In Ed Miliband's first speech to the comrades as party leader:
He said he understood voters' anger that "Labour hadn't stood up to the old ways in the City which said deregulation was the answer" and "at a Labour government that claimed it could end boom and bust."
Ahem. It was Labour that did the deregulating. The City might have asked for it, but Gordon Brown was willing to do it, and even bragged of it in the days before it all came crashing down. The 'light regulatory touch' was his boast, not the City's. While the bubble was still inflating, he was keen to take the credit. He didn't 'stand up' to the City - he fell over himself to give it what it wanted.
And the Labour government didn't claim it could end 'boom and bust'. It claimed it had ended boom and bust.
"Under this Government, Britain will not return to the boom and bust of the past."
Pre-Budget Report, 9th November 1999
"Britain does not want a return to boom and bust."
Budget Statement, 21 March 2000
"So our approach is to reject the old vicious circle of the...the old boom and bust."
Pre-Budget Report, 8 November 2000
"Mr Deputy Speaker we will not return to boom and bust."
Budget Statement, 7 March 2001
"As I have said before Mr Deputy Speaker: No return to boom and bust."
Budget Statement, 22 March 2006
"And we will never return to the old boom and bust."
Budget Statement, 21 March 2007
Small details, perhaps, but the comrades are starting to re-write the history of the last 13 years. (H/t Iain Dale for the compilation.)
John Prescott was keen to point out what Ed ought to be saying:
"If you're going to fight an election you will want to point out that we were quite successful in government particularly in the economic areas," he told BBC Radio 4's World at One.
And in other news, the Spanish Motorcycle Grand Prix 2010 was won by Geoff Duke riding a specially-prepared New Hudson Autocycle.
And while we're at it, here's Liam Byrne yesterday:
''This Government is hell bent on destroying the foundations of our economic success ..."
This from the man who, on the day of the election, left a note for his successor, saying
"Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards - and good luck! Liam."
Remember Nikolai Yezhov? No? There's a reason for that. Gordon Brown - you're next.
Showing posts with label Labour in too long. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labour in too long. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Monday, 3 May 2010
Do Yourself A Favour
Last-minute attack clip, pointing out some of the worst things about Labour's 13-year rule. It kind of summarises many of the reasons I feel as I do.
The Tories should have been banging this drum continuously for the last six weeks. Still, better late than never.
The Tories should have been banging this drum continuously for the last six weeks. Still, better late than never.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Unbelieveable
“Labour needs to ensure that the next election is not seen as a referendum on the government,” says Gordon Brown's Operation Fightback leaflet for Labour candidates in the forthcoming election.
Say what? What is any election but a referendum on the previous government's performance?
Unless, of course, you reckon that your dire stewardship of the economy and your disastrous social policies have been rumbled by the electorate, and you need to shift the focus away from your record and onto something else ...
Ah, yes.
Instead, he will attack the Conservatives, as the party admitted in a leaflet for candidates that voters are attracted to David Cameron’s message of change.
And what will the message be?
" ... candidates should frame the vote as “a big choice about the change we want for Britain between Labour, which is on the side of the mainstream many, and the Tories, whose instincts remain with the privileged few.”
Pissing in the wind. We have had 13 years to make up our minds about Labour, and we don't like what we have seen. If any Labour candidate comes round here (unlikely - we have never seen one in the last 20 years) and tells me that I should be making my choice on the basis of what the Tories are proposing, I will hand them a copy of the following - no, I will read it out to them - before kicking them in the genitals and slamming the door.
Old Holborn calls it a 'cut out and keep' document, and I will have a stack of printed copies waiting by the door just in case:
Ballot Boxes are interfered with
Voting registers go missing
The Police can kill innocent people and get away with it
The state can kill people and get away with it
You can be put in prison for 42 days on pure suspicion
You can be put in prison indefinitely on the word of a politician
The State can torture people
Your children are monitored at School by Political Officers
Their behaviour is logged on a State database for their entire lives
Your innocent fingerprints, iris scans and biometrics are held by the State
You do not have the right to remain silent
You are watched on 4 million CCTV cameras
You may not photograph the Police
The media is controlled by the State
You do not have the right to protest peacefully
Curfews exist for entire communities
Your travel movements are logged and monitored
Who you vote for is logged and monitored
Your shopping habits are studied and logged by the State
Your emails and telephone conversations are recorded by the State
Your passport can be withdrawn at the whim of the State
Government agencies can use lie detector tests on you.
- £22,500 of debt for every child born in Britain
- 111 tax rises from a government that promised no tax rises at all
- The longest national tax code in the world
- 100,000 million pounds drained from British pension funds
- Gun crime up 57%
- Violent crime up 70%
- The highest proportion of children living in workless households anywhere in Europe
- The number of pensioners living in poverty up by 100,000
- The lowest level of social mobility in the developed world
- The only G7 country with no growth this year
- One in six young people neither earning nor learning
- 5 million people on out-of-work benefits
- Missing the target of halving child poverty...
- Child poverty rising in each of the last three years instead
- Cancer survival rates among the worst in Europe
- Hospital-acquired infections killing nearly three times as many people as are killed on the roads
- Falling from 4th to 13th in the world competitiveness league
- Falling from 8th to 24th in the world education rankings in maths
- Falling from 7th to 17th in the rankings in literacy
- The police spending more time on paperwork than on the beat
- Fatal stabbings at an all-time high
- Prisoners released without serving their sentences
- Foreign prisoners released and never deported
- 7 million people without an NHS dentist
- Small business taxes going up
- Business taxes raised from among the lowest to among the highest in Europe
- Tax rises for working people set for after the election
- The 10p tax rate abolished
- The ludicrous promise to have ended boom and bust
- Our gold reserves sold for a quarter of their worth
- Our armed forces overstretched and under-supplied
- Profitable post offices closed against their will
- One of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe
- The ‘Golden Rule’ on borrowing abandoned because it didn’t fit
- Police inspectors in 10 Downing Street
- Dossiers that were dodgy
- Mandelson resigning the first time
- Mandelson resigning the second time
- Mandelson coming back for a third time
- Bad news buried
- Personal details lost
- An election bottled
- A referendum denied.
New Labour. Stamping on the faces of the many, not just the few. Forever.
He also notes:
PS “A future fair for all” is an anagram of “Our fearful fat liar”
Heh.
Mind you, I have no confidence that the Tories are going to be much better - BUT THEY CANNOT BE WORSE THAN THIS SHOWER. NO-ONE COULD.
Say what? What is any election but a referendum on the previous government's performance?
Unless, of course, you reckon that your dire stewardship of the economy and your disastrous social policies have been rumbled by the electorate, and you need to shift the focus away from your record and onto something else ...
Ah, yes.
Instead, he will attack the Conservatives, as the party admitted in a leaflet for candidates that voters are attracted to David Cameron’s message of change.
And what will the message be?
" ... candidates should frame the vote as “a big choice about the change we want for Britain between Labour, which is on the side of the mainstream many, and the Tories, whose instincts remain with the privileged few.”
Pissing in the wind. We have had 13 years to make up our minds about Labour, and we don't like what we have seen. If any Labour candidate comes round here (unlikely - we have never seen one in the last 20 years) and tells me that I should be making my choice on the basis of what the Tories are proposing, I will hand them a copy of the following - no, I will read it out to them - before kicking them in the genitals and slamming the door.
Old Holborn calls it a 'cut out and keep' document, and I will have a stack of printed copies waiting by the door just in case:
Ballot Boxes are interfered with
Voting registers go missing
The Police can kill innocent people and get away with it
The state can kill people and get away with it
You can be put in prison for 42 days on pure suspicion
You can be put in prison indefinitely on the word of a politician
The State can torture people
Your children are monitored at School by Political Officers
Their behaviour is logged on a State database for their entire lives
Your innocent fingerprints, iris scans and biometrics are held by the State
You do not have the right to remain silent
You are watched on 4 million CCTV cameras
You may not photograph the Police
The media is controlled by the State
You do not have the right to protest peacefully
Curfews exist for entire communities
Your travel movements are logged and monitored
Who you vote for is logged and monitored
Your shopping habits are studied and logged by the State
Your emails and telephone conversations are recorded by the State
Your passport can be withdrawn at the whim of the State
Government agencies can use lie detector tests on you.
- £22,500 of debt for every child born in Britain
- 111 tax rises from a government that promised no tax rises at all
- The longest national tax code in the world
- 100,000 million pounds drained from British pension funds
- Gun crime up 57%
- Violent crime up 70%
- The highest proportion of children living in workless households anywhere in Europe
- The number of pensioners living in poverty up by 100,000
- The lowest level of social mobility in the developed world
- The only G7 country with no growth this year
- One in six young people neither earning nor learning
- 5 million people on out-of-work benefits
- Missing the target of halving child poverty...
- Child poverty rising in each of the last three years instead
- Cancer survival rates among the worst in Europe
- Hospital-acquired infections killing nearly three times as many people as are killed on the roads
- Falling from 4th to 13th in the world competitiveness league
- Falling from 8th to 24th in the world education rankings in maths
- Falling from 7th to 17th in the rankings in literacy
- The police spending more time on paperwork than on the beat
- Fatal stabbings at an all-time high
- Prisoners released without serving their sentences
- Foreign prisoners released and never deported
- 7 million people without an NHS dentist
- Small business taxes going up
- Business taxes raised from among the lowest to among the highest in Europe
- Tax rises for working people set for after the election
- The 10p tax rate abolished
- The ludicrous promise to have ended boom and bust
- Our gold reserves sold for a quarter of their worth
- Our armed forces overstretched and under-supplied
- Profitable post offices closed against their will
- One of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe
- The ‘Golden Rule’ on borrowing abandoned because it didn’t fit
- Police inspectors in 10 Downing Street
- Dossiers that were dodgy
- Mandelson resigning the first time
- Mandelson resigning the second time
- Mandelson coming back for a third time
- Bad news buried
- Personal details lost
- An election bottled
- A referendum denied.
New Labour. Stamping on the faces of the many, not just the few. Forever.
He also notes:
PS “A future fair for all” is an anagram of “Our fearful fat liar”
Heh.
Mind you, I have no confidence that the Tories are going to be much better - BUT THEY CANNOT BE WORSE THAN THIS SHOWER. NO-ONE COULD.
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Labour's track record ...
... is not all that good. You knew that, but Jeff Randall in the Telegraph has the numbers.
He takes a few comparative stats over the period 1998-2010, which is roughly from Gordon Brown's first proper budget to today. The results are damning.
The value of Sterling first. In the period in question, Sterling has:
Next, the London Stock Market, where most of our savings are invested. In these 12 years:
My fear is that most of the voters in the coming General Election won't know this, because they were not alive, or old enough to follow the news, when these things happened. They won't know, because they haven't lived through it, that Labour governments always wreck the economy, and the following Conservative governments always pick up the pieces. In 1997, Labour had a golden opportunity - they inherited a fantastic economic climate from Ken Clarke, and it has been utterly wasted.
I'll leave the last words to Jeff Randall:
In short, sterling is in the toilet, our pensions have been slaughtered, cash savings yield almost nothing, the country is up to its neck in unprecedented debt, the banking system is awash with funny money, our gold reserves were sold off at rock-bottom prices, and Britain’s dole queue is considerably longer than before Crash Gordon began cooking the books.
Apart from that, it’s not too bad.
He takes a few comparative stats over the period 1998-2010, which is roughly from Gordon Brown's first proper budget to today. The results are damning.
The value of Sterling first. In the period in question, Sterling has:
- dropped 14% against the Swedish Krona
- dropped 24% against the Chinese yuan
- dropped 33% against the Swiss franc
- dropped 35% against the Japanese yen
- dropped 27% against the Euro.
Next, the London Stock Market, where most of our savings are invested. In these 12 years:
- The FTSE-100 has dropped 12%
- The CAC in Paris has dropped less than 1%
- The German DAX has risen by 12%
- The Dow Jones in America has risen by 15%
- The Hang Seng in Hong Kong has risen 77%.
- Labour 1964-70 - down 13% (including a forced devaluation of the Pound)
- Labour 1974-79 - down 11.5% (and a bail-out by the IMF)
- Labour 1998-2010 - down 20%.
My fear is that most of the voters in the coming General Election won't know this, because they were not alive, or old enough to follow the news, when these things happened. They won't know, because they haven't lived through it, that Labour governments always wreck the economy, and the following Conservative governments always pick up the pieces. In 1997, Labour had a golden opportunity - they inherited a fantastic economic climate from Ken Clarke, and it has been utterly wasted.
I'll leave the last words to Jeff Randall:
In short, sterling is in the toilet, our pensions have been slaughtered, cash savings yield almost nothing, the country is up to its neck in unprecedented debt, the banking system is awash with funny money, our gold reserves were sold off at rock-bottom prices, and Britain’s dole queue is considerably longer than before Crash Gordon began cooking the books.
Apart from that, it’s not too bad.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Be sincere, even if you don't mean it
I was astounded to see Alastair Campbell, the master of spin and presentation, appearing to have great difficulty with Andrew Marr's questioning this morning (BBC iPlayer here, from about 18:00, interesting bit from around 20:00). Now Andrew Marr is not normally an attack dog of the Right - usually his questions to Government ministers are probing enough to be credible, but punches are generally soft and are pulled before any killer blows are landed. Think of his failure to follow through when he asked Gordon Brown about his medication. But he really seemed to catch Campbell out this morning, and Campbell seemed close to tears.
Or did he?
Curiously, there are reports that Gordon Brown will also cry during an interview with Piers Morgan next weekend (source). That should be like a slow-motion car crash, for sure.
Am I being too cynical, or is this just the latest Labour ploy to try and rescue something from the gloom of the next election? They have tried appearing competent, but that has comprehensively unravelled over the last 12 months. They have tried scurrilous attacks on the enemy, but those have generally come back and bit them on the arse. Now they appear to be going for the sympathy vote. "Look, chaps, we know we have cocked things up on the economy and left our grandchildren with trillions of debt, we know we took the country into an illegal war on the basis of lies and deception at the behest of a foreign power, and we know that Britain is less safe, less free and less well-educated that at any time in recent history. But really, we are all human and we have our weaknesses, and we don't want you to hit us too hard when you get the chance. Please be kind to us - we are now the underdogs, you know."
I used to know a boy at Primary school. He was a bully, and would hit girls and smaller boys if he got the chance and teacher wasn't looking. If a bigger boy threatened him, he would dissolve into tears, and no-one had the heart to punch his lights out as he so richly deserved.
It worked at Arthur Pease Junior (Mixed) and Infants.
Labour hope it will work for them too.
And they wonder why people are cynical about politics.
Or did he?
Curiously, there are reports that Gordon Brown will also cry during an interview with Piers Morgan next weekend (source). That should be like a slow-motion car crash, for sure.
Am I being too cynical, or is this just the latest Labour ploy to try and rescue something from the gloom of the next election? They have tried appearing competent, but that has comprehensively unravelled over the last 12 months. They have tried scurrilous attacks on the enemy, but those have generally come back and bit them on the arse. Now they appear to be going for the sympathy vote. "Look, chaps, we know we have cocked things up on the economy and left our grandchildren with trillions of debt, we know we took the country into an illegal war on the basis of lies and deception at the behest of a foreign power, and we know that Britain is less safe, less free and less well-educated that at any time in recent history. But really, we are all human and we have our weaknesses, and we don't want you to hit us too hard when you get the chance. Please be kind to us - we are now the underdogs, you know."
I used to know a boy at Primary school. He was a bully, and would hit girls and smaller boys if he got the chance and teacher wasn't looking. If a bigger boy threatened him, he would dissolve into tears, and no-one had the heart to punch his lights out as he so richly deserved.
It worked at Arthur Pease Junior (Mixed) and Infants.
Labour hope it will work for them too.
And they wonder why people are cynical about politics.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Parris thinks so too
Matthew Parris has a good article in today's Times, where he writes about the attempt by Hewitt And Hoon to force a secret ballot for the Labour leadership. I wrote about this on Thursday, and said:
Perhaps it really is that simple: both are leaving the Commons at the next election anyway, and this was a move guaranteed to skewer their leader's auld enemy and ensure his defeat in the most public and humiliating way possible. Nobody could be that vindictive, could they?
Parris agrees with this analysis, although I included it as a kind of comic alternative which no-one would take seriously:
You’ll hardly find a commentator with a lower opinion of Mr Brown than me, so if even I can see that removing him now would only compound Labour’s problems, don’t imagine his own MPs cannot see the same. And don’t imagine that this never occurred to Geoff Hoon or Patricia Hewitt.
I utterly, utterly despair.
Perhaps it really is that simple: both are leaving the Commons at the next election anyway, and this was a move guaranteed to skewer their leader's auld enemy and ensure his defeat in the most public and humiliating way possible. Nobody could be that vindictive, could they?
Parris agrees with this analysis, although I included it as a kind of comic alternative which no-one would take seriously:
You’ll hardly find a commentator with a lower opinion of Mr Brown than me, so if even I can see that removing him now would only compound Labour’s problems, don’t imagine his own MPs cannot see the same. And don’t imagine that this never occurred to Geoff Hoon or Patricia Hewitt.
In which case, we must face the truth. Mainly they wanted to hurt him. Two senior Labour figures preparing to depart politics have delivered a huge kick to the prime-ministerial shins. Now, we may suppose — Lord Mandelson permitting — that Mr Brown will limp on to the defeat that the British voters wait to inflict upon him.
This new year putsch against Mr Brown, then, has succeeded. Mr Hoon’s and Ms Hewitt’s Night of the Long Icicles has achieved its purpose once you understand its purpose.
This, remember, is the party in charge of the British economy at a time of unprecedented crisis, during a time when we are was overseas and are getting our soldiers killed every day, and with a General Election less than six months away.I utterly, utterly despair.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Blogger's Sniffle
What a day! I was at work yesterday, feeling weaker and wobblier by the minute, and this morning I woke up feeling lousy. Now I often feel like this first thing, so I waited until I had showered and dressed before doing a full body recce and deciding that I was, indeed, suffering from the mansniffles.
In between trips to the kitchen for hot tea (and yet another square of kitchen roll for the GFAGN nose), I have been catching up on the many blogs that I read. One new one that I have only just found is whollyRUDE, and I recommend it to you. It's lively, right-of-centre, well-written, literate and intelligent and well worth a look. I keep going back to the photo in the blog header, can't think why. I posted a comment there this morning and got a comment back that I should blog something today myself. All day I have been trying to wind myself up to it ...
I have a list of all the blogs I read on my Google home page, but I also use Google Reader, which alerts me to new posts and allows you to read the contents from within your home page. This is a bit lazy, I know, as you don't visit the blog itself (and thereby perhaps ruin someone's stats, not sure) and you don't get to see the blog as the writer wanted it to be seen, but when you are at work and sneakily catching up with the blogosphere while you are supposed to be doing something you're paid to do, it's invaluable. But when there is nothing to read, all you get is:
Your reading list has no unread items
Am I alone in getting just a small jag of disappointment whenever I see this? It's a bit like checking an email account or an answering machine when you are expecting someone to contact you: a bit sad, a bit needy, and makes you feel guiltily obsessive, but you can't stop. Refresh, refresh, refresh. Fortunately, today has been pretty busy out there, and there has been something of interest every time I have looked. Almost.
The key issue of today has been the laughable failed palace putsch of Hewitt and Hoon - the Mutt and Jeff of the Blairite wing of the People's Party. What the fuckity fuck were they thinking of? There could only have ever been two outcomes: either they were successful in their call for a secret ballot (or a 'secret ballet', according to one poster to LabourList, which would have been far more entertaining) and Labour would have been thrown into a leadership battle just as the election campaign starts in earnest; or they failed, and delivered a damaging blow to the Prime Mentalist's pretence of unity just when he needed the support of everyone. I can't think anyone in the Labour Party, however much they can't stand Brown, would have wanted either of those: it's tantamount to electoral suicide. In fact, if the two of them weren't such long-standing members of the governing party, I would have said that the strategy was designed to do as much damage to Labour's electoral prospects as possible, and could have easily been orchestrated by the Special Ops wing of Tory Central Office.
Perhaps it really is that simple: both are leaving the Commons at the next election anyway, and this was a move guaranteed to skewer their leader's auld enemy and ensure his defeat in the most public and humiliating way possible. Nobody could be that vindictive, could they?
Well, it's that or stupid, and I think with Labour we can guess which, although it's not a black and white decision, I know.
Oh, and I liked this (h/t Iain Dale):
In between trips to the kitchen for hot tea (and yet another square of kitchen roll for the GFAGN nose), I have been catching up on the many blogs that I read. One new one that I have only just found is whollyRUDE, and I recommend it to you. It's lively, right-of-centre, well-written, literate and intelligent and well worth a look. I keep going back to the photo in the blog header, can't think why. I posted a comment there this morning and got a comment back that I should blog something today myself. All day I have been trying to wind myself up to it ...
I have a list of all the blogs I read on my Google home page, but I also use Google Reader, which alerts me to new posts and allows you to read the contents from within your home page. This is a bit lazy, I know, as you don't visit the blog itself (and thereby perhaps ruin someone's stats, not sure) and you don't get to see the blog as the writer wanted it to be seen, but when you are at work and sneakily catching up with the blogosphere while you are supposed to be doing something you're paid to do, it's invaluable. But when there is nothing to read, all you get is:
Your reading list has no unread items
Am I alone in getting just a small jag of disappointment whenever I see this? It's a bit like checking an email account or an answering machine when you are expecting someone to contact you: a bit sad, a bit needy, and makes you feel guiltily obsessive, but you can't stop. Refresh, refresh, refresh. Fortunately, today has been pretty busy out there, and there has been something of interest every time I have looked. Almost.
The key issue of today has been the laughable failed palace putsch of Hewitt and Hoon - the Mutt and Jeff of the Blairite wing of the People's Party. What the fuckity fuck were they thinking of? There could only have ever been two outcomes: either they were successful in their call for a secret ballot (or a 'secret ballet', according to one poster to LabourList, which would have been far more entertaining) and Labour would have been thrown into a leadership battle just as the election campaign starts in earnest; or they failed, and delivered a damaging blow to the Prime Mentalist's pretence of unity just when he needed the support of everyone. I can't think anyone in the Labour Party, however much they can't stand Brown, would have wanted either of those: it's tantamount to electoral suicide. In fact, if the two of them weren't such long-standing members of the governing party, I would have said that the strategy was designed to do as much damage to Labour's electoral prospects as possible, and could have easily been orchestrated by the Special Ops wing of Tory Central Office.
Perhaps it really is that simple: both are leaving the Commons at the next election anyway, and this was a move guaranteed to skewer their leader's auld enemy and ensure his defeat in the most public and humiliating way possible. Nobody could be that vindictive, could they?
Well, it's that or stupid, and I think with Labour we can guess which, although it's not a black and white decision, I know.
Oh, and I liked this (h/t Iain Dale):
Thursday, 31 December 2009
How did I miss this?
This has been on Youtube since January 2008, and yet I seem to have missed it. A view, in cartoons, of the last decade, which I found rather moving. It hits a mood which resonates very strongly with me.
I don't know who/what/where Monkey Dust is/are, but I think I need to find out more.
I don't know who/what/where Monkey Dust is/are, but I think I need to find out more.
Saturday, 21 November 2009
Harriet's Forward Planning
Following on from the previous post, I see Our Harriet has been planning this for a while:
From June 2008 - "Ahead of a Commons Debate this week, Minister for Women Harriet Harman will today visit HMP Holloway, the UK’s largest all woman prison, as she takes part in Government’s new drive for fewer women to be sent to prison."
It's OK, love. They don't put people in prison for using a mobile whilst driving. Yet.
H/t.
From June 2008 - "Ahead of a Commons Debate this week, Minister for Women Harriet Harman will today visit HMP Holloway, the UK’s largest all woman prison, as she takes part in Government’s new drive for fewer women to be sent to prison."
It's OK, love. They don't put people in prison for using a mobile whilst driving. Yet.
H/t.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Harriet, a criminal? Say it ain't so!
The Times is now reporting that Harriet Harman, Minister for Being Nasty to Blokes, is to face charges for motoring offences.
Harriet Harman’s political future was in the balance tonight after she became the first Cabinet minister in living memory to face criminal charges. The Crown Prosecution Service said Labour’s deputy leader would be prosecuted for allegedly driving without due care and attention and driving while using a mobile phone.
Now, as we have recently seen many of these greedy hypocrites have got away with fiddling tens of thousands of pounds from the public purse, by simply having to give an apology to their friends (the apology was due to us, you theiving bastards, not your partners in crime). So Harriet would appear to be fairly unlucky here. But apparently there is enough evidence to support a charge, and the CPS think that a prosecution would be in the public interest, so it's handcuffs and a scarf over the head for our Harriet on her next court appearance.
To be honest, I can't wait. Not for her to get the punishment she deserves, as that will never happen, but to hear her whinges and wheedles as she defends her conduct. Think of that vile Scotland woman, with her 'technical breaches' of the law, and her 'unintentional' actions. She is reported to be denying the charges, so she'll have to come up with something. Since there were apparently several wintesses, she will have to either a) come up with a really good excuse, like Gord phoned her up and offered her the Chancellorship, and she crashed the car from shock, or b) - my bet - discredit the witnesses as Tory stooges and Daily Mail readers. That would be New Labour's style. She'll get off, but it will be fun to see how she does it; and I can imagine it will drive another nail into the coffin of Labour's chances at the election.
But before the case comes to court (if it ever does - there's many things a former Minister of Justice can do and strings they can pull), I just want you to think of what might have happened if you or I had committed the same offences that she is alleged to have committed.
You are driving along a busy street, talking on your mobile. You are distracted by the conversation (as the Government has always argued that you must be), and you drive your car into a car parked by the side of the road. You attempt to drive away, but a crowd gathers. You wind down the window and shout "I am Fred Bloggs, you know where to find me!" and drive away without leaving your name, address and insurance details with anyone, as the law demands that you must.
Now, call me an old cynic, but I think you or I would be treated quite harshly. Minimum £60 and three points for the mobile; perhaps £500 and another three points for the Driving Without Due Care. However, I would be the most worried about the third charge. Leaving the scene of an accident is, quite rightly, a serious offence, and I would expect a large fine and a ban at the very least, and possibly a prison sentence somewhere in the background.
What's that? They are not charging her with leaving the scene? Oh, that's all right, then. Perhaps she didn't. Perhaps she's still there.
She'll either get off on a technicality, or she'll have a light rap across the knuckles for being careless. And in either case she will carry on as before, utterly without any shame. There won't even be an apology, much less a resignation. After all, laws are for the little people, aren't they? (And her a socialist and a believer in equality. Tchah.)
And, of course, there is the traditional Labour mistreatment of words.
Ms Harman strongly refutes the allegations.
If she wins in court, she will have refuted them. What you mean is she has denied them. Very different things.
The first cabinet minister in living memory to face criminal charges. An immediate resignation and a quite retirement from public life for a while might have earned her some respect. But on past form, she will bluster on, and it will all be a misunderstanding, a foregiveable lapse, or a Tory plot.
I despise these people.
Harriet Harman’s political future was in the balance tonight after she became the first Cabinet minister in living memory to face criminal charges. The Crown Prosecution Service said Labour’s deputy leader would be prosecuted for allegedly driving without due care and attention and driving while using a mobile phone.
Now, as we have recently seen many of these greedy hypocrites have got away with fiddling tens of thousands of pounds from the public purse, by simply having to give an apology to their friends (the apology was due to us, you theiving bastards, not your partners in crime). So Harriet would appear to be fairly unlucky here. But apparently there is enough evidence to support a charge, and the CPS think that a prosecution would be in the public interest, so it's handcuffs and a scarf over the head for our Harriet on her next court appearance.
To be honest, I can't wait. Not for her to get the punishment she deserves, as that will never happen, but to hear her whinges and wheedles as she defends her conduct. Think of that vile Scotland woman, with her 'technical breaches' of the law, and her 'unintentional' actions. She is reported to be denying the charges, so she'll have to come up with something. Since there were apparently several wintesses, she will have to either a) come up with a really good excuse, like Gord phoned her up and offered her the Chancellorship, and she crashed the car from shock, or b) - my bet - discredit the witnesses as Tory stooges and Daily Mail readers. That would be New Labour's style. She'll get off, but it will be fun to see how she does it; and I can imagine it will drive another nail into the coffin of Labour's chances at the election.
But before the case comes to court (if it ever does - there's many things a former Minister of Justice can do and strings they can pull), I just want you to think of what might have happened if you or I had committed the same offences that she is alleged to have committed.
You are driving along a busy street, talking on your mobile. You are distracted by the conversation (as the Government has always argued that you must be), and you drive your car into a car parked by the side of the road. You attempt to drive away, but a crowd gathers. You wind down the window and shout "I am Fred Bloggs, you know where to find me!" and drive away without leaving your name, address and insurance details with anyone, as the law demands that you must.
Now, call me an old cynic, but I think you or I would be treated quite harshly. Minimum £60 and three points for the mobile; perhaps £500 and another three points for the Driving Without Due Care. However, I would be the most worried about the third charge. Leaving the scene of an accident is, quite rightly, a serious offence, and I would expect a large fine and a ban at the very least, and possibly a prison sentence somewhere in the background.
What's that? They are not charging her with leaving the scene? Oh, that's all right, then. Perhaps she didn't. Perhaps she's still there.
She'll either get off on a technicality, or she'll have a light rap across the knuckles for being careless. And in either case she will carry on as before, utterly without any shame. There won't even be an apology, much less a resignation. After all, laws are for the little people, aren't they? (And her a socialist and a believer in equality. Tchah.)
And, of course, there is the traditional Labour mistreatment of words.
Ms Harman strongly refutes the allegations.
If she wins in court, she will have refuted them. What you mean is she has denied them. Very different things.
The first cabinet minister in living memory to face criminal charges. An immediate resignation and a quite retirement from public life for a while might have earned her some respect. But on past form, she will bluster on, and it will all be a misunderstanding, a foregiveable lapse, or a Tory plot.
I despise these people.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
E-petition response
Long ago, I signed the No. 10 petition "Resign". The wording of the petition was:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign.”
I got my response today. It said:
The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all.
Perfect New Labour. Doesn't address the issue, full of platitudes we have heard before, empty cadences that ultimately remind one of a Labour Random Phrase Generator. And, at the bottom of it all, hogwash. It simply isn't true. They know it; we know it.
What about this:
The Prime Minister is completely focussed on creating enough misinformation and confusion so that Britain might sleepwalk into a fourth Labour term, to pursuing a scorched-earth economic policy in case the Tories do get in, spending taxpayer's money on lunatic feel-good schemes that have a take-up in single figures, and pissing our money up the wall on his clients in the public services and the benefits office. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to leave a weaker, more divided, more unhappy Britain for all.
And it's 'focused', by the way.
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign.”
I got my response today. It said:
The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all.
Perfect New Labour. Doesn't address the issue, full of platitudes we have heard before, empty cadences that ultimately remind one of a Labour Random Phrase Generator. And, at the bottom of it all, hogwash. It simply isn't true. They know it; we know it.
What about this:
The Prime Minister is completely focussed on creating enough misinformation and confusion so that Britain might sleepwalk into a fourth Labour term, to pursuing a scorched-earth economic policy in case the Tories do get in, spending taxpayer's money on lunatic feel-good schemes that have a take-up in single figures, and pissing our money up the wall on his clients in the public services and the benefits office. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to leave a weaker, more divided, more unhappy Britain for all.
And it's 'focused', by the way.
The heroism of New Labour
It's been doing the rounds in the blogosphere, but I thought this deserved as much exposure as possible. From returning Iraq soldier Chris Finney:
“I have found the return to civilian life humbling. My George Cross counted for little when I tried to find a job in the middle of a recession. The usual grumbling by soldiers at the politicians who determine their fate has for me hardened into real anger. When I left the Army, I qualified for a resettlement allowance of just £500. In contrast, MPs who leave the Commons receive between 50% and 100% of their annual salary to help them ‘adjust’ to live outside Parliament. Where is the fairness in that?
What makes me even more furious is the lack of respect shown by the Government to those who have paid the highest price and made the ultimate sacrifice: the war dead. Why is there no Minister in attendance when our fallen heroes from Afghanistan are brought home to repatriation ceremonies at Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire? I couldn’t believe it when I read that Gordon Brown had phoned Simon Cowell to ask how Britain’s Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle was when she had a breakdown. He doesn’t phone any of the bereaved families. I thought that was absolutely disgusting, a real slap in the face for the parents of the hundreds of soldiers killed.”
Indeed.
Labour just don't like the military, that's all. They are either officers (Sandhurst, plum in the mouth, elitist) or other ranks (unreconstructed macho males who probably support the BNP) - neither group fits in well with NuLabour's dream of a touchy-feely socialist paradise where All Shall Have Prizes. It goes a bit against the internationalist grain, too - we're supposed to be comrades with the Iraqi people, not shooting them. The only use the military have as far as NuLab are concerned is in carrying out the wishes of their poodle-masters in the US, and then at the least cost and with the minimum of equipment or support.
This kind of thing makes me ashamed to be British.
A bit like the thing with the Gurkhas. Truly shameful. Roll on 2010 and let's get these despicable turds out of government.
H/t to Guido.
“I have found the return to civilian life humbling. My George Cross counted for little when I tried to find a job in the middle of a recession. The usual grumbling by soldiers at the politicians who determine their fate has for me hardened into real anger. When I left the Army, I qualified for a resettlement allowance of just £500. In contrast, MPs who leave the Commons receive between 50% and 100% of their annual salary to help them ‘adjust’ to live outside Parliament. Where is the fairness in that?
What makes me even more furious is the lack of respect shown by the Government to those who have paid the highest price and made the ultimate sacrifice: the war dead. Why is there no Minister in attendance when our fallen heroes from Afghanistan are brought home to repatriation ceremonies at Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire? I couldn’t believe it when I read that Gordon Brown had phoned Simon Cowell to ask how Britain’s Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle was when she had a breakdown. He doesn’t phone any of the bereaved families. I thought that was absolutely disgusting, a real slap in the face for the parents of the hundreds of soldiers killed.”
Indeed.
Labour just don't like the military, that's all. They are either officers (Sandhurst, plum in the mouth, elitist) or other ranks (unreconstructed macho males who probably support the BNP) - neither group fits in well with NuLabour's dream of a touchy-feely socialist paradise where All Shall Have Prizes. It goes a bit against the internationalist grain, too - we're supposed to be comrades with the Iraqi people, not shooting them. The only use the military have as far as NuLab are concerned is in carrying out the wishes of their poodle-masters in the US, and then at the least cost and with the minimum of equipment or support.
This kind of thing makes me ashamed to be British.
A bit like the thing with the Gurkhas. Truly shameful. Roll on 2010 and let's get these despicable turds out of government.
H/t to Guido.
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Great cartoon
Picked up from another blog, and I can't remember which - sorry! Worth sharing, though.
Friday, 23 October 2009
What we had long suspected
This needs to be widely known.
The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote".
"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."
The "deliberate policy", from late 2000 until "at least February last year", when the new points based system was introduced, was to open up the UK to mass migration, he said.
"Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.
"But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland."
And look where their deceit has got them. Millions of disaffected and apathetic working-class voters, and the BNP on a roll.
"Rubbing the Right's nose in diversity."
What a bunch of malevolent, vindictive, irresponsible, shallow, contemptible, utter, utter bastards. I reckon this is close to treason.
Watch the BBC lead with this in tomorrow's headlines.
Not.
The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote".
"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."
The "deliberate policy", from late 2000 until "at least February last year", when the new points based system was introduced, was to open up the UK to mass migration, he said.
"Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.
"But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland."
And look where their deceit has got them. Millions of disaffected and apathetic working-class voters, and the BNP on a roll.
"Rubbing the Right's nose in diversity."
What a bunch of malevolent, vindictive, irresponsible, shallow, contemptible, utter, utter bastards. I reckon this is close to treason.
Watch the BBC lead with this in tomorrow's headlines.
Not.
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Nick Griffin and Fascism
I've been watching the slow-motion car crash that is the lead-in to tonight's Question Time on the BBC. For once, I think the BBC have got it exactly right, and I applaud them for their stance in the face of some hypocritical, but very loud and nasty, criticism.
The BNP are a legal party, with representatives elected through due process by the British electorate. It is not, therefore, up to the BBC to refuse them a fair hearing on the grounds that some people don't like what they have to say. So the BBC are absolutely correct to allow Nasty Nick his place on QT.
As others have pointed out, it is up to governments to proscribe organisations, not broadcasters. (I wouldn't necessarily agree with that either, but at least it would be democratic.)
Let me make perfectly clear that I do not support the BNP, and would never vote for them if they ever fielded a candidate in my constituency. I do not support their Old Labour economics, which are reminiscent of Eric Heffer and Arthur Scargill on mind-altering drugs. I do not support their racist membership policy, and nor do I wish to see the all-white Britain that they have publicly campaigned for. Anyone who judges another person solely by the colour of their skin is stupid. Having heard some of them speak on TV after the Euro elections, I don't believe that they have the depth or intelligence to be meaningful or worthy representatives of the people. I am not impressed by the gangs of besuited skinheads that they seem to surround themselves with at every appearance. So I am in no way a BNP supporter, and would like to see them defeated and voted out of the small number of positions of power that they hold.
But ... I am an even greater believer in democracy and freedom of speech. Never mind that old 'defend to the death your right to say it' stuff. Freedom of speech is the only way that we, as a nation, can debate the things we want to debate, make decisions that we want to be the right ones, and discern poisonous hatred from genuine freedom of opinion.
So, I think the decision to allow Griffin to appear on QT is the right one. I have a belief in the innate tolerance and good sense of the British people - of all colours. I believe that the simple act of allowing the BNP onto a mainstream TV programme will not suddenly have half the population voting for racism. I believe that we are still one of the least racist nations on Earth, and that if people hear the views of Griffin from his own mouth, challenged by some stiff debate from the other panellists, they will reject what they hear.
So why does the BNP attract the support (growing all the time, apparently) that they do? It is because, mixed in with all the nasty stuff, some of their public utterances strike a chord in the public mind, especially amongst the white working classes that Labour used to see as its core vote. They are calling for an end to uncontrolled immigration. They are saying that the British identity is being eroded. They are saying we don't want multiculturalism. They are saying we want our country back - from the workshy, from the scroungers, from their bien-pensant left-wing rulers, and from the people who come here from other countries with no other purpose but to milk our generous benefits system. The fact is that there are a large number - a very large number - who agree with this, and not only in the traditional working classes.
Labour are to blame for this. At one time, the traditional working-class voter could be sure that Labour would promote his or her interests and fight their corner - whether it was against the evil factory-owning classes or the Johnny foreigners. But New Labour, by embracing political correctness, managerialism and the global left-liberal mindset, have abandoned them. First the traditional British voter found that no-one was speaking for him or her. Then they were told that they were wrong for feeling the way they do. By their own people. No wonder they are turning to the BNP. Many are no doubt holding their noses as they do so, but they are voting these people into power, and it will only get worse.
Labour can turn it around. They can drop all the Nanny State stuff. They can play a tight game on immigration. They can empower the Police to catch criminals, rather than shuffle paper and targets. They can return discipline to schools. They can take some effective action against yob culture. They can insist that people integrate, rather than segregate. They can start playing fair with people, so that someone who publicly advocates murder is not treated differently if he is of one religion rather than another. They can start allowing people to have their own opinions on social issues, even if they are old-fashioned. They can start talking as if they were proud to be British, rather than ashamed. The BNP vote would vanish like dew on a sunny morning. And the Conservatives would have a real problem.
I can remember all this 'no-platform' stuff from my University days in the 70s. "No Platform For Racists!" All it meant was that visiting speakers were people who agreed with the President of the Students' Union. Not exactly the cut and thrust of sparkling public debate, in which the ideas, ideals and ideologies of the next generation were forged. Just yet more boring lefties saying how everything was Thatcher's fault.
Guys - no-platforming doesn't work. It makes debate dull and predictable, and it gives the other side of the argument the veneer of mystery and the glamour of the forbidden. It makes those who advocate it feel warm inside, but all its other effects are undesirable.
Now the UAF lot, who are organising all these protests, want to keep certain points of view off the state media, and silence certain politicians whose views they disagree with. They say they are against fascism, and yet every fascist movement in history has started by stifling dissent and demonising those it didn't like.
How many times have I told you? Don't your sister
The BNP should be defeated - at the ballot box, by people who have heard what the BNP stands for, have seen them debate their policies, and don't like what they see. There is no other way.
UPDATE:
Well, no riots, no murder 'n' mayhem, only some pretty strong chairpersonning from the Dimble and what appeared to be an audience composed entirely of Guardian readers.
Scores on the doors:
Bonnie Greer: 3/10, good humoured, drawly but mainly irrelevant
Chris Huhne: 5/10, loud and shrill, still blaming the 'two main parties' for everything
Baroness Warsi: 9/10, the star of the show, for me - clear, coherent, sensible, sincere
Jack Straw: 3/10, Labour politician, evasive and sly, almost lost it in several places
Nick Griffin: 1/10, sweaty, trembling, nervous smirks and giggles, like a dog in a Korean restaurant.
The main thing was that the others didn't gang up on Griffin (well, not much) and therefore make him look like an underdog or martyr. He was not convincing, and seemed overawed by the occasion. Even the most rabid white-power fanatic couldn't look on his performance tonight and say "here is the man to lead Britian into the future". He shook, he twitched, he twisted and turned and denied he had ever said it. And even when he did get going on the things he wanted to say, he failed to light the fires. The bit where he appeared to say that he had said racist things only to bring the Ku Klux Klan on board and make them more moderate was a hoot.
Griffin, 0
BBC, 2
Democracy, 10.
The BNP are a legal party, with representatives elected through due process by the British electorate. It is not, therefore, up to the BBC to refuse them a fair hearing on the grounds that some people don't like what they have to say. So the BBC are absolutely correct to allow Nasty Nick his place on QT.
As others have pointed out, it is up to governments to proscribe organisations, not broadcasters. (I wouldn't necessarily agree with that either, but at least it would be democratic.)
Let me make perfectly clear that I do not support the BNP, and would never vote for them if they ever fielded a candidate in my constituency. I do not support their Old Labour economics, which are reminiscent of Eric Heffer and Arthur Scargill on mind-altering drugs. I do not support their racist membership policy, and nor do I wish to see the all-white Britain that they have publicly campaigned for. Anyone who judges another person solely by the colour of their skin is stupid. Having heard some of them speak on TV after the Euro elections, I don't believe that they have the depth or intelligence to be meaningful or worthy representatives of the people. I am not impressed by the gangs of besuited skinheads that they seem to surround themselves with at every appearance. So I am in no way a BNP supporter, and would like to see them defeated and voted out of the small number of positions of power that they hold.
But ... I am an even greater believer in democracy and freedom of speech. Never mind that old 'defend to the death your right to say it' stuff. Freedom of speech is the only way that we, as a nation, can debate the things we want to debate, make decisions that we want to be the right ones, and discern poisonous hatred from genuine freedom of opinion.
So, I think the decision to allow Griffin to appear on QT is the right one. I have a belief in the innate tolerance and good sense of the British people - of all colours. I believe that the simple act of allowing the BNP onto a mainstream TV programme will not suddenly have half the population voting for racism. I believe that we are still one of the least racist nations on Earth, and that if people hear the views of Griffin from his own mouth, challenged by some stiff debate from the other panellists, they will reject what they hear.
So why does the BNP attract the support (growing all the time, apparently) that they do? It is because, mixed in with all the nasty stuff, some of their public utterances strike a chord in the public mind, especially amongst the white working classes that Labour used to see as its core vote. They are calling for an end to uncontrolled immigration. They are saying that the British identity is being eroded. They are saying we don't want multiculturalism. They are saying we want our country back - from the workshy, from the scroungers, from their bien-pensant left-wing rulers, and from the people who come here from other countries with no other purpose but to milk our generous benefits system. The fact is that there are a large number - a very large number - who agree with this, and not only in the traditional working classes.
Labour are to blame for this. At one time, the traditional working-class voter could be sure that Labour would promote his or her interests and fight their corner - whether it was against the evil factory-owning classes or the Johnny foreigners. But New Labour, by embracing political correctness, managerialism and the global left-liberal mindset, have abandoned them. First the traditional British voter found that no-one was speaking for him or her. Then they were told that they were wrong for feeling the way they do. By their own people. No wonder they are turning to the BNP. Many are no doubt holding their noses as they do so, but they are voting these people into power, and it will only get worse.
Labour can turn it around. They can drop all the Nanny State stuff. They can play a tight game on immigration. They can empower the Police to catch criminals, rather than shuffle paper and targets. They can return discipline to schools. They can take some effective action against yob culture. They can insist that people integrate, rather than segregate. They can start playing fair with people, so that someone who publicly advocates murder is not treated differently if he is of one religion rather than another. They can start allowing people to have their own opinions on social issues, even if they are old-fashioned. They can start talking as if they were proud to be British, rather than ashamed. The BNP vote would vanish like dew on a sunny morning. And the Conservatives would have a real problem.
I can remember all this 'no-platform' stuff from my University days in the 70s. "No Platform For Racists!" All it meant was that visiting speakers were people who agreed with the President of the Students' Union. Not exactly the cut and thrust of sparkling public debate, in which the ideas, ideals and ideologies of the next generation were forged. Just yet more boring lefties saying how everything was Thatcher's fault.
Guys - no-platforming doesn't work. It makes debate dull and predictable, and it gives the other side of the argument the veneer of mystery and the glamour of the forbidden. It makes those who advocate it feel warm inside, but all its other effects are undesirable.
Now the UAF lot, who are organising all these protests, want to keep certain points of view off the state media, and silence certain politicians whose views they disagree with. They say they are against fascism, and yet every fascist movement in history has started by stifling dissent and demonising those it didn't like.
How many times have I told you? Don't
The BNP should be defeated - at the ballot box, by people who have heard what the BNP stands for, have seen them debate their policies, and don't like what they see. There is no other way.
UPDATE:
Well, no riots, no murder 'n' mayhem, only some pretty strong chairpersonning from the Dimble and what appeared to be an audience composed entirely of Guardian readers.
Scores on the doors:
Bonnie Greer: 3/10, good humoured, drawly but mainly irrelevant
Chris Huhne: 5/10, loud and shrill, still blaming the 'two main parties' for everything
Baroness Warsi: 9/10, the star of the show, for me - clear, coherent, sensible, sincere
Jack Straw: 3/10, Labour politician, evasive and sly, almost lost it in several places
Nick Griffin: 1/10, sweaty, trembling, nervous smirks and giggles, like a dog in a Korean restaurant.
The main thing was that the others didn't gang up on Griffin (well, not much) and therefore make him look like an underdog or martyr. He was not convincing, and seemed overawed by the occasion. Even the most rabid white-power fanatic couldn't look on his performance tonight and say "here is the man to lead Britian into the future". He shook, he twitched, he twisted and turned and denied he had ever said it. And even when he did get going on the things he wanted to say, he failed to light the fires. The bit where he appeared to say that he had said racist things only to bring the Ku Klux Klan on board and make them more moderate was a hoot.
Griffin, 0
BBC, 2
Democracy, 10.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
Unbelievable
Just seen this on The Times website.
THE attorney-general, Baroness Scotland, has sparked anger among colleagues by insisting on the use of a chauffeur-driven Jaguar — a privilege usually reserved for a handful of senior cabinet ministers.
WTF? This is the woman who has just been fined £5000 for breaking her own law, before dismissing it as a 'technicality'. She's the Government's chief lawyer, and in any normal country she would have stepped down quietly when she was found out, expressed regret, and that would have been it.
But no - she is now demanding a chauffeur-driven Jaguar because (I assume) the Rover she gets with the job isn't good enough.
A source close to the attorney-general said last week that she had been expected by officials to inherit the car of her predecessor, Lord Goldsmith, who had the use of a more modest Rover 75.
“However, she insisted she wanted a Jaguar,” said the source. “Paul Jenkins was very upset about it. There was a heated discussion, but in the end he just said that they may as well give it to her.”
I am utterly astonished. Not just at the sheer neck of the woman, who should be grateful she isn't going to prison for her 'technical' offence, as you can be sure a nasty old private-sector employer would be. But also at the grasping materialistic greediness of it all. It's all to do with rank, apparently. She isn't in the cabinet (who get Jaguars automatically with their position), but she is of cabinet rank. She is entitled to a Jag. How this is any more attractive than Dwayyne Buttocks, Assistant Sales Manager, Eastern Region, wanting an upgrade to his company motor from a 318 to a 325 so he can look more important, is a mystery to me. It's a pathetic wankfest when junior managers do it, and it's doubly pathetic when the Attorney-General is doing it. They are doing everything they can to force us onto public transport in the name of Green Ishoos, while themselves bickering over who gets the most polluting car. It's like Animal Farm all over again. It's a bloody car, for God's sake. It's not important or interesting. And I thought seeking meaningless prestige was something the Labour Party were dead against.
Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, said the government was spending more on ministerial cars than on monitoring air pollution. “Ministers should have to justify why they have a car at all. This is all rather tacky and redolent of the fag-end of the government where some ministers are more interested in status and baubles and what they can get for themselves rather than serving the country.”
Quite.
What do we have to do to be rid of these grubby parasites?
THE attorney-general, Baroness Scotland, has sparked anger among colleagues by insisting on the use of a chauffeur-driven Jaguar — a privilege usually reserved for a handful of senior cabinet ministers.
WTF? This is the woman who has just been fined £5000 for breaking her own law, before dismissing it as a 'technicality'. She's the Government's chief lawyer, and in any normal country she would have stepped down quietly when she was found out, expressed regret, and that would have been it.
But no - she is now demanding a chauffeur-driven Jaguar because (I assume) the Rover she gets with the job isn't good enough.
A source close to the attorney-general said last week that she had been expected by officials to inherit the car of her predecessor, Lord Goldsmith, who had the use of a more modest Rover 75.
“However, she insisted she wanted a Jaguar,” said the source. “Paul Jenkins was very upset about it. There was a heated discussion, but in the end he just said that they may as well give it to her.”
I am utterly astonished. Not just at the sheer neck of the woman, who should be grateful she isn't going to prison for her 'technical' offence, as you can be sure a nasty old private-sector employer would be. But also at the grasping materialistic greediness of it all. It's all to do with rank, apparently. She isn't in the cabinet (who get Jaguars automatically with their position), but she is of cabinet rank. She is entitled to a Jag. How this is any more attractive than Dwayyne Buttocks, Assistant Sales Manager, Eastern Region, wanting an upgrade to his company motor from a 318 to a 325 so he can look more important, is a mystery to me. It's a pathetic wankfest when junior managers do it, and it's doubly pathetic when the Attorney-General is doing it. They are doing everything they can to force us onto public transport in the name of Green Ishoos, while themselves bickering over who gets the most polluting car. It's like Animal Farm all over again. It's a bloody car, for God's sake. It's not important or interesting. And I thought seeking meaningless prestige was something the Labour Party were dead against.
Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, said the government was spending more on ministerial cars than on monitoring air pollution. “Ministers should have to justify why they have a car at all. This is all rather tacky and redolent of the fag-end of the government where some ministers are more interested in status and baubles and what they can get for themselves rather than serving the country.”
Quite.
What do we have to do to be rid of these grubby parasites?
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Says it all, really
I have a permanent rant going on inside my head, but it rarely translates well to the written word. Some of us have a talent for that, so I am going to refer you straight to this. I particularly liked the concluding paragraph:
You can stick your CCTV, Police State, wheelie bin Stasi, DNA, WMD, "Social Cohesion", benefits for all, guilty until proved innocent, don't do that it's illegal now, can't say that, ID cards for all, where are you going, what have you been saying/doing/reading, can't photograph that, how very dare you, golliwog banning, we know where you live, we're watching you Soviet Utopia up your arses. Sideways.
I'm going to follow the advice of one of his commenters and lay down a bottle of something very special (a 10-year-old Glenmorangie sounds good) and then book holiday from work for the day following, when we learn of the date of the election.
Then I am going to sit with the TV right through the night, and when it finally becomes clear that the nightmare of the last 12 years is over, I am going to crack that bottle and get slowly, happily and tearfully hammered.
I can hardly wait.
You can stick your CCTV, Police State, wheelie bin Stasi, DNA, WMD, "Social Cohesion", benefits for all, guilty until proved innocent, don't do that it's illegal now, can't say that, ID cards for all, where are you going, what have you been saying/doing/reading, can't photograph that, how very dare you, golliwog banning, we know where you live, we're watching you Soviet Utopia up your arses. Sideways.
I'm going to follow the advice of one of his commenters and lay down a bottle of something very special (a 10-year-old Glenmorangie sounds good) and then book holiday from work for the day following, when we learn of the date of the election.
Then I am going to sit with the TV right through the night, and when it finally becomes clear that the nightmare of the last 12 years is over, I am going to crack that bottle and get slowly, happily and tearfully hammered.
I can hardly wait.
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Police finally act
Good to see that the Police are taking action to protect a family that is suffering from threats and hostility from aggressive neighbours.
The family accused of tormenting Fiona Pilkington and her disabled children have received death threats, it was claimed yesterday, as police patrols were stepped up near their home.
Police officers drove past the Simmons family home at least 11 times and made a 30-minute visit to the home of Dorothy Simmons, the matriarch of the family.
Shame they couldn't have been as conscientious with the poor lady who torched herself and her daughter in despair.
In contrast, the police log of the 33 telephone calls that Ms Pilkington made about death threats, children lighting fires on her property and her son being attacked show that she received as few as eight visits, sometimes days after the event.
Why is it that, despite all the rhetoric, socialists (and their agents, for that is what the Police now are) always side with the bully?
The family accused of tormenting Fiona Pilkington and her disabled children have received death threats, it was claimed yesterday, as police patrols were stepped up near their home.
Police officers drove past the Simmons family home at least 11 times and made a 30-minute visit to the home of Dorothy Simmons, the matriarch of the family.
Shame they couldn't have been as conscientious with the poor lady who torched herself and her daughter in despair.
In contrast, the police log of the 33 telephone calls that Ms Pilkington made about death threats, children lighting fires on her property and her son being attacked show that she received as few as eight visits, sometimes days after the event.
Why is it that, despite all the rhetoric, socialists (and their agents, for that is what the Police now are) always side with the bully?
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Scotland the Brave
This business of Baroness Scotland and the housekeeper is troubling me. Specifically: how the hell is she still Attorney-General?
On the face of it, I have some sympathy for the woman. After all, she looked at the Tongan lady's documents and they seemed OK. She has been fined a whopping £5000 for failing to take a photocopy, which seems a very harsh penalty for a minor oversight. I'm on her side - the hard-working woman against the over-mighty state.
Until I remember that it was Baroness Scotland who introduced the law in question when she was a minister at the Home Office. The Government were worried about public concern over illegal immigrants and, rather than take action to stop the illegal immigration, they took the rather cowardly step of putting the onus onto employers and lorry drivers to stop it, with huge fines and threats of imprisonment for those who, even inadvertently, broke the law. And for the employers, they deliberately scotched the 'inadvertent' defence by insisting that the only defence available in law was to show that you had seen, and photocopied, the worker's documentation. (That's a new one, by the way - "guilty unless you can produce paper evidence that you are innocent", rather than "innocent unless we can prove you are guilty".)
The legislation seemed to me at the time to be unnecessarily harsh and a little vindictive to employers, but then Labour always seem to view employers as the incarnation of everything that is evil. So it is ripely ironic that it is this specific requirement that she seems to have fallen foul of, and which has brought her this fine and a humbling if insincere public apology.
But then I remember that she is the senior law officer in all the land. There is no-one higher or, to put it another way, no-one who might be expected to know, and obey, the law more than she. I would have thought that, when someone is appointed to the position of Attorney-General, pretty much the first thing they must think to themselves is: "I need to be really careful about how I behave from now on." 'T's will be crossed, and 'i's dotted, if only to maintain the unimpeachable integrity that the office demands. The Attorney-General is the person who advises Government about things like the legality of going to war. And yet she can't get something as simple as a photocopy right? On a law that she herself helped to draft? God help us.
And now we see her in the news, laughing it off as a technicality, an 'administrative mistake', something like not paying the congestion charge. Does she have any idea how contemptuous that sounds to the ordinary voter?
But I think it is more serious than just failing to take a photocopy which, I would agree, is a technicality. If we go back to the day when she inspected, as she says she did, the Tongan lady's documents. Either they were apparently in order, in which case the housekeeper must have forged them, and should expect prosecution for that. Or they were out of date, in which case the Baroness knowingly employed an illegal worker, which makes the whole thing much more serious. A third possibility (and the most likely, in my view) is that she didn't look at the documents at all, but took the lady's word for it. She's married to a solicitor, after all, which means complete respectability, doesn't it? Don't answer that. If she didn't see any documents, that is negligence of the highest order.
Even looked at in the kindest way, she is guilty of a careless handling of something that the Government of the day were trumpeting as the solution to a very serious problem. Taking a more cynical view, she has knowingly flouted a law which she herself brought to the statute book. Either way, she cannot stay in post. As Iain Dale points out, "Am I right in thinking that if a magistrate had been fined £5,000 for breaking the law, he or she would have been thrown off the bench?" The days when politicians got caught out and resigned in shame are long gone. Now, even breaking the law is just a case of getting into the media, laughing it off, and carrying on as if nothing had happened. And all the while, respect for the rule of law continues to vanish down the toilet.
I loved her final comment:
She said she was confident that "having seen the example made of me there won't be any woman in the country who won't be now reaching for that passport and making sure she's got the copy".
Well, only those women who can employ servants, Baroness.
On the face of it, I have some sympathy for the woman. After all, she looked at the Tongan lady's documents and they seemed OK. She has been fined a whopping £5000 for failing to take a photocopy, which seems a very harsh penalty for a minor oversight. I'm on her side - the hard-working woman against the over-mighty state.
Until I remember that it was Baroness Scotland who introduced the law in question when she was a minister at the Home Office. The Government were worried about public concern over illegal immigrants and, rather than take action to stop the illegal immigration, they took the rather cowardly step of putting the onus onto employers and lorry drivers to stop it, with huge fines and threats of imprisonment for those who, even inadvertently, broke the law. And for the employers, they deliberately scotched the 'inadvertent' defence by insisting that the only defence available in law was to show that you had seen, and photocopied, the worker's documentation. (That's a new one, by the way - "guilty unless you can produce paper evidence that you are innocent", rather than "innocent unless we can prove you are guilty".)
The legislation seemed to me at the time to be unnecessarily harsh and a little vindictive to employers, but then Labour always seem to view employers as the incarnation of everything that is evil. So it is ripely ironic that it is this specific requirement that she seems to have fallen foul of, and which has brought her this fine and a humbling if insincere public apology.
But then I remember that she is the senior law officer in all the land. There is no-one higher or, to put it another way, no-one who might be expected to know, and obey, the law more than she. I would have thought that, when someone is appointed to the position of Attorney-General, pretty much the first thing they must think to themselves is: "I need to be really careful about how I behave from now on." 'T's will be crossed, and 'i's dotted, if only to maintain the unimpeachable integrity that the office demands. The Attorney-General is the person who advises Government about things like the legality of going to war. And yet she can't get something as simple as a photocopy right? On a law that she herself helped to draft? God help us.
And now we see her in the news, laughing it off as a technicality, an 'administrative mistake', something like not paying the congestion charge. Does she have any idea how contemptuous that sounds to the ordinary voter?
But I think it is more serious than just failing to take a photocopy which, I would agree, is a technicality. If we go back to the day when she inspected, as she says she did, the Tongan lady's documents. Either they were apparently in order, in which case the housekeeper must have forged them, and should expect prosecution for that. Or they were out of date, in which case the Baroness knowingly employed an illegal worker, which makes the whole thing much more serious. A third possibility (and the most likely, in my view) is that she didn't look at the documents at all, but took the lady's word for it. She's married to a solicitor, after all, which means complete respectability, doesn't it? Don't answer that. If she didn't see any documents, that is negligence of the highest order.
Even looked at in the kindest way, she is guilty of a careless handling of something that the Government of the day were trumpeting as the solution to a very serious problem. Taking a more cynical view, she has knowingly flouted a law which she herself brought to the statute book. Either way, she cannot stay in post. As Iain Dale points out, "Am I right in thinking that if a magistrate had been fined £5,000 for breaking the law, he or she would have been thrown off the bench?" The days when politicians got caught out and resigned in shame are long gone. Now, even breaking the law is just a case of getting into the media, laughing it off, and carrying on as if nothing had happened. And all the while, respect for the rule of law continues to vanish down the toilet.
I loved her final comment:
She said she was confident that "having seen the example made of me there won't be any woman in the country who won't be now reaching for that passport and making sure she's got the copy".
Well, only those women who can employ servants, Baroness.
Saturday, 5 September 2009
At last, some honesty
So Jack Straw has admitted (what took you so long, Jack?) that trade issues did have a bearing, indeed a major bearing, on the decision to release al-Megrahi.
Jack Straw has admitted a trade and oil deal with Libya influenced the decision to free the Lockerbie bomber. The justice secretary claimed that the trade was ‘a very big part’ of the decision to include Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA).
Meanwhile, last week, Gordon Brown was still insisting that there was "no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double dealing, no deal on oil" over his release. So was Gordon lying? Of course not; he was talking about oil, whereas Straw was talking about trade in general. Completely different things, dear boy. Gordon Brown would not lie to the British people, so there must be a get-out somewhere. Indeed there is ...
Straw claimed the prime minister was not involved in the decision to press ahead with the PTA [Prisoner Transfer Agreement] and said: "I certainly didn't talk to the PM. There is no paper trail to suggest he was involved at all."
Translation into English: Of course we discussed it, but it was all off the record and you won't able to prove anything.
So what was obvious from the start to anyone with half a brain is now in the open: al-Megrahi was released so that trade relations with Libya could continue, and this was done by firm but deniable pressure on the Scottish Parliament, who found a legal way to accomplish the release without too obviously tearing up previous international understandings.
When will anyone in Government just tell the truth, for God's sake?
Jack Straw has admitted a trade and oil deal with Libya influenced the decision to free the Lockerbie bomber. The justice secretary claimed that the trade was ‘a very big part’ of the decision to include Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in a Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA).
Meanwhile, last week, Gordon Brown was still insisting that there was "no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double dealing, no deal on oil" over his release. So was Gordon lying? Of course not; he was talking about oil, whereas Straw was talking about trade in general. Completely different things, dear boy. Gordon Brown would not lie to the British people, so there must be a get-out somewhere. Indeed there is ...
Straw claimed the prime minister was not involved in the decision to press ahead with the PTA [Prisoner Transfer Agreement] and said: "I certainly didn't talk to the PM. There is no paper trail to suggest he was involved at all."
Translation into English: Of course we discussed it, but it was all off the record and you won't able to prove anything.
So what was obvious from the start to anyone with half a brain is now in the open: al-Megrahi was released so that trade relations with Libya could continue, and this was done by firm but deniable pressure on the Scottish Parliament, who found a legal way to accomplish the release without too obviously tearing up previous international understandings.
When will anyone in Government just tell the truth, for God's sake?
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