Which is a posh way of saying I`m bloody busy for a while and will not be blogging . Its not the posts so much as the research. I `m afraid the entire newmania brain must be directed at moolah for a while .
I`ll be back
Update ...I `ve just read that and realised I have used the phrase " Entire Newmania brain"....I appreciate it is a Pooh Bear sized organ ...but I like it
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Langham In Danger
I know Conservatives are supposed to want to string up Langham`s sort by the balls but I would like him to serve his sentence like everyone else and be protected as he should be.
Former prison governor turned criminologist, Professor David Wilson, thinks Langham, may be at risk. "Amongst some prisoners, there's a lot of kudos in bragging that you 'did that Chris Langham', so he'll almost certainly be offered Rule 45 and end up in the Vulnerable Prisoner Unit (VPU)," he said.
No Rule 45 application may be rejected and every prison is supposed to have separate cells and waiting rooms in which those who ask for protection can be processed apart from other newly convicted prisoners. However, the prison grapevine is remarkably effective and Langham's presence will be known from day one. The former Chief Inspector of Prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, has pointed out that being within sound of the rest of the prison, even if out of sight, can be intimidatory. Shouted abuse and threats have driven some sex offenders to self-harm and suicide attempts and, given Langham's troubled background with alcohol and drugs, he will probably be placed on a suicide watch.At its most stringent, this can mean observation every 15 minutes.
Source BBC
Former prison governor turned criminologist, Professor David Wilson, thinks Langham, may be at risk. "Amongst some prisoners, there's a lot of kudos in bragging that you 'did that Chris Langham', so he'll almost certainly be offered Rule 45 and end up in the Vulnerable Prisoner Unit (VPU)," he said.
No Rule 45 application may be rejected and every prison is supposed to have separate cells and waiting rooms in which those who ask for protection can be processed apart from other newly convicted prisoners. However, the prison grapevine is remarkably effective and Langham's presence will be known from day one. The former Chief Inspector of Prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, has pointed out that being within sound of the rest of the prison, even if out of sight, can be intimidatory. Shouted abuse and threats have driven some sex offenders to self-harm and suicide attempts and, given Langham's troubled background with alcohol and drugs, he will probably be placed on a suicide watch.At its most stringent, this can mean observation every 15 minutes.
Source BBC
Look Back In Langour - Part 94
Lets go back to a time before we had heard the words “ Clunking fist“.Remember how funny that was as Labour continued to “Languish “as they say. When Brown’s Premiership was still a malignant glare in its author’s eye? Yes that’s right I am doing one of the “Look Back In Languor “ ,occasional series and through the Round window today I have the Labour Party just prior to Brown .Talk of Blair became retrospective and the strange phenomenon of the ghost leadership election ( The deputy leadership ) began to hot up.Fevered speculation about what sort of a change Brown would be followed . Some of it is toe curlingly in error but others were almost clairvoyant. I hope the following brings out the position of Brown in three areas .
1 Constraints of Economic Policy
2 His tricky relationship with the political left of the Labour Party
3 The finances of the Party which clearly have delayed calling an election
……
Jeff Randall “Brown’s raid ( of pensions) according to Terry Arthur ,a fellow of the Institurte of actuaries has reduced the value of retirement funds by at least £100 billion and perhaps as much as £150 billion…The clunking fist is guilty of inflicting GBH “
Blair The inside Years BBC Alan Johnson( Then favourite to become Deputy Leader)”He ( Blair) The thing about Tony is that he’s incredibly posh..we had a chat a couple of years ago and I talked about kids . I said I had three by the time I was 20 and he said to me “ So you really are working class. I said “ Tony , yes I am”
Phillip Johnston ( Of the welfare debate at the beginning of the Blair years) “Within a year Mr. Field was out on his ear and Mr. Brown was entrenching the main elements of the welfare system… ..none of Blair’s good intentions have been fulfilled .
“ 80% of benefits £ 64 billion is paid out on a something for nothing basis “
“ Our welfare spending is at generous European levels but manages to produce the same levels of inequality seen in the US where much less in spent on transfers from rich to poor . WE would have been better off employing Robin Hood”
“John Reid fuelled speculation that that he is planning to challenge Gordon brown for the Leadership….” the Labour party will take the decision” he told BBC1`s Sunday AM programme “ And for us to be trying to pre-empt their right , I don`t think would be the courteous or sensible thing to do “………(sigh)
“ Supporters of Hazel Blears claimed that she is now the leading woman candidate for the post…International Development Secretary Mr. Benn hopes to cement his position as the bookies favourite…” ( Mail)
“ Mr. Hain last week suggested City Institutions should hand two thirds of their bonus pool to charity and threatened other solution if they failed to act .Mr. Hain said he was backing Ireland to win next weeks game in Dublin ( Against England)
“ Harman is voters choice to be Deputy “..a U Gov Poll showed her to be the most popular second best was Mr. Benn
Simon Heffer turns his guns in the right direction for once “If you can bear it recall these promises from the 19997 Labour manifesto ,‘Education will be our number one priority ‘. ‘We will help build strong families and strong communities’, ‘We will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’ oh and if you want a really good laugh…” We will clean up politics”….he concludes “ 700,000 unproductive people have been put on the pubic payroll where they can gratefully vote for Gordon brown in perpetuity. They , Mrs .Blair, the IRA and those for whom the most important thing in life is to be allowed to sodomise 16 year old boys are the only ones I can think of who have done well out of the last ten years “
“….. had their been as much ferocity employed in the war on drugs as the war on tobacco smoking Britain would be cocaine free by now …”…Heffer again
At Mr. Meachers campaign launch- he shed tears for the lack of house building for the less well off in recent years . Mr. Meacher , who in 19999 criticised second home owners for “ Robbing people of a home “ was challenged to admit he owned 11 properties…Mr. Meacher also lost a libel action in 1988 over claims he had overstated his working class roots by referring to his accountant father as a farm Labourer …”
“ Gordon brown now has an 11 strong court of special advisers costing the public more than £1million per year for the first time . Sue Nye Spencer Livermore and Damian Mc Bride , are the top of the round kitchen table “
Hazel Blears “People voted for Tony Blair in huge numbers . They will take a dim view of us if we say in effect that was all rubbish and we’re different now …If we are seen as only being about helping the porr and vulnerable we lose our connection who don’t get or expect much from the state but who want to be government to be supportive of people who want to get on “..
Irwin Stelzer -” David Cameron’s demand that Blair resign, a demand not unrelated to the Tories delusional notion that Gordon will prove a less formidable opponent than Blair…( over the peerages scandal) ………..ouch
Mr. Blair told close colleagues that he fears the Chancellor… will “ slam his foot on the brake “ in an effort to wreck his political legacy. Mr. Blair is being urged by some of his inner circle to “ Call Gordon’s Bluff and stay on until the late Summer and early Autumn”…from Patrick Hennessey ( who is almost always wrong actually )
Ms Blear said ..“this meant keeping on side with the 2,000,000 voters who switched from the Conservatives to the Labour Party in 1997 to win a working majority
Gordon Brown’s drive to slash Whitehall budgets by more than £20 billion was thrown into doubt ..In today’s report the National Audit office reveals hat the Government claims to have already saved £13.3 billion. …..only £3.1 billion of these savings stood up to scrutiny “
A Standard London Survey revealed “ A little less than 23% think the Chancellor will be an improvement on Tony Blair when ,as expected he take over the keys to Downing Street. In competence where Brown scored best 36% went for David Cameron and 30% for Gordon brown. But on “ Likely y to stand up for London’s interests Cameron wins 34% to 11%
Brown plans a cap spending by political Parties ,. Currently Parties are legally allowed to spend only £19.35 million at the general election while spending between Polls are not capped . The loophole has allowed the to pit money into marginal seats ….
AS a result of the cash for honours , the party’s debt is estimated at £27 million and Labour will have to build up a war chest to fight the next election
Frances Maude The Conservative Chairman threw down the gauntlet to Labour today by warning that the Tories will not abandon their demand for strict limits on donations from Unions . Nr Maude said there would be no deal unless labour accepted an across the board cap on all donations …9 Which is where we are still sitting “
Headline `Brown will rely on Unions to escape £40 millions black hole “
Julia Langdon of Blair “He looked a beaten man.. Neil Kinnock said yesterday that it would tale a considerable period of time for the Labour Party to recover from this shambles , but untypical for him- he understated the case…does the prospect of a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown seem any more likely to command public respect ? I think not. The Chancellor may have clean hands in the present criminal investigation but that is not the point . He has been a member of this Government throughout and to a great extent has been involved with Tony Blair in the exercise of a duopoly ………..Harold Wilson famously remarked during a rough patch , “I can tell you whats going on- I`m going on”That is not an option for Tony Blair
Bill Deedes on an early election- Mr. Brown’s soothsayers tell him that although he would probably win an election by a narrow margin a smaller majority , given the present mood of the Labour Party would be perilous .
(Looking a this period of phoney war I realises how important the cash for peerages scandal was and how Blair and Iraq loomed so very much larger. It seems to have been assumed that everyone knew that brown was part of the government and would carry a share of ignominy and noone saw that Brown was going to be miraculously reconceived immaculately)
You Gov Survey ¾ of Labour Party want a proper leadership election but in a contest between Brown Milliband Meacher and McDonnellBrons wins handsomely with 52% of Party members saying they would back him
The New Statesman “ The internal ecology of the Party is changing even before Gordon brown gets to run the show . Itbis not yet a luch to the left but it is loosening its moorings …The expectation that a Brown led government will be more recognisable and traditionally Labour in its outlook than a Blair one , an impression he has allowed to flourish over the years ( At our best when Labour …etc.)
They fear Brown will go left and lose the election. Irwin Stelzer made the contrary and it appears correct prediction
BTW I notice that Irwin Stezer is extraordinarily perceptive not to say oracular when it comes to Brown , are they chums ? In this article he marvellously summarises the choices brown has for his government …just a snippet…
“Brown cannot have it both ways. As the think-tank Civitas points out, a society in which one in three households looks to the state for at least half its income "create[s] beholden voters rather than independent people".
The Chancellor wants British workers and capitalists to become as hard-working and entrepreneurial as the Americans he so admires.
But a dependency culture is a risk-averse culture, and people who surrender 40 per cent of their income when they earn it, and another 17 per cent when they spend it, are not likely to walk that extra mile in pursuit of the 43p they are allowed to keep from every pound they earn.
Brown will, therefore, have to choose between continuing down the high-tax, egalitarian path that might have been appropriate to the Britain he inherited and going for growth.
That growth agenda necessarily will involve replacing redistributionist handouts with greater reliance on rewarding individual effort, and reducing the share of national income claimed by his Government. “
He predicts that Brown will hold down public sector pay rises but warns that they will be paid of in Pensions
Letter to the Telegraph “ Gordon Brown`s belief that support for marriage is an ideological judgement “ reveals him to tbe that most dangerous man , a dogmatist who believes himself to be an idealist
The rfirst week.
The Blair era has sown a deep distrust of sound-bites , stunts and spin: picture Mr,. Cameron with his family provoked reflex hostility ( Frank Luntz on News night)…The group complained they did not know enough about Mr. Brown but they valued the Chancellor`s experience and his ability to get things one Callowness versus gravitas will be Mr. Brown`s preferred battle lines……- Mathew D, Anconna
Now if you look at what brown knows about the economy and what the financial difficulties of the Labour Party are I take this evenings leak in the Standard that the election will be within the years very seriously . In other words it is as quickly as it was possible to make it . Opposition is building within Labour and the Unions will have to be bought off ( with even better pensions in some opaque way I `d guess). With a reduced majority.Brown will have to depart the middle way just when he has himself sdecided that what he was doing before cannot be continued with if he is to avoid ‘apocalypse later’. Every day the nation begins to recall Brown was Part of the “Duopoly “ and the fears of a high tax Labour administration grow.
1 Constraints of Economic Policy
2 His tricky relationship with the political left of the Labour Party
3 The finances of the Party which clearly have delayed calling an election
……
Jeff Randall “Brown’s raid ( of pensions) according to Terry Arthur ,a fellow of the Institurte of actuaries has reduced the value of retirement funds by at least £100 billion and perhaps as much as £150 billion…The clunking fist is guilty of inflicting GBH “
Blair The inside Years BBC Alan Johnson( Then favourite to become Deputy Leader)”He ( Blair) The thing about Tony is that he’s incredibly posh..we had a chat a couple of years ago and I talked about kids . I said I had three by the time I was 20 and he said to me “ So you really are working class. I said “ Tony , yes I am”
Phillip Johnston ( Of the welfare debate at the beginning of the Blair years) “Within a year Mr. Field was out on his ear and Mr. Brown was entrenching the main elements of the welfare system… ..none of Blair’s good intentions have been fulfilled .
“ 80% of benefits £ 64 billion is paid out on a something for nothing basis “
“ Our welfare spending is at generous European levels but manages to produce the same levels of inequality seen in the US where much less in spent on transfers from rich to poor . WE would have been better off employing Robin Hood”
“John Reid fuelled speculation that that he is planning to challenge Gordon brown for the Leadership….” the Labour party will take the decision” he told BBC1`s Sunday AM programme “ And for us to be trying to pre-empt their right , I don`t think would be the courteous or sensible thing to do “………(sigh)
“ Supporters of Hazel Blears claimed that she is now the leading woman candidate for the post…International Development Secretary Mr. Benn hopes to cement his position as the bookies favourite…” ( Mail)
“ Mr. Hain last week suggested City Institutions should hand two thirds of their bonus pool to charity and threatened other solution if they failed to act .Mr. Hain said he was backing Ireland to win next weeks game in Dublin ( Against England)
“ Harman is voters choice to be Deputy “..a U Gov Poll showed her to be the most popular second best was Mr. Benn
Simon Heffer turns his guns in the right direction for once “If you can bear it recall these promises from the 19997 Labour manifesto ,‘Education will be our number one priority ‘. ‘We will help build strong families and strong communities’, ‘We will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’ oh and if you want a really good laugh…” We will clean up politics”….he concludes “ 700,000 unproductive people have been put on the pubic payroll where they can gratefully vote for Gordon brown in perpetuity. They , Mrs .Blair, the IRA and those for whom the most important thing in life is to be allowed to sodomise 16 year old boys are the only ones I can think of who have done well out of the last ten years “
“….. had their been as much ferocity employed in the war on drugs as the war on tobacco smoking Britain would be cocaine free by now …”…Heffer again
At Mr. Meachers campaign launch- he shed tears for the lack of house building for the less well off in recent years . Mr. Meacher , who in 19999 criticised second home owners for “ Robbing people of a home “ was challenged to admit he owned 11 properties…Mr. Meacher also lost a libel action in 1988 over claims he had overstated his working class roots by referring to his accountant father as a farm Labourer …”
“ Gordon brown now has an 11 strong court of special advisers costing the public more than £1million per year for the first time . Sue Nye Spencer Livermore and Damian Mc Bride , are the top of the round kitchen table “
Hazel Blears “People voted for Tony Blair in huge numbers . They will take a dim view of us if we say in effect that was all rubbish and we’re different now …If we are seen as only being about helping the porr and vulnerable we lose our connection who don’t get or expect much from the state but who want to be government to be supportive of people who want to get on “..
Irwin Stelzer -” David Cameron’s demand that Blair resign, a demand not unrelated to the Tories delusional notion that Gordon will prove a less formidable opponent than Blair…( over the peerages scandal) ………..ouch
Mr. Blair told close colleagues that he fears the Chancellor… will “ slam his foot on the brake “ in an effort to wreck his political legacy. Mr. Blair is being urged by some of his inner circle to “ Call Gordon’s Bluff and stay on until the late Summer and early Autumn”…from Patrick Hennessey ( who is almost always wrong actually )
Ms Blear said ..“this meant keeping on side with the 2,000,000 voters who switched from the Conservatives to the Labour Party in 1997 to win a working majority
Gordon Brown’s drive to slash Whitehall budgets by more than £20 billion was thrown into doubt ..In today’s report the National Audit office reveals hat the Government claims to have already saved £13.3 billion. …..only £3.1 billion of these savings stood up to scrutiny “
A Standard London Survey revealed “ A little less than 23% think the Chancellor will be an improvement on Tony Blair when ,as expected he take over the keys to Downing Street. In competence where Brown scored best 36% went for David Cameron and 30% for Gordon brown. But on “ Likely y to stand up for London’s interests Cameron wins 34% to 11%
Brown plans a cap spending by political Parties ,. Currently Parties are legally allowed to spend only £19.35 million at the general election while spending between Polls are not capped . The loophole has allowed the to pit money into marginal seats ….
AS a result of the cash for honours , the party’s debt is estimated at £27 million and Labour will have to build up a war chest to fight the next election
Frances Maude The Conservative Chairman threw down the gauntlet to Labour today by warning that the Tories will not abandon their demand for strict limits on donations from Unions . Nr Maude said there would be no deal unless labour accepted an across the board cap on all donations …9 Which is where we are still sitting “
Headline `Brown will rely on Unions to escape £40 millions black hole “
Julia Langdon of Blair “He looked a beaten man.. Neil Kinnock said yesterday that it would tale a considerable period of time for the Labour Party to recover from this shambles , but untypical for him- he understated the case…does the prospect of a Labour Government led by Gordon Brown seem any more likely to command public respect ? I think not. The Chancellor may have clean hands in the present criminal investigation but that is not the point . He has been a member of this Government throughout and to a great extent has been involved with Tony Blair in the exercise of a duopoly ………..Harold Wilson famously remarked during a rough patch , “I can tell you whats going on- I`m going on”That is not an option for Tony Blair
Bill Deedes on an early election- Mr. Brown’s soothsayers tell him that although he would probably win an election by a narrow margin a smaller majority , given the present mood of the Labour Party would be perilous .
(Looking a this period of phoney war I realises how important the cash for peerages scandal was and how Blair and Iraq loomed so very much larger. It seems to have been assumed that everyone knew that brown was part of the government and would carry a share of ignominy and noone saw that Brown was going to be miraculously reconceived immaculately)
You Gov Survey ¾ of Labour Party want a proper leadership election but in a contest between Brown Milliband Meacher and McDonnellBrons wins handsomely with 52% of Party members saying they would back him
The New Statesman “ The internal ecology of the Party is changing even before Gordon brown gets to run the show . Itbis not yet a luch to the left but it is loosening its moorings …The expectation that a Brown led government will be more recognisable and traditionally Labour in its outlook than a Blair one , an impression he has allowed to flourish over the years ( At our best when Labour …etc.)
They fear Brown will go left and lose the election. Irwin Stelzer made the contrary and it appears correct prediction
BTW I notice that Irwin Stezer is extraordinarily perceptive not to say oracular when it comes to Brown , are they chums ? In this article he marvellously summarises the choices brown has for his government …just a snippet…
“Brown cannot have it both ways. As the think-tank Civitas points out, a society in which one in three households looks to the state for at least half its income "create[s] beholden voters rather than independent people".
The Chancellor wants British workers and capitalists to become as hard-working and entrepreneurial as the Americans he so admires.
But a dependency culture is a risk-averse culture, and people who surrender 40 per cent of their income when they earn it, and another 17 per cent when they spend it, are not likely to walk that extra mile in pursuit of the 43p they are allowed to keep from every pound they earn.
Brown will, therefore, have to choose between continuing down the high-tax, egalitarian path that might have been appropriate to the Britain he inherited and going for growth.
That growth agenda necessarily will involve replacing redistributionist handouts with greater reliance on rewarding individual effort, and reducing the share of national income claimed by his Government. “
He predicts that Brown will hold down public sector pay rises but warns that they will be paid of in Pensions
Letter to the Telegraph “ Gordon Brown`s belief that support for marriage is an ideological judgement “ reveals him to tbe that most dangerous man , a dogmatist who believes himself to be an idealist
The rfirst week.
The Blair era has sown a deep distrust of sound-bites , stunts and spin: picture Mr,. Cameron with his family provoked reflex hostility ( Frank Luntz on News night)…The group complained they did not know enough about Mr. Brown but they valued the Chancellor`s experience and his ability to get things one Callowness versus gravitas will be Mr. Brown`s preferred battle lines……- Mathew D, Anconna
Now if you look at what brown knows about the economy and what the financial difficulties of the Labour Party are I take this evenings leak in the Standard that the election will be within the years very seriously . In other words it is as quickly as it was possible to make it . Opposition is building within Labour and the Unions will have to be bought off ( with even better pensions in some opaque way I `d guess). With a reduced majority.Brown will have to depart the middle way just when he has himself sdecided that what he was doing before cannot be continued with if he is to avoid ‘apocalypse later’. Every day the nation begins to recall Brown was Part of the “Duopoly “ and the fears of a high tax Labour administration grow.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Cat Quits Bag
Taken from LabourHome, uttered by "doctordunc":
"This is frankly terrifying! So you're saying we needed Thatcher to reform the unions? I hope nobody on ConservativeHome spots this thread!!"
Stolen from Dizzy who stole it from Con Home ...pass it on and this was on a Compas thread
'Anyone who has seen the photo of Brown and Thatcher together in today's newspapers, must wonder if there is anything remotely resembling a Labour Government left ... to support.
Jon Teunon.
If I were them I wouldn`t worry its only Brown lying as usual
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Jihad For Love
A Jihad For Love,( At Toronto Film Festival) is a documentary Indian filmmaker Parvez Sharma drafted in the six years following the September 11th 2001 attacks in New York.
In that time, Sharma followed the experiences of gay Muslims in 12 countries, including India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa and France.
"We are presenting Islam's most unlikely storytellers," Sharma told the Hollywood Reporter.(Pink news)
There are several errors you can fall into over Islam. The most obvious is to define Muslims as victims and fail to criticise them at all. Even so indefatigable a gay rights warrior as Peter Tatchell ( for whom I have a sneaky admiration), balanced up his criticism of Islam with the suggestion that they too were discriminated against. So what who isn’t in some way ?
Nonetheless he can see little to applaud even from the public face of British Muslims “The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has rejected talks with gay organisations and rebuffed proposals to tackle homophobia within the Muslim community.”....
Others claim that the Monotheistic religions are equally societally backward . The argument goes like this ( From Brian Whittacker)
“It is true, of course, that most Muslims today regard homosexuality as bad ......but this is a product of society rather than their religion. The vast majority of Christians and Jews held a similar view half a century ago but since then significant bodies of opinion in Judaism and Christianity have begun to question it. “......... he had to admit ...
“many Muslims..., denounce gay people as "paedophiles and Aids carriers" and likening homosexuality to a "cancer tumour" that must be eradicated, “.
My suspicion is that the doves that can be found are in tiny numbers and this is really the usual Politically correct confusion dealing with a victim who has a victim.I also dispute the equivalence of theologies posited
.In fact, the verses from the Koran condemning homosexuality are much clearer than those that the Christians use and tolerance in Chistianity has an old tradition stemming from its greater emphasis on love.
In all Muslim countries and all areas where the Islamic Sharia law is enforced homosexuality is strictly illegal. The debates in Islam about homosexuality are not about whether it is acceptable, but merely about how severe the punishment should be.. George Broadhead, noted ...the penalties for those convicted ranged from prison, flogging, execution by a variety of perverted methods – such as throwing the victim off a cliff or pushing a stone wall on to them. "The record of these countries on human rights in general is bad enough, but when it comes to gay human rights, they are disgusting"" Many of the Imams come directly from this wider world and oddly their message seems to appeal particularly to those who appear Westernized.
This film is a cultural attack by innocent fifth collumnists.The first Muslim "gay wedding" in Britain is also behind us and although the participants may not see it they are rotting this stinking old fruit from its centre.It could well be that feminisim , gay rights and free speech will prove our most potent weapons against international theocratic fascism and its 'useful idiot' sympathisers
Fantastic I`m Average !
It is obvious that if you are like the voters then they will like you isn`t it? No surprise then, that both Parties are desperate to locate on the fabled middle ground
Populus has conducted a special poll of voters’ views about the main parties and their leaders . 1,004 adults polled between September 7 and 9 have been asked to place themselves, the three main parties and their leaders on a left-right spectrum. So who is the best at followership?
Scale O-10 Average Voter 5.37 (from 5.27 a year ago. )
Mr Brown- at 5.16, 0.31 points to the right of last year,
Labour Party -5.20
Mr Cameron -5.63, 0.37 to the left of a year ago.
Conservative Party - 5.76, a leftward shift of 0.33, ( closest to the centre in any of the five surveys so far.)
Gap Mr Cameron /Mr Brown from 1.15 to 0.47 over the past year
Gap between the Tories and Labour from 1.12 to 0.56.
Conservative voters moved 0.25 to the right to 6.30( Go us )
Its getting mighty crowded in the middle thats for sure , but just a word of warning . A year ago, Mr Blair was in almost exactly the same position as the average voter. …………
…….And everyone hated him . Perhaps there is scope for leadership after all.I have left out the Lib Dums who are seen as somewhat to the left of Labour but this spectrum does not work so well for them as they would see themselves as Libertarian Socialists ( hence Lib Dum !).People are just starting to notice just what trouble they are in with all their supposed territory eaten away. ....
Neologism of the day- To feel " Mingy"- A sense of diffuse foreboding such as when foot steps follow you in the night , the shadow of a knife crosses the window , or your party starts forgiving drunks .....
Source of figures Times On Line ,
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Too Early ?
Renault have announced the release of their brand new people carrier.It is so spacious that you hardly even notice the kids in the back. It's called the Renault McCann
Girls Just Wanna Have Guns
( Thanks Croydonian for the title )
The ability to spit death and make your knees wobble is always a great duo and these poster girls for the Free world are out there keeping it safe today. They hail from The US ( 1 and 2) the UK , isn`t she a cutey ,Lovely Sweden and our old favourites the babes of the Israeli Defence force , Germany France and the Czech army bring up the rear a. As you sit writing slightly acidic memos to departments you do not like think of these hot bodies are doing the business for us all ..... We are not , by any means , worthy
More sexist news just in:'Millions of women may be jogging their way to sagging breasts as they set off on New Year fitness regimes without suitable bras, research suggests. Some 9.5 million British women could be irreversibly damaging their busts by exercising without a proper sports bra, the Portsmouth University team said' - The BBC Website. If anyone can think of a cushier gig than watching breasts jiggle around, I would like to know.
The ability to spit death and make your knees wobble is always a great duo and these poster girls for the Free world are out there keeping it safe today. They hail from The US ( 1 and 2) the UK , isn`t she a cutey ,Lovely Sweden and our old favourites the babes of the Israeli Defence force , Germany France and the Czech army bring up the rear a. As you sit writing slightly acidic memos to departments you do not like think of these hot bodies are doing the business for us all ..... We are not , by any means , worthy
More sexist news just in:'Millions of women may be jogging their way to sagging breasts as they set off on New Year fitness regimes without suitable bras, research suggests. Some 9.5 million British women could be irreversibly damaging their busts by exercising without a proper sports bra, the Portsmouth University team said' - The BBC Website. If anyone can think of a cushier gig than watching breasts jiggle around, I would like to know.
The Guilty Pleasure Of Simon Heffer
A fascinating little tale in private Eye this morning telling us that the Boy King Cameron actually went to professional thorn in the side ,Heffer`, Holiday home, to have it out with the Wagnerian foamer. During his holiday in Brittany last month, the Tory leader was having lunch with Lord Marland , ( Our splendid treasurer), who let slip that Hefferlump might be found in his time -share in Dinard.
Cameron hopped like furious Rumplestiltskin until the exasperated grandee agreed they would pay a visit to the camp curmudgeon’s eyrie, where , no doubt, Dave intended to remonstrate with him for continuing to be Brown’s useful idiot .
I have a feeling that confronted with the consequences of his irresponsibility Heffer might actually have shuffled like a shameful school boy before the golden one . Sadly there was nought but a bucket and spade and a Margaret Thatcher duvet set to show he had ever been there .He was motoring in the Bavarian Alps at the time dreaming , who knows what, in the land of the lederhosen and Nazi Party.
Simon Heffer does rather irritate me at times but there remains a guilty pleasure in reading his endlessly refreshed outrage. Today he is worrying away at the exclusion of Her Majesty from our Passports emboldened by the kindness shown by Gunter Verheugen in allowing us to use our own measurements ...oh god please give me gallons back please..... he puts it rather neatly
“ I am not a citizen of the bloody European Union except on a technicality. I am an Englishman and a subject of Her Majesty The Queen. I wish to remain that way and when I go abroad I wish that last point to be made abundantly clear on my Passport”.
Quite . Today there was an engaging moment of self deprecation.How about this for introducing his next point “ Just as I was moving into a hitherto unexplored region of apoplexy at this atrocity, however, something rather remarkable happened.......”
Hard not to like someone who writes like that isn’t it and with Cameron gearing up to force Brown onto the ropes on the EU constitution Mr. Heffer might actually be tempted to offer some support. Come on Heff, knuckle under,or we send the Boys round !
The Sun Attacks Brown
Today the country`s most influential Political Paper tuned on Brown like a rabid dog. I was amazed at the vitriol being unleashed upon him when I thought he had gone to great lengths to woo the non lefty Press. I have typed sections the hope of reaching a smaller but perfectly formed audience. This is part of what Jon Gaunt had to say. (BTW Dizzy, despite his flattering portrait, actually looks a lot like Jon Gaunt )
“Do you want to know what’s wrong with the country, get yourself down to the London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green and check out the sign in the Out Patients Clinic.” Patients needing trust interpreters will be given priority”…..Immigrants who can’t even speak English are being given priority treatment in hospitals while English speaking tax paying Brits have to wait hours for treatment …… When Gordon Brown played his hard man act on immigration yesterday and said immigrants must speak English,I too felt sick ,because as per usual with New Labour its too little too late in any language .
Gordon getting tough on immigration is the political equivalent of Crackerjack’s Stu Francis saying he wants to crush a grape or tear a tissue. For a start Brown is talking about only the skilled immigrants which amounts to about 95000 a year. Whats he doing about the thousands who are already here who can’t spell A and E let alone casualty. How have we got into this position in the first place ……Last year we spent £100,000,000 on translators and so called health tourism cost the tax payer £62,000,000. If people want to live in the UK they should have to go through a tougher points system- like in the States and Australia- and score very highly to have to privilege of living in the greatest country in the world.
These tests must include compulsory medicals and proof that the migrant has the necessarily skills we need and the ability to support themselves. So when Gordon plays to the gallery of dinosaurs at the TUC and says this “Tough ”policy will reduce the numbers of people entering Britain by 35,000, are we all meant to rejoice? British jobs have already been given to foreigners, ruthless employers are deflating Brit wages by employing illegals or cheap Eastern Europeans and the work shy and long term useless have been given a brilliant excuse to stay in their stinking pits leeching off the rest of us .
At the same time there are at least 500,000 illegals in the UK and senior cabinet ministers are ready to give these criminals an amnesty. What they should be doing is closing the borders stopping almost all immigration and until we know who is in the country and rounding up the illegals and deporting them in their thousands.Settling in the UK should be a hard earned privilege not a right. But as usual New Labour will talk a good game and tinker with the edges until its too late as they constantly shut the lorry door after the illegal has bolted“.
I liked this as well “Best laugh I `ve had all week was the graffiti on top of a London bus that declared !” Livingstone is a c-----”... I lost count of the number of cabbies who nearly drive off the road as they recounted the story. But the Police are taking this very seriously and are looking for someone with a grudge against the Mayor. Form an orderly queue please I feel an “ I`m Spartacus “ moment coming on.”
I `m not sure some of this posturing gets us anywhere but there isn’t an awful ,lot I would seriously disagree with. I reported here the Mail has turned on Gordon and I think it is now abundantly clear that the The Sun hates him. His bounce has collapsed and the Unions now want to collect their scoobie snacks for supporting him.If I were him I would still go for it now.
He is not far off from seriously slipping up and if Cameron sticks resolutely to the centre and continues to be the pivot of a Catherine wheel of ideas I really think this GE is winnable. Not all the ideas are perfect but they all say ‘new and thoughtful’, and I believe they are. There is a sense of intellectual excitement about the Conservative Party whereas the bizarre Phoenix “ New brown’ is already looking like a manky old pigeon. There is a place for Redwood and for the Zacolytes, for Willets and for Boris, for Hague and most of all for David Cameron himself.For the first time I see a spectrum that draws the threads together in broad agreement on core principles. David Cameron wants to change this country for the better and he has both the courage and the ruthlessness to do it. The best Conservative leaders have always been the ones they turned when they were in the merde. Dizzy , Winnie Maggie and now the new jewel in the crown of the party’s glorious history David Cameron. The young outsider who dared tell the party the truth and god bless it, it knew he was right.
Treason ( You gimp Mercer) cannot be tolerated . Support Caeron support Boris and save the country, simple
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
But Zac....We Like Supermarkets !
Bed hopping Zac Goldsmith wants Supermarkets to charge us for Parking .The thinking comes from the constituency surrounding the Communities Bill and I have attended a couple of their meetings in which they roll up a lot of worthy local issues in this case the hollowing our of CBD`s ( Central Business Districts ).They are joined in their stand against slash and burn big business, by disparate groups like local shop owners and CAMRA . All those, in fact, who value commercial heterogeneity at a local level. Nice people and I partly approve.
.Given the parking restrictions driving local shops to bankruptcy, it is silly to talk about the free market. The supermarkets operate as a Cartel against farmers and buy up land so as to thwart proper competition. They use their monopoly status to undercut smaller retailers who provide the sort of cultural capital we should ascribe value to.
The Zacolytes ( Thankyou Lud) , are also to the fore in demanding local people have a greater say in planning decisions. As ancient woodlands and gardens to fall into the gaping maugh of the Mantioch ,big business ,for ordeuve .My approval grows ... I want to like the idea ......
But....and it’s a big but. Here are the pictures in my mind . Harassed wives on a budget crying with frustration that they are forced to add pounds onto their bill so Toff totty can roll up outside the Farmers Pork Pie shop in ? “ The Village” ...of Highgate in a Prius ( Dad has a Range Rover). People who tut at the supposed exploitation of the third world accidentally picking up free trade bananas and dropping them as if they were scalded when they see the price difference. . David Cameron promised green taxes should be, ”or” not ,‘and’ but in this case this “ environmental tax” is said to be ploughed back into Public transport . A bad bad start.
I suspect Supermarkets do use supernormal profits to subsidise Parking then surely this is matter for the Monopoly board and the legislation is already in place. Shouldn`t we look carefully at the way in which monopolistic practices go under the radar whereby they have the spare cash. Supermarkets may be loathed by those with the time and money to source original Orkney Lamb hung in the medieval fashion ,but they are loved by everyone else for delivering us from the disgusting sub quality and over priced produce my mother struggled home from local shops with in the 1970s .
They have scoured the word for Avocado Pears ....Olive Oil. ....sun dried tomatoes humus fetta cheese, yoghurts with no fruit in them (which I thought was the point of yoghurt). Big prawns, John Dorry , Ostrich , Covent garden Soups and . To Zac this may be terribly passé but most if us are still think of Supermarkets as a miracle of global Capitalism.This has all the signs of being an idea with promise not properly thought through. It is half baked and I want it double baked. (Like the twice baked banana cake they do in Tescos ...its lovely try some tomorrow ! )
Monday, September 10, 2007
He Misses The Fags
Time for a quicky behind the bike shed anyone ? The Daily Mirror thinks that the fact that David Cameron could not resist a sneaky fag proves his unfitness to be a Prime minister . I think the reverse. Browns web site all but claims emculate conception for this " Most popular of ten year olds"....times must have changed a great deal since I was at school.
Where are you going to my pretty Socialist ?
The question of how the Conservative Party copes with change is an interesting one but as we are not foolish enough to want stagnation we have to accept that Conservativism is a more subtle doctrine than simply conserving . It is only by special pleading a “ Doctrine “ at all but I see its heart as valuing tradition , fearing anarchy, recognising the capital of a system This sounds a little unexciting and in some ways it is . It does have its romantic side though in that its ascribes to traditional human needs valuing humanity, nationhood , family love and a fierce loyalty as expressed by real people ; “ Fallen “ but capable of great good. It is sceptical of itself and always looking for proportion and balance with a dose of pragmatism in the mix .
. Conservatism is more like Indian Hindu culture in that it is an unbroken evolution of primitivism into extreme sophistication operating simultaneously at many levels , hard to reduce to dogma . Socialism derived form Marxism is more like the modern Islam with its set answer for everything .
Such thoughts skit across my mind like the shadows of geese on the lake , as I make chums on the Compass site You may judge the warm cordial empathy that we feel for each other by this latest merry quip,“How do we deal with these exploiters of human compassion .. shoot the fucking lot of them ! “ Moi ?
Seeing them chuck around reasons to reintroduce income redistribution I see a looming and difficult problem for the left. While they love to go on about carers and “relative poverty”, with each step forward capitalism delivers the “ State of Emergency” gets less urgent . Poverty now needs only one holiday , not only one lung Inequality is only acquired by comparison to the extreme wealth of the highest earners . People are getting richer and for the left this is like the tide going down to reveal the bedrock of their beliefs
It was far easier to see in the deputy leadership contest than anything Brown says ( well duh he`s lying ) This was Ruth Listers opening remarks in the current post “A simultaneously heartening and dispiriting feature of the Deputy Leadership campaign was the emergence of inequality as a critical issue”….. They are like all activists calling for a return to the true path but what was it ….do we remember?
Marxism had a mystical reconciliation of the familial and tribal loyalties it cut. It posited a love of all men for the other when money would disappear and all would become god like . In other words private property was an evil of itself . State custody of property was a good in itself both efficiently and morally . In their hearts this what many of the left still believe and that is why redistribution keeps returning. Never before has it been so denuded of other motives though.
The Ages Of The Lefty
1Saying to the starving …”There is a dream in which all together we will have plenty.”
2 Saying to the exploited “You are being treated like cattle by by evil capitalists. Join or brotherhood and find strength”
3 Saying to someone with a car and a semi…look we`d like to take your money away because we feel the Council will use its better and anyway it will only make you greedy and nasty
This why they desperately fear laughter and this is why they hate Boris Jonson so poisonously . He is saying “ Look they have no doctrinal clothes !” and for them that is a very serious matter indeed.
. Conservatism is more like Indian Hindu culture in that it is an unbroken evolution of primitivism into extreme sophistication operating simultaneously at many levels , hard to reduce to dogma . Socialism derived form Marxism is more like the modern Islam with its set answer for everything .
Such thoughts skit across my mind like the shadows of geese on the lake , as I make chums on the Compass site You may judge the warm cordial empathy that we feel for each other by this latest merry quip,“How do we deal with these exploiters of human compassion .. shoot the fucking lot of them ! “ Moi ?
Seeing them chuck around reasons to reintroduce income redistribution I see a looming and difficult problem for the left. While they love to go on about carers and “relative poverty”, with each step forward capitalism delivers the “ State of Emergency” gets less urgent . Poverty now needs only one holiday , not only one lung Inequality is only acquired by comparison to the extreme wealth of the highest earners . People are getting richer and for the left this is like the tide going down to reveal the bedrock of their beliefs
It was far easier to see in the deputy leadership contest than anything Brown says ( well duh he`s lying ) This was Ruth Listers opening remarks in the current post “A simultaneously heartening and dispiriting feature of the Deputy Leadership campaign was the emergence of inequality as a critical issue”….. They are like all activists calling for a return to the true path but what was it ….do we remember?
Marxism had a mystical reconciliation of the familial and tribal loyalties it cut. It posited a love of all men for the other when money would disappear and all would become god like . In other words private property was an evil of itself . State custody of property was a good in itself both efficiently and morally . In their hearts this what many of the left still believe and that is why redistribution keeps returning. Never before has it been so denuded of other motives though.
The Ages Of The Lefty
1Saying to the starving …”There is a dream in which all together we will have plenty.”
2 Saying to the exploited “You are being treated like cattle by by evil capitalists. Join or brotherhood and find strength”
3 Saying to someone with a car and a semi…look we`d like to take your money away because we feel the Council will use its better and anyway it will only make you greedy and nasty
This why they desperately fear laughter and this is why they hate Boris Jonson so poisonously . He is saying “ Look they have no doctrinal clothes !” and for them that is a very serious matter indeed.
She Shoots She Scores
Israeli Defense Forces
They can take apart an Uzi in seconds and reduce you to a quivering jelly in even less time . The women of the Israeli Defense Forces the world’s sexiest soldiers. Defending the free word from the forces of flaccidity
Gal
Expertise: Physical fitness
“I taught gymnastics and calisthenics,” says this flawless former Miss Israel. “The soldiers loved me because I made them fit.”
Yarden
Expertise: Military intelligence
"I haven’t shot anything since I left the army.”
Nivit
Expertise: Military intelligence
“My job was top secret,” says this Tel Aviv native, who still lives with her parents. “I can’t talk about it other than to say I studied some Arabic!”
Natalie
Expertise: Naval Telecommunications
Israeli female legislators were up in arms over this photo shoot actually but these women are clearly the right stuff in every way . They shoot they score , heroine addicts of the world worship at their feet....
Olympics to Attract Biggest Audience Ever
'Olympics chiefs have ordered super-sized seats for London's 2012 Games - because fans are getting FATTER. All 20,000 chairs at the capital's gleaming new Aquatic Centre will be 4cm wider and 5cm deeper than originally planned. Organisers agreed to the changes after talks with stadium designers, who warned normal-sized seats would be unable to cope with a bulkier UK population by 2012' - The Sun.
Fat useless Britains sitting in armchairs watching us lose at huge expense for which Ken Livingstone signed a blank cheque. I `m so excited
This post is dedicated to the Mermaid of Moorgate with love and sympathy
Sunday, September 09, 2007
The Labour ..sorry..Dinner Party
I have just been watching something called The Dinner Party.It brought together everything I have been saying about artistic bankruptcy and political dishonesty of the wretched BBC. Think , whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf done as panto . The Caretaker as interpreted by Little and Large.,...for the level
The host is a loudmouthed and “ Common” ,“Mergers and Acquisitions “ specialist who says such things as “ Don`t give that PC bollocks we all moved here( The Avenue) to get away from the riff raff” in a cod cockney bawl. Those who admit they voted for Labour in 1997 are shouted down buy this ill-mannered pig who proceeds to give us a cartoon characterisation of the selfish brash coarse Thatcher voter beloved of the un-intelligentsia
The “ Nicer” guests suffer his belligerence ruefully .I could not bear to watch the rest of this predictable meretricious garbage as the somnambulist stages of drunkenness and revelation and redemption tediously unravelled .How does such pathetic effluence arrive on our screens at our expense? How can the BBC be allowed to attack the Conservative Party with such ill concealed bile and with such infantile weapons ?
Prior to that,due to the benevolent televisual despotism of Mrs. N, we watched Casualty.It was the episode where as Muslim suicide bomber plot was dropped and replaced with a wet and implausible “ Animal Rights “ Protester. The artistic effect was to watch an ugly dismembering of the integrity of the narrative . The perpetrator arrived on the scene and the tension was between his humanity and the act.We reached the nadir when , confronted with dead bodies he said ," I ve loved animals all my life ....". Problem of scale at all ?
As Melanie Phillips said in” Londonistan” ‘Instead of laying the blame firmly where it belongs with the Islamic ideology, Britain has itself adopted some of the tropes of that very ideology- In particular , hatred of America and Israel .” For Britain read BBC. In order to make the character real they would have had to show him not believing the Islam was responsible for 7.7 and a number of other facts inconsistent with the BBC`s invertebrate lefty credo. That was why they dropped it and the clang was deafening . The BBC`s “Diversity Tsar” wants Muslim women to be allowed to wear the veil on air and they have sanctioned throwing the Bible into the bin for comedy but on no account the Koran( Simon Walters The Mail).Unrepresentative Muslim extremists are given 12 minutes of airtime which would be withheld at gun point from the increasingly popular BNP.Do you recall the 24 hours in which the BBC proclaimed that Britain was a Police state ?
Andrew Marr said of the Beeb ,”It has a liberal bias , not so much a party-political bias .It is better expressed as a cultural bias “. Helen Boaden( recently outed as a serial liar here for misrepresenting Redwood’s Economic Competitiveness review) has also complained Even for her it was too much to suppress a documentary showing black youths bullying white youths as a correctional institution which she saved from the axe . It is pretty obvious that with that sort of pressured the programme was always going to be still born.
Sue Lawley admitted that the BBC is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities . For a woman that dropped her Brummy accent and shagged her way to the top this must have been inconvenient .
If you what to see the Soul of the BBC don`t look at its current affairs look with your peripheral vision at the well manured nooks and cranny . The BBC`s website in its entry on the IRA fails to mention the fact they killed people whereas the entry on the UVF counts the numbers and does not neglect the word vicious . So it is clear that if you monitor overt output they will simply make their bias covert. At the moment this is excatly the trick they are playing on us
Now for the first time , political monitoring will extend beyond the News and current affairs to all ... programmes …A content category called “ opinion” will be created to balance points of view about matter s “Public contention” such regulatory oversight is worthy of consideration given that we “Would not start from here “..
Sadly this measure is Autralian and applies to ABC .The BBC can still get away with murder
The host is a loudmouthed and “ Common” ,“Mergers and Acquisitions “ specialist who says such things as “ Don`t give that PC bollocks we all moved here( The Avenue) to get away from the riff raff” in a cod cockney bawl. Those who admit they voted for Labour in 1997 are shouted down buy this ill-mannered pig who proceeds to give us a cartoon characterisation of the selfish brash coarse Thatcher voter beloved of the un-intelligentsia
The “ Nicer” guests suffer his belligerence ruefully .I could not bear to watch the rest of this predictable meretricious garbage as the somnambulist stages of drunkenness and revelation and redemption tediously unravelled .How does such pathetic effluence arrive on our screens at our expense? How can the BBC be allowed to attack the Conservative Party with such ill concealed bile and with such infantile weapons ?
Prior to that,due to the benevolent televisual despotism of Mrs. N, we watched Casualty.It was the episode where as Muslim suicide bomber plot was dropped and replaced with a wet and implausible “ Animal Rights “ Protester. The artistic effect was to watch an ugly dismembering of the integrity of the narrative . The perpetrator arrived on the scene and the tension was between his humanity and the act.We reached the nadir when , confronted with dead bodies he said ," I ve loved animals all my life ....". Problem of scale at all ?
As Melanie Phillips said in” Londonistan” ‘Instead of laying the blame firmly where it belongs with the Islamic ideology, Britain has itself adopted some of the tropes of that very ideology- In particular , hatred of America and Israel .” For Britain read BBC. In order to make the character real they would have had to show him not believing the Islam was responsible for 7.7 and a number of other facts inconsistent with the BBC`s invertebrate lefty credo. That was why they dropped it and the clang was deafening . The BBC`s “Diversity Tsar” wants Muslim women to be allowed to wear the veil on air and they have sanctioned throwing the Bible into the bin for comedy but on no account the Koran( Simon Walters The Mail).Unrepresentative Muslim extremists are given 12 minutes of airtime which would be withheld at gun point from the increasingly popular BNP.Do you recall the 24 hours in which the BBC proclaimed that Britain was a Police state ?
Andrew Marr said of the Beeb ,”It has a liberal bias , not so much a party-political bias .It is better expressed as a cultural bias “. Helen Boaden( recently outed as a serial liar here for misrepresenting Redwood’s Economic Competitiveness review) has also complained Even for her it was too much to suppress a documentary showing black youths bullying white youths as a correctional institution which she saved from the axe . It is pretty obvious that with that sort of pressured the programme was always going to be still born.
Sue Lawley admitted that the BBC is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities . For a woman that dropped her Brummy accent and shagged her way to the top this must have been inconvenient .
If you what to see the Soul of the BBC don`t look at its current affairs look with your peripheral vision at the well manured nooks and cranny . The BBC`s website in its entry on the IRA fails to mention the fact they killed people whereas the entry on the UVF counts the numbers and does not neglect the word vicious . So it is clear that if you monitor overt output they will simply make their bias covert. At the moment this is excatly the trick they are playing on us
Now for the first time , political monitoring will extend beyond the News and current affairs to all ... programmes …A content category called “ opinion” will be created to balance points of view about matter s “Public contention” such regulatory oversight is worthy of consideration given that we “Would not start from here “..
Sadly this measure is Autralian and applies to ABC .The BBC can still get away with murder
Women Are Overpaid
Two women express sympathy for the men who work harder for the same money:-Women are paid too much , it is clear that for the same job they are overly rewarded and I can only ascribe it to the gravitational pull of men’s salaries. Its a little like Wimbledon , in fact women play less and worse and do not attract the same support for that reason . They do however get an equal share of the pot and this is true - ish throughout the work place. At the moment overall women get about 83% of the male equivalent which is far too much
With a complete absence of sexual discrimination , which we virtually have, there will still be a wage gap. Men’s retirement age is five years older encouraging longer careers which lifts average earnings . Women get far more extensive parental leave than men, this encourages career breaks and limits lifetime experience. But here is the killer stat wait for it …roll on the drums
“On average each week men work nearly twice as many hours in paid employment as women”
This will obviously build greater skills over a lifetime and in any case women often pick careers with less risk and greater flexibility . Its hard to prove but they also prefer emotional engagement while men go strictly for the money. All in all it looks fairly certain that the famous 83% figure shows women are paid far beyond their value in a true meritocracy and this will inevitably lead to resentment. This will be especially so when men are expected to be the sol provided for periods and if they cannot provide they are considered unmarriageable by women. Yes it is sad fact that aspirational graduate women appear to prefer not to have any sort of family than to marry beneath themselves socially .
Even so poisonous an ugly old token as Yasmin AlighaI Brown admits that the Equal Opportunities Commission exaggerate the problems women face in an effort to provide themselves with a role concluding that women should…. “ Step aside sometimes for others to catch up .“ She does not of course mean “ White Men “ but I think if she saw my little tear stained face we might just sneak in
A while ago Amanda Platell wrote an editorial in the Mail entitled “Yes I believe in equal pay but only for those who work for it" . She says ….“ Look around you or your partner’s work place. How many men are there working full time and completely committed to their jobs . Now how many women are putting in the same hours . How many days off are the women taking off sick , for their children`s holidays and special school days compared to the men . Quite so”
She paints another picture to defend herself against the charge of being a traitor to the sisterhood
“ Imagine a man who works all hours as the main bread winner. His wife may have opted to stay at home of more likely to take apart time job working around the needs of their children. How would she feel is she heard a women in her husband’s office was getting the same money for doing les hours because of her “ family commitments “ Would she feel a surge of sisterly pride , would she celebrate equality? Would she heck”
So now we know , If you are out and a woman offers to go Dutch the correct response is this
“ ,,,yeah and the rest mate , you’re better paid than I am !”
Saturday, September 08, 2007
The Lying Scotsman- Part 94
What a cheek! If we had listened to Gordon Brown no one would have been
able to buy their own council house, unions would run the country and we'd
probably be speaking Russian. He is a conviction politician - convicted of
robbing people's pensions, stealth taxed and failing to reform the NHS.
David Cameron
Brown has gone too far . Emboldened perhaps , by the population wide bout of amnesia concerning his complicity in everything Tony Blair and he did he has taken ‘ein fur die Strasse’ been rumbled . The idea that without reference to David Cameron his attempt to nab minor useful idiots is motivated by a wish for a unity government is patently absurd This nauseating sanctimonious posture called , like Blair`s a “ New Type of politics “ has finally succeeded in undermining his ill gotten reputation for honesty , a reputation he inherited for no better reason than not being Tony Blair.
Better still he has given David Cameron a chance to go on the offensive without endangering his carefully cultivated swing voter constituency , cultivated I should point out by genuine and sometimes difficult change not meaningless gestures. He has given David Cameron a chance to defend Lady Thatcher without appearing “right wing “and let no one be in any doubt David Cameron like any mainstream Conservative is a great admirer of Lady Thatcher . It has been difficult for him to say so much and I expect he relished giving Malcolm Rifkind licence to tell few home truths
“Sir Malcolm Rifkind has accused Mr Brown of 'dishonesty' and coming close to 'abusing' his position by his 'deeply cynical' party political point-scoring.
It followed another difficult day for Mr Cameron in which major Tory donor Johan Eliasch announced he was quitting the party to advise the Prime Minister on the Amazonian rainforests“
Brown’s claim to be a conviction politician and an admirer of Thatcher is savaged by Peter Osborne today. For these reasons .
1 He opposed her when she defeated the Unions
2 He ridiculed her privatisation programme
3 He wrote “ Where There is Greed” which trashes her reputation and misrepresented her motives
His claim to be a conviction politician requires a Dali-esque sense of perspective
1 He opposed Britain’s entry into the Common Market. In 1983
2 He supported extensive Union Power
3 He was in favour of the European single currency
4 He was in favour of nuclear disarmament
5 He supported punitive taxation
6 He voted for the invasion of Iraq
Gordon Brown`s Claim to wish to build a consensus in the middle is a tactic tried by many before him and it is to counterbalance his extreme left wing constituency in the Party. He looks to ugly to be a showman to dull to be a salesman but if you look at what he is doing ans has done he is only a different presentation of Blairism.
Brown has never been in the open before and this was the reason for his unexpected bounciness. He seemed much fresher to the public than the political class allowed to .There has been a lot of silly fawning of late but now we see the King has no clothes and the crowd begin to titter He is in the open and this is the first evidence that he does not have a sure hand in manipulating image despite his remorseless devotion to that end .
able to buy their own council house, unions would run the country and we'd
probably be speaking Russian. He is a conviction politician - convicted of
robbing people's pensions, stealth taxed and failing to reform the NHS.
David Cameron
Brown has gone too far . Emboldened perhaps , by the population wide bout of amnesia concerning his complicity in everything Tony Blair and he did he has taken ‘ein fur die Strasse’ been rumbled . The idea that without reference to David Cameron his attempt to nab minor useful idiots is motivated by a wish for a unity government is patently absurd This nauseating sanctimonious posture called , like Blair`s a “ New Type of politics “ has finally succeeded in undermining his ill gotten reputation for honesty , a reputation he inherited for no better reason than not being Tony Blair.
Better still he has given David Cameron a chance to go on the offensive without endangering his carefully cultivated swing voter constituency , cultivated I should point out by genuine and sometimes difficult change not meaningless gestures. He has given David Cameron a chance to defend Lady Thatcher without appearing “right wing “and let no one be in any doubt David Cameron like any mainstream Conservative is a great admirer of Lady Thatcher . It has been difficult for him to say so much and I expect he relished giving Malcolm Rifkind licence to tell few home truths
“Sir Malcolm Rifkind has accused Mr Brown of 'dishonesty' and coming close to 'abusing' his position by his 'deeply cynical' party political point-scoring.
It followed another difficult day for Mr Cameron in which major Tory donor Johan Eliasch announced he was quitting the party to advise the Prime Minister on the Amazonian rainforests“
Brown’s claim to be a conviction politician and an admirer of Thatcher is savaged by Peter Osborne today. For these reasons .
1 He opposed her when she defeated the Unions
2 He ridiculed her privatisation programme
3 He wrote “ Where There is Greed” which trashes her reputation and misrepresented her motives
His claim to be a conviction politician requires a Dali-esque sense of perspective
1 He opposed Britain’s entry into the Common Market. In 1983
2 He supported extensive Union Power
3 He was in favour of the European single currency
4 He was in favour of nuclear disarmament
5 He supported punitive taxation
6 He voted for the invasion of Iraq
Gordon Brown`s Claim to wish to build a consensus in the middle is a tactic tried by many before him and it is to counterbalance his extreme left wing constituency in the Party. He looks to ugly to be a showman to dull to be a salesman but if you look at what he is doing ans has done he is only a different presentation of Blairism.
Brown has never been in the open before and this was the reason for his unexpected bounciness. He seemed much fresher to the public than the political class allowed to .There has been a lot of silly fawning of late but now we see the King has no clothes and the crowd begin to titter He is in the open and this is the first evidence that he does not have a sure hand in manipulating image despite his remorseless devotion to that end .
Friday, September 07, 2007
Rugby Is Better Than Football
Football is a good game , it has fluidity and elegant balance that justifiably earns it the title "The beautiful game", if I had to choose, however, its Rugby for me .
Firstly I have become ‘retrospectively’ rather a good at it, but its objective superiority springs from having less rules than football .Yes , I am aware there are actually more rules, and they are always bewilderingly in flux, but this is because the concept is far more expansive and like a basic beloved old car , it needs constant tinkering. Football is an artificial game ,whereas forms of rugby spontaneously evolved in every country . The oval ball’s challenge is simply to get a ball over the oppositions line subject to offside strictures common to all games .Crucially football adds the limitation of hand ball . From this point it becomes and has developed into a gorgeous confection and away from tribal conflict
For all the Byzantine sophistication of its offside laws at the breakdown women immediately understand the visceral drama unfolding , football must be explained. There is at bottom something in the puzzled reaction …well what a silly thing to want to do , she might add , ‘Why not just pick it up‘.
An eighteen stone man able to run 100m in 12 seconds and with a good sports brain and magnificent skills will never be able to play football because you cannot carry that sort of strength around .We know however , that in some incontrovertible way Jona Lomuh was a greater man than Maradonna. These are the distinctions and notice the difference in the interest of the world 10,000m--- A fastest man/ 100m - The fastest man ;Middle weight champion--a champion fighter/ heavy weight champion-- The worlds greatest fighting machine. A footballer can only be ‘a’ greatest.
Football lends it self to diva worship . Relatively few supporters play and the club is a theatre , not a real club for most. People are sometimes horrified at the corruption and cupidity of the premier League but is bound to be that way it is a show separated from its sporting heritage and each change of the rule emphasises the distance . It is the Busby Berkeley extravaganza watched by the huddled depression urchins .It is the business we call show . It has controversies courtiers and whispered intrigues , rugby has legends.
The rugby supporter is typically on the side of the pitch reminding the current incumbents of his team of their unworthiness wear the shirt . At international level this very groundedness tgathers and metamorphosizes into an expression of the very soul of a country. The wizardy of the Welsh , the beef and elegance of the English , the panache of the French and the sheer competitive joy of the Australians . An unpleasant tendency to cross the border is still prevalent in the Scottish back row play and the South Africans are still deserve to be punched every now and then.
Rugby is closer to players . It can be a gruelling trial of strength and tactics or a carnival of genii weaving their enchantments , either to those who appreciate the game are mesmerising .True to its roots it has evolved specialisms but the Dales of this world may be unaware there is nothing to stop you having two in the pack or two full backs and most experiments have been tried . It is miraculous that spontaneously specialist cooperation sprang into being and from this comes the fact that Rugby is really a team game in a deeper way than football can ever be. As specialism thrives in the wild so each player is better at his role than a footballer is at the homogeneity of Soccer. Rugby has faster players , it has stronger players , of course, it has better kickers ,it has more devious tacticians and it has mightier warriors .A footballer cannot be so honed to a purpose because the whole game is played by each player.
This last quality is what makes football a thrilling athletic ballet , and I do love it but in the end ballet is not for me . I want to see strength skill teamwork and sprit combined in the grand cathartic heroism that is the glorious game of Rugby football.
Come on England ! You just might surprise them all….
Firstly I have become ‘retrospectively’ rather a good at it, but its objective superiority springs from having less rules than football .Yes , I am aware there are actually more rules, and they are always bewilderingly in flux, but this is because the concept is far more expansive and like a basic beloved old car , it needs constant tinkering. Football is an artificial game ,whereas forms of rugby spontaneously evolved in every country . The oval ball’s challenge is simply to get a ball over the oppositions line subject to offside strictures common to all games .Crucially football adds the limitation of hand ball . From this point it becomes and has developed into a gorgeous confection and away from tribal conflict
For all the Byzantine sophistication of its offside laws at the breakdown women immediately understand the visceral drama unfolding , football must be explained. There is at bottom something in the puzzled reaction …well what a silly thing to want to do , she might add , ‘Why not just pick it up‘.
An eighteen stone man able to run 100m in 12 seconds and with a good sports brain and magnificent skills will never be able to play football because you cannot carry that sort of strength around .We know however , that in some incontrovertible way Jona Lomuh was a greater man than Maradonna. These are the distinctions and notice the difference in the interest of the world 10,000m--- A fastest man/ 100m - The fastest man ;Middle weight champion--a champion fighter/ heavy weight champion-- The worlds greatest fighting machine. A footballer can only be ‘a’ greatest.
Football lends it self to diva worship . Relatively few supporters play and the club is a theatre , not a real club for most. People are sometimes horrified at the corruption and cupidity of the premier League but is bound to be that way it is a show separated from its sporting heritage and each change of the rule emphasises the distance . It is the Busby Berkeley extravaganza watched by the huddled depression urchins .It is the business we call show . It has controversies courtiers and whispered intrigues , rugby has legends.
The rugby supporter is typically on the side of the pitch reminding the current incumbents of his team of their unworthiness wear the shirt . At international level this very groundedness tgathers and metamorphosizes into an expression of the very soul of a country. The wizardy of the Welsh , the beef and elegance of the English , the panache of the French and the sheer competitive joy of the Australians . An unpleasant tendency to cross the border is still prevalent in the Scottish back row play and the South Africans are still deserve to be punched every now and then.
Rugby is closer to players . It can be a gruelling trial of strength and tactics or a carnival of genii weaving their enchantments , either to those who appreciate the game are mesmerising .True to its roots it has evolved specialisms but the Dales of this world may be unaware there is nothing to stop you having two in the pack or two full backs and most experiments have been tried . It is miraculous that spontaneously specialist cooperation sprang into being and from this comes the fact that Rugby is really a team game in a deeper way than football can ever be. As specialism thrives in the wild so each player is better at his role than a footballer is at the homogeneity of Soccer. Rugby has faster players , it has stronger players , of course, it has better kickers ,it has more devious tacticians and it has mightier warriors .A footballer cannot be so honed to a purpose because the whole game is played by each player.
This last quality is what makes football a thrilling athletic ballet , and I do love it but in the end ballet is not for me . I want to see strength skill teamwork and sprit combined in the grand cathartic heroism that is the glorious game of Rugby football.
Come on England ! You just might surprise them all….
Emily Thornberry Is A Disgrace
This story was flagged up by Justin Hinchcliffe a week ago and then by Hatfield girl yesterday and now it is not only in the Daily Mail but also in the Housing Association Press. Emily Thornberry who sent her children to Grammar school and pontificates about cycling despite weighing as much as a whale has been a standing source of embarrassment for the Old Hard Left local Labour Party and has already shifted her position from extreme Trot to Blairite . Now she seems to have shifted again from a fan of selection for her children to the exploitation of hard pressed local housing stock.
Her tenants are on her Parliamentary team and they include to my knowledge one odious little lickle-spit crawler James Murray 8 and ¾ Islington youngest Councillor who himself attended St. Paul`s School for £20,000 pa ...its not as if he needs the cheap accommodation is it . He has thus far wasted everyone’s `s time sending apple for teacher essays on parking and so on to the Gazette and will be cease pretending to give a toss about Islington any time now.My contempt for him is depthless
How can they face themselves in the mirror , how can they dream they re fit people to run anything still less remove money from hard working families to hand out to their constituency of dependents . Words fail me ... but no for long don`t you worry
A member of a government scrutiny committee has sparked controversy after buying a home from a housing association for her parliamentary aides to live in.
The MP for Islington South & Finsbury Emily Thornberry and her family bought the property from Ujima Housing Group for £572,000. Ms Thornberry sits on the Communities and Local Government select committee.
The property is one of several in the street which was sold against the will of the housing association's tenants. They claimed they contacted Ms Thornberry for support last year as they felt they were being turned out of their homes. The MP's office denied there had been any involvement with the tenants before the house was bought. The name of Ms Thornberry's husband, deputy high court judge Christopher Nugee QC, is on the deeds of the house. Ms Thornberry's office said she had bought the property for young people 'she knows' in their early 20s .
Ms Thornberry - who has championed social tenants' rights - issued a statement saying: 'We bought this property in the spring at auction. This is not about property speculation - we are providing cheap and cheerful accommodation for some young people.' Ms Thornberry - who would have seen that the property belonged to a housing association at the auction - asked for a meeting with housing minister Yvette Cooper last year to complain that Islington council was 'giving in to developers' and building luxury flats instead of affordable housing (Inside Housing, 27 October 2006). Ujima Housing Group was unavailable for comment.
Update - A local Activist has provided me with further information and background . I have had to tidy up his grammar and punctuation a bit but otherwise its almost up to the rigorous standards I require .......
Ujima, the housing association is question has been under a cloud since signally failing to build the number of new homes they committed to building _ by a very lng chalk. In fact they have lost their 'partnership' status from/ with the Housing Corporation, which regulates housing associations. I see that they have also now been given planning permission for an ugly new development in Tottenham, much against the wishes of local residents, and wihout the slightest regard for the environmental impact. But Labour councils let housing associations get away with murder. By the way, Ujima exists specifically to provide homes for black people (did you know that this kind of racism was allowed and publicly-funded?). I was concerned to see that their website does not give the name of a single senior executive or trustee _ very unusual for any organisation _ I wonder why they keep such a low-profile? it would be very interesting to know how mnay of their key people are labour party memebrs, councillors or donors _ 'partners' thereof......
Her tenants are on her Parliamentary team and they include to my knowledge one odious little lickle-spit crawler James Murray 8 and ¾ Islington youngest Councillor who himself attended St. Paul`s School for £20,000 pa ...its not as if he needs the cheap accommodation is it . He has thus far wasted everyone’s `s time sending apple for teacher essays on parking and so on to the Gazette and will be cease pretending to give a toss about Islington any time now.My contempt for him is depthless
How can they face themselves in the mirror , how can they dream they re fit people to run anything still less remove money from hard working families to hand out to their constituency of dependents . Words fail me ... but no for long don`t you worry
A member of a government scrutiny committee has sparked controversy after buying a home from a housing association for her parliamentary aides to live in.
The MP for Islington South & Finsbury Emily Thornberry and her family bought the property from Ujima Housing Group for £572,000. Ms Thornberry sits on the Communities and Local Government select committee.
The property is one of several in the street which was sold against the will of the housing association's tenants. They claimed they contacted Ms Thornberry for support last year as they felt they were being turned out of their homes. The MP's office denied there had been any involvement with the tenants before the house was bought. The name of Ms Thornberry's husband, deputy high court judge Christopher Nugee QC, is on the deeds of the house. Ms Thornberry's office said she had bought the property for young people 'she knows' in their early 20s .
Ms Thornberry - who has championed social tenants' rights - issued a statement saying: 'We bought this property in the spring at auction. This is not about property speculation - we are providing cheap and cheerful accommodation for some young people.' Ms Thornberry - who would have seen that the property belonged to a housing association at the auction - asked for a meeting with housing minister Yvette Cooper last year to complain that Islington council was 'giving in to developers' and building luxury flats instead of affordable housing (Inside Housing, 27 October 2006). Ujima Housing Group was unavailable for comment.
Update - A local Activist has provided me with further information and background . I have had to tidy up his grammar and punctuation a bit but otherwise its almost up to the rigorous standards I require .......
Ujima, the housing association is question has been under a cloud since signally failing to build the number of new homes they committed to building _ by a very lng chalk. In fact they have lost their 'partnership' status from/ with the Housing Corporation, which regulates housing associations. I see that they have also now been given planning permission for an ugly new development in Tottenham, much against the wishes of local residents, and wihout the slightest regard for the environmental impact. But Labour councils let housing associations get away with murder. By the way, Ujima exists specifically to provide homes for black people (did you know that this kind of racism was allowed and publicly-funded?). I was concerned to see that their website does not give the name of a single senior executive or trustee _ very unusual for any organisation _ I wonder why they keep such a low-profile? it would be very interesting to know how mnay of their key people are labour party memebrs, councillors or donors _ 'partners' thereof......
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