Boaden Beats Her Own World Record

Well you can`t teach an old dog new tricks and the BBC is a very mangy old mutt indeed. Perhaps the most irritating flea on the back of the aforesaid canine is Helen Boaden.. Auntie’s director of news quite clearly detests the Conservative Party and seeks to discredit them by her warped presentation at every turn.
Over the weekend Conservative ideas to clean out the Augean Stables Labour have made out of welfare were blushingly unveiled. In particular the national joke called ‘incapacity benefit or in the vernacular ... ‘lying’. Now you might think the first person to express an opinion might be ...oo I don`t know .... David Cameron? Ah yes but that is because you are not a trained journalist entrusted with the tax payers money and vested with a responsibility to produce impartial coverage.
With her infinitively superior sagacity Ms Boaden swerved such tired conventions and went straight to the opinion of Peter Hain who of course called it “ ‘Unfunded , plagiarised and ..”so on.. How a plan to get people of benefits can be unfunded is something of a mystery although the allegation of plagiarising is not. After Labour’s pantomimic prat-fall over Inheritance tax , they are clearly getting their retaliation in first .You could scarcely hear the Conservative ideas above the babble of complaining charity representatives, funded , no doubt, by the government . I sat hardly able to believe my ears that so soon after the disgraceful BBC hatchet job on John Redwood, Boaden was once again performing like a coiffured circus poodle for the benefit of her kindly master Mr. Brown.
The last time she did this she was obliged to apologise thanks to the efforts if Iain Dale to expose the corrupted standards of the Beeb but even then , she tried to wriggle out of it .She issued a partial apology but denied a suggestion by Dale that the coverage had begin with the words “ The Labour Party has today criticised ..” by giving a list of examples to demolish his flimsy case.. Technically she had a point but in reality she did not . Private Eye reported that the examples she picked DID contain Labour Party criticism in the first twenty seconds and quoted each in full. Th fact that she was prepared to slither along with an "economical " verion of the truth shows better than the original crime how little she can be trusted

I believe she has beaten her own world record for getting Labour Party criticism into a Conservative announcement. C0ngratulations Helen . I cannot say how much I admire you I only want to knowwhat you have been promised. Access , like Andrew Marr ? News , or is ot good old fashioned money in the form of some sinecure like so many other Beeb grovellers.

The Local MP Is Still National

Our aging crusty MP is a character about whom I am slightly conflicted. He has done some tremendous work exposing the way New Labour burn our money , on the other hand , he has all the silliness of the usual Liberal in an especially virulent form. The local Paper operate a sort of fanzine for him and I suspect there is a strong personal relationship. Anyway some members of UKIP claimed that a controversial incinerator was down to the Euro -fiends .He replied that the EU only made requirement about moving from landfill . I was struck by the fact that in a year of the issue being kicked around, only UKIP brought up the fact it was not a free descision at all. I did not , therefore , feel his conceited description of them as ‘unhinged’ should go unanswered. So this is my latest effort to get into the Express …thus far they have have been immune to my charms …bastards

'I am not a member of the UK Independence Party but I found myself underlining Norman Baker’s description of them as ”unhinged “ and writing the word “irony”. Whilst he may have all sorts of interesting ideas about what the EU`s stipulations require from us on waste, it will be news to many that we live in a world where unelected foreign bureaucrats have any say in our choices at all. It will puzzle yet more that an MP so conspicuously concerned with transparency graft and local decision making should be a member of Party devoted to completing a corrupt internationalist project to eradicate independent states ,and accountability .
These contradictions are all too typical of Mr. Baker, whose much mocked parallel career in investigative journalism has earned him the name Lewes`s Miss Marple . As a member if the left wing Beveridge group he is a supporter of high tax policies. He nonetheless skips around unearthing the arrogant disregard for the taxpayers money inevitable in the dinosaur scale big state he recommends .He is not alone in having concerns about our grandiose commitments abroad but to confuse our friendship with the US with handing over our right decide upon our foreign policy at all, as the EU would like , is ..what was the word ..“unhinged” .
There is no doubt a place for such ”radicalism” as there is anti hunt campaigning and the bizarre conspiracy theories which have upset poor Professor Kelly`s relatives .Personally I would say it was a either a sixth form debating society of the late 70s or a pub.
Lewes is not , as he would like to pretend , an unimportant place with no need to concern itself with the in-coherence of his position. It is a swing seat and therefore in the front line in the battle to remove the tired authoritarian Scottish raj of Gordon Brown . We are heading towards a general election where two views of our future are before us .It is far from clear to me that a vote for our charmingly eccentric incumbent is not a vote wasted or worse still a vote for the status quo. Quite why anyone calling themselves Liberal would want to do that is another contradiction Lewesians might like to ponder. '


...but then UKIP votes have exactly the same effect.

Fuzzy Fidelity

What is the dominant religion in Britain today , Robert Piggott , the BBC religious affairs correspondent has an answer. It is not , as you would expect, outright secularism, and certainly not atheism. Far from it , the default position of the majority is what he calls “Fuzzy Fidelity” .He has the research to back it up taken from the Cathie centre for Census and Survey Research in Manchester. The attitudes to religion that predominate can be summarised by the following statements : “A mild dose of it is good for you “ ,“It is a social good “ “I believe something .. sometimes” .
A large group have renounced organised religion but are unwilling to abandon their connection to the Church entirely . They attend seasonal services and rites of passage celebrations but with such determination that a cynical explanation grows less plausible. The group is highly various , some are weak deists, others undecided, some cling to a residual “small voice"; yet more are merely unhappy with materialism. A full 72% of people at the last census identified themselves as Christian and this incontrovertible fact cannot be massaged into non existence .
Professor Linda Woodhead at Lancaster University sees this tenacity in terms of an identity crisis. If we are not white Christians then we are ..what ? . Dr. Abby Day claims to have discovered a growing identification of Church going with sorts of middleclass aspiration, which I find far fetched . The “Damascean” conversion which strikes as ones children approach school age is well documented elsewhere of course. Intriguingly, it has been suggested that it is fashionable , once more , to be religious.If there is an ephemerality to the current “vogue “ that may explain why the Churches voice is not uniformly stronger on moral issues .I think I detect a growing interest in Christian derived morality as it relates to abortion , but I am speaking for myself .
Professor Voas who conducted the research claims we are at staging post on the way to full secularism . I do not agree ….I cannot exactly tell you why but I feel a wind blowing in a new direction . I notice an increased interest in our own history and its Chistian elemements .
I happened to be watching a programme in which a long haired but in fact achingly traditional Cof E Vicar from nearby looked at Zen Buddhism . It was first of a series in which he will taste-test exotic disciplines in search of the usual nebulous rewards. It was by no means as bad as it sounds, but it occurred to me that the BBC have missed a tremendous opportunity. Think of the audience for a "History of the Church of England" . Its intellectual ferment , its martyrs, its virile confidence and glorious works from Donne to St.Pauls to the the Book of Commons Prayer. All this lurks behind the jumble sales and apologetic vicars of today. What a riveting story it would make.
We seem to have reached an impasse ,faith will not die but cannot find a resting place . I just have a feeling that we will start to reappraise our own heritage as the first and best place to look for answers .
Sources
Http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/staff/voas.html
Http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/religstudies/index.php
Http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/apply/research/sfi/ahrcsi/religion_
Economic and Social Research Council Publication “ Britain in 2008”

Muslims Back Livingstone

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gla/story/0,,2234453,00.html


Boris fans do report immediately to his Grace`s abode wherein he deals magisterially with the jumped up and self styled “Community Leaders” in question. Archbishop Cramner is on the blog roll but I am sure his fame precedes him. I cannot add anything to his fine words ...

There May Be Trouble Ahead.....

Alex Brummer has a gloomy piece in the New Statesman today about the turbulent economic conditions ahead . His point is that we are approaching a perfect storm in which a number of problem will hit our shores simultaneously . The trade deficit with the Asian economies , the final accounting for the $300 billion of sub prime debt only $100 billion of which has thus far been written down by the banking sector , the housing market slump and our perilously high level of borrowing .
What to do ? Inflationary pressures on food and energy will make large interest cuts an “exciting “prospect and more immediately the collapse of tax revenues as the financial sector in particular takes a beating all bode ill .A Keynesian solution of increasing the size e of the government sector is constrained by the promise to hold public sector growth to 1.7% .Denied .In the first 8 months of the fiscal year we have borrowed £36.2 billion the total is certain to exceed the £38 billion borrowed in2006/7 so the largely fictional golden rule is likely to show mysterious signs of rust once again.

I like this comment :
“ Unless the Chancellor is prepared to dispense with the fiscal rules his predecessor put in place he will be weapon less in the battle to avoid recession.”

I somehow cannot see the glove puppet Darling blaming his predecessor , can you ?Brummer also predicts the first Sterling crisis since 1992 , and given the political fallout of that , still virulent today, a collective shiver must surely be running up the New Labour spine. For Conservatives we can face the music but (quietly ) dance ...

French balls

This blog is getting a bit sex obsessed isn’t it but I could not resist this .Little Napoleon , Nicolas Sarkozy, currently squiring the mouth-watering ex model Carla Bruni around the sights of Egypt , has been under pressure about his disgraceful penchant for beautiful women .His reply displays what I believe they call ‘panache’ ..
“ For 12 years they were used to having granny and grandpa ( Jacques Chirac and his wife Estelle) at the Elysee. I have new style. Everyone is going to have to adapt . Now the French have a real man at the Elysee who has balls and uses them”
(Canard Enchaine )
Well my jaw dropped , can you imagine we that listless cadaver Brown saying such a thing , or , to be fair, any British Prime minister ? Still with Palmerston and Lloyd George in the back catalogue whilst we may not talk the talk we certainly walk the walk

Britain 2008

I have requested Mr. Dales help with the following which was probably foolish ...I wonder if anyone knows anything about ESRC, thats the "Economic and Social Research Council"

At any rate,this is what I asked : "I bought the above ( Britain in 2008) today and it is consistently slanted to a centre left position, from the discsussion of devolution, to the fact that crime is actually going down and so on. It makes the Labour Party`s case in the sort of subtle way the BBC did in the 90s especially .Its the choice of subjects ands the treatment ,together with the presentation of stats .They are funded by £180 mio of public money under John Denham`s ,Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills .
In effect then, the Labour Party is distributing high class propoganda at our expense . You have probably read it and I wondered if you though it was worth asking questions about . Its like reading the Guardian say. Nothing wrong with that, I often do ,but presented as impartial observation and funded by the tax payer .... it winds me up!"

It is here: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/index.aspx

You can go straight through the the source of funding and then behind that John Denham busy fighting the Conservatives by fair means in Southampton. Is it just me or is this outrageous ? I `m really not sure , noone else seems to mind .
( charlie.jeffery@ed.ac.uk ., wrote the Devolution bit )

Sex In 2050.....

People will be having sex with robots by 2050, an artificial intelligence expert has predicted.David Levy's book Love And Sex With Robots: The Evolution Of Human-Robot Relationships claims robots will become so lifelike that they will be hard to distinguish from real people.The 62-year-old, also a chess master, writes in his book: "Great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7. What's not to like?"Robot technology is advancing hugely across the world, with Japan in particular making great strides towards robots which can help out in homes or hospitals. Mr Levy also believes that relationships with robots may not just be about sex - people may end up marrying them as well.(Sky News)

Well , I have for an very long time demanded that the boffins stop all their genome and computer what-not and devote all their resources to the development of the pleasure –bot. It looks as though the “Weird Science” message is finally getting through but marry them ? Is that wise ?
I have been looking though the Economic and Research Council Britain 2008 and it troubles me . Nobel prize wining economist Gary Becker has an influential explanation of divorce suggesting that marriages without a specific task allocation are far more likely to fail. The traditional bread winner and’ ironing sex toy’, arrangement would seem to be ideal then . So far so good .
Wendy Sigle –Rushton of the Gender Equality Network ( impartiality assured ...), however, says that this trend is due to the double burden of earning and house work women find themselves in when they work . Her research shows than when men take on domestic chores the rate of divorce comes back down to the normal level.
I `ve got a horrible vision of the “Pleasure –bot” reading Cosmopolitan with a cocktail while I do the dusting .

Tri -via

Tri via means three intersecting roads where people met to exchange gossip

Poor old Nicholas Soames who , in my view , is very far from a buffoon , is nonetheless treated to that description after some inadvisable quad bike high-jinks involving children in a trailer on the public highway. He was following the New Year hunt and of course the Daily Mirror has leapt upon him like a snarling hound . I did enjoy his reaction .."Those f*****s the hunt monitors are always out to get us in any way possible - and it's a coup to get a Tory MP."Not very diplomatic is it but you do recognize the feeling . I could be reasonable about this and chat about the pros and cons or I could just tell you to fuck off. Today I `m going with option B.

Did you know thatBernard Manning worked as security guard in Berlin’s Spandau prison watching over aging Nazis ...yes that’s right aging Nazis. Underline and write the word irony ..I know he is dead but so are they. ( BBC)
Incidentally there is great resistance in Germany to the smoking ban partly because such a draconian measure was last imposed by,.......Adolf Hitler . True and no surprise really. (Born the same day as Charlie Chaplin...honestly )
Great letter in the DT mentioning some facts Herr Braun might like to take into account when he decides who he will allowed to live in the light of his terrifying new lifetsyle plan. Those groups who make disproportionately large demands on the NHS include the following
1 Women
2 Poor People
3 Ethnic minorities
4 Unmarried men as compared to married men
As a white middleclass married males can I expect = to have the best of everything in the Brave New NHS our psychotic leader is trying to impose on us ? I somehow doubt it ..

Old News reheated this very morning tells us that England will shortly overtake Holland as the most densely populated European Country . It is already four times as crowded as France and this is mostly due to the torrents of immigration flooding onto the unprotected SE plains . Population was the apocalypse before climate change and similarly dire predictions were made .New ice ages including Polar Bears skidding good naturedly along the frozen Severn Estuary ( Nationwide), seemed on the cards and the George Moonbats of this word might like to notice how wrong the population doom-mongers were .
“There's been fretting at the prospect of the UK population swelling to 71 million by 2031. But big surges have been predicted before and they haven't always been right.
In 1965 the government's demographers and statisticians projected that the population in 2001 would be 75 million.
They were wrong. It was 58,789,194 on census day in 2001.”
That roughly accords with my estimation of the exaggerations of the professional panic brigade . Population and climate change are well worth watching but the excitable shrieking is not helpful.

Oh Christ I`m Related To Harriet Harman

Even I occasionally find the words ,“Little Englander”, forming soundlessly on my desiccated lips . So called ‘foreign correspondents’ ,if the exist at all, do their job, reading the local Press, from London, so we were never going to get insightful; coverage of the Bhutto assassination . Ironically , however, even the implications for our “Small Island “ feel phoned in.
Did Gordon brown “articulate the feeling of us all"..or not …. Its almost as if that mystifying phenomenon of soap opera reportage had spilled into serious news. This isn’t real you want to shout , this is like…. “Wrestling “.( ITV used to beat BBC armed only with that be-spangled tosh despite the Beeb monopolising priceless Franchises from the FA Cup to Wimbledon.)
Better still has been the collective curled lip turned towards the quasi dynastic succession of (dead meat ) Bilawal . Dominic Sandbrook in the Standard got the joke . Breezing through the Chamberlains and the Churchills,of course, he alights on a new dynasty, the “Prescotts “ . It appears young David who did so nicely out of his planning permission contacts , with his Development Company, is bidding to follow his father as an MP for Hull. As Conan Doyle said “Where there is no imagination there is no horror” Unfortunately I can just about imagine it .
The nature of contemporary British nepotism is easy to miss .Cavendishes and Cecils were dominant clans of the Victorian period and as late as the 1950s Harold Macmillan’s government included 35 of his own relatives. Ah yes but we have moved on ,we murmur contentedly , but have we ?Peter Mandelsohn is the grandson of Herbert Morrison, Loony Benn and son…we know , Baroness Jay is the daughter in law of Jim Callaghan , Frances Maude and Nicholas Soames and David Heathcote Armory are their father`s sons, but this is the misleading tip of the iceberg. To get a better idea have a look at the 1997 intake . Nineteen of these were the children of MP`s but turn the magnification up on the famous Blair-babes ,and you can see the typically close familial links common to the political class

The Blair babes

Hilary Armstrong represented the same seat in Durham as her father had held before her. The Potteries MP Llin Golding sat for a seat formerly held by her husband . Her father had been a Labour MP for 30 years . Irene Adams sat for Paisley South, another seat held by her husband. Charlotte Atkins , the Staffordshire MP was the daughter of 1960s firebrand Ron Atkins. Estelle Morris was an MP`s daughter . Dari Taylor of Stockton South had grown up the daughter of the MP for Burnley. Gwyneth Dunwoody , then on her first quarter century, had been married to an MP, and her father Morgan Phillips, was General Secretary of the Labour Party.
Fiona Mac Taggart of Slough had grandparents in parliament .Ann keen , in Brentford, had a husband Alan, who represented the next door constituency of Feltham, and a sister , Sylvia Heal, who was the MP for Halesowen. Bridget Prentice , ( Lewisham East), had been married o the MP for Pendle. Julie Morgan( Cardiff North) was married to the MP for Cardiff West. Angela Eagle , ( Wallasey ) had a twin sister Maria sitting for one of the Liverpool seats ..and so on and on it goes ….

The Others

The Conservative picture looks little more meritocratic but Julie Kirk bride ,Virginia Bottomley and Ann Witherton were all married to MP`s. Ann Cryer (Keighley) deserves special mention.. She was elected to a seat once held by her husband, gave birth to Hornchurch MP John Cryer who entered in the same intake, following both parents into “Public service “ The Liberals are a little better still, but Asquiths married Bonham Carters whose son whose daughter married Joe Grimmond so they too have their Blue blood.
Interestingly it is in the Labour Party that the bloodline and family seem to be most necessary ……perhaps because they do not value merit ? No doubt the encyclopaedic Iain Dale could spend happy hours bringing you up to date on the intricate rivulets of connection between the whole lot of them , but I think the point is made …..
Trivia

Cheri Blair of course comes from the Booths and her Great Great Great Grandfather's Brother's son is John Wilkes Booth the Man who shot US President Abraham Lincoln.Coo..Harriet Harmanisation is a near relative of Lord Longford and guess what, my Auntie looked us up and we are related to him as well. Harriet Harman is therefore related to me …….. Pass me the pearl handled pistol please .

BANG!

(thud)

Are You A Communitarian ?

Julian Baggini
Ranciere “ The line between hatred of populism and hatred of democracy is thin and often unwittingly transgressed “…yes and often wittingly as well says Newmania thinking of Europe. Interesting that Julian Baggini recently used the quote though and telling about the usefulness and limitations of his attitudes….aha Who is Julian Baggini …read on ? ..
I first noticed him when his book , ‘Welcome To Every town’, was reviewed by Nick Coen in the New Statesman.. My initial impression was of a chancer trying it on . He set out , he said , to explain “ordinary people” to the “intelligentsia ". To this end he went to live in Rotherham for 6 months , foreswore the Today Programme and the Guardian, switching to Radio 2, The Sun and The Daily Mail .
You don’t know whether to laugh or spit . To claim to be so delicate a hot house flower that you assume the posture Brian Sewell might adopt on the Rugby pitch, in your own coutry ? Implausible . I lived in his home patch , Islington, at the time, and well knew what a mixed place it was. I was also was once married to a Rotherham girl and simply did not recognise the separation between the two . He appeared conceited and ignorant but above all a ridiculous character .Imagine pint sized Gulliver peering at supposedly miniscule Liliiputians who are in fact the same size as him.
Whatever he may be however, what I shall treat as a literary artifice, has yielded some useful language .So leaving the preposterous faux-squeamishness aside, then , what was it he discovered ?

Communitarianism
Most of the English still live within five miles of where they were born. The culture is overwhelmingly associated with place in a way entirely misunderstood by the ‘Universal Value Liberals ’.Many answers to Polls are contradictory .People say free speech freedom ,are essential to their identity but a majority are quick to want such freedoms prescribed for Muslims for example .Fair play is admired, but in the form of the Human Rights Act it is paradoxically loathed although the act only enshrines rights more or less enjoyed by the British anyway. The paradox is resolved in the concept of Communitarianism .
The Liberal believes you have rights as a member of the human race the Communitarian English , to some extent , believe you have rights only as a member of club having pulled your weight and discharged the responsibilities associated with that place which is your home or country. Rights and values are particular and derived from tradition , history and place . The Liberal post enlightenment idea of universal rights is in competition with this older idea . A communitarian , for example , would be happy that values associated with the countryside , say an enjoyment of fox hunting, can be legitimately different to those associated with towns . It would be less enthusiastic on imposing universal values hence the hostility to the Human Rights Act.
The Liberal / Communitarian divide, cuts across politics abd right through the heart of the Liberal Party.The unions defended their “Communities” with the miners strike . They dislike outsourcing to cheaper countries to the detriment of those others. Other left wingers encourage mass immigration and deplore little England nationalist attitudes . Conservatism has many elements of Comunitariansim in it but the Laissez Fair economics associated with Thatcher are inimical to communities. Personally I have never accepted that idea of Margaret Thatcher but you take the point . Liberals are intensely localist but their internationalist policies are aimed at the destruction of such loyalties.
My belief is that cowed by the superficial intellectualism universal Liberalism many people are unable to articulate their equally respectable communitarian views and this sort of language will be important . What Baggini does not see is that he is himself part of a ‘community’ and his values have no claim to be imposed universally except his own unquestioned belief that they are better. Perhaps I should go and live amongst them and write a book about their picturesque dried tomato eating habits, and quaint ideas ?

Dirty Paddick

What is it with Liberals, the cannot see a belt without hitting below it can they . The friendly “Conversation “ of the leadership election quickly turned into a bitchy playground slanging match thinly disguised as a civilised discussion, and all the more excruciating for it . Like spraying deodorant on the cat litter instead of changing it .
Now listen to the painful snippiness of mayoral no hoper Brian Paddick on Boris Johnson. I assume he is trying to catch onto the blond ones trousers to get noticed at all but what a peevish snide gimp he shows himself to be. He calls Boris a “Clown” and claims he is being herded about in silence by Tory minders . His appeal says 'dirty Paddock " is based on making jokes about others "....yawn,. "We need a serious ambassador for London to be our Mayor - not a clown“. Paddock went on , suggesting implausibly that Boris ` current estrangement from his good friend as Monsieur Vin et Madame Bier was due to his being unable to control himself after a glass or two. I love the pusillanimous reference to the Compass smear ;”There have been accusations about him being a racist and a sexist…“Well Brian are you making such allegations ? No ? Thought not , stop lying then you weasel.
People like Paddock don’t get it do they. He who pontificates is not he who is serious and a proper apprehension of the world seeks a balance through humour and proportion ,not self aggrandising portentous drivel. We have had one of those and the English will , I hope, never abandon their instinctive mistrust of the canting bore. Boris played it with a straight bat “ People want to hear from candidates what they are going to do about policing , transport , housing and the Olympics . They don’t want to hear bitching …”Quite , its an embarrassment that he should have to say so.
With one candidate a 1970s hard left gangster taking London back to the Liverpool of the 80s with his pack of bullying Municipal swill suckers . One candidate a sulking child Boris could be made of wood and still be the best option for London. As it is he has a lot to offer both in promoting the City abroad and in standing up to the overmighty state for this energetic theatrical and trading City.

Boris Johnson is London in all its glorious imperfect perfection . Paddock is a craven Hyena to frightened to approach the Leonine beast except by cowardly yips from a safe distance .

Out With The Old

I have been browsing in the dying vegetation, at the edge of the News River, in search of the zeitgeist . I can do little better than this quote ..
“BBC1 Headline “ Another schoolboy shot dead. Police to hold urgent talks “ Talks?

The Dummy upon which I once practiced my kiss of life, has been replaced in Whitwick Leics .The subject is now called ‘Fat Fred’ and has a 46 inch waist .As an obese dummy he is reckoned more likely to resemble the dying party . A gang of internet perverts who plotted to rape and kill two young sisters were jailed for 27 years last year( Sun 6.2.07). The same edition featured Girl’s Allowed in St. Trinians outfits on the flimsy pretext of the then rumoured remake. Zeitgeist ?

Very dead Queen Cleopatra was revealed to have been a dead ringer for Les Dawson when a coin bearing her "Two bag" image , some 2000 years old, was discovered by Newcastle sleuths . Another altered image was Michael Foot , inexplicably still alive at 93. He had a relationship in 1971, with a 24 year old girl ,when he was 58. According to Kenneth Morgan`s recent biography Mrs. Foot`s became suspicious when he started to tidy up his Cat Weasel appearance .
“Face Book” sounds sort of contemporary does`t it ? Not necessarily;a book published in 1606, about Gunpowder plotter Henry Garnett’s execution, was bound in his own skin and ,apparently, a recognisable image of his face can be discerned . Face book geddit ? ( Wilkinson’s Auctioneer’s South Yorks ) . Paul Kelly was killed on new Years day last year in Bath and clues as to the identity of his killer subsequently appeared in verse form on lampposts .“The truth is there like an open grave “…..Herbert Powel knifed and battered his wife to death at the age of 88. Its Roald Dahl come to life is it not
There was such a lot of fake death as well . Canoe man of course but what about the approval given by the CIA to water boarding .The tortured man believes himself to be dying due to the reflex reaction to watery asphyxiation. They usually crack in 14 seconds.. Glenda Askew 47 from Swansea feigned her own death to avoid a £60 speeding ticket . Sounds like a plan to me ( both of them.)
Death plunges included the Tate Gallery man with his mysterious mobile phone call, and the co-founder of the world`s biggest on line dating agency, Gary Frisch(38). He “plunged “ from his Battersea flat. Yvonne De Carlo the cadaverous vamp of Munster’s fame shuffled of this mortal coil, and I will miss John Inman .He came out late in life having previously said he was “Married to the Business called Show “. Speaking of shows, Albert Lynch ,suffering from cancer , organised his own wake only to be taken two weeks early . The party went ahead as planned .So many people are gone and yet little of it affects me .

Odd things shock you. The description of the airborne cull of wild horses in Australia in which many die in agony, after slaughter on an unimaginable scale . Last year the rate at which British troops in Afghanistan were dying or seriously injured was higher than during the Second World War . Perhaps it is better not to hold these two thoughts in your head at once ,The death of the Chestnut tree outside Ann Franks hiding place, and from which she drew comfort, seemed strangely sad. It reminded us of the inhumanity people are capable of .

A four year old boy dashed into a burning building and lost his life trying to save his father ( Ryan Mchale of Carlisle) ......So , not only our with the old but on some tragic occasions out with the young as well. Just the other day the 26th London child was shot this year.

Stability and Change

As we know the Polls were gyrating like copulating Gerbils last year and judging from the New Year messages of the protagonists have been panicked into the most basic sort of politicking. Cameron is all “New hope” and Brown is all ..“Unbending determination “ . If this ping and pong keeps up I may well get back into music and football. How much dumber the whole thing is going to get… perhaps this dumb
DC-“You iz so over mate “
GB_“ I am so not over mate “
DC-“ Yeah right the right honourable Gentleman is rinsed he is rank man “
GB-“Your mum , mate , . I `m buzzin , isn’t it , I `m mint ,proper nang aii “
DC-“Yadda yadda yadda , Talk to the hand co` the face is in in Spain”
Whereupon the speaker will intervened with a cry of “Order “ Keep it real you iz plastic mate”. And a sulky murmur comes from the chastened leaders on the front benches
DC/GB-“Whatever…….”


Things can only get better..

Amateur Night

I loathe New Year .How many depressing Parties and miserable nights in feeling more alone than anyone ever should . How many dismal reviews of a year wasted . How many pointless scrums on the night Dean Martin rightly called , 'Amateur night'.

If you like that sort of thing by all means enjoy all that excrutiating fake "Good cheer". If you don`t , join me in having a quiet drink but otherwise ignoring it . Time passing is a sollemn and mysterious thing and I have never understood how it provokes yips of merriment. Don`t feel left out , we are the sane ones .

Time was never better mused upon than by TS Elliot. in the grand but fragile opening to the Four Quartets nand the note of melancholy and regret he strikes is about the most apt literary reference i can think of for this blasted time of sorrow .

"........Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden.

My words echo

Thus, in your mind.

But to what purpose

Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves

I do not know"

Clegg Shows Brown An Ankle

A new YouGov poll reported in the Sunday Times this morning has, with changes on the last survey by the pollster nearly a fortnight ago CON 40% (-3): LAB 35% (+4): LD 15% (-1). This looks like bad news for David Cameron with Brown`s travails forgotten over the holiday period but any poll at such a time must be suspect until proved otherwise. With the likeliest result of the GE a close or hung Parliament the closeness of the Liberal Party to the thoroughly illiberal Brown is worth noting .As I have been predicting for a long time there are talks planned on Constitutional reform between Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown. The bottom line with the Liberals is this . Clegg may talk like a Heathite Tory but his Party can barely put up with it as we saw from quasi socialist Huhne`s strong showing .Clegg knows he may be able to do a deal for power and the only Party his troops will allow him to deal with is Labour but the votes he needs are all wavering Conservatives .The trick he has to pull off is to persuade Conservative voters that a vote Liberal is not a vote to keep Brown when much as he may regret it that is all it can ever be and every Liberal candidate who pretends otherwise is lying through his or her teeth.
They dream of abandoning directly elected MPs and sitting in the Palace of Westminster holding the strings like a spider at the centre of an elitist web of placemen. They lie about their true nature and behave with noticeably less transparency than either of the main Parties .With the economy looking rocky next year and the Scottish problem growing in significance I do not expect a few calculating insiders to have the last say in our future whatever cunning deals they do

I would Pay But Its Illegal

There has been a growing concern about sex slavery which has made an unwelcome come back of late . The WI had some interesting suggestions to make about legalising and regulating brothels which make a lot of sense, but the real problems are these
1 A failure to enforce existing laws which amply cover rape kidnaps and extortion
2 A failure to control our borders
3 A failure to have the slightest idea who is here and what they are doing
4 The failure of our Police to catch , prosecute and imprison criminals in general.

The shivering terrified wretches hidden in dingy rooms around the country are another of Brown’s achievements while he has been running the domestic show . Good job Gordon although the 25,000 mentioned is probably a fiction .
Enter stage left Denis Mc Shane, a serial liar whose Labour apologist articles in the Telegraph are Lord Haw Haw level farce justifiable for their entertainment value only. Instead of trying to sort out the mess that is the Home Office and the Criminal Justice system he suggests ……..( roll on the drums ) , an ill thought out and cheap political gambit they hope will make the Conservatives appear anti women.
MacShane's amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill will give power to the police to prosecute a man who pays for sex ,fine him or send him to jail. Henry Porter in Guardian Unlimited comments as follows.
..”it will not be illegal for a woman to sell sex, as long as she complies with the laws concerning the sex trade, chiefly soliciting. Also, it will not be illegal for a man to buy sex from another man or a woman to buy sex from a man, or a woman from a woman, though all these variants in the sex trade - some extremely rare, I grant you - will have to comply with the law in other respects.”

So its mess and patently unjust . No doubt we would prefer that men did not buy sex but they do and I doubt it will be in the power of Gordon Brown to stop either buyer or seller. (Christ do you think anyone ever shagged him for his looks and charm!) Men and women agree a deal and they freely entre into a contract. Never have myself ( due to a severe squeamishness about STD`s), but I would say about half of my male acquaintances have at some point, probably more.This is none of the governments business

In any case who is to say when payment is made . Get the Dinner bill and you could end up doing a stretch at her Majesties pleasure . If she pays she is in the clear, which at least provides us with the best excuse I have heard for while ….. " Sorry you`ll have to pay for sex with me now .I would do the honmours but its illegal ..."

The Great " I am"

I was just watching the 100 AFI best films and a story popped into my head I have always hoped was true . Kirk Douglas appeared in a Spartacus excerpt and it was then that it came back to me …..
Joel Douglas, or at any rate one of the unsuccessful sprigs of this Hollywood dynasty , found his napkin was the wrong colour or something in a London Restaurant .He made the sort of embarrassing complaint Z list celebrities often do and ended up with the iconic arsehole tag line , “ Do you know who I am ….I `m Joel Douglas! “
Hearing this nearby diner upon who Joel had inflicted the pitiful display stood up and said
“No I`m Joel Douglas “
In the back of the restaurant to other chaps followed suit chorusing “ I `m Joel Douglas “ until the entire place was on its feet claiming to be Joel Douglas and congratulating itself for being so jolly funny
As I say I hope its true

The Ghost Of Leaders Past

John Kamfner pondered curiously on Brown’s road back today . Were the dour one to curl himself into the foetal position and cry, who could blame him, but Kamfner seemed to want to thread vertebrae into the gelatinous feartie ……
“Does he believe eradicating child poverty is his most important goal, then he has to tell voters it can be done only with an element of self sacrifice”,…..or ,“ Has he reluctantly come to the conclusion that redistribution has run its course, and that personal taxation must now be reduced , if so he must admit that”.
. Westminster educated and opulently housed John Kamfner would not be feeling the pinch himself of course . His suggestion that tax pounds are directly equated with child poverty is a lie , and in any case this poverty is relative and nationally conceived and has been worsened by Labour’s largess with other peoples hard earned‘….
Ignoring the moth eaten three hanky script there is an interesting point . A few weeks ago Rachel Sylvester the Blairite pundit mentioned a source who said of Brown, “Its not that Gordon is going backward or forwards , he is going sideways like a crab”. He looks the opposite of a leader.
To undrestand how he got here you have to understand Gordon’s baggage . The BBC documentary "The Blair Years " showed how Brown consistently argued that there were ‘limits to the market’. Health , education, University top up fees and so on were all Blairite reforms that emerged mangled into insipidity by Brown’s centralising instinct and power base . At an early point in his ‘reign’ , the Spectator recognised the crucial significance of Brown’s attitude to the Academies .This flagship Blair project has been reclaimed from consumers into the belly of the state . Make no mistake ,the right of the Labour Party were quietly routed .
Significantly Brown has cocooned himself away with a set of fawning acolytes . Balls of course ,the unspeakable “New friend” David Millimoron and a host of salaried advisers like Gila Sacks , who, at a cost of £1,000,000 , tickle his tummy and baste him in aromatic oils.
“Target a day” Brown had no intention of changing his views or approach and given the support of the Unions , required to shore up Labour’s tottering finances (£25million just before his coronation) you wonder if he had any choice . Irwin Seltzer pointed out that many in the Public sector are paid far above private equivalents and they know full well that choice will be the end of their closed shop. So by ideological inclination and also by political indebtedness Brown has found himself well to the left of where “electorally “ he needed to be.
True to form he dithered and hid in obscurity. More boggle -eyed alchemist than statesman, he tried to transmute political base metal into gold . A soupcon of Britishness ,a pinched policy or two acquired only a scarring reputation for dishonesty. I doubt the arch calculator was himself fooled by a brief credulouness about emaculate re-conception but the barrenness of his feeble tactics are now clear for all to see . If he is to have any chance of reclaiming momentum he has to make the lie about setting out his vision a reality , and it has to be a vision far closer to the centre ground .I wonder if he hears voices in the night ……voices like this one . Ghost to his Hamlet…..
“ The Labour Party should take heart . It is dominating the battle of ideas and will continue to do so as long as it remains New Labour. It is about our instincts , our ability to keep the core coalition together : those who need help to get on the first rung s of the ladder if opportunity and those who are already there but aspire to do better still. Ambition and compassion, the combination of those instincts remain the basis of New Labour’s three successive victories . They remains the basis of the fourth. “ ( Blair )

In fact only economic good luck ever gave the appearance of support for aspiration and in tougher times to get back that support Brown would have to go to right of where Blair was to where he would like to have been without Brown to hold him back( and as he made explicit in the above quoted speech) .This means breaking up the great state behemoths , the NHS , the educational system and reducing taxation on enterprise and work . I don’t think Brown has the guts , support or the brains to see this, and I expect him to creep on to obscurity .He would be better off going in either direction with some conviction than this craven and nothingness . He may well be to scared of the "Labour is best when its Labour "head bangers well.... 'Mr. Tony ' had an insight there... “You can’t please all the people all the time“.
That my New Year`s message to Gordon. Mr. Tony was right . If I wished you any good I would advise you to suck it up and makes some moves . As I do not , please carry on as you are …and I will enjoy your authority bleeding away ..until you are to weak to do anything but expire.

( Moo ha ha ha !)

A Hopeful New Year

...a glorious Suffolk Church no doubt in the way of some dreadful slum New Labour have planned .Perhaps its time we stopped laughing at the Church of England .......

Scarcely a week goes past without some new wave of derision crashing into the poor old C of E. They are overtaken by the Catholics in the bums on pews contest, and told today that they are all , apparently, over paid and over manned .

“One in five Bishops faces the Axe”, squawks her Majesties Daily Telegraph, in a headline reminiscent of the ‘printing’ demarcation disputes. I feel a Christian pity for them, and I note with interest that record numbers of people turned up at Christmas this year in line with increased attendance of late . Why, I wonder would that be , with such fearsome antagonists as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens unleashing a new confident atheism into the book shops ?

Personally I started out as an atheist and I daresay I am as acquainted with the philosophical arguments against religion as well as most tolerably ignorant people . Whilst at University I came across “Humanism “as manifested in the works of George Elliot . She was influenced by Feuerbach ( worth looking at ) (1) ,but her beliefs do not make her revile organised religion. She saw God as a vision of what man, at his best, could be, and part of moral evolution whose ultimate source was still human .In her collection of short stories “Scenes of Clerical Life” , which I recommend, this affectionate ambivalence is at its most explicit.Do read them...

So as far back as my twenties I was past sneering and happy with poetic or symbolic ways of reading the Christian message .For me a personal relationship with God is out of the question but not every Christian in the past was required to see visions .

There is a the question of ethnicity as well .A Jew without faith is still a Jew, and the Rabbi would say “ You lack faith ? ... Come along anyway...do you think he should worry ? ”. I admire the Jewish people enormously and this strikes me as a good way of accepting ones place in a belief system with doubt and outright denial if necessary. Why should I, in other words , be denied access to my past, a past I peculiarly value .
Then there is “love “. This great indisputable fact of our lives about which materialism has nothing to say. How can we be happy when the most important this we apprehend is left to one side by the prevailing Metaphysics ?

(2 )Thus I find myself in an empty tube station where, although there is nothing to be seen, there is the shudder and echo of something that has been and might be again .Leaflets and tickets still stir and we grasp what scraps of philosphy,art and lifes experience we can from the palpable emptiness.I have no conclusions about what this might mean but my own tradition a deserves respectful attention at least . So ,I would like to encourage the Church of England whose worst enemies would admit, is full of good people . After all you have lost Tony Blair and in that fact alone there is ample reason for great good cheer


1-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Andreas_Feuerbach

2 Pinched loosely from somewhre in TS Elliot ...I think

Turkey Sandwich Post

Iain Dale has a list if most influential gayers and as I am still in festive period semi purdah it prompted a lazy post.

Having recently been the object of primitive bile courtesy of , septuagenarian thug, and Queen mum look –alike - Bob (the animal ) Piper , for my supposedly un PC attitudes, I hardly dare comment but ......

What political attitudes do this pink mafia share , if any ? In this country, the Gay constituency is will soon cease entirely to be a “Victim” group and will be dropped of the left`s, ‘pity list’, just as the white working classes were. I see that there is also disenchantment amongst black people, penned into a “Community “ when they would prefer to enter the main stream of cultural life in order to work and integrate as most do.
Recess Monkey recently claimed that the Labour Party was actually defined by the fight for rights for these groups and I wonder when they see they are neither wanted or useful what they are claim to be for . Mathew Parris brilliantly shone his torch into the void of coherent belief on the left consisting of a nebulous assertion that they are “Nice”.
What an end for a movement that was once a moral force and an intellectual Catherine wheel. “ We are ...nice “...sad really .

The dust heap of history surely awaits them and the new Liberal small state Communitarian consensus is destined to stub out the fag end of the old and usher in the new. Its painful to wait while this detritus administration clings on but the new year is full of hope for better times to come .

Oh Yes He Would !

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ‘house’

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

No journalist scribbled no pundit aired views

The perfect moment …

......to hide some bad news !

That Could Feed An Entire African Village ....

On the subject of yuletide excess I enjoyed Peaches Geldof reporting , in the Sun that if she’s leave so much as a brussel-sprout on her plate her father shouts “ Peaches remember the fucking Africans “ . She further illuminates the hidden life of the celeb brat , with her description of Christmas at her Grandpa’s
“ Dad will be there drunk on wine , spewing on about the past and singing a coupe, of old Boom town Rats numbers ,. I `ll be quietly crying in the corner...”

I `m quite coming round to her

An Inconvenient Truth

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased.

David Whitehouse:...New Statesman

Rockin` Yule Y`all

Lets get on the naughty list ..back soon

Girls Like Pink ...Fact

I keep reading that 99 % of scientists say that we are all in the oven at gas mark six and nothing short of making our own clothes out of turnips can possibly save us . You have to admit that sort of figure impresses you a bit . Then again science seems to prove so many things. , surveys and statistics even more These are some of the recent egg headed offerings

1. That clever people listen to more heavy metal music ( Study at Warwick University)
   


2. That tone deaf teachers are killing off singing and music in schools ( Alan Johnson announced £30,000,000 to throw at this desperate situation at the time )
   


3. That disposable nappies are greener than reuseable ones ( Ooops after £30,000,000 over three years was spent making us feel guilty)
   


4. That women ogle more than men( Dr. heather Rupp of the Kinsey Institute used eye tracking technology to prove the sisters were go doing it for themselves) , in fact they are also worse at the old elevator eyes routine , apparently . Tut tut
   


5. That Britons are amongst the biggest whingers in the world .( A study of 14,000 showed us joint second in the world with Sweden but behind France, the Dutch were best, stoned probably )
   


6. That teenagers experience symptoms close to clinical mania when they fall in love ( Hypo-mania was diagnosed by researchers at the Psychiatric University Clinic in Basel)
   


7. Men find pictures of women more rewarding than visa versa ( Research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society monitoring triggered reward centres showed this )
   


8. That men are better at cheating ( Dr. Kuemmerli in the Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences , shoed results from a long study setting the “Prisoners dilemma “ for men and women . Women trusted twice as often ….suckers !)…incidentally a ‘What Car’ survey showed that men get better deals on cars….. Can’t argue with that can you
   


9. That left handers are more at risk of mental illness ( The gene LRRTM1 may be responsible for both lefty and loony)
   


10. Bright blue eyes and academic achievement are linked
    


11. That girls really do prefer pink( Prof Anya Hulbert speculated it was to help them find berries …..
    


12. That oral sex increases the risk of throat cancer (keep that one quiet)
13. That it is a scientific possibiolity to create a magic carpet

I begin to wonder about all this , it is all quite true but had I slipped the fact that Santa`s favourite Pizza is "Deep pan crisp and even " would anyone have noticed ? I was relieved , to see an answer on the environmental panic brigade at least. How many people studying Women’s Studies , agree with the statement ,'Wage levels are not unfair and reflect different work life commitments ". The answer will be none, but that position is probably close to the truth . How many environmental scientists think their discipline , which they took up because the believed it all anyway , has turned out to be a sham and a waste of time ….same number . None ……

Fancy....

Iain Dale Deserves Better

Iain Dale Deserves Better
I do not always agree 100 % with Iain Dale and his collumns sometime fall short of inspired ( We need less bureaucrats ........yup). But he is deservedly acknowledged as the best blog for commentary and opinion and a touchstone for me and countless others . So what are the qualities that make him the Jungle VIP.Firstly a naturally clean and accessible prose style and an encyclopaedic knowledge of Politicians , journalists and their world , but more than this, it is reliability and balance . With Dale you are in safe hands. You know his position, and beyond that everything is in proportion. He is the opposite of the Time Out film reviews who might send you to some god awful baloney because the reviewer was obsessed with Polish Super Realism. He has no infatuations and well.......everything you want from a effortlessly modern Conservtive . You trust him, people trust him . People would vote for him
As a Politician his ability to handle the media experience and mentat powers of concentration would be a huge help to the Conservative Party nationally. Lets not imagine that we have a full slate of outstanding candidates . Good lord no ,dull mediocrities are everywhere, and we desperately need such an outstandingly talented chap in the right position to help the Party and the country.
I felt extremely angry therefore to see that Maidstone have , it appears , given him hardly a hearing . If they had better candidates , I would be staggered , and it can only be the usual self important jealousy that infest Commitees everywhere .These people , whoever they are, have done us all a disservice, and it would be nice, as they grumble together over G and T`s ,if someone would mention to them what a dead weight they are for the rest of us to carry.
I would be happy to

'Liberal' is the New Liberal

Looking at arch courtier Iain Dale’s speculation about the position of Mr. Huhne I cannot help getting the déjà vu all over again feeling . What do we have here , a posh and plausible moderniser determined to get the Party elect-able by ditching its crazy socialist past. A Blair .Enter the older , better candidate ,passed over who has cemented his strength in the Party and must now be included Mr. Huhne who in our little play will be taking the part of Brown .
Clegg has had a clumsy canter or two at Cameron , one assumes for strategic reasons , but was able to win the leadership without committing himself to too many suicidal Liberal Dreams , notably keeping Trident .
Was his heart really in it anyway? He said ...“Conservative party which has no answers to the big issues: environmentalism without substance, social justice without money, internationalism without Europe."
Well adding substance to environmentalism is all too easy when you are not the government but actually turning growth off, or cancelling air travel, is politically ever so slightly touchy if you might have to do it . Clegg knows this, of course, and as a professed fan of a smaller state , his promise to spray tax payers money at “social injustice “ lacks a little substance itself. No no , leaving the EU aside for the moment , he is really offering Conservatism with a friendly face . Sound Familiar ? Blair again .
Of course while the wilder shores of activist placating were negotiated safely said activists proved themselves to be as politically unrealistic as you would, expect from a party whose raison d`etre , is to be Black Adders Queeny who wants “Oooooo just everything !” Kennedy has made rueful c remarks about the Herding Cats “ experience of leading the “none of the above” brigade and Huhnes impressive campaign achieved a damn fine run thing. Huhne cannot be ignored .It also cracked the always preposterous illusion that the Liberal are a nice Party. Au contraire, they are , as we all know past master at Dirty tricks from Simon Hughes “Straight Choice “ assault on Peter Tatchell onwards .
With ‘Calamity Clegg ‘and that ‘spat on air’, hanging around like an office Party snog , we can expect ill will , back biting and a slow but deadly wrestling match , Blair / Brown , again.
So I was wondering then when we were going to start referring to “New Liberals “ and “Old Liberals “ but it appears Mr. Clegg has come up with the perfect nomenclature . As we know the Liberal Party is composed of socialist refugees who jumped for labour too early and Liberal Liberals hence the name Liberal Democrats. What better sign of ditching the socialist element than return to being ‘Liberals’? It could imply going right back to Gladstone and Simon Heffer could join.
Alan Cochrane has noticed Clegg doing just that....
“I may be missing something but time and time again during his acceptance speech and his subsequent media interviews, Nick Clegg kept referring to himself and his supporters as 'Liberals'. There was hardly a mention of the name Liberal Democrat.”
So just as black ins the new ‘black’ , Liberal is the new Liberal . I wonder if Huhne , will demur and begin the long cold war. Nothing would be better news for the Conservative Party , he is more powerful than Brown was and it may all fall apart if Clegg tried to deal for power.

PS He`s Back........( The Europe Problem ...Heath reborn)
Cameron has said he can “Do Business” with Clegg but I doubt it .He may be able to do business with the Liberal voters bemused at their Party handing power to unelected faceless Bureaucracies in Brussels. Clegg is a Euro fruitcake with topping and cream he is more like Edward Heath than anyone else I can think of .. What was it Heath was saying in 1973, “There will be no loss of essential sovereignty “...and Clegg is telling the same lies now . If there is any supping to be done with this Blairy –man let it be with a very long spoon indeed.
.

Christmas Top Of The Population Changes

The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud--and hark, again ! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings ....... (ST Coleridge born Blogger obviously and inventor of the concept of social cohesion)

I have been reading Balls in the New Statesman telling us how he used to love the Christmas Radio Times . That sense of seeing what the whole nation would be watching .A feeling of comfort, social cohesion,a country at peace with itself , settling down to Morecambe and Wise , Parkinson and The Queen. All armed with Snowball`s and Port and Lemons and perhaps a lardy-dar for Grandad . One of the highlights was the Christmas Top Of The Pops and in order to recapture the sense of belonging I present my own festive Top Tens ( All ONS figures)

The top ten local authorities for percentages of live births to mothers born outside the UK (Cue the Led Zep)
1 Newham: 74% 2 Brent: 71% 3 Westminster: 70% 4 Tower Hamlets: 69% 5 Kensington and /Chelsea: 68% 6 Ealing: 63%7 Camden: 62% 8 Harrow: 61% 9 Haringey: 61% 10 Waltham Forest: 57%
The top ten authorities with the highest percentage of pupils whose first language is not English :
1 Tower Hamlets: 75% 2 Newham: 71% 3 Westminster: 69% 4 City of London: 65% 5 Brent: 58% 6 Camden: 58% 7 Hackney: 54% 8 Ealing: 54% 9 Haringey: 53% 10 Kensington and Chelsea: 52%
Social Cohesion
J S Mill claimed that Cole ridge (yes the poet) invented the concept and amongst other things saw the need of ‘a strong and active principle of cohesion among the members of the same community or state.’
….
‘We mean a principle of sympathy ..... We mean, that one part of the community do not consider themselves as foreigners with regard to another part; that they set a value on their connexion; feel that they are one people, that their lot is cast together, ...’

Gord Bless Us , Everyone

I have had a revelation . , perhaps every additional sausage is torturing an African child. It is a worry. With the zeal of the converted I am determined to have the perfect New Labour Christmas . Sorry , I mean no smoking , low power, fair trade vegan, carbon offsetting health and safety certified , multicultural , ecumenical /secular inclusive orientation neutral , access friendly non-sexist ....I `d rather be dead...Winterval...... In this spirit it is clear that some traditional songs will have to be altered and I intend to do my bit

So .....

On the first day of Winterval my partner gave to me
...a Carbon Offsetting tree
On the Second day of Winterval my partner gave to me
Two married gays and ......
On the Third day of Winterval my partner gave to me
Fair trade goods
On the Fourth day of Winterval my partner gave to me
Four speed cameras
On the Fifth day of Winterval my partner gave to me
ONE NUMERICALLY CHALLENGED FOUR !!

Anymore ?Anyway Gord Bless us .....said Timmy ...Gord ,bless us everyone.... ( in line with the findings of the Dickens ‘review’ )

Its Only Words

Miss Belgium was booed for not speaking Dutch



One of the things that makes me wonder if I really do want to lose the sweaty socks is the thought of who it would please, namely the Euro piglets everywhere, sucking on the teat of the Brussels pig. Large Euro budgets , that’s our money , are diverted into undermining national states funding ludicrous movements as that for independent Cornwall. You would be amazed at how many flags there are about the place nowadays. Lindsay Jenkins Disappearing Britain tells the tale of EU skulduggery and I recommend it
The country in an advanced stage of dismemberment is Belgium. The Flemish majority of 6million out of the 10.4 are demanding that public figures are tweetalig , ie fluent in Dutch as well as Walloon French .The country is currently between Governments, and has been since June. The EU will be rubbing its hands with glee . Naturally the lack of a PM did not prevent the Libson signing going through .The EU decided to allow Guy Verhofstadt,who is a caretaker figure,to sign what’s left of that nation away. The lack of government was ,of course , no obstacle.
Feelings are running so high between the linguistic communities that the newly crowned Miss Belgian Alizee Pouiceck, pictured here, was actually booed when she failed to respond to a question in Dutch. I yearn to comfort her in a pure and chivalrous manner :)
With new Language tests to be imposed on immigrants ( but no limit on numbers of course), and schools struggling to provide an education for 8 different languages many with English the minority now ,we are somewhat linguistically challenged here . The most directly comparable distinction however is between Brown`s Scots bagpipe drone and the richly varied dialectal heritage of the English..
As has often been mentioned Blair was as much a member of the Mac Raj as the odious one, but did not do the vowels. Brown cannot do without the unreciprocated 69 seats that Scotland and Wales import into the English legislation. Without them English Labour is finished and they also have a language problem. They do not speak the language of aspiration , self reliance and small state decentralised modernity so popular south of the cold flint strewn pictish moors. I suspect they will not be able to learn this language either judging by the odd noises emanating form the Brown bunker.An IT driven ‘personal relationship’ with the state ,is emerging as his vision . Oh boy I feel confident that will work .... .Brown always did do ’choice ‘the way Indian Musicians do the national anthem , god knows what cacophony we have in store after he has lined up his reviews which will magically agree with him.
Balancing the con trick perpetrated on the English , not so much financially as democratically, with the desire of the EU to break us up, I favour David Cameron`s pragmatic approach. Rectifying clear inequities in the context of retaining Union for now . He is right to cool English frustration

The fact is that the Scots and the English do not speak a different language no more than the Brumwegians and the Surrey toffs . We currently speak a different political language but when I think of who would be most pleased to see the end of the Union I wonder if we should try harder to reach a friendly accommodation. English votes and a re-examination of the funding would help. Many of the most irritating Salmson promises are actually unfunded and Scotland may well not be permanently wedded to the oxymoron Independence within the EU. Latest figures do indeed show an increase in the popularity of Independence especially among the young but I am not convinced the UK is going the way of Belgium just yet. Personally I would not boo Miss Pouiceck if she spoke Martian.....I would not throw her out of bed for eating crackers if she was Scottish , but them some languages are universal.

Norman Baker Cheats On Campaign Funding

The Miss Marple of Lewes Norman Baker wrestles with his ravenous ego























The Standards Committee On Norman Baker ,http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmselect/cmstnprv/182/18202.htm
Wikepedia
“In December 2007 his parliamentary sleazebusting reputation was destroyed when the Standards & Privileges Committee found him guilty of misuing tax-payers money. The Standards & Privileges Committee report concluded: "We agree with the Commissioner that this element of Mr Donovan's complaint should be upheld, and we reiterate that the inclusion of material of a party political nature is not permissible in publications funded from parliamentary allowances."
When I retire I think I will take up a hobby .Perhaps I will also pretend to be a superannuated TinTin and seek out skulduggery wherever I go. Gosh it will be exciting although expensive .How would I be able to conduct this delightfully perfumed project of self adoration . I mean you would need a lot of money and I have no idea where to get it . Also you would need plenty of spare time and I find it hard to conceive of having no other responsibilities at all. What could the answer to this be ?
Perhaps I should ask Norman Baker our far left Liberal MP now dutifully trimming over the Clegg side of the bearded ones with an eye to his continued fun at our expense. In an article entitled “Is Norman Baker the most hated man in Westminster?” Nigel Morris, at the Independent noticed that he has been busy bodying about the place on our time and money non stop . Well Norms , about that £1,000,000 you have spent on self advertisement ; does anyone think any of it will make a jot of difference.?
Norman Baker I should explain ,is a high tax big state dinosaur of the Beveridge group . The trendy arts graduate of the 70s preserved in aspic does not see the contradiction .Of course you are going to get waste under the very conditions he wishes to perpetuate. He also wants the country floated out to Brussels and left there at a a cost of about £5000 per household . Well that will solve the corruption problem eh? . I cannot say I did not enjoy see him catch his own potential Party leader wasting cash though…
,”There might also be a certain froideur in the air when Mr Baker next bumps into Chris Huhne, his successor as the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman.” said Nigel Morris “ Mr Huhne spent £3,284 on car mileage - but only £176 on train tickets, even though his Hampshire constituency is easily reached by rail.”

Naughty naughty . Thus our hero becomes cordially loathed and an irrelevant part of an irrelevant Party incapable of delivering any support to his Constituency and having the effect of helping Brown the most illiberal PM we can remember. Its not as if he gives much time to Constituency matters anyway.His stupid book about Iraqi death squads swooping down for poor David Kelly was the self serving focus of his attention for a year . For a £50,000 fee and the serialisation rights in the Mail no doubt it served him well.( Mysteriously the proof of his fantasies was lost …….fancy)

Clearly we are dealing with an ego rampaging out of control . It may well live in a back room shouting ‘Feed me Norman feed me’, sending him off some other futile and costly act of self aggrandisement . To the entire pantomime the moral perfection of Norman Baker is essential .It is the spoon that drips the nectar of public notice into the ravening gullet with what delicious schadenfreude do I notice him in emereded in corruption controversy himself .
This from the Argus

“An MP known for campaigning for transparency in other politician's spending habits has been rapped across the knuckles for his own.
Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, was criticised for sending out an expenses-funded constituency newsletter which featured an advert about work done by a fellow member of the same political party.
The eight-page document is funded by Incidental Expense Provisions IEPs which, according to Parliamentary regulations, should not be”

And get his pathetic excuse which really draws together all the fine qualities this self satisfied showman brings to Lewes

He said: "It is very important that the highest standard of probity is maintained”
Pontificating … “so of course I accept the judgement.“ Irrelevant . You have no say( as usual)“The inclusion of advertising generally was an attempt to reduce the cost on the British taxpayer.”As Cherie would say “ That’s a Lie “If I had charged taxpayers more the trouble wouldn't have arisen. This is a marginal case, which is clearly reflected in what they have concluded."Next year I will avoid advertising and charge the taxpayer, which is the implication of what they want me to do."Sulky sanctimonious and disingenuous and this was after an endless Standards Board investigation itself a fabulous waste if money achieving little .


We need an MP with some leverage in the real world not a licensed clown and not as cheap one. With the Conservative Party as socially Liberal and as green and as localist as the Liberals nowadays I am wondering what the point of Norman Baker is at all.

The Paedo Accusations Go On

I have been exchanging views with lefty shnozilla Alex Hilton . He has a post up with the not un-amusing title ‘Conservative are evil’ , or something , but as his defence emerges it is apparent that he actually believes it. Not only that but we are the moral equivalents of paedophiles . See this shrieking explosion of sanctimonious pre-pubescence .


‘But abandoning people to a life without hope or opportunity ( This apparently is what people who are Conservatives do ) is tantamount to torture; and abandoning their children is child torture. So if you like you can perform the same self-justifying moral and semantic acrobatics we see from rapists, murderers, paedophiles and torturers of the regular kind.
But it doesn't take away what you really are inside……’

Well there’s not a lot of point in bothering with that gloop which I can get from the soaked mendicant at Croydon station. Not a lot of harm in a vacuous bore sounding off here and there of course but why the attention. ? Anyone know?

Christmas Message

The nativity scene . Not the fixture it once was as there are so many foreigners at schools now it is deemed divisive and beginning to be replaced with celebrations of ‘The world of hope’, and other glutinous fatuities. I was once a suitably majestic King (or wise man ) carrying my gift of Gold to Mary, and Christ child . This transcendant being was perhaps inadequately represented by a hideous plastic doll ,swathed…in swaddling , whatever that might have been.Its meanings come later and I am sorry to hear yet another tradition is under attack


This mother and child carry layers of theology about which wars have been fought ,but it also has a simple resonance. The miracle of new life, and the mother that made it ,are transmitted perfectly .Shepherds and animals jostle but above the bru-ha ha of makeshift domesticity a star announces that the most important thing ‘ever’ has just happened . I know the feeling , all fathers must do.
You might therefore , imagine this central purpose of humanity would be cherished .Not amongst England’s dark satanic mills I `m afraid .


Take the actual willingness have a child . Without immigrants London’s birth-rate would have halved during the Blair Brown infernal ministry of torment , so it is entirely possible that modern Mary would not bother at all .The overall fertility rate among indigenous ethnicities is up to 1.7 from 1.3 the overall rate of 2.6 is misleading .Excluding inward migration , this would also have been the first year in which more children were born out of wedlock than in. So, if Mary had persuaded Joseph to make a decent women of her she would be lucky.

Even had Joseph played ball,the welfare system makes it highly tempting not to . A single mother working 16 hours a week , after tax gains a total income of £487 a week while a two parent family on the minimum wage has to work 116 hours to the the same . (Frank Field ) .. Since we are diving into the travails of what I will call Chav Mary I think we can forget that business of Joseph being a carpenter. One in seven children is growing up in a workless home and in parts if the UK it is , of course , entire areas . Last week the Statistics commission , showed that four out of every new job supposedly created has been taken/made by an immigrant. A quarter of the population of Liverpool , Middlesbrough and Glasgow are dependent on benefits in this supposedly booming country which by many measures (like the ones UNICEF use) is the worst place in the developed world to be a child anyway.

Joseph is most unlikely to get into the picture. Britain now has 1.9 million lone parents an increase of over 200,000 from vertiginously high levels when Labour came to power . The highest teenage birth-rate in Europe as well
Given that The baby Jesus was likely to be in a work free and Joseph free environment we cannot hope for much early promise despite his inherited deity status . Children aged 12 in a one parent family are 2.4 times more likely smoke four times more likely to be expelled . US figures show 63 % of teenage suicides , 90 percent of runaways and 85 % of juvenile prisoners are from fatherless homes . There can be little doubt that marriage not merely cohabitation is important as well. One in two cohabiting parents split up before their child’s fifth birthday . For married couples the comparable figure is one in twelve.
Leaving chav Mary to her obese fatherless Nintendo addicted young drug taking basket case already enmeshed in a web of social services, we can turn to the coping classes and above . Only 3 out of 10 children now live in the traditional family of male breadwinner . This account for 29% of households the rest are formed of endless permutations .Yuppie Mary has different but oddly similar problems .

Women are on their way to outnumbering the number of me in the millionaires club and although wages lag somewhat behind , at 80% it is doubtful that this represents anymore than the differential commitment over a working life men put in . A brave new world has grown in which the father is non existent , if you can find any sperm that’s is now he is also potentially traceable.( not a problem for Mary I suppose) .Science promises that women may be able to make their own sperm ,the equal opportunities commission has ceased its work, and whiners like Yasmin Alibhai-Brown , admit that women have never had it so good .
Nonetheless this breed seem less keen to have any offspring than anyone . A third of couples face infertility problems and the majority of women now do not start to try until after thirty with 65% saying they regret it . The problem, 35% spend an average of £5000 on IVF alone and that’s after the Post code lottery has done its brutal work. Only seven primary care trusts will fund three cycles and as we know only the privileged Millibands of this world get to adopt nowadays by going abroad to avoid out nauseating jobs worth misery factories. A national scandal I would like to see some little weasel pay for.

A survey of 2000 women combining home and work makes the 30s the hardest decade .They snack , they miss sleep, they accept tiredness as a way of life . They no longer live in a community , nor , often , can they rely on a married partner . Research also shows that mothers today manage on 3.5 to 4 hours sleep . This is because their greater family around them to pass on the tricks of the trade one of which is leaving the baby to cry for longer . By contrast to their grandmothers, women are on their knees, creating untold pressure relationships already strained by trying to pay mortgages personal debt and blurred roles ..

They cannot content themselves with the knowledge they have down the best for their child either . A survey of all; studies on day care showed 41 % of children in day care for more than 20 hours a week were insecure only 26% were when they were cared for full time by their mothers . Sorry Polly Toynbee the state cannot take over where the mother once was, much as it would suit your vile inhuman nightmare vision.

The left scream Sure start and flexible working is the answer and we should abandon the traditional family . Well flexible working may well be a luxury we can no longer afford and even now it is unworkable outside the Public sector who are sending other peoples money. As for Sure start , its works well enough if you ignore value , but the bald equation of poverty with child problem is a nonsense if you provide no way to create wealth. The left , of course , no less than nothing about that . On mainland Europe the proportion of children cared for by parents is far greater with obviously beneficial results here the coping class simply cannot afford it.Here they are trapped on the mortage slave ship pulling away to the dreadful beat of necessity. Then the Labour government wonders why property value and IHT exploded in their face.

Without women voting we woud have had Labour Governmentas since 1945 and while we all know there are single mothers who deserve support struggling married mothers working and cleaning and taking , by the way , more than their share of housework , are less sympathetic than the sisterhood might wish .
They are one of the reasons that the Labour Party have slid backwards and Cameron`s resurgence may be traced back to his support for marriage by removing dsome of the disincentive as well as the conference . Labour roared support for single mothers at their embarrassing deputy leadership farce .Hilary Benn an aristocrat with £230,000 of United Business MEDIA Shares , Ms Harman a top private school product relative of Lord Longford who sent her brood to Grammar , and Mr. Hain from the opulence of Hillsborough Castle ( One of eight homes)!All of them were determined to continue to punish those heroically doing their best under huge pressure and the active loathing of progressives and socialists . ‘Married Families with Children ’.

I know someone thought it awfully “challenging” to cast Mary and Joseph as asylum seekers which they were not . How much more thought provoking it would have been to cast them as decent English people unable to keep up the slavery required to support the swollen state which does little good for the recipients anyway.
There is a deep division in our society between the two income family and the no income family but if they look across the chasm they face many of the same problems and neither group of mothers are getting what they want. When we look the nativity scene , for as long as they will allow us , and recognise the its universality we should not conclude Christian charity implies taxing marriage and funding its reverse . We must look for ways to return our society to the eternal humanity represented in the scene. This means three kings bearing tax breaks , support for marriage and welfare reform.


Blessings