All about Margaret Hodge

February 28, 2011

Cruddas revisited

Filed under: Cruddas,Expenses scandal — Patrick Harrington @ 4:10 pm
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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

February 20, 2011

Liar, Liar! (Part2)

Filed under: Battle for Barking — Patrick Harrington @ 5:20 pm
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 HANDS UP anyone who has heard of Pinocchio? 

 For those who don’t know, he was the creation of Carlo Collodi, an Italian children’s writer.  The Adventures of Pinocchio was probably his most famous book.  In it, Pinocchio – a wooden puppet carved by Geppetto – dreams of being a real boy.  So far, so good.  However, the peculiar thing about Pinocchio was that every time he told a lie his nose grew longer. (1)

So how does this relate to Margaret Hodge?  Well, let’s just say that if she was appearing in The Battle for Barking (2) as Pinocchio, she’d be able to put your eye out at a hundred paces!

As we’ve noted already, Hodge seems to be an out-and-out liar (3).   Her first big lies comes just around a minute and a half into the film when she declares that Nick Griffin “hates women, he hates Jews and he hates immigrants and I’m all of them.”

In our previous article Liar, Liar! (Part 1) we proved that Hodge lied about Nick Griffin ‘hating’ women.  We’ll now move on to her allegation that he ‘hates Jews’.

We’ve looked at Laura Fairrie’s film again and didn’t come across anything that was said during the election campaign that indicated that he was anti-Jewish. 

Neither did we see – or hear – anything in the run up to the election that would indicate this. 

Can anyone show us one piece of official BNP literature – or point us to just one interview – in which he says that he ‘hates Jews’?  Neither are we aware of anything like this being produced just before or during the General Election.  Are you?

 So where did Margaret Hodge get her information from?  Surely as a responsible Member of Parliament – indeed an ex-Minister – she wouldn’t tell porkies.  Would she? 

One would have thought that Hodge would have been aware of the BNP’s position on Israel.  After all, she has enough advisors! 

So the question remains – why did she state that Nick Griffin ‘hates Jews’?

Ironically, the only person who commented on her race/ethnicity/religion was Hodge herself!  (We understand that it was mentioned on a couple of web-based discussion groups – but that’s another story.  However, keep your eyes peeled because we’ll be commenting on this in a future article).

And we’re not the only ones who noticed that the only person who mentioned Jews during the Barking election was Hodge herself. 

In his article The Battle for Barking (More 4 30/11/10) Reviewed (4), Larry O’Hara notes:

“Hodge’s most telling evasiveness came in an exchange with a BNP supporter as she was getting into a 4×4 vehicle.  He upbraided her for being a millionairess, one of those “thieving MPs” and having ignored paedophiles (an obvious reference to her tenure at Islington Council where she disgracefully swept allegations of child abuse in council-run children’s homes under the carpet).  Her response was to ignore these points, but to say “and you dislike me because I’m Jewish”.  As a BNP activist, he may well have been anti-semitic, so she might have a point–however (unlike him as far as I could see) Hodge deliberately racialised the encounter (as with the mixed-race couple earlier) to avoid addressing the arguments.”

Mr. O’Hara is an anti-fascist campaigner, so he’s hardly likely to side with Nick Griffin or the British National Party.  Yet he notes that Hodge plays the anti-Jewish card here.

As this appears to be the only time Jews are mentioned, we’ve looked at this incident again.  You should too – fast forward the film to about 1 hour 16 minutes.  Here you’ll see a British National Party election worker who’s expressing the anger and frustration felt by ordinary English working folks. 

The BNP worker is a straight-talking Cockney.  He doesn’t look like the type of person who’s liable to mince his words.  In terms of race, ethnic origin or religion, he had the opportunity to call Hodge everything under the sun.  Yet he just makes mention of her German background.  Once again, Hodge was the only one to mention Jews.

So much for Margaret Hodge’s claim that Mr. Griffin ‘hates Jews’. 

Just like her first statement (that he ‘hates women’) a simple little research is all that’s needed to blow this lie right out of the water!

(1)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio

(2)  http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-battle-for-barking/4od#3150944

(3)  http://margarethodge.net/2011/02/13/liar-liar-part-1/

(4)  http://www.borderland.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=214:the-battle-for-barking-more-4-301110-reviewed&catid=46:journalism-spij-watch

February 13, 2011

Liar, Liar! (Part 1)

Filed under: Battle for Barking — Patrick Harrington @ 10:39 am
Tags: , , , , , ,

THEY SAY that if you’re going to tell a lie, then it might as well be a big one.  And boy, does Hodge tell lies.  She tells absolute whoppers!  In fact, she tells so many lies that we’re going to have to look at them one at a time.

At the very beginning of Laura Fairrie’s film The Battle for Barking (1) Hodge is asked why Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader, is standing against her.  She answers “Because he hates women, he hates Jews and he hates immigrants and I’m all of them.”

She’s allowed to make this fantastic claim without backing it up.  At no time does she offer any evidence for such a sweeping statement.  The film doesn’t show Mr. Griffin saying anything remotely like this.

Hodge’s claim that Nick Griffin “hates women” is surprising.  As far as we’re aware, he’s been happily married to his wife Jackie for around 25 years.  Jackie happens to be a woman.  He is also a father of four.  Three of his children are daughters – all of whom happen to be women!

If he “hates women” so much he has a funny way of showing it!

Seriously, however, as far as we’re aware, Mr. Griffin didn’t say – or do – anything during the last General Election that indicated that he hated women.  Indeed, we can’t recall the subject of women per se appearing in any of his election leaflets, posters or political broadcasts.  Can you?

If women were mentioned, it probably would have been in relation to Mr. Griffin’s position on militant Islam. 

It’s well known that he is opposed to the ‘Islamification’ of Britain.  It’s our understanding that Mr. Griffin feels that militant Islam treats women as second-class citizens.  But this would put him in the position of supporting women – and not hating them!

We at All about Margaret Hodge and the Barking and Dagenham Sentinel are a little old-fashioned.  We believe that web-sites, publications and interviews should try to raise standards of debate and provide detailed information, not just soundbites.

We’re about telling the truth.  We seek to inform and let people make up their own mind.  Hodge, on the other hand, seems to rely on lies and misinformation.

(1)  http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-battle-for-barking/4od#3150944

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