So here are ten more reasons why you should hie yourself down to the Vandella for 7:30 on Tuesday evening…

1. Louise Mensch, Tom Watson, Boris, Ken, Egg Miliband, the omnishambles, there is just SO MUCH NEWS!
2. We’ve only gone and bloody got Audrey Hepburn to perform for you. For one night only, she’s going to stop being dead and come to perform to you. Audrey bumming Hepburn!
3. There’s going to be an actual celebrity guest, revealed tomorrow. To find out who, follow @tcreamshow on Twitter, and you’ll be the first to know.
4. There will be competitions.
5. There will be music.
6. There will be love and romance. Let’s come to Topical Cream and dance (when invited to by the performers).
7. It will be new, full of stuff that’s never been performed before, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, and it’s all yours on a Tuesday night.
8. Somehow, we’re going to top al-Qaeda Supergrass, but no one knows how, yet. Come and find out.
9. Impress your friends by reciting the jokes the next day, and pretend you’re both well-informed and hilarious.
10. You can win free tickets! If you RT or share information about the gig on Facebook, you’ll be entered into a draw to win FREE tickets. Amazong!

Details are here.

Book a ticket, then go spread the word…

One of the thrusts of her argument was that “no one is accusing Rupert Murdoch of misleading Parliament”. My assertion was that, in paragraph 228 of the report, it did just that when it said that he gave:

a misleading account of his involvement and influence with his newspapers.

Bear in mind that this paragraph, although not all Conservatives supported the (Paul Farrelly) amendment that inserted it into the report, was not, they claimed, an assertion they could not accept. Only paragraph 229, Tom Watson’s amendment that included the “not a fit person” led them to disavow the whole thing.

Which they did. Mensch herself called the report “fatally flawed” and “essentially worthless” (Newsnight, 1st May, 2012).

So, the key question, to my mind is: does the assertion that Rupert Murdoch gave a misleading account to Parliament necessarily mean that he misled Parliament?

Fortunately, someone asked just that at the press conference when the report was launched (start from 57:19 in the video below if it doesn’t do it for you).

The question was asked as to whether or not giving a misleading account amounted to misleading Parliament. Paul Farrelly, who proposed the amendment that contained the paragraph, and who should know if anyone does, dodged the question.

He said:

You’ve got the text there.

And then he moved on to raise the wider point of the corporate misleading of Parliament for which the report holds both J and R Murdoch responsible.

Which doesn’t really answer the question.

The report clearly says that Rupert Murdoch gave the Committee:

a misleading account of his involvement and influence with his newspapers.

And yet not only do the Labour members of the Committee allow other Committee members to present the report as if no such allegation has been made, but they refuse even to explain clearly what it implies when asked directly.

We get a hint that it means what it says (“You’ve got the text there”) but an unwillingness to expound on it, clarify it, or even to insist that others mention it when describing the report.

So, I’ll ask again. In the eyes of Tom Watson, in the eyes of Paul Farrelly, and in the eyes of Louise Mensch does giving a misleading account of your activities to a Parliamentary Select Committee amount to misleading Parliament or not?

Of particular interest is paragraph 228, which reads:

228. Rupert Murdoch told this Committee that his alleged lack of oversight of News International and the News of the World was due to it being “less than 1% of our company”.306 This self-portrayal, however, as a hands-off proprietor is entirely at odds with numerous other accounts, including those of previous editors and from Rebekah Brooks, who told us she spoke to Rupert Murdoch regularly and ‘on average, every other day’. It was, indeed, we consider, a misleading account of his involvement and influence with his newspapers.

Which seems pretty clear. Rupert Murdoch gave “a misleading account of his involvement and influence with his newspapers.” Now, I’m no lawyer, but it seems that if you ‘give a misleading account’ to a Select Committee of Parliament then you are, in effect, ‘misleading’ that Committee.

In the conclusions, however, this isn’t taken up again. Paragraph 275, says that Les Hinton misled the Committee, Tom Crone misled the Committee, Tom Crone & Colin Myler misled the Committee, and that the News Of The World and News International as a whole misled the Committee, wilfully blinding themselves to internal evidence “for which the companies’ directors—including Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch—should ultimately be prepared to take responsibility”. So Rupert and James Murdoch wilfully blinded themselves to instances in which their company misled the Committee.

On the accusation that James Murdoch had misled the Committee over the ‘for Neville’ email, or whether Tom Crone and Colin Myler did (as their stories were incompatible), the Committee “simply cannot adjudicate with confidence either way.” (para. 161) So, either James Murdoch misled the Committee or Tom Crone and Colin Myler did (again), but the Committee has no way of determining which is true.

All of which seems pretty clear. Rupert ‘gave a misleading account’, Rupert and James presided over an organisation that misled the Committee, James may have misled the Committee, but they cannot be sure either way.

Got that? Good.

Because, apparently Louise Mensch didn’t.

Or, rather, she did at first, but then she forgot. During the press conference presenting the report she said [video link]:

Every one of us [Conservative members of the Committee] while we share different views about the culpability of News Corporation, and the degree of culpability of James Murdoch in particular… [emphasis mine]

Again, pretty clear. At least some of the Conservative members of the Committee felt that James Murdoch was at least partially culpable.

However, within seconds, she appears to have forgotten that entirely, appearing on Sky News saying, when asked about whether James or Rupert Murdoch had misled the Committee:

As far as that is concerned, they are in the clear.

Well, they are in the clear in as far as it looks unlikely that the Committee will call for any Parliamentary sanction. The report, however, goes nowhere near absolving them of having misled Parliament.

It says one definitely gave ‘a misleading account’, they are both responsible for an organisation that persistently misled the Committee, and that they had no way of discerning whether the other misled the Committee in his evidence, but that they found his story ‘astonishing’ and ‘surprising’. This is not the clean bill of health Louise Mensch would have you believe.

Later, on Twitter, she was at it again. When asked why she hadn’t supported the report, she said:

we hadn’t heard one iota of evidence re fitness or otherwise; he didn’t lie to us; is outside SC remit. 3 good reasons.

You’ll see that she recasts ‘misleading’ as the slightly stronger ‘lying’ as she did in the press conference when she demanded that Parliament clarify its procedures for ‘people who lie to Parliament’.

“He didn’t lie to us.” Perhaps, but he did give you a misleading account, and oversee and organisation that misled you an a wide scale. And you all find the story of the Murdochs’ ignorance ‘astonishing’.

Louise Mensch may well just not understand paragraph 228 of the report. She may be angling for a ministerial post. She may just be shilling for the rich and powerful. Or she may be doing all three.

What she is not doing is being open and honest about the findings of the report. Indeed, she seems to be trying to distract from its content, by saying it’s ‘fatally flawed’ because she disagrees with one sentence.

If her line is “No one is accusing Rupert Murdoch of misleading Parliament”, then that’s simply not true. Her Committee is. In its report. In paragraph 228.

The only thing that’s fatally flawed here is Mensch’s integrity.

And these were the lyrics which are almost completely indistinct on that recording:

We are young. We’ve got bombs. We’re ambivalent about the ongoing massacre in Homs. Kill the West, the Israelites. We’re Shi-ites.

[I then explained at length that I was aware that al-Qaeda is an almost universally Sunni movement]

We get up. Out of bed’n. Start to plan Armageddon. Check our shoes. Book our flights. We’re probably not Shi’ites.

Are we like you? We can’t be sure. But you country’s corrupt, and your women are whores.

Yes we are young. We love thrills. We’ve got teeth, full of cyanide pills. Bomb your friends. Bomb the sights. Bomb Shi-ites.

And not only did you miss that satirical blinking masterpiece, you missed Darren Strange, Nadia Kamil, Hils Barker, Ruth Bratt, Sir Ian Bowler, Jake Yapp, David Trent, Michael Legge & John Voce, and ME. You also missed us openly speculating about the final sexual fantasies of the sailors on the Belgrano, a rap about smear tests, and some actual footage of a pooing man.

Do better next month. May 8th, the Vandella.

Be there.

(Pippa Evans, Joe Wells, Ruth Bratt, Ben Champion, and Holly Burn will)

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• Terrorist supergrass Saajid Badat: the shoe bomber who got cold feet (telegraph.co.uk)

These children will be this unhappy if you don't come

You may know that next Tuesday, April 17th, is the beginning of something *very* exciting. And by ‘very’ I mean ‘very, very’.

Next Tuesday sees the launch of the new, topical, character comedy night at The Vandella: Topical Cream.

Wait? What? Topical character comedy? Can such a thing even be done?

Oh, it can. This month and every month I shall be gathering the most intriguing, hilarious and bizarre weirdoes into one place to create an entirely new kind of comedy.

Yes, it’s topical comedy. No, it won’t simply be songs about how George Osborne has a stupid nose and drinks the blood of children. Although there will be songs.

It’s unlike anything you’ll have seen before, and it will leave you weeping hysterically, unable to move without medical assistance. You’ll laugh yourself in half.

And if that doesn’t convince you, here are ten more reasons.

1. Time Out recommends that you come. It’s recommended by Time Out. Look, over on this page. The bit that says ‘recommended’? That means they recommend it.
2. It’s a Tuesday. What else are you really going to do with a Tuesday? Really? No. Thought not.
3. The line-up. We’ve got Ruth Bratt, Darren Strange, Sara Pascoe, Robin & Partridge, Hils Barker, John Voce & Michael Legge, Jake Yapp, David Trent, and Nadia Kamil.
4. Oh, and ME!
5. In future we’ve got Bridget Christie, Pippa Evans, Dan & Dan, Marcel Lucont, David Bussell, and many, many, many more.
6. We are employing Professional Hecklers to make sure that any heckling that happens is of the highest possible quality. We are the only club in London to do this.
7. The Vandella is lovely. It’s a brilliant venue, run by some lovely people. It’s comfy, quirky, and is definitely the place to be seen this summer.
8. It’s musical, it’s odd, it’s got acts the like of which you won’t have seen before, all doing brand new material. It’s bleeding edge political comedy, and it’s where the new satire boom is going to happen.
9. People will think you are cool when you can say that you saw all those people on the telly before they were famous.
10. I love you and I miss you.

Book your tickets here.

The Lesser Of Three Evils - picture (c) Monica Sablone

The eagle-eared among you may have noticed that I was not invited to the LBC Mayoral debate that turned into a triple-fuckathon in the lift. Despite that fact that this would clearly have been the best place to showcase my own, quite spectacular, personal lexicon of vulgarity together with half-baked theories about what London does or doesn’t need, I wasn’t invited.

LBC didn’t see their way clear to extending me an invitation. Neither did the BBC ask me on their Newsnight special last week. All in all, I can only conclude that there has been a wide-ranging media conspiracy to conceal me from the general public.

Perhaps partly because I am no longer an official candidate for London Mayor.

As March reached its end it became clear that I wasn’t going to have raised the £10,000 deposit needed to stand for Mayor of London. We raised some, but nowhere near enough. It was a little galling to realise that we had more than enough support in the boroughs to get the 330 signatures we would have needed, but that simple lack of funds was going to prevent us doing it for real.

Not to mention that the whole process was a massive pain in the arse. Who would have thought that standing for Mayor on an ill-thought-through platform, pretty much as a laugh would be hideously expensive, involve soul-crushing amounts of admin, and could possibly mean that you go to jail for electoral fraud? Really, who?

So, I’ve put off blogging about this out of embarrassment more than anything else. I feel like I’ve let a lot of people down. People who made posters life this:

Hell, yeah!

I’ve let down the hundreds of people who offered their signatures, and offered to collect others. And I’ve let down the people who pledged money.

Never will London see itself protected by an army of highly-trained chinchillas. And that’s on me.

However, Sir Ian’s campaign continues. There will be more blog posts, more videos, more revelations, and some very special guests. However, my name (and his face) won’t be on the ballot.

Not that they won’t be on one soon.

After all, we did raise enough to stand as an MP. Twice over.

And Sir Ian has given a solemn pledge not to stand against Nick Clegg in Sheffield Hallam in 2015…