Jones was a giant of trade unionism and born in Liverpool long ago enough to be a walking talking record of most of the historic movement in the UK. Originally a docker, he rose through the ranks of the Transport and General Workers Union and became a spokesman for the TUC.

He fought in the Spanish Civil War – which is an experience so far from the vast majority of most people’s experience and imagination these days it almost sounds absurd.

He was principled and undoubtedly tough, giving both Labour and Conservative governments a hard time in the 70s. Agree with him or not, he represented an old-fashioned style of politics that doesn’t really exist any more.

It would be easy to draw parallels between the likes of Jones and Liverpool’s current politicians, seemingly locked in an endless bout of tit-for-tat power struggles and point-scoring, but I think that would miss the point.

I decry the behaviour of Liverpool’s politicians and wish they’d sort themselves out – the empire-building, personality cults and ego trips are all too obvious to everyone – but politics should always have an element of the knockabout and the passionate.

If every name called in the Jack Jones era of politics had resulted in a resignation, there wouldn’t be anyone left to run the tiniest and most obscure worker council, student body or pressure group, nevermind city, region or country.

So, while slagging off your opponents on a blog may not be the smartest move, I really can’t see the problem.

The slightest slip by a politician these days is grasped by media and opponents and used to bang them over the head and hound them out of office.

It makes for an unseemly spectacle. It’s childish and it puts people off politics when the opposition cries foul over trifling matters and, like the enduring popularity of John Prescott, a little colour can be a benefit, allowing people to connect with the real person behind the media-managed mask.

It’s a rather significant irony that the comments by Baldock apparently deemed offensive by Councillor Steve Radford (himself under investigation over some pointless complaint) related to Liberals and Lib Dems being ‘opportunistic bastards’.

Would it be absurd to suggest that making a formal complaint over some innocuous comments made on a personal blog nearly two years old could be deemed a little, er, opportunistic?

Almost as if to prove that Labour and the Lib Dems don’t have the monopoly on going for each others’ throats, the local party has found its members taking each other to court and being beastly to each other.

Basically Dick Calver, former chairman of Wirral West Conservative Association, is sued for libel and slander by Bahram Noorani, a ‘Greasby-based Iranian Conservative’ for (allegedly) alleging that Noorani made a series of bizarre and threatening phonecalls to Calver and his family.

In turn Noorani accuses Calver of directing racial slurs at him. Eventually Noorani’s case is thrown out and the Judge labels Noorani ‘responsible’ for the calls, but not before a former Wirral councillor giving evidence on Noorani’s behalf is revealed to be due in court to plead guilty to ‘making indecent images’.

Even the notorious British libel system, something with which I’ve no desire to become more familiar, didn’t think much of this one, which is really saying something and it’s strange that the case was ever taken to court.

I’m not going to detail the entire episode, as the relevant parts of the story are laid out by David, but let me just give you the following phrases:

• A leading Conservative in Wirral is facing a libel and slander trial after allegedly calling a party colleague an Islamic terrorist.• Two of the calls were from a male describing himself as ‘an acid expert from Widnes’.• Mr Calver’s solicitors have alleged in papers to the court that Mr Noorani had asked a 16-year-old boy to phone Mr Calver and give him a “hard time”.• “No wonder you have depression, married to an Islamic terrorist,” Mr Noorani alleges Mr Calver said to his wife and daughter.• “I had an appointment with Esther McVey, then I had a message saying ‘Sorry, I can’t make it’.”• Summing up, Mr Justice Coulson told the court Mr Noorani’s own evidence “demonstrated” he made the calls.• “You don’t embark on High Court litigation on the basis that if you lose it’s a free ride.”

I’ve known a couple of acid experts from Widnes myself, but they weren’t the kind to make threatening phone calls.

Indeed, if the acid expert had turned out to be some whacked-out 60′s trip casualty, the case could hardly have been any stranger.

The Tories will be hoping to take Wirral West at the next election but, in true Murkeyside politics fashion, they seem to be doing their level best to screw it up.