IF YOU’RE anything like us you’re probably a little bit tired of listening to all of the lies that Margaret Hodge peddles. We’re certainly a little bit tired looking at The Battle for Barking documentary (1) and trying to find anything to substantiate them.
As we’ve already noted, Margaret Hodge claimed that Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader, was standing against her (to become MP for Barking) because “he hates women, he hates Jews and he hates immigrants and I’m all of them.”
So far, we’ve looked at her claims that Mr. Griffin ‘hates’ women (2) and that he ‘hates’ Jews (3). To date, we haven’t located any articles written by him or interviews given by him that would support her claims.
We’re still to examine her claims that he ‘hates’ immigrants. However, we’re beginning to get the feeling that’ll be a wild goose chase as well. Nevertheless, we’ll bring you that article in the not too distant future.
With this in mind, we thought we’d turn our attention back to Jon Cruddas for a while.
Cruddas is Hodge’s Labour Party running mate in this area of outer East London/inner Essex. Some of you might have heard him on the news (4) recently moaning about the “real threat of a new potent political constituency built around an assertive English nationalism”.
We’ve also received some new information on Cruddas from one of our researchers. But before we reveal all in a future article, we thought that we’d remind everyone about Cruddas.
So who is he – and what does he represent?
Jon Cruddas is the MP for the constituency of Dagenham and Rainham. (Hodge represents Barking and Dagenham). It was created by the Boundary Commission for England by merging the majority of the former constituencies of Dagenham and Hornchurch. Following a review of ward boundaries a small part of River ward was also transferred from Barking. (5)
According to his own web-site he “is the Member of Parliament for Dagenham and Rainham. He was first elected in 2001 to the seat of Dagenham. Jon was born in Helston, and was educated at the Oaklands Catholic Comprehensive School in Waterlooville, near Portsmouth, before attending the University of Warwick where he qualified with an M.A. and later a Ph.D. in Philosophy.” (6)
(He earned his Ph.D by producing a thesis entitled An analysis of value theory, the sphere of production and contemporary approaches to the reorganisation of workplace relations. He was a visiting fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (7) for a year from 1987).
It’s interesting to note that Mr. Cruddas studied Philosophy at university – for his philosophy seems to us to be to rub the noses of his constituents right in the mud.
As we’ve noted before (8) he claims to be real Labour – as opposed to Nu Labour – and thus a real socialist.
Indeed, his web-site talks up his working-class street cred:
“After the 1997 general election, he became the deputy political secretary to the new Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and as the link between the Prime Minister and the trade unions, he worked heavily on the introduction of the National Minimum Wage.”
This is all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t explain away the fact that he has TWO homes!
For he has one in Dagenham – around this time last year it was thought to be worth about £180,000 – and an upmarket flat in a Notting Hill mansion-block. Again, last year flats in this area were worth up to £900,000.
And as the Barking and Dagenham Sentinel (9) noted last year:
“Now, what property do you think that Cruddas has been claiming his second-home expenses on?
Yes, you’ve guessed it – the flat in Notting Hill!”
The Sentinel also revealed that he has “hovered up more than £86,000 in the so-called Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) since 2004″.
It’s just as well that he’s a good ‘socialist’ MP – we’d dread to think how he‘d behave if he was an unscrupulous capitalist.
(1) http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-battle-for-barking/4od#3150944
(2) http://margarethodge.net/2011/02/13/liar-liar-part-1/
(3) http://margarethodge.net/2011/02/20/liar-liar-part2/
(4) http://www.metro.co.uk/news/856685-half-of-britons-open-to-backing-far-right-political-party
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagenham_and_Rainham_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29
(6) http://www.joncruddas.org.uk/index.php/pages/about_jon/
(7) http://www.wisc.edu/
(8) http://margarethodge.net/category/cruddas/
(9) http://margarethodge.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/sentinel.pdf
