Unedifying, mawkish, Blairite Diana-ism

Friends express their sympathy for the bereaved in private, with quiet gestures of love and kindness. A rival may offer a brief, civilised, formal acknowledgement and offer to postpone proceedings unless a substitute comes on in the missing person's stead, as is the custom in Parliament. When a sworn enemy makes a great show both of public emotion and of unilaterally suspending hostilities to their own considerable advantage, the response from the mawkish will be 'Aw!' and from the suspicious, the raised eyebrow of not necessarily ungenerous scepticism. From the cynic, it is a snort of scorn. Put me down as a cynic.

At Gordon Brown's request, the House adjourned out of respect for Mr Cameron, suspending Prime Minister's Questions. No one in Westminster wanted to question this out loud, but, in private, many were unhappy about it. I think they were right to be. [...]

(Reminiscing on being with Blair in Afghanistan) Standing beside Hamid Karzai, soon to become the country's president, Mr Blair gave a press conference in a vast, freezing building called the "humanitarian hangar". Before he said anything about Afghanistan, or the war, he launched into an emotional tribute to his chancellor, Gordon Brown, whose 10-day-old daughter, Jennifer, had just died.

It led the television news in Britain, of course, and no doubt it came across very well. Mr Blair is an outstanding public presenter of emotion. But I cannot tell you how weird it was to hear him speak in this way that night in Bagram.

There we were in a country which had been torn apart by war for a generation. Hundreds of thousands of children had died in that time – by violence, or from hunger or disease. Mr Blair was in the presence of men who were risking their lives in fulfilment of his policy. Why was one sad death, of someone in a much richer, safer country, being privileged?

[...] Perhaps Mr Brown captured the public mood. Most unpolitical people I have spoken to felt pleased that party conflict was set aside and a sense of proportion about what matters in life was displayed. But to me, however genuine the personal sympathy, the scene felt false and the proportion askew. [...] when Mr Blair shared his grief at Jennifer Brown's death, he could not have avoided thinking that he particularly needed to display his compassion because Mr Brown was well known to be his rival.

By the same token, Mr Brown is painfully conscious that he has less of a reputation for normal human emotion than does his opponent, Mr Cameron. So his actions on Wednesday gave him the chance to correct that impression. His sympathy for Mr Cameron's loss will have been real*, but there will also have been that element of calculation.

Given that this calculation is unavoidable, the emotionally literate response, surely, is reticence. A private letter of sympathy should be written and, perhaps, announced, so that people are aware of the gesture; and that should be that.

* I can only say that Charles Moore is a nicer person than I am.

When I heard that Brown had cancelled PMQs in what he knew was the worst week yet of the worst premiership of modern times, my response was unprintable. I laughed out loud at his brazen cynicism.

Not trying to outrun Blair in the People's Princess Stakes, Gordon, surely? Save your breath, you bastard. We're have the measure of you now and nothing you can do will change that. The game's up.

How does it go again? There is nothing you could say to me now that I would ever believe.

Philip Pullman article

The following is copyright © 2009 Philip Pullman, who wrote it.

It was pulled by the Times, and we may well ask why.

With thanks to Longrider who, like me, thinks this should be available. Everywhere. Always.

_______________________________________________

Malevolent voices that despise our freedoms

To mark the Convention on Modern Liberty, the children’s author has written this article

Are such things done on Albion’s shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don’t know who you are

You’re mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don’t want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation’s dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don’t mind if we are. They don’t think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum

© Philip Pullman 2009

Blame game

Iain Dale is running a thread about Brown's hypocrisy in the matter of bank regulation. Against Brown's present day claims to be the prophet of World Salvation Regulation, Dale cites Brown's speech to the CBI Conference in 2005:

The better, and in my opinion the correct, modern model of regulation – the risk based approach - is based on trust in the responsible company, the engaged employee and the educated consumer, leading government to focus its attention where it should: no inspection without justification, no form filling without justification, and no information requirements without justification, not just a light touch but a limited touch. The new model of regulation can be applied not just to regulation of environment, health and safety and social standards but is being applied to other areas vital to the success of British business: to the regulation of financial services and indeed to the administration of tax. And more than that, we should not only apply the concept of risk to the enforcement of regulation, but also to the design and indeed to the decision as to whether to regulate at all.

Yes, well.

There follows some of the usual Labour yah-boo about what the wicked Tories have said and not said, would have done or not done.

So here we go, then.

Never mind what the Opposition has said or done. Brown, cheered on by his (variously) stupid, venal, compliant and principle-free back-benches, was and is the man. He has been running the economy solo since 1997.

It is Brown’s decisions that have given us these consequences – no-one else’s – and he has to take the blame. Tough? Certainly, but ‘tough’ comes in the Top Job’s pay-packet along with the tremendous power, the red carpets around the world and your place in History. (Shame about that, Gordon.)

Brown knew it would be tough when he applied for the job, and all during the long years when he was gagging for power, and when he was mercilessly attacking those who had it, in exactly the same terms by which he is under attack now. Heat, kitchen... Tough.

Brown, the excited new broom, buggered the regulatory status quo ante to stamp his authority on a group of people whom he has spent his whole life hating: capitalist bankers. He did it because now he could, and because he did not understand it, and because he did not know that he did not understand it. It is inconceivable to this vain man that there is anything that he does not understand. Added to which, he would not have cared if he had known. One only has to watch his contorted face at PMQs to see vanity living with venom.

Brown came to power after a lifetime of bitter hatred of the City’s sophisticated procedures because they were not of his making and because they occupied a critical position in the economy which he would now dominate as his personal fiefdom. Well, he got what he wanted– and he still has it, eh, Darling? Chickens, roost… suck it up, Gordon.

He has behaved like a spoilt and wilful child, smashing up his rival’s toys without rebuke from anyone, and by anyone I mean those who knew better: the fat cats (Myners, Fred, the Baroness…). They were all happy to prostrate (prostitute?) themselves before the Great Gordon, thereby collecting their vast pay packages along with their knighthoods and peerages. The bankers scratched Gordon’s back and he scratched theirs. (Ironic, eh, in a Labour – a Labour – prime minister?) It mattered little to them that he was in it for the bile – oh, and the taxes. They are as richly deserving of a place in the stocks as he is. They were on his winning team for a long time. Now they are losing and the crowd is throwing things. Well, tough. Again.

Not that that any of this is consolation to us who, after a lifetime of hard work, thrift and independence, will have to live with poverty and dependence in our looming old age, and all because this dangerously vain and ignorant man acquired and abused such great power. All we have left is our invective, which in my own case I will direct at Brown’s hateful, destructive class-war alma mater, the Labour Party, for as long as I have strength to write.

Quote of the week

The UK is now a large bank with a medium sized government attached. Redwood.

How does Darling stand it?

Alastair Darling is responsible in law for what the Treasury is doing and failing to do. Everything within his remit is going terribly, terribly wrong. There is almost nothing he can do that is any use and that is not even his fault in truth except, of course, that he has always supported the reckless and increasingly ludicrous Gordon Brown.

Leaving aside party affiliation and political philosophy (that's polite code for the fact that he is a bloody Scottish Socialist) I have to say I feel for the man.

He must feel something close to despair. He has all the responsibility and none of the authority necessary to do his. I make no comment on whether he has the ability because there is no way of knowing.

Musing thus, I came across this:

It's an open secret in Whitehall that he has been kept out of the loop on the big banking decisions by a prime minister who defers to the Square Mile in the form of Lord Myners, the City minister, Baroness Vadera, the trade minister, and Lord Mandelson.

As Kenneth Clarke, the new shadow business secretary, put it: "Alistair Darling could be quite a good chancellor, if Gordon ever gave him the job."

The extent of his isolation is clear from the line-up of people involved in the "morning call" the Prime Minister makes at 7.30am from which ever part of the world he is in. They include Michael Ellam, his official spokesman, Damian McBride, his influential former spin doctor who is now involved in strategy, Ian Austin, his former parliamentary private secretary who is now a Whip, Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office minister, Baroness Vadera and Lord Mandelson. The Chancellor is not included. John Kingman, the head of UK Financial Investments, set up by the government to manage the new state-owned banking assets, reports directly to Mr Brown, not the Chancellor.

I wonder how many times in the average week Darling ponders resignation?

Yes, I am feeling mellow after a good dinner and a politician-free Any Questions starring the glorious Scruton.

There was one gobshite on the panel, a ranting Guardian hack and member of Compass who recommended the tearing up of the rule of law in a predictable echo of Prescott this morning. The three grown-ups present each put him down in the sweetest way, making him sound like the half-rabid pillock he is and you would expect him to be, given his CV.

No AQ for me next week. Not with Teresa May on it, God rot her, along with a LibDem culcher woman, Nick Cohen, and someone else whose name escapes me but I thought would fit in with those three just dandy.

I must try not to read any more news tonight. This mellow feeling is most pleasant and although I could get angry enough to blog at the drop of a hat, I would rather not. Not tonight.

Bon soir.

.

Admiration

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him. For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way. For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness. For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer. For he rolls upon prank to work it in. For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself. For this he performs in ten degrees. For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean. For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there. For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended. For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood. For fifthly he washes himself. For sixthly he rolls upon wash. For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat. For eighthly he rubs himself against a post. For ninthly he looks up for his instructions. For tenthly he goes in quest of food. For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour. For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness. For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance. For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying. For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins. For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary. For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes. For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life. For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him. For he is of the tribe of Tiger. For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger. For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses. For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation. For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat. For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon. For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit. For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt. For every family had one cat at least in the bag. For the English Cats are the best in Europe. For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped. For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly. For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature. For he is tenacious of his point. For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery. For he knows that God is his Saviour. For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest. For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion. For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually--Poor Jeoffry! Poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat. For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better. For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat. For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music. For he is docile and can learn certain things. For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation. For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment. For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive. For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command. For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom. For he can catch the cork and toss it again. For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser. For the former is afraid of detection. For the latter refuses the charge. For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business. For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly. For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services. For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land. For his ears are so acute that they sting again. For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention. For by stroking of him I have found out electricity. For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire. For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast. For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements. For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer. For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped. For he can tread to all the measures upon the music. For he can swim for life. For he can creep. Christopher Smart (1722 -1771)

So, farewell then

Treasury Minister Lord Myners, he of the poor eyesight which cannot cope with small print. Jonah has said he has complete confidence in him so obviously he's doomed.

Sod off, then, your lordship, and please take all the other Treasury ministers with you.

Justice for all

Disillusioned

The idea that Stanislav, a young Polish plumber, anarchist-in-chief, leader of the blogosphere resistance movement, predator upon the pompous and presumptuous, denouncer of the despicable, Poet Laureate to the angry and outraged, sceptic and iconoclast extraordinaire of the scumbag politician, should be revealed first of all as a possessor of JARDINIERES, for God's sake, but then, even worse, horror of horrors, dear Buster is shown to be not the whippet/rottweiler cross, or the like, that we all naturally associated with Mr S, but one of those rat-on-a-lead miniature fucking monstrosities most usually encountered on the Champs-de-Elysee on a Sunday afternoon shitting all over the fucking place. Wearing a woollie. In pink! Brighton here we come!

Next you'll be telling us you're not even fucking Polish. Or a Plumber! As if I wasn't already sufficiently disillusioned.

Aforementioned rat-on-a-lead picture HERE. I think he's sweet, even if he is a fashion victim.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the weekly coconut. I give you Mr ex-Apprentice, a Right-thinking citizen of this parish who commented as above at the blogosphere's equivalent of Plumb Center (sick) otherwise known as Stanislav's place.

And now there will be more Prescotts.

THIS is why respect for the rule of law is as important now as it has ever been in my lifetime.

We are facing a frightening future. It is just a question of how soon it starts.

Prescott bags the first lamp-post - for himself

John Prescott MP openly incited law-breaking this morning.

His remarks (Today, BBC R4) on the Goodwin affair are beyond disgraceful. They are dangerous.

‘Yes,’ said Prescott. ‘Yes, we should simply refuse to pay the Goodwin pension. Let him sue us in the courts,’ said this obese, greedy, violent, vain, stupid, ignorant, libidinous, gross, already-acknowledged but unpunished law-breaker, this lifelong stinking parasite and determined sucker-at-the-public-teat, who refused to give up his grace-and-favour perks even after being relieved of his office, instead demanding to continue to live in royal luxury paid for by, inter alia, the criminal marginal taxes, which he voted for time and again, on the poorest, whose voice he claims to be and whose pain he claims to feel (don't make me fucking laugh while I am throwing up) and oh, dear Lord – this Privy Councillor and adviser to the Sovereign.

Who is ‘we’, Prescott? Who is this ‘us’ on whose behalf you presume to speak, you sick-making, egregious, utter bastard? You do not speak for me, you dangerous, over-promoted tenth-rate placeman.

He went on, quite calmly, ‘Yes, I do understand the implications of breaking the law.’

Oh, you do? Well, that is quite clear then. We have noted it. We shall remember it.

He justifies his astonishing incitement to discard the rule of law on the basis that his ‘survey’ on his blog garnered six thousand ‘angry’ supporters for his proposal. If he were not so disgusting, he would be pathetic.

So we also know that he approves of mob rule, as well as – expressly – breaking the law when one is angry. Every angry feral youth, every angry bank robber, every angry rapist, every angry schoolboy, can now cite the Right Honourable John Prescott, MP, as his exemplar, his leader, his role model. 'I was angry, yer honner.'

If – when? – the riots start, and the angry citizens of the United Kingdom find themselves arrested, DNA’s, tried, convicted, tagged, fined and jailed, when martial law is declared by Gordon Brown, remember the moment in history when it all started. It was this morning. It was around 08:15 on 26 February 2009.

The mob will remember it. They will call as their defence witness the former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who said that breaking the law is fine because anger makes it right.

If property is damaged – I doubt banks can get insurance for their plate glass at present – and if people die in the riots, Mr Prescott will bear the blame for sanctioning the overthrow of law by the mob.

This is the man whom the Labour Party – the entire, shameful Labour Party which now governs us: its Members of Parliament and Cabinet Ministers, its trade unions in block vote, its constituency parties – produced, promoted, admired and elected its Deputy Leader and appointed to the post of Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The Labour Party.

Why did the BBC’s Evan Davies, interviewing this disgusting cancer on the face of British political life, not raise roaring hell there and then, at Prescott’s outrageous remarks? If the BBC, now repeatedly re-broadcasting Prescott’s incitement and his rant about greed and anger, does so without commentary on the fact of his incitement to illegal behaviour, without so much as a raised Corporation eyebrow, it will condemn itself as no more than Prescott’s mouthpiece and part of his lynch-mob.

Beware mobs, Mr Prescott. When the trouble starts, stay well away from crowds and lamp-posts. Learn from Il Duce and the mob he had led, even to what looked for a while like triumph.

If Prescott is smart, he will swiftly re-think and as swiftly play the early-onset dementia card which can be his only defence. He should then withdraw completely from the public eye lest decent people spit on him in the streets.

It is otiose to observe that Prescott's recklessness stems from his personal vanity and from being insulated from reality, rationality and any sense of honour by the collective hubris of this unprincipled Labour government.

Parliament, press and people should demand that the Prime Minister and Cabinet repudiate Prescott totally and immediately. If they do not, we will draw our own conclusions. We will take their silence as agreement. And then we will destroy them utterly.

So now, consider. How safe do you feel, under this Labour government?

If you see what I see, I beg you to blog this scandal. You could do nothing more important today to protect your liberty and security under the law.

Suck it up

That's the only response to the Fred the Shred pension. So it's appalling and everyone hates him for it? Certainly. But - tough. Suck it up. Goodwin has the law of contract on his side. Moreover, and embarrassingly for the government, his contract was finalised with the consent of a Treasury minister appointed by the Prime Minister.

The Devil has it right, and Iain Dale needs to have little rethink.

Brown, Darling, Timms, and all the other government gobshites who have spent the last 36 hours playing to the gallery on this, ought to consider very carefully before they threaten to overturn property law, which is the basis for all transactions - all - in this country, in the EU, and in every other civilised society.

Today's deluge of hypocritical merde was nothing less than a smoke-screen so that the truly Titanic disaster of RBS and this government's helpless flailings would be pushed out of the headlines.

The rabble-rousing, lynch-the-bankers campaign of the tabloids, whipping up the public's justifiable anger (and fears) is playing right into Brown's soiled hands.

Today's fulminations about 'legal remedies' when on the face of it there are none - and you can bet that Fred has the best lawyers working on his behalf - serve as yet more proof that this government is dangerous. The Labour Party in office has proved itself completely unscrupulous. When it suits them, they hold the law itself in contempt.

We have reached the stage where, if you embarrass this government or if they make a gross cock-up, they will now threaten you with an Act of Parliament all to yourself by which to remove your common law rights and your property. So much for the law. It's bloody mediaeval.

I have no confidence whatsoever that, should we face major civil unrest as result of this recession/depression and/or the banking collapse, this government will obey the law.

Brown would like nothing better than to declare a State of Emergency and postpone the general election sine die, thereby both entrenching himself and the Labour Party in office and preventing his worst nightmare coming true, that of ceding the office of Prime Minister to the Conservative, David Cameron. I doubt there are any lengths to which this vain and deluded man would not go to, that end.

Today's baying for the lynching of Fred Goodwin was disgraceful. And I don't like his bloody pension arrangement any more than anyone else. But along with everyone else (including you, George Osborne), I have to accept that there is nothing to be done about it as long as the rule of law prevails

"What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? ... And when the law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's, and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!" - Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons

Spatchcocking the Righteous

28th February sees the first Convention on Modern Liberty, a nationwide series of concurrent, video-linked conferences taking place in several cities up and down the nation and centred on a 'hub' meeting in Central London.

The Cosmic Sneer Economist, once of independent mind but now the house newspaper of the Righteous, lumps all those involved in together as

a mob of Britain's finest eccentrics

The participants include a fairly stellar list including MPs and peers from all parties, leading MSM and online journalists and other prominent commentators. One of the sessions is to be addressed by

Dominic Grieve QC MP (Shadow Attorney General) Baroness Helena Kennedy QC (Doughty Street Chambers) Sir Ken Macdonald QC (former Director of Public Prosecutions) Sir David Varney (Prime Minister’s Adviser on Public Service Transformation)

All barking, I'm sure you'll agree.

Here is the full list of nutters.

Now what is that mantra of Stanislav's, again? Ah, yes. Up against the wall, motherfu....

Caption competition

Pic from here

Lovely

That's it. I've had it. Bloody Internet Explorer. Enough.

After a day of configuring the delightfully friendly Firefox, downloading a few add-ons and sorting out imported stuff (about a century's bookmarks and feeds), tonight I have finally started using it normally.

Page loading speed is nothing short of miraculous for a poor sod who's accustomed to the torture of IE7 under Vista ("Ultimate!", already... give me strength). All my widgets and gadgets transferred easily and work fine, and faster, and are better looking. Even using bloody Blogger is more intuitive. Pleasant, almost.

I have been monitoring my machine's performance. The improvement all-round is nothing short of astonishing. Using about 25 per cent less memory and about 20 per cent less CPU. Staggering.

How does Microsoft manage to make such a disaster of a browser? I know, I know...

OK. I admit it. I was wrong. If I were a contortionist, I would kick my own stupid arse. Where have I been all my life?

Troll alert

Read this and then add this to your blogroll/feedreader.

Well, I have.

Kindly shove your cameras up your own putrescent arses

MEMORANDUM

To: the ladies and gentlemen of the press

From: Prodicus of Ceos

Re: the family of the late Ivan Cameron, RIP

_________________________________________________________

Kindly do not offer me photographs of the Cameron family. I do not wish to see your clever close-ups of their stricken faces and swollen eyes.

To my disgust, I stumbled across one such this morning, and I won't forget where, Mr Montgomerie.

In particular, I do not wish to see any images, in any medium, of the funeral of their son.

Thank you and fuck off, jackal-turds.

________________________________________________________

My apologies to any jackals who may be offended on reading this. You do a fine job. Respect.

No - not you, arsehole with camera. You can eat shit.

________________________________________________________

Update:

I am disappointed at finding these images posted by some bloggers of whom I had expected better.

Yes, I know Cameron permitted it, the poor bastard. Did he have a choice? Doing a one-photo-op deal with the ravening horde of slavering, long-lensed death-eaters is the only way he could protect his family from their pitiless onslaught, the utter, utter, fucking bastards.

But bloggers, without even the defence of earning a crust thereby?

To hell in a handcart it is, then.

Ah, so!

Japan's boffins: Global warming isn't man-made. Climate science is 'ancient astrology', claims report.

Three of the five researchers disagree with the UN's IPCC view that recent warming is primarily the consequence of man-made industrial emissions of greenhouse gases. Remarkably, the subtle and nuanced language typical in such reports has been set aside. [Me: not before time.] [...] One of the five contributors compares computer climate modelling to ancient astrology. [Me: It's not that reliable.] Others castigate the paucity of the US ground temperature data set used to support the hypothesis [Me: noooooo...] and declare that the unambiguous warming trend from the mid-part of the 20th Century has ceased. [...] Shunichi Akasofu, head of the International Arctic Research Center in Alaska, calls the post-2000 warming trend hypothetical. His harshest words are reserved for advocates who give conjecture the authority of fact. "Before anyone noticed, this hypothesis has been substituted for truth... The opinion that great disaster will really happen must be broken. Yup. Sound fellow. I look forward to hearing this on the BBC.

My emphasis, above.

__________________________

Update:

Obo the Clown has now blogged this as well but with a better headline, given the theme:

Japanese describe MMGW as a load of "ah so's"

Nice.

German politician advocates 'a new order'.

Oh, no. Not again.

Hang Nick Robinson

Update!

Hold! DO NOT HANG NICK ROBINSON. Well by all means do, but not for this crime (which I did say was alleged). He did not do it. Some other bastard did.

I'll leave this picture up, though, for the avoidance of confusion and to serve as a sort of general warning to Pravda's revolting political editor. And because it's just a rather fine idea, I feel.

And thanks to Mr E for calming me down, in the comments.

___________________________________________

It's the only language these people understand.

The horrible bastard's first thoughts, of which he (No, it was someone else. Ed.) gave the BBC audience the benefit, were about a possible five point bounce to Cameron from his bereavement. Allegedly. They do not appear on his carefully worded blog post. I wonder why that would be? (Because he didn't say it, you arse. Ed)

But, five point bounce, eh? (Listen. You've been told... Ed) Hey, Robinson, put your head through this. (I have no problem with that. Ed)

At my signal, my lovely assistant, Chav-leene, will jerk it up and down a bit using her special lever. Let's see a five point bounce in action. (You're fired. Ed)

Just a bit of fun. Just a bit of fun. (You're still fired. Ed)

Damn right

It's the only language these people understand.

Love it

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen. - Bastiat

See what he did there, Gordon?

Ivan Cameron, RIP

On July 5, 1644, following the battle of Marston Moor, Cromwell wrote a letter to Valentine Walton, first telling him of the Parliamentary victory, and then informing him, in these words, of the death of Walton's son in the battle:

Sir,

God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died.

Sir, you know my own trials this way; but the Lord supported me with this. That the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant for and live for. There is your precious child full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God give you His comfort. Before his death he was so full of comfort that to Frank Russell and myself he could not express it, it was so great above his pain. This he said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said one thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him what it was. He told me it was that God had not suffered him to be no more the executioner of His enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and as I am informed three horses more, I am told he bid them open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the Army, of all that knew him. But few knew him, for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious Saint in Heaven, wherein you ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow; seeing these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the Church of God make you forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your strength; so prays your truly faithful and loving brother.

And next, a Prices & Incomes Board

Train companies are to be forced to cut the price of season tickets and off-peak fares for the first time since privatisation - The Times Time warp alert! It's 1966!

1960s, 1970s... whatever. The joys of Labour in government. They have forgotten their own history so we are all doomed to repeat it.

As an economist, Brown, you even make a lousy historian, don't you? You mad bastard.

Seriously, though,

I agree with Jack Straw. Shall I say that again? I agree with Jack Straw. Bleagh. Now I need a drink. And a shower. Cabinet minutes should not be released until thirty years have elapsed. Straw’s action in this matter should not be a precedent. It is regrettable. It is also unavoidable.

Straw is right to overrule the Information Commissioner on this rather singular and important occasion. As is typical of the reckless behaviour of the Labour Party in government since 1997, they pushed through an ill-thought out Freedom of Information Act for naïve and populist reasons and must now scratch around for some way to rectify the damage they have done thereby. So… Despite all the hot libertarian corpuscles coursing through my Conservative veins, and despite my fury with this Labour regime, on this occasion I feel obliged to suppress the instinct to yell, ‘Tell us what you said, you liars!’ Even justified anger needs to be channelled appropriately, lest we end up with mere wanton destruction. Justified anger at the outcome of decisions made in the Cabinet Room may not always be conducive to reasoned analysis of the decision-making process itself, which is essential if lessons are to be learned. The lapse of time is needed for that. The demand for a lynching, with which I sympathise, can be unhelpful. I believe there is a need in our system of Cabinet government for both discretion and confidentiality. The business of governing, and even more so the essential discussion of even peace-time international relations, let alone decisions about war, would be impossible if those in the topmost echelon of power were unable to speak frankly to each other behind closed doors and without paying heed to the reaction of the electorate to their discussions.

Matters discussed in Cabinet may remain very much 'live' and acutely, even dangerously sensitive for years after the date of a Cabinet meeting. The minutes of relatively recent Cabinet meetings, if released, could well cause unthinkable repercussions.

There are some things which the wider world, including the electorate, must not be told if public safety and the national interest are to be preserved.

Sometimes, we have no choice but to accept this and trust the government we have elected, whether we like them or not. Sometimes we will hate it, but there is no alternative. Our safety is at stake.

Only those who were present at a Cabinet meeting are in a position to make a rational decision about whether to release the minutes so close to the date of the meeting itself. The better course is for the default position to be to hold them as classified for, say, thirty years, as was the case before this bunch of pompous incompetents changed it.

To make Cabinet minutes available to any individual who makes a request for them under this stupid Labour government's naïve Freedom of Information Act is unthinkable.

Making Cabinet minutes public would, in effect, and I know this is reductio ad absurdum, empanel a governing committee of the entire population. The result would be chaos, with all decisions subject to fashion, whim and rabble-rousing. National leadership cannot work that way. A nation does need leaders, which is why it is a matter of the gravest danger when instead of a leader we have an impotent, vain, clueless specimen like Gordon Brown at the helm. But let us leave ad hominem considerations aside. All Cabinet Ministers are powerful. The Cabinet is a group of equals, and at Cabinet meetings the Prime Minister is primus inter pares. Outside the meetings, the Prime Minister has very great power and can dismiss the ministers but in the meetings themselves, frankness and courage on the part of those ministers is essential, so that the Prime Minister may hear the most honest and objective advice. Lively, private discussion should result in reasonable and sound decisions to which all can put their name. The alternative is to resign. When Cabinet resignations become very rare, it is a sign that Cabinet government is not working as it should: either the ministers are ciphers or sycophants, or the Prime Minister is ignoring the Cabinet. So it was under Blair, and is under Brown. Proper Cabinet meetings should be held, as they were not under Tony Blair. He debased the practices, the conventions, the morality and the language of our traditional form of Cabinet government. Blair was aided in this by Gordon Brown, who was perfectly happy running the internal affairs of the United Kingdom without interference or comment from anyone, from his bunker, then in Number Eleven. Brown was and is no more inclined to be primus inter pares than Blair was. But we always knew this – and know it. There is no need for the publication of the Cabinet minutes to tell us about it. Cabinet minutes should be made painstakingly, as they were not under Blair, so that when they are eventually published, details of the Cabinet's discussions and decisions are available to both historians and the general public. The proper judge of Cabinet discussions is History. The proper judge of Cabinet actions, which are visible by their very nature, is the electorate. And that is working, with or without published Cabinet minutes. As to the Iraq War, I am afraid that, whatever its importance and its legality, and on the latter even the highest legal opinions are not agreed, it was just one of hundreds – thousands – of important actions taken by what passed for Blair’s Cabinet and discussed informally, un-minuted, on his sofa. There is no reason to make it an exception to the principle that Cabinet minutes should remain unpublished until, frankly, the heat has died down.

But. I suspect that Blair's Cabinet Ministers did not discuss the Iraq War decisions formally, in full Cabinet,as they should have, with formal minutes being taken by the Cabinet Secretary. Tonight, Tony Wright MP made an interesting observation which gave me pause for thought. Although he has not changed my opinion on the principle, he has reinforced my suspicions. As far as I recall, Wright said that it was not what was said in the meetings which should be revealed now, but how the meetings were held. (I stand to be corrected on the subtleties of what he said. I can’t find it on the BBC sites yet.)

I take him to mean -- and I could be wrong - that publication of the minutes of the two Cabinet meetings in question would reveal, not discussion of the decisions regarding Blair's wish to go to war, but that there was no Cabinet discussion of Blair's decision to go to war.

If this is so, it would be a career-ending embarrassment for many serving Ministers in Brown's government today, including Gordon Brown himself. While that would be utterly delicious, because it would bring Gordon Brown and his government down in an instant, even that is beside the point. Because Blair showed no respect whatsoever to his Cabinet, many of the people who are in a position to know about these things (including Tony Wright?) feel that he finagled the Iraq War decisions and a lot more besides, to suit his personal policies, regardless of the Cabinet.

Blair behaved like a president and history may well show that it was as 'president' that he took us to war. This may be the reason that there were so few Cabinet resignations at the time. I suspect that Ministers were not given the facts as a Cabinet. I suspect they were presented, as individuals, in groups, on the Blair sofa, with a fait accompli.

Nevertheless, even a thoroughly abused principle should stand, if it is sound.

Much as I believe the Cabinet minutes should not be released, it gives me no pleasure at all to think that the man heaving the biggest sigh of relief tonight at Straw's ruling is bloody Tony Blair.

What Special Relationship?

Up yours, too, Mister President.

H/t Jackart

George Osborne: Gordon's hated back-seat driver

Bob Parker of Credit Suisse Asset Management was asked on WATO why the London stock exchange is not following the NY exchange downwards this week. Parker opined that it’s mainly down to the British government’s insurance scheme for the banks (plus the gaping holes in the Messiah's scheme which the markets don't like). Ah, yes. That would be the insurance scheme that those novices Osborne and Cameron proposed in November last year. Noticing that there were Tories in the room, you had your fingers in your ears, of course, so in January this years they went further, to try and force you to listen:

Mr Osborne said the Conservatives will table an amendment to include a National Loan Guarantee Scheme, in which banks would be allowed to buy state insurance to cover the risk of firms failing to repay their loans. Source

Getting more desperate. you were listening at this point, no doubt hoping to pick up some tips. But, oh dear, those old conditioned reflexes, still working so many years after you ceased to to be a student:

Labour hit back, however, by accusing the Conservatives of failing to explain how they would fund such a scheme.

And now you have introduced exactly such a scheme, to the relief of the markets.

It's not very convincing when you snort contemptuously at an idea which the entire finance industry is screaming at you to take up and which you later adopt, just because a Conservative suggested it.

I have lost count of how many times you've done that. It's not big and it's not clever. It's pathetic.

Your trouble, Gordon, is that you mix business with pleasure. Never a good plan. You are obsessed with your raging, obsessive hatred of the Conservative Party. You enjoy your student-politics game of Kick-a-Tory so much that you cannot keep your mind on your job. You really are an obsessive and irresponsible bastard, aren’t you?

IT laser-brains at work

Interesting, that Blogger's own spell-checker does not recognise the word bloggers.

And this means you

Just a quickie to say thanks to all the visitors, commenters and other bloggers who've generously linked to me in recent days.

It all seems to have got a bit busier than usual around here lately, and I confess that I'm rather chuffed that anyone likes my drivel, even though I write it for me, to stop myself going insane with anger, and am not in the biz of audience building per se.

So thank you, and now on with the rage.

Be ye never so mighty...

... the law is above you, Prime Minister.

But now, in your desperation and your power-mad hubris, you have ignored that fact.

Have a care, Prime Minister, have a care.

In harsher times, that very same oversight enraged the people so much that it cost our ruler his head.

And harsher times are upon us once again, aren't they, Gordon? Just as many of us expected with a Labour government - although even your incompetent Labour predecessors had the wit to obey the law. You really are stunningly thick, aren't you? Not that that will suffice as a defence, whereas insanity might. Otherwise...

Astronomy for Beginners: The Dying Star

An extremely bright star (outshining even the Sun) is called 'a supernova', meaning 'super' and 'novel'.

A supernova is short-lived.

It is bright because it is dying in a vast explosion, which we cannot help noticing.

After exploding, it runs out of energy and becomes what we scientists call 'a remnant of degenerate matter'.

Finally, the star collapses and dies, becoming 'a black hole' which sucks everything in its vicinity into itself with an irresistible and destructive force.

And so the degenerate remnant of the briefly-bright star destroys everything unfortunate enough to get too close to it.

I think that's how it works. Roughly.

Labour & Pravda - the smoking gun! Maybe.

I use the RSS feed reader in IE under Vista (yeah, yeah...) to get my blog updates. I sometimes don't bother to go to the blog website itself to read a single short post although I do for longer or multiple posts, or to have a look round a blog I don't know, or to follow comments.

This morning, Obnoxio the Clown mentioned Alastair Campbell's blog which I haven't visited before, for what I think are bloody obvious reasons, but something he quoted from Campbell chimed with something I wrote myself only yesterday.

So I popped over to AC's and clicked the RSS icon to pull his blog into my feed reader. Yes, one really ought to keep an eye on the enemy, but...so many bastards, so little time.

Campbells' feed/RSS/xml page looks like this:

Quick read... yep, worth a closer look. I clicked on the main title, 'Alastair Campbell', and that click took me, not to Campbell's blog but to this page:

I kid you not. Honestly.

(Clicking on any of the individual post titles works as it should.)

Now, I know Microsoft ware is full of crap but if this is a glitch in my IE reader I'd like to know why it's the only one and does not affect any other feed - and I have hundreds of 'em.

I tried opening the page in the Firefox feed reader but (I hate bloody Firefox) it won't show the full feed page, only individual posts, so that's no help.

If it's a coding fault, rather than the smoking gun one can only dream of finding, it may be corrected later in the day. Meanwhile, any ideas?

The truth hurts. So why not tell it?

City Unslicker rightly takes a very dim view of Banker Brown's latest madness in pushing the Crock to start lending again, big time, at the taxpayer's expense - or at least at the taxpayer's (enormous) risk, distorting the market with unfair competition into the bargain.

It is a disaster, the nationalisation of it was a disaster as I said at the time, the new policy of subsidising a falling house market is utterly without merit.

How very true. He goes on:

Why are the people doing this not being held to account? Why are the mainstream media not seeing the insanity and wanton wasting of billion in these ill-thought out measures? Why indeed. Well, at a guess, because they are punch drunk and utterly exhausted from the strain of keeping up with Brown's delusions and one disaster after another.

Which is understandable but a pity because the opinion polls have the Tories 12-15 points ahead of Labour. If only the MSM would make a little more effort and tell the truth as CU and other analysts do, the Tories would soar to a 60 point lead and then Brown might actually top himself.

Well, I can dream, can't I?

__________________________________

Update: Quite. But only a partial summary of your mate's crime-sheet, Al.

(Hat tip to Obo.)

So. Not the seventies, then

Welcome to the 1960s, serfs. It's what we call 'progressive' government.

Lionel Barber, editor of the FT (Randall, Sky), just called Gordon Brown's reversal of himself on Northern Rock, ' a Stop-Go policy.' Ah, memories. So, our Labour government is officially in the mortgage business when commercial banks cannot be. (Eh? No, of course it's not distorting the market. Is it, Gordon?)

Hm. I wonder what the betting is on that pre-emptive 2009 election? No, don't bother. Gordon 'Cunning Plan' Baldrick will have another new-old idea overnight. He still hasn't finished reading about what the do-something Tories did when they were in power and didn't shove the economy down the shitter like every single Labour government we have ever had.

Mysterious

Something has been troubling me for some time.

Whenever a watermelon says we need to build nuclear power stations, many of their friends say nothing or even nod, because that's the newly-approved way to save the planet.

When anyone else says it, they howl and mobilise their battalions, crying that it would mean the end of the planet.

How does that work? It surely could not be that only the Righteous may speak of such things, as with racism. Could it?

Physicians, heal thyselves

The G20 Economic Summit should be good for a hollow laugh. The world's leading experts in political posturing will all be there. Barack 'I Can’t Believe They Fell For It’ Obama, Jose Manuel ‘Call Me Mister President’ Barroso, and Gordon ‘Ban Politician-hunting With Hounds’ Brown. There they will all be, having their pictures taken with the Queen, and solemnly signing The Undertaking To Do Something.

Not that any of their emissions will concern anyone but the Warmists, for it will amount to nothing but an increase in (Global Warming Alert!) Gaia's temperature from the vast expenditure of hot air, methane and hydrogen sulphide, a mixture which we doctors call ‘arse-gas’. It is malodorous and can induce either narcolepsy or murderous anger, depending on the predisposition of the patient.. Allister Heath pointed out on the World Service in the wee small hours (insomnia, like OH) of this morning that these patronising, rent-seeking, dictators-manqués will make pompous noises about going after tax havens (necessary and guiltless in the present difficulties) and hedge funds (a vital system of financial/economic health-checks) but what they will not do, especially not France, Germany and the USA, is hand over their control of their own banking systems and financial markets. And in the opinion of your humble servant, nor should they. Mr Heath also points out that the crisis to which these clueless amateur bankers will turn their PR machines attention was caused by, er, themselves, in their pompous incomprehension of international financial markets. You took your eyes off your balls, gentlemen. (Is that right? Ed.) More than that, your sort started the whole thing off. Remember? In Washington. Under St William Jefferson Clinton. And you were all complicit. And you are all bastards.

Thus Heath: As Russell Roberts of George Mason University has shown, the rot started in 1992. Congress convinced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the quasi-government agencies that underpin the US mortgage market, to boost their purchases of mortgages going to low income Americans.

Private banks tend to provide the kinds of loans that Fannie and Freddie want to buy, so this was a crucial step in loosening borrowing guidelines. By the end of the century, the two agencies were promoting huge sub-prime securitisations.

Starting in 1996, the Clinton administration was even more aggressive: 42 per cent of mortgages had to go to households with less than median earnings in their area, rising to 50 per cent in 2000 and 52 per cent in 2005. The target for special affordable loans – code for subprime – was 20 per cent in 2000 and 22 per cent in 2005; it was meant to hit 28 per cent this year.

Lawsuits were launched against banks that failed to lend to the poor or those who couldn’t afford deposits. Many were accused of discrimination; lenders and banks were bullied into ditching their traditional prudence. The final piece in the jigsaw came when Fannie and Freddie struck a Faustian pact with Congress earlier this century.

At the time, the Republicans were trying to dismantle the agencies, arguing that they were corrupt and were distorting the market (the latter point is all too clear today).

But Fannie and Freddie, which were originally quite nervous about sub-prime, agreed to massively increase their pump-priming of that segment of the market in return for being bailed out by Congressional Democrats, keen to boost the home ownership rate among poor Americans.

Government support destroyed what prudence was left in the mortgage industry; a flood of subprime securities hit the markets. Financial institutions were very far from blameless; but they would never have dared enter subprime en masse, offer ultra-cheap “liar” loans to customers with no real means to pay them back or do away with proper underwriters, without government support.

Sure, once subprime lending became the government’s priority, Wall Street encouraged and rationalised it, selling new-fangled bundles of mortgages which grossly underestimated default risk. Stupid investors, including many High Street banks, lapped it up.

But while dodgy debt was repackaged and glamorised on Wall Street, it was invented in Washington.

A weekend is a long time in politics

So only 90 per cent then. It’s Monday, and the National Crock, prop. G Brown Esq., announces that it has been instructed to lend massively once more. Ninety per cent mortgages. Not 100 per cent, because that would be madly irresponsible and has been banned as recently as Friday, by – oh.

I am so terribly confused. And I’m not even a Prime Minister. Let me see... As instructed by that world-famous financial genius, G Brown, banker, the Crock has repaid taxpayers two-thirds of the humungous sum extorted from them on credit by that same office-abusing Prime Minister – currently working his notice – when he was desperate to placate his murderously-inclined Northern MPs whose electors constitute a sizeable chunk of Labour's heartland Britain’s sub-prime problem. The corpse of Prudence was dug up and, although she's not looking at all well, Gordon's ex was installed at the helm of the Crock.

Last Friday, all was looking quite a bit better. The Crock's debt was falling nicely, taxpayers were getting some of their money back, and Gordon announced that banking would return to the Era of Boring Responsibility. All was set fair for a nice weekend.

But that was Friday and this is Monday and Mad Gordon's got another cunning plan.

'All change! Yoo-hoo! Don’t do that! Do this! I’ve changed my shoes mind!’ Where did I put that coil of rope…

A love song

Help! I am in a time warp! I am back in the Seventies!

So Gordon's Government Of All the Twats even has its own Leyland problem. Ah, memories...

And now, a song.

Oh, Mandy!

Well, you came and you gave without taking but I sent you away, oh, Mandy! Well, you kissed me and stopped me from shaking. I need you today, oh, Mandy!

Yesterday's a dream... I face the morning Crying on the breeze. The pain is calling, oh, Mandy!

Well, you came and you gave without taking but I sent you away, oh, Mandy! Well, you kissed me and stopped me from shaking. I need you today, oh, Mandy!

Ah, the wit

Sample:

I can see the carrot at the end of the tunnel. - Stuart Pearce*

And there's more where that came from. * A football player, I gather.

Oo, that's awfully rude

Gordon Brown tries to spin the Pope. Vatican response: 'Spin on this!'

From here.

Then they came for the pies...

Thus Liddle in the ST today:

Ever since it destroyed the economy, the government has been looking around for something important it can bugger up next. It has now found the right target: pies.

In future, by government edict, pies sold from canteens to public-sector workers will have less pastry in them, because the health department has decided that pastry is bad for you. As the only jobs left in Britain soon will be in the public sector, that means everybody will be affected.

This government has always loathed pies, unless they are made with filo pastry and contain spinach and pine nuts. New Labour loathes pies in the same visceral way Thatcher loathed secondary pickets.

That is why Harriet Harman will never become party leader, because she has a face like an empty pie-case in which the pastry has not been sufficiently pricked - the dough becomes damp and lumpen. The MPs look at Harriet and all they see is an ill-constructed pie on legs, screeching at them about women’s rights.

Control Freak of the Week.

Yes, it's that man again.

I mean, why is the Treasury - the Treasury - doing all this? What are the other ministries doing?

The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) is an independent office of HM Treasury, established to help Government deliver best value from its spending. The OGC works with central Government departments and other public sector organisations to ensure the achievement of six key goals: Delivery of value for money from third party spend; Delivery of projects to time, quality and cost, realising benefits; Getting the best from the Government's £30bn estate; Improving the sustainability of the Government estate and operations, including reducing carbon emissions by 12.5% by 2010-11, through stronger performance management and guidance; Helping achieve delivery of further Government policy goals, including innovation, equality, and support for small and medium enterprises; And driving forward the improvement of central Government capability in procurement, project and programme management, and estates management through the development of people skills, processes and tools.

Environment? SMEs? Innovation? Equality? Estate management? WTF?

Oh, wait. I know. It's because the Treasury as presently configured is the brainchild and personal fiefdom of the Chancellor of the Exchequer micromanager and control freak extraordinair, Gordon Brown, whatever his actual job title.

______________________________________

If you read a weird version of this earlier, my apologies. Finger slipped. You know how it is.

Reeling drunk advocates ‘new age of sobriety’

So, no more 100 per cent mortgages, then. Only those who have saved a deposit are to be allowed to buy their home on credit.

Sorry, I’m not 100 per cent with you there. How are people to save when you have burdened them with catastrophic and literally incalculable public debts, to repay which they must pay punitive levels of tax for the foreseeable future?

How are they going to do that, Gordon, if you succeed in your drive to get property prices back up? How high? Bubble levels, as caused by your reckless abolition of our efficient system of bank regulation, and by your pushing of cheap debt upon people who, not unnaturally, thought they could afford all the things your cheap-jack, feel-good ‘economy’ advertised to them, because you told them they could? You told them that you had abolished the laws of economics, Gordon. Yours was the age of boom without bust, wasn’t it? You said that, didn't you? Many, many times?

How are people to save, Gordon, when they will now have to pay and pay and pay to clear up the pile of dog-mess you have presented to us after presiding for so many years over our economy, wrecking our efficient system of bank regulation because your idea just had to be better than anyone else's? (Why? Because you are a financial fucking genius?) Years in which you castigated European banks for being 'too conservative', while you happily stoked up mad profit levels in British banks? Because, not having a fucking clue about economics or finance or markets, other than what you read in Socialist Approved Texts, all you knew was that you could tax the banks to the extent that they provided fully a quarter of all corporate tax revenue?

You are a drunk, Gordon, a tax-head. Like all addicts, you are in denial. Your mendacity, your naivety, as you (you!) advocate sobriety for others, has us all laughing like drains. Well, we would laugh if only the frightened, angry sobbing would stop.

Even now, you remain arrogantly uncomprehending of the damage you – yes, you, Gordon – have inflicted upon small businesses, on the family concerns who employ most of the working population.

You refuse to believe that it is you, Gordon, who have made ordinary people desperate, both ‘hardworking families’ and the ignored, despised millions of single people whom you tax so viciously because it is politically cheap. Many of them will never be able to have a home and family of their own because of the high taxes you will now have to make them pay, for decades, to repay your debt.

In your world, Gordon, the only people likely to have the luxury of a home of their own without worry are your welfare slaves, the feckless indigent and the imported block vote - Gordon’s Children.

You oppress the conscientious and proud poor through fear, fear of your insane, control-freak tax credit scheme and your 90 per cent marginal tax on on them should they be uncooperative and stupid enough to try to earn something, to become independent of you. This you do not permit, so you punish them. Or is it that you are too stupid to see that your magic does not work in the real world?

Even your public service army is hurting now, Gordon, because of your ignorance, your bombast, and your concentration on tribal war rather than on conscientious government. You know time is running out for the traditional Socialist cosseting of the public payroll. Look at Ireland. Worried? At all? You should be.

In your remoteness from reality, Gordon, with your cosy political theorising by the grace-and-favour fireside among your books and your like-minded colleagues, served by the sycophants who always kiss the feet of men in power, you have no understanding whatever of those whose misfortunes, so you tell us, ‘occupy your every waking hour’.

That, too, is another of your lies. You lie so easily, Prime Minister.

What occupies your every waking hour, Gordon, though you think we are too stupid to see it, is how to inflict damage on the political party which opposes your mad theories and your hubris, and may yet throw you down from office by the will of the people who are coming to hate you with a visceral hatred. Ponder that swelling hatred for a while, Gordon. May it become a worm in your bowels and a ghoul in your dreams.

What drives you, Gordon, is not care for the people whom you govern, although never by their will. And how that chokes you. It is hatred of the Conservative Party. Your every move, your every waking hour, is devoted to fighting the Tory party. This tribal imperative rules your soul. We know it, Gordon, and you will pay for prostituting your power in that cause, and not using it for the benefit of the people.

So anyway, what are your plans, Gordon, to help would-be buyers of their first houses and flats?

Will you reduce the proportion of their earnings which you take away from them, so that they may save up their deposits and put aside enough to live decently and independently in their old age? No. You cannot.

And, Gordon, I suspect that this grieves you not a bit. You would rather the masses paid rent to the state, wouldn’t you? You would rather govern a Socialist paradise where everyone is beholden to the state than a property-owning society of free individuals.

Are you still quietly grieving for the loss of Clause Four, like the true Socialist you are? Is that why you hate Blair so much? Oh - come on. We know you developed New Labour solely in order to become electable, to fool the electorate into giving you the power you needed to gerrymander the vote, Socialise the economy and kill off the Conservative Party. Nothing more. You never changed, you utter, utter bastard. And your party has learned nothing from history, because you have abolished history.

Will you encourage property prices to fall to affordable levels once more? No, because you need the return of the bubble. You need it to bubble-wrap your broken economy, broken promises and broken theories.

You have broken it, Gordon, all of it: the housing market, the banking system, the retail industry, the security of families and individuals, the pension system and the peace of mind of the old… all of it.

You led the field in stoking up fantasy levels of feel-good and you were disdainful of nations which hesitated to let their banks follow you, the economic genius, the Iron Chancellor. You taxed and taxed and taxed and spent and spent and spent. You even strutted the African stage telling Africans how to do it your way, showering their corrupt dictators with our money, in order to gain kudos from those who feel pity.

You deluded, posturing, criminally fraudulent destroyer. Are you by any chance related to this man?

Mending our broken economy is beyond you, Brown. There is nothing you can do.

Naturally, you tell us to blame, not you, but the bankers whose excesses, Gordon, resulted from your actions, your policies, your structures, your bloody arrogant ignorance and your fucking political-tribal manoeuvres.

So, about your demand for ‘no more 100 per cent mortgages’? What is this? What are you saying?

Oh, for God’s sake. More easy, empty words, words, words. Positioning, positioning, positioning.

Do you ask us to accept that, suddenly, you are recanting, after years of criticising European banks who raised their eyebrows at the insanity you were encouraging in Britain, in order to collect the feel-good vote and stuff the public purse with taxes on bank profits? Are you reversing the policies of your heyday? Do you expect us to believe this shit?

Or are you just panicking as you face the vengeance of the electorate, now that the scales have fallen from their eyes and they are considering whether it is to be mere defenestration, or this: