AS we celebrate England's swashbuckling start to the World Cup, let's get one myth out of the way - England winning the competition in 1966 did not help Harold Wilson to a landslide General Election victory that year.

AS we celebrate England's swashbuckling start to the World Cup, let's get one myth out of the way - England winning the competition in 1966 did not help Harold Wilson to a landslide General Election victory that year.

The election was held on March 31 and Bobby Moore lifted the cup at Wembley on July 30. There is no connection at all between the two events.

Back to current time and Alastair Campbell has sent a breathless email to all party supporters boasting that he's in Germany for the whole tournament, accompanied by Tooting MP Sadiq Khan and they will be “watching all the drama and excitement and will be blogging exclusively” on the Labour Party web site.

Well that's how I read it, but Labour's Peter Watt personally phoned me to say I was wrong and that Campbell meant and he and Sadiq Khan were not “watching it from Germany” but were watching it “in London from Germany.”

Another example of how English can be misinterpreted.

So apologies for confusion. In any event, readers who've logged on to www.labour.org.uk/worldcup didn't seem too impressed!

It's not just Labour that's cashing in on the burgeoning use of the Internet. The Conservatives have launched www.toryradio.com which features podcasts of interviews with the party's rising stars. Are there really sad people around who actually log on during the early hours of the morning to listen to all this tosh?

WHEN Chancellor Gordon Brown called for the celebration of Britishness, the Ongar-based English Democrats - who want an English parliament to counter devolution in Scotland and Wales -re-phrased his call to fly the Union Jack, with a plea for every English patriot to fly England's flag, the Cross of St George. The fledgling party's chairman Robin Tilbrook says: “Even we then little thought how quickly British politicians, including Gordon Brown himself would be rushing to do so!

“We now look forward, after victory for England in the World Cup, to a similar speedy response to our call for a fair devolutionary settlement for England and for Gordon Brown to allocate public spending fairly in Scotland according to her people's need and not just, as now, according to his own party's political need.”

I APPRECIATE the Labour Party needs to find cash from somewhere now that its loans scam has been exposed, but it seems way over the top to fine journalists and media technicians a massive £360 each if they miss the July 28 deadline to apply for credentials for its annual conference in Manchester. Applicants also have to supply a host of personal details, including passport, national insurance and driving licence numbers which, if Tony Blair gets his way, will be encrypted on to biometric national identity cards.

The Liberal Democrats will charge £62 for missing the July 26 cut-off date for the party's Brighton bash, and rather sanctimoniously announce: “£1 from every pass purchased is donated for Climate Care to help make our conference carbon neutral.”

As for the Tories, the application forms for their conference have yet to surface. Usually there's no charge for late admission - for the past nine years, they've been only too glad to have journalists turn up. This year, with the party resurgent under David Cameron, expect a stampede of media people to head for Bournemouth in October.