fair to Radders, it's brilliant to see a young role model taking an interest, and he does seem to have put a bit of thought into it - at least he knows the name of the Lib Dem leader, and who else can really say the same? Not me.

Victoria Beckham on everything

Courtesy of @Sarahlmorgan on Twitter: "Oxfam had a giant stack of The Face from when I was a teen. Posh Spice says she's a tory!"

Don't worry, I'm keeping track of all this (who's rightwing, who's leftwing, etc) - the Morons' Manifesto Super Celeb Political Opinionometer is currently in production.

Dizzee Rascal on Obama

Old news just in: Dizzee Rascal likes Barack Obama because he is black, and thinks that a political uprising similar to Obama's victory could happen in the UK. Speaking immediately after the 2008 US election, Rascal, 24, stated that "if you believe, you can achieve, innit?" while Jeremy Paxman looked on, amused and appalled.

So, could it happen in the UK? Dizzee will no doubt be pleased to hear that, since the 2005 election, the House of Commons has been host to 15 non-white MPs, which is a whopping two percent of the total. 13 of these are Labour members, and two are Tory. Unfortunately none of them seem to be in the running for Prime Minister just yet, but I'm sure an inspirational hip-hop political anthem will change all that.

(Thanks to Laura for the link).

Richard Madeley on Iraq

Just when you thought you'd never hear an answer to the question "how does Richard Madeley feel about the Iraq war?", Richard Madeley comes along and explains how he feels about the Iraq war. I am so thrilled at this, I literally don't know who to punch with gratitude first.

Of course, as one big question is answered, another comes along, namely Tony Blair's "2010 question": if we hadn't gone to war, where would we be now? Madeley soberly insists that none of Blair's detractors have given a satisfactory answer to this question, and he's probably right, what with it requiring the use of a time machine.