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Monday 31 August 2009

Al Megrahi: How the government should deal with yet another bumpy moment

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210000/Jack-Straw-dropped-plan-include-Lockerbie-bomber-prisoner-transfer-agreement-oil-deal-Libya.html

My advice would be to ignore all the opportunistic Tory cries for a Select Committee Enquiry.

Say nothing more. No further comment. It will blow over.

"What will the Americans say and do?" some ask in souped-up despair.

If the Americans make any more trouble over this, the UK government will take this golden opportunity of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan and Iraq in one of those hissy fits that David Milliband is now so good at doing.

We will take our troops and flounce off, that's what we'll do.

Sunday 30 August 2009

Not too late to start the PM for PM campaign

In 1993, Canada's ruling party went from government to having just two MPs, after scoring just 16% in the general election. After Labour's electoral drubbing in June, could it face a similar fate?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8226525.stm


If the Labour Party chooses either Millie Band or Alan Johnson as their leader they might as well not bother.

But not if it is Peter Mandelson - Lord of the Labour Party and First Lord of the Treasury to be!

If only someone would give me the opportunity of explaining my proposed project, called The Obama-isation of Mandelson ....

Lockerbie, Scottish nationalism and Al Megrahi

The deal was this: if they let him go he would forfeit his right to appeal. If he had decided to appeal, he would die in prison. He chose the latter because it suited him. It also suited the Scottish and British governments to let him go.

The Scots were allowed to reach their own conclusion about whether or not to let him go. If they went ahead and did precisely that, they should not be condemned for doing what they were invited to do, probably with the approval of Westminster.

There is some talk about the conviction being unsafe. If the appeal proved that it was indeed unsafe, then that would be another body blow to the British.

Two actually: one for wrongly convicting him and another for admitting to wrongly convicting him.

Saturday 29 August 2009

The Obama-isation of Mandelson?

It would be my dream PR job really, to make the nation love Mandy and regard him as their saviour and also to turn Cameron into the pantomime villain instead.

Now is the time for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of Mandy and the Labour Party.

It would be an image makeover.

He would be great on STRICTLY COME DANCING as the disco dancing peer called "Disco Pete".

I would also put him on BIG BROTHER or DESERT ISLAND or WAR GAMES (a new TV game show I am now inventing) with Cameron, Clegg and any other leader of any other political party. They would take turns leading the group and be given difficult and dangerous things to do.

A girlfriend who will be around long enough to become a wife would also have to be found. If no one suitable can be found I will step into the breach myself.

How Mandy increases the fervour of his admirers

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Politics/Peter-Mandelson-Told-Sky-News-He-Was-Ruling-Out-Becoming-Prime-Minister-Or-Labour-Leader/Article/200908215360276?f=rss

Mandelson certainly knows that what preserves him now is his reluctance to seek the leadership and the premiership.

Perhaps he also knows that in ostentatiously not seeking it people would be even keener to give it to him.

At each passing hour he appears more giant-like in our land of pygmies.

I, an atheist, pray for the Fates to reward this reluctant and much-maligned man with an office that only he is capable of discharging with competence and flair in the turbulent times that lie ahead.

It was said that Deng Xiaoping was a man for whom difficult decisions would not be difficult. I believe this rare compliment applies just as much to Mandelson

(Cameron, on the other hand, is a man who rejects easy and obvious solutions because of his incorrigible mendacity, hypocrisy and cowardice.)

What is civilisation?

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7314/

Civilisation is when the good are strong.

That is the only objective meaning I can distil from this stubbornly nebulous concept of "civilisation".

Everyone, after all, imagines that they are civilised.

The West is no longer strong because it is no longer good. It is no longer good because it has forgotten its traditions of liberty that once made it strong.

For the West has been corrupted by his welfare state, which promotes fecklessness, promiscuity, and tolerance of societally damaging behaviour in the name of indiscriminate compassion and equality.

Bribed by the promise of social security for so many generations, the Westerner and his leaders have forgotten Benjamin Franklin's warning: "Those who prefer safety to liberty deserve neither."

Bullying = being rude, unkind, unreasonable, offensive, insistent etc

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/29/susan-hill-author-bullying

While bruises heal, words are remembered.

A recent exchange I have had with humanist reveals the degree of intolerance that people who ostensibly subscribe to a liberal ideology of tolerance are capable of.

The only solution is for us all to resolve to become stronger, thicker-skinned, more forgiving and kinder.

Easier said than done!

King Peter As Yet Unanointed

Reading Donald McIntyre's biography of Mandelson, I was frankly astonished that he took so long to see that Blair was the obvious choice to be leader. It must have been genuine personal loyalty to Brown that prevented him reaching this foregone conclusion even after everyone else had. There is no other explanation.

When he finally decided in favour of Blair it was because he took the view that the party would do better under Blair than Brown. Well, he was right, wasn't he?

Mandelson has been, sadly for him, more spinning than spun for. There is apparently no one to spin for him now except me, an outsider who has never once even voted Labour in her life.

How sad and exasperating that the lemmings at Labour are even now doing nothing to get themselves a fourth term. Mandy is their only chance, but they are happy to let that undeserving twerp Cameron become Prime Minister when they could have one of their own - who is a giant among pygmies - crowned king.

"All" that needs to be done is for someone to put it to Brown that he should go, quietly and graciously.

Blair stood aside for Brown, and Brown should in his turn stand aside for Mandelson.

It is only fair. They were once called the Three Musketeers: one for all, and all for the sake of the party.

Mandelson is the best man around and as such the crown is his by right, ambition and heritage, if there is any justice left in this sad bad mad world of ours.

Brown would have the gratitude of the Labour Party and pleasantly surprise the world if he were to formally hand over the reins to Mandelson at Brighton. This would "implement a strategy to exit with enhanced position, strength and respect." (quoted from a letter from Mandelson to Brown dated 16 May 1994)

He will lead the Labour Party into the next general election as Lord Mandelson. If Labour loses, the problem will have solved itself. If he wins, then he can properly claim to have been elected by the people.

Either way, there will be no constitutional crisis.

Who dares wins.

Time to bring David Davis in from the cold?

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/columnists/Tom-Richmond-Time-to-bring.5599863.jp

And put deadliest his rival in a position of prominence again?

But perhaps Cameron has no choice. The party is getting restive after all with being given nothing to promote or defend - only hot air and the alleged compassion and progressivism of Cameron's brand of Conservative Socialism.

Another leadership election would be nice. It would be just what the party needs to create interest and arouse passions in the Conservative "brand".

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Civilisational "age"

This big state/small state dichotomy has been with us since time immemorial. The Romans had a welfare state.

Maybe it is just a sign of one's civilisational age, in that if you progress as a civilisation you grow from barbarism to conquest, conquest to affluence, affluence to taking up silly soft-headed newfangled ideas such as the welfare state and thence to decline, dementia and extinction.

We are now suffering from Alzheimer's, having forgotten what we were or where we came from, ignorant of our present location, and have now forgotten where the hell we are supposed to be going or why we are going there.

The political choices the British are now reduced to

Labour under Mandelson would be *New* New Labour.

Should it win a fourth term, it would have a set of policies that would make liberals denounce him for centuries to come. But only Mandy can do it, really, if anyone can.

Vote Cameron, get more of the same.

Vote Labour under Mandy, all change!

"Labour has destroyed us," was the response I received to this.

And the Tories have done nothing to prevent this destruction, particularly as they propose no alternative policies.

They are therefore guilty of contemptible complacency for choosing such a lame duck leader. All Cameron says is trust me because I care and because had one disabled child and am even now suffering from baby hunger because I am such a nurturing sort of chap. This means I care about the disabled and the NHS is safe with me.

On crime and our social problems, Cameron says: huggahoody!

We would be fools to fall for his asinine trust me message when he does not even trust himself enough to give us any policies. If we fell for this heap of hooey we would all deserve mass extermination.

If Mandy does not become Labour leader I will be suicide voting BNP, to show the extent of my disgust with the political system and Cameron.

Only if the Tories get a new leader, ie David Davis, would I consider voting Tory, if he has policies that suggests that he dares put his head above the parapet.

It is a sad fact of British "democracy" that the only rational choice we are now reduced to is how much pain we can cause to the parties and politicians who have let us down.

Thursday 20 August 2009

How MPs and their constituents could all be happier bunnies

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1207611/Tory-MP-calls-MPs-salaries-doubled-130-000.html

I would have no problem with doubling the pay of MPs and granting Sir Patrick Cormack's and Alan Duncan's wish, provided they give us what we want.

What do we want then?

According to Peter Hitchens, the British want the condign punishment of criminals, schools that teach, control over our own borders, and a referendum on the EU.

This is the sort of thing that the BNP offers, but there are a few problems. Unfortunately, they have a gangrenous limb of racism they refuse to amputate because many of their members have become rather attached to it.

With such an image problem, they are bound to be defeated by ad hominem arguments and smears.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-384167/Most-Britons-actually-support-BNP-policies.html

http://bnp.org.uk/Mini-Manifesto.pdf

However, if either Tory and Labour simply stole their policies and put on their own packaging, the public would be served equally well.

After all, we don't want these inexperienced ethno-nationalists, otherwise known as racists, running the country.

Labour has already adopted their slogan "British jobs for British workers", and there is no reason to stop there.

Since the BNP understanding of economics is about as deep and wide as as Obama's and Bernanke's, who are now implementing financial socialism, British economic policy should come from the Adam Smith Institute.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Let us remember Zamyatin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Zamyatin

Zamyatin wrote a number of short stories, in fairy tale form, that constituted satirical criticism of the Communist regime in Russia, such as in a story about a city where the mayor decides that to make everyone happy he should make everyone equal. He starts by forcing everyone, himself included, to live in a big barrack, then to shave heads to be equal to the bald, and then to become mentally disabled to equate intelligence downward.


Anyone who has had a run-in with the powers that be in charge of British state-"education" may have an eerie moment of self-recognition.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Statement of the Obvious: We do NOT live in a democracy

Oligarchy - government by the few.

Cartel - formal organization of producers that agree to coordinate prices and production. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products. Cartel members may agree on such matters as price fixing, total industry output, market shares, allocation of customers, allocation of territories, bid rigging, establishment of common sales agencies, and the division of profits or combination of these. The aim of such collusion is to increase individual members' profits by reducing competition

Saturday 15 August 2009

Who is really responsible for the expenses scandal? (Hint: Not MPs themselves, not really)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7206137.stm

With regard to the MPs' expenses scandal, I would just like to say, before we go any further, that I would probably be as guilty as the most grasping of them, and claim for anything and everything I am allowed to, as long as it is within the rules.

I would not of course claim for mortgages I have already redeemed, but I might have thought that if my work took me away from my husband in the evenings, then he could be kept amused watching porn movies in the home instead of going out to pick up girls or go cruising in Clapham Common.

I am sure I too would flip my homes and indulge in a little property speculation myself to get the maximum I was entitled to claim within the rules, whatever they are, and it is not clear what they are, even now.

A politician's career is a short and uncertain one, as we all know, if one does not make it to the Big Name League like ex-Presidents and ex-Prime Ministers.

A little bit of forensic moralising has now revealed that it is in fact the party leaders who are to blame, since they all refused their members a vote on the matter of their pay rises.

A deal was done with them whereby they were bought off with very flexible rules on claiming expenses.

This forced many of them to scrabble around in this undignified way for their money that they should had paid as salary.

Since our political classes are so woefully inept at even safeguarding their own interests, how can we even hope to trust them to safeguard ours?

Of course the answer is that we do not and would really like to string them up to the nearest lamp-post. We feel hatred, ridicule and contempt and they feel the full blast of our hatred, ridicule and contempt.

What are any of them doing in the way of policies to assuage us, even the so-called leaders of these small-minded faint-hearted tribes?

A big fat nothing. They are still going on about public spending and the NHS, the fools.

No, I'm afraid it is a little more than that. It will be about slaying the sacred cows that the British worship. Let us therefore have parties that would protect the sacred cows and those that would slay them.

Then maybe we can watch something resembling democracy in action.

If not, then this putative democracy of ours remains a sham. But most of us already knew that, did we not? The Chinese Communist Party has more democracy in its little finger than we do in our bloated bellies.

When Deng Xiaoping decided it might be an idea to try capitalism to see how it would go, and enough members in the only party in China were persuaded, why, that was what they actually did. It was a capitalist counter-revolution indeed, but only capable of happening without bloodshed, because the rules are clear-cut and transparent.

Now of course even the MPs do not know what the rules are, or if they know the words, they do not know the meaning of them or what is expected of them. Nor are they told. Nor do they ask.

The Chinese at least have the best and brightest leading them, while the British make a policy of having the most incompetent and cowardly time-servers in the land in charge of the ship of state.

Perhaps every civilisation has a death wish. It is collectively expressed often by action (such as starting dishonourable and ruinous wars), and just as often by inaction and apathy.

Friday 14 August 2009

Alan Duncan and free speech

Many have gloated and rubbed their hands in glee about Duncan's shit statement landing him in the proverbial do-do.

What he says is actually quite unsurprising and I would have no hesitation in admitting to being probably one of the MPs who would have got herself into trouble over very lax rules about expenses and then complained about there being a witch-hunt.

If Duncan wants to complain publicly or privately, that is up to him.

It is quite tragic that people cannot see the principle behind this.

My point is that free speech should be upheld, especially for people we dislike or we will not have free speech when others in turn dislike us for telling us things they would rather not hear.

No one, but no one, should be punished for telling the truth, not even an MP, not even an MP whom you dislike, not even if he is gay.

Nothing should happen to him but it seems it is his own side who want most to throw him to the wolves.

Haven't the Conservatives heard that those who do not hang together will hang separately?

Make no mistake that if we do not defend the right of our elected representatives to speak their mind, then we too will soon lose that right, and deservedly so.

Thursday 13 August 2009

Tebbit's Game

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8195000/8195302.stm
A Taste of Tebbit: video of Tebbit doing his Jamie Oliver thang

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8198000/8198821.stm
Tebbit talking politics - very interesting.

Gordon Brown is a good man but wrong. Blair is a bad man.

He says if there were an election tomorrow, the BNP would win.

Disgruntled Tories are now in UKIP and disgruntled Labourites have defected to the BNP.

His nightmare guests would be the Notting Hill set, ie Cameron and Osborne, who thinks he is part of the nasty party who used to win elections. These people aren't my friends, he says.

He also points out that the sheer professionalism of political campaigning can lead politicians astray. (Politicians are basically told to dump all their core values in pursuit of a few swing voters in marginal constituencies.)

Expediency over conviction is the road to perdition.

The electorate will have no choice when all the mainstream political parties spout the same liberal PC claptrap, ie "Compassionate" Conservatism AKA Socialism AKA refusal to cut any public spending no matter how wasteful for fear of unpopularity, resulting in the following:

1) They will become cynical and apathetic.

2) They will hold politicians in hatred, ridicule and contempt, and want to string them up to the nearest lamp-post.

3) They will vote BNP.

What part of any this do the Big 3 not understand?

Wednesday 12 August 2009

Alan Duncan on being treated like shit and how MPs can redeem themselves

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2009/08/alan-duncan-caught-on-secret-video-saying-that-mps-are-treated-like-st.html

They are treated like shit because they are perceived to be shit.

What have they done to lower taxes and keep us safe from the fear of crime and the fear of not getting justice when we are victims of crime? Or improve the laughable state of British "education"? Or anything at all?

Instead they have voted for us to enter a dishonourable and ruinous war.

I think only a ritual suicide would assuage public anger now. Perhaps the Japanese have something to teach us about this.

There has been much talk lately about MPs feeling suicidal and it might be an idea to choose just one who is feeling most suicidal to redeem the political class as a whole. A mass suicide may be considered excessive and unnecessary.

I do believe the British public would appreciate such a gesture.

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/52114,news,alan-duncan-apologises-after-foul-mouthed-remarks-on-mps-expenses-heydon-prowse-shadow-leader-of-the-house

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/aug/12/alan-duncan-mps-expenses-video-sting

POLL: Should Alan Duncan stay in the Shadow Cabinet?

http://www.1party4all.co.uk/Home/Account/TopicForm.aspx?topicsId=140

Tuesday 11 August 2009

Let us blame the people who are really responsible for Baby P's death: Liberals and their policies

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6790819.ece

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205489/Baby-Ps-torturers-beat-death-named-tonight.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/11/babyp-abuse-child-names-social

Were liberals responsible for the policies that led to the death of Baby P?

Do they continue to be responsible for more Baby P-like deaths for refusing even now to condemn single parenthood and female promiscuity?

I know whom I would like to really hang, draw and quarter if I could get my hands on them.

The taxpayer should no longer be compelled to pay to either keep them in prison or protecting them when they get out.

In fact, I ask that they be released immediately.

Nice Stuff about Mandy by Rachel Sylvester

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_sylvester/article5348631.ece

Civil servants cheered his return to the department that he used to run. Business is delighted to have him batting on its behalf. The Tories tremble at his name, believing him to possess almost supernatural powers. In the Lords, he has charmed the tea ladies and the doormen as well as the Members. “They all swoon when he comes in,” one peer says. “He could have been born to enter this place, he's a natural Lord.”

Whether in ermine robe or cashmere V-neck, he is a colourful figure in a grey political world, a useful lightning conductor for Mr Brown. One member of the Cabinet tells colleagues only half in jest there is something “homoerotic” about how the British political class is obsessed by the Business Secretary. “People are in awe of him, the man has an aura,” says another minister. “Labour people think he can bring back the magic of the early years, that he has an ability to project a vision of change.”

What to do with climate change demonstrators and Mandy's blue suede shoes

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205428/Stepping-flight-Corfu-blue-suede-loafers-Mandy-man-running-Britain-5pm-anyway.html

How bloody dare they! They have already ruined one of his suits.

I suggest the following:

1) water cannon
2) taser
3) kettling and then boiling in oil
4) pepper spray
5) force feeding until obese since they like to pretend they are suffragettes

Preferably all five, in no particular order ...

Monday 10 August 2009

Bad stuff about Mandy being an ex-Commie

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2009/08/the-genius-of-peter-mandelson.html

Well, I was a Commie too, when I was 7. I outgrew that.

Mandy is not a Commie now.

Whatever you think of Mandy, he is a damn sight better than Cameron and a lot less annoying, even if the crap policies are not going to change.

Mandy holiday pix

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205280/Peter-Mandelson-demanded-Deputy-s-title--But-thwarted-Britains-civil-servant.html

Peter is in good shape but should not be wearing T-shirts. They only work if you have a superb physique and you can wear ones that show off the contours of your well-toned body.

The polo shirt is much better.

Oh, to be able to choose his shirts and ties in the morning, and send him to work with a loving kiss! To take his suits to the dry cleaners and sew his buttons back on would be tasks I shall perform with wifely devotion.

He doesn't eat much but that's just less work for me.

To lie in bed with him and have pillow talk consisting of sweet nothings and affairs of state ... !

The dog will have to go, though .... Grrrrrr!

I will be the only one to pull his duvet off him!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1205429/Sorry-Peter-things-best-left-covered-up.html

Liz Jones has been rather unkind about Peter, but I wonder how her book about her marital break-up is doing. (Private Eye was rather scathing about it.) My attitude towards extra-marital affairs is determinedly Clintonian.

It is the only way for a successful political alliance. I am sure Mandy and I would see eye to eye on this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-456237/Liz-Jones-Im-finally-finally-finally-divorcing-husband.html



Our marriage was, on reflection, a very modern one. I am 14 years older than him. When we met I was earning a huge salary as the editor of a glossy magazine and owned my home after 20 years on the property ladder; he was an intern on a local radio station.



Says it all about her judgement, dunnit? Silly Liz Jones!

Peter Mandelson could be our Prime Minister before the year is out

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matthew-norman/matthew-norman-while-brown-sinks-mandelson-rides-the-crest-of-a-wave-1767737.html

I better get me skates on then!

Mandy - the kindly pussycat I would to stroke ....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/10/peter-mandelson-interview-decca-aitkenhead

Mandy makes loud-mouthed woman on train cry. (Is that reason alone to love this man and want him to be Our Dear Leader?)

Every day and in every way, I love this wonderful man more and more ...

Choice quotes:

His skin is dewy, as if fresh from a spa facial, and his grooming so flawless he looks almost hyper-real, the cuff links and tie delicately co-ordinated, with their detail inversely echoed in his socks. I'd swear he even has his eyebrows shaped, though he denies it – "What, pay someone to rip my eyebrows out? Is that some kind of sexual thing?" His whole body seems weirdly untroubled by the passage of time, his govements fluid to the point of feline, but it's the voice above all which can mesmerise. He talks very softly – that old trick for winning people's attention that John Prescott, for one, never learned – and unusually slowly, giving the impression that every single word is invested with deep significance, even when it's quite innocuous.

The gift for mockery that used to be deployed at others' expense now tends to be directed at himself; when he says of the economic recovery, "we are in the post-intervention, pre-delivery stage", each syllable is enunciated to acknowledge the absurdity of his own jargon. At times his phrasing can be almost antiquated – he once tried to resign as honorary life president of Hartlepool United FC, he says, "but they wouldn't hear of it" – and his command of the dramatic pause would be hammy if it weren't always so exquisitely timed.

His skin is dewy, as if fresh from a spa facial, and his grooming so flawless he looks almost hyper-real, the cuff links and tie delicately co-ordinated, with their detail inversely echoed in his socks. I'd swear he even has his eyebrows shaped, though he denies it – "What, pay someone to rip my eyebrows out? Is that some kind of sexual thing?" His whole body seems weirdly untroubled by the passage of time, his movements fluid to the point of feline, but it's the voice above all which can esmerise. He talks very softly – that old trick for winning people's attention that John Prescott, for one, never learned – and unusually slowly, giving the impression that every single word is invested with deep significance, even when it's quite innocuous.

It turns out that we're not actually going to eat lunch – because, as far as I can tell, Mandelson seldom eats anything at all. For breakfast he has granola and green tea, to which Carole Caplin converted him in 1994 – "One of her enduring legacies," he murmurs archly. He doesn't bother with lunch, though if he's in the Lords he likes to steal an apple from Baroness Royall's office, and in the afternoons his PA fetches him some kind of chocolate bar from Pret A Manger – "A sort of tiffin thing, it's very nice." If he has to attend a dinner he will stay for the first course, then make his speech and head home, where he hasn't cooked for as long as he can remember. The last actual meal that I can identify seems to have been consumed 48 hours earlier.

"Peter Mandelson talks exclusively about his anorexia!" an aide quips, provoking much amusement in the car. "My diet chiefly involves me being hungry," Mandelson concedes, sounding rather proud of the fact. "But it's having a good effect on me. It's making me, well, not lean and mean, as I was – just lean and hungry."

When we arrive I'm completely taken aback at the former PM's appearance, for he resembles a bad actor playing Blair in the grip of some awful psychiatric meltdown. He really does look quite mad, with his face over the place – a grotesque dance of eyebrows and teeth, manically gurning away, every feature in permanent motion – beside which Mandelson looks like a vision of poised sophistication.

"If you stay with me for the rest of the day," he offers casually, eating a grape, with an unmistakable hint of showing off, "you'll end up with Gordon."

He does, of course, talk at length about Brown's qualities when prompted; "a big brain . . . decisive intellect . . . leader for these times . . . highly respected . . . will be vindicated in due course," none of which is terribly original, but Mandelson has a remarkable quality for appearing believable, even though what he often is is merely on message. Rather like Max Clifford, he has a gift for sounding as if he's always telling the truth, even when you know it's his job not to; he has somehow managed to retain the credibility of a disinterested outsider, despite having returned to the heart of government.

In a recent select committee, a Tory MP recalled that Margaret Thatcher once "famously made the remark that every prime minister needs a Willie [Whitelaw]. So you are the prime minister's Willie. Is that your role?" After a perfectly timed pause, Mandelson replied, "I'm tempted to extend the metaphor, but decorum – " bringing the house down. He teased a recent press gallery lunch with tales of being woken by "Jack tugging at my duvet", enjoying the hacks' consternation – who the hell is Jack? – before explaining, "Why, my dog, of course." Even his sexuality, once a semi-closeted source of, if not quite paranoia, then prickliness, is now a weapon in his armoury.

It is Mandelson's personality, not policy, which holds the country in his thrall.

But all the talk in Westminster is now of Mandelson returning to the Commons – to become the next leader of the Labour party.

Sunday 9 August 2009

A Decree from Mandy (courtesey of Private Eye)

From Private Eye No 1242: 7-20 August 2009

Prime Ministerial Decree No 50

From the Blackberry of the Rt Hon Lord Mandelson of Where You Live,
Supreme First Secretary and Supreme Deputy Supreme Leader,
Commisasar for Business, Industry and Everything Else

[for full list of Comrade Lord Mandelson's titles, see http://www.berr.gov.uk/aboutus/ministerialteam/page48296.html]

Comrades,

In the absence of the Supreme Leader on the well-earned recreational break which advised him to take in light of his understandable stress-induced emotional and mental instability, it falls to me to address you all on the latest achievements of the Party.

As Party officials and members of the Politburo head for their dachas for the annual summer rest and recuperation period, it is my task to remind you all of the many great leaps forward that the Party has made since the Supreme Leader had the wisdom to entrust me with the running of the country on behalf of you all, wherever you live (which, of course, I know).

These triumphs are as follow:

  • The economy: the recession ended and stability restored, with not more than 2 million jobs lost.
  • Swine flu: successfully contained.
  • Afghanistan: the major victory won by our heroic troops will shortly lead to historic peace talks with moderate members of the Taliban identified by Comrade Miliband.
  • Schools, hospitals: still there, despite attempt by Cameronite-Govist saboteurs to close them down.
  • Elimination of corrupt practices by some workers' representatives in the Supreme Soviet: no sooner was it brought to my attention that parasitical elements had been exploiting the parliamentary allowances system that we acted decisively to ensure that such practices would no longer be tolerated and be replaced with a scheme with a different name, the SCAM (Supreme Consolidated Allowance Mechanism).
  • Low-carbon economy: millions of "green" jobs are on the way to being created by the new People's Electric Car, powered by thousands of windfarms built by Comrades from overseas, in their desire to see the British economy placed on a fully-sustainable footing.
  • Climate change: the menace of global warming is already in rapid retreat, as the pleasantly cool and wet summer shows the earth's climate responding to the measures we have already taken.

On the basis of this magnificent record, I am proposing the introduction at the next election of televised "debates" between the Supreme Leader and the so-called leader of the reactionary Bullingdonian-Toryist claque, Comrade Cameron, assuming of course that the neo-elitist Etonian Twattite Twitterist Cameron is prepared to face public humiliation by participating in such a debate.

Of course, it may be that the Supreme Leader himself is too modest to wish to take part in such a trifling exercise, and may wish to appoint in his place a popular, immensely capable, witty, charming, suave debater who will do the job rather more effectively than him.

Do Comrades have any idea who such a man might be?

PM (pp. GB)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6788735.ece

Friday 7 August 2009

Political Correctness

Oxford Reference Dictionary:

"Conformity to a prevailing body of liberal opinion especially in avoiding language, behaviour which might conceivably be regarded as discriminatory or pejorative to racial or cultural minorities or as reflecting undesirable implicit assumptions."

Martin Mears in Institutional Injustice:

"The key words in this definition are 'conformity', 'might conceivably be regarded' and 'undesirable.' "

Political correctness is a quasi-religion in its assumption that there is a right and wrong way of looking at the world, that the right way can readily be identified by people of goodwill and that those who fail to identify it demonstrate ignorance or malice. This quasi-religion is obsessed with discrimination whether of race, gender. 'sexual orientation' or otherwise. The modern legal establishment shares and promotes this obsession.

"We no longer hear about loony leftism, of course, this having now become mainstream opinion."

"Bias derives from prejudices, preconceptions and general cultural conditioning. In the context of 'equality and diversity' issues, the courts have no difficulty in recognising (indeed they are anxious to acknowledge) that they too can be guilty of unconscious 'stereotyping'. Judges now willingly submit themselves to training courses to rid their minds of alleged cultural clutter. Their trainers will tell them, for example, that the failure of an Afro-Caribbean witness to look the judge in the eye is for him an indication of respect not of contempt."


Would you rather be lied to Mandelson, or by Cameron?

Watch this interview with Andrew Marr before giving your opinion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdQb6seAdJM&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CJwXfyGWck&NR=1

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1203598/Fiercely-intelligent-unfathomably-daft-hugely-loyal-slyly-treacherous--How-Mandelson-REAL-PM.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/aug/07/peter-mandelson-corfu

Thursday 6 August 2009

My Proposal to Mandy, now compared to Cicero

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23728374-details/Lord+Mandelson,+in+the+image+of+Roman+orator/article.do

Lord Mandelson is now holidaying in Corfu, yet the press press upon him their further accolades.

Recently compared to Richelieu, the ghost of Cicero is now raised in tribute.

I cannot remember a single British politician who has had such things said about him during his lifetime.

As I have said before, I am willing to sacrifice my privacy and my life to be his consort. While delighted to hear that dear Peter is being compared to Cicero, I believe that it is I who am in fact more Ciceronic through my communications with so many correspondents, and thank the one of who so thoughtfully forwarded me the link above.

Even my awareness of Cicero's sticky end does not deter me in my determination to offer myself to Peter.

I would urge him to consider the concept of the Domestic Partnership outlined in http://thebattlefieldoflove.blogspot.com/search?q=domestic+partnership, which is intended to assist him in formulating what exactly he requires and desires of me.

I am a good conversationalist, enjoying socialising and political intrigue. I believe I genuinely like people and am interested in them. I am also independent, tolerant and the antithesis of the green-eyed monster. While I am aware of his preference for the stronger sex, I like to think that I am a masculine mind contentedly inhabiting the body of a woman who is not without admirers, both male and female ...

I believe that, out of all the people in this country, I am the one most capable of combining my ambition for him in a way that would not be incompatible with the National Interest. My intimate knowledge of the British peoples, their ways of thinking, their social divisions and prejudices, of all classes and political persuasions, their likes and dislikes, is second to none.

As for my colourful past, I am reconciled to it and believe I can justify, explain or excuse most of my misdemeanours and brushes with the law.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

Bon Voyage and Happy Holidays, dear dashing Lord Mandelson!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1079169/Osborne-criticised-David-Davis-Corfu-meeting-Mandelson.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/04/mandelson-holiday-corfu

May you return rested and refreshed, ready to resume the burdens of state on your broad and browned shoulders!

I shall miss you and think of you often.




The cover of Private Eye No 1242, 7-20 August 2009, raised a cackle:

ASSISTED SUICIDE LATEST

Brown: "Why have you booked me a holiday in Switzerland?"

Mandy: "Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Judge in the dock - Judge Speaking Out Against Extremist Liberalism Victimised by Lord Chief Justice

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1204269/Top-judge-facing-probe-comments-immigrants-abusing-benefits-system.html

Would Britain be a better place if more judges thought and speak as he does?

How utterly shocking and appalling that most judges in this once great land of common sense and peasant cunning do not think and speak as he does.

The tide will soon turn, in a quite dramatic way.

Hang in there, O Brave and Lonesome Judge Trigger! Reinforcements are on the way!

Burn the Equal Treatment Bench Book!

A pox on anyone who touches a single precious horsehair on your wig!

Do not submit when they come and take you away to be "re-educated"!

Britons never shall be slaves!

Or are they already?

Harman snubbed by Straw

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1204308/Harman-new-clash-Home-Office-plans-boost-rape-conviction-rate.html

If the headless and heedless Labour Party even has a plan, methinks they are setting up Harriet Harman for a fall, and are even now giving her more and more rope.

When she has got enough of it to give herself a satisfyingly long drop, someone - probably Mandy - will pull the lever.

I can't wait.

Forced to lie for the MoD

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1204222/Forced-lie-MoD-Tormented-spin-doctor-blows-whistle-deceptions-fed-loved-ones-fallen-heroes.html

Read and weep. Or read and rage.

By the time the troops return, we should all be ready for a coup d'état.

British getting stupider and stupider (women to blame)

0751
There has been a slight fall in the proportion of 11-year-olds in England reaching the standard expected of them in English national curriculum tests. Reporter Sanchia Berg asked one 11-year-old boy to sit part of a writing paper and an experienced Sats marker, Roberta Bowen, to assess it. Former children's laureate Michael Morpurgo, who was once a primary school teacher, discusses ways to make children more enthusiastic about books.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8184000/8184842.stm

So, stupider and more illiterate is what we are becoming, especially the male of the species, until even foreigners speak English better than the native English-speaker.

Mistakes are not penalised, it seems. "We look to credit, not penalise", said the female educationalist, Roberta Bowen, prissily. Girls are doing better than boys, probably because girls are more biddable and boys need to be engaged, which of course female teachers, who constitute the majority in the educational establishment, are clueless about. No red-blooded male would want to join the educational establishment because, apart from the very low pay, they would be accused of sexual harassment or paedophilia the moment they get on the wrong side of their female colleagues, or question the wisdom of not penalising children when they make basic spelling and grammatical errors.

At the rate we are going, the BNP will be asking a foreigner to write their manifesto for them next, you mark my words ...

Oxfam Acting Against the British National Interest

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/5967272/Oxfam-damages-small-independent-bookshops-booksellers-claim.html


http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=489267&in_page_id=2

So, the rest of the world is to be get British money while independent British booksellers are being closed down because they are being undercut by bleeding heart charities for overseas, are they?

"And of course, all the money raised from the sale of books through Oxfam's shops goes to help our lifesaving work around the world, " said Suzy Smith, Oxfam books project manager.

Anyone who thinks that the local BNP ought to be demonstrating outside the Oxfam Shop in Salisbury should get in touch with Michael Simpkins, their local organiser, whose blog is at http://michaelsimpkins.blogspot.com/

Disabled Indonesians Required to Wear Traffic Signs

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20090526-144074.html



How very sensible.

Unlike what Cameron is proposing, ie trying to make things easier for the disabled and their parents.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/5838718/David-Cameron-calls-to-end-bureaucratic-pain-for-families-of-disabled-children.html

Doesn't he know that this is only encouraging them?

First, someone thought a few disabled parking spaces here and there would be kind and considerate. Now, our supermarkets car parks have empty disabled spaces that the able bodied dare not use for fear of being fined.

Do we really want an increase in people claiming disabled privileges? Is it in the national interest to encourage the parasitical behaviour of the less productive at the expense of the more productive?

Cameron does, because he thinks they are electorally significant and increasing in number. No doubt they are a suitable audience to demonstrate his "Conservative compassion"?

These people are quite organised too, trawling the Internet for comments unflattering to the disabled and sending them hate mail. I have received quite a few in my time and expect to receive more.

Well, let me tell you this: the Indonesians will get richer and the British poorer, if we carry on like that.

When we get poor enough to be Indonesians, I suppose we will finally junk the insanity of privileging the disabled. They should be tolerated and treated compassionately, certainly, but not privileged and given a sense of entitlement.

There was a ridiculous discussion on Radio 4 last week at 9am on a weekday last week, consisting entirely of women discussing ante-natal screening. One of them, disabled and arrogant beyond belief, was objecting to this practice because it meant that fewer people like her would be born, because it was discriminatory.

Strangely, no one pointed out that most sane people don't want to be disabled or want a disabled child. If I were disabled, I wouldn't be wearing it as a badge of honour and lording it over everyone.

Even more strangely, she was treated with a kind of exaggerated deference that frankly made me feel quite nauseous, confirming to me that we are now suffering from a terminal form of national dementia.

Anti-Chinese Violence in Algeria, proof that Welfare State to Blame for All Britain's Ills

This clip is quite amusing about why the Algerians might get cross with the Chinese and their pet-eating tendencies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqrqU5lzcqA

Below is a Chinese version of events.

http://chinanewswrap.com/2009/08/05/chinese-workers-and-local-residents-brawl-in-algeria-chinese-shops-destroyed/

Tuesday 4 August 2009

Alan Sugar threatens Quentin Letts with legal action

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1203505/QUENTIN-LETTS-Should-I-bow-Apprentice-politician.html

Lord Sugarlump is really not being very clever for suing any journalist who questions his intelligence.

As lawyers would say, res ipsa loquitur.

If he would like to sue me, I would be very pleased to tell him exactly why.

How to save The Observer

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6737876.ece

Why don't put all the best journalists in one amalgamated publication using The Guardian design but call it The Observing Guardian of The Times & Telegraph?

There would then be one national broadsheet but it would be a publication that prides itself on its diversity of views.

There would always be two leaders: one expressing the Libertarian View and the other the Puritanical View.

NB: Libertarians want lower taxes and fewer laws, and Puritans want to tax everything in sight provided they are not the ones paying for it, and want to ban everything they disapprove of.

I really think this could work!

A New Member of the Labour Party

I have just joined the Labour Party just so that I may have the opportunity of voting for Lord Mandelson to be Lord of the Labour Party and hopefully, First Lord of the Treasury ...

Am I very mad and silly? If he is not leader of the Labour Party I shall just cut up my membership card and send it back to them in a fit of pique, and vote BNP, oh yes I will ....

There is a method to my madness, oh yes there is.

(Gad, why am I talking like John Major?)

Stories that make me love Mandy more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1203790/Is-Peter-Mandelson-lined-tilt-leadership-Harriet-Harmans-backing-boosts-speculation-job.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/william_rees_mogg/article6736673.ece

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/01/18/headbanger-peter-mandelson-does-a-basil-fawlty-in-cabinet-115875-21050973/ (My favourite so far, because I believe I too have a bit of a reputation as a headbanger ... )

The Trouble With Girls

Jailbirds: Britain's young women are committing nearly 40 per cent more crimes than six years ago, and they're beginning to catch up with boys in the violence and theft rates. Filmed over six months, this observational documentary tells the stories of two of the young women behind these statistics, whose lives are stuck in the criminal justice system.

20-year-old Shona from Doncaster and 17-year-old Abbie from York have both been arrested dozens of times and imprisoned three times each. We meet them as Shona is coming to the end of her probation period, and when Abbie is released from a Young Offenders' Institute and moves into a hostel. Both girls want to go straight and sort their lives out, but it's not as easy as either hope. Abbie's drinking and partying lifestyle means that within days of her release she's breaching her electronic tag order and missing appointments with her Youth Offending Team. Shona, briefly free of the criminal justice system, is soon shoplifting again with her best friend Jodie.

Over the months, it becomes clear that binge-drinking and drug-taking, trips to court, and packing for prison have become a normal way of life for Shona and Abbie. Both are given second chances to turn their lives around and seem happier for it, but good intentions quickly unravel and the prospect of prison looms large again for these girls.

While Shona and Abbie may seem tough on the surface, between them they struggle to cope with difficult relationships with their parents, self-esteem, homelessness and the reality of job-hunting with a criminal past. Sometimes they wonder whether life in prison is a preferable option to life on the outside.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00m0xl4/The_Trouble_With_Girls_Jailbirds/

I found both girls touchingly likeable and attractive. Indeed, I actually thought: "There but for the grace of God, go I."

They had a way with words. The blonde one, Abbie, used the word "predicament" and the other, Shona, wrote quite a good poem, I thought.

What saved me was being born of parents with bourgeois values who saw the importance of a good education, and being born of a time, of a place and of a people where such things as widespread illegitimacy are not tolerated and not ameliorated by a welfare state.

The Aztecs practised human sacrifice.

Our liberal establishment practices a more insidious and infinitely more toxic form of it.

Sunday 2 August 2009

The Fetishisation of the N word by Liberals

I have been thinking why Liberals would do that and then I had a eureka moment yesterday.

Liberals like to treat black people like children and pets that they protect and look after. This gives them a moral superiority through -

1) appearing to be the protector and patron of black people

2) being the enemy of people who don't like black people (who are of course all evil racists)

3) being the enemy of people who challenge their right to hog the position of moral superiority so that they can pretend they are morally superior to

a) black people (because they protect them and offer them patronage)
b) people who don't like black people (who are evil racists) and
c) people who reject this ideology (who are by definition morally and politically suspect)

(I am a Category C, by the way.)

When a black person rejects this protection and patronage and says he is not afraid of, say, the Big Bad BNP and says they have a right to exist, their response is to call him a "coconut", which is certainly intended to be racially offensive.

http://wapedia.mobi/en/List_of_ethnic_slurs#3.

I believe I am the first person to make this discovery and exposed this liberal trick of smearing their opponents.

It is the equivalent of a charmless woman adopting a retarded child so that she can get all the attention for playing the role of martyr, and to be seen as compassionate, noble and courageous while annoying the hell out of everyone at the same time.

Possession is nine points of the law from 1:34:00

1:34:00  I chime in. 1:37:00  The narrow and wide interpretation of racism 1:40:00  It is racist to say black people are good at sport and d...