Sums

Culling the quangos (again)

Seems to me there are fewer and fewer folk actually generating money.

And more and more consuming it.

Now supplemented by a whole new bunch, also paid from the shrinking income generation sector, almost exclusively servicing the needs, demands, pay, perks and pensions of those consuming already. With near zero accountability imposed from any direction, especially when many voters do not bear fiscal responsibility for their actions. And of those that do, I defy most to understand, and hence affect what goes on in their names, and with their money, until it is too late.

Hard to see how this will end well.

Especially when we're already on tick for the next two generations.

Funny old thing, democracy

Abuse all sorts of things in all sorts of ways on the BBC; slap wrist; do collect your £200/m.

Preside over an 8 year long child care system that has yet to learn a lesson; no problem.

Belong to a political party that, last time I looked, was/is allowed to operate in this country...

Employers warn staff on BNP list face dismissal

So long as 'values' are shared, or even just claimed to be, who cares what else actually happens?

I actually belong to (might have to review a curious nature in this brave new world) a few organisations (not the BNP*, it is almost mandatory to add. Me, I'd like to be made aware of what their representatives have to say, or know what they have done/are doing, and vote accordingly on the merits or otherwise of these words or actions) I happen to disagree with, as I get information from them that helps me maintain a balanced level of awareness not always possible from bathing in the warm glow of fellow group-thinkers.

You know what might be funny? Include in a future list such as this a few who might be mortified that they were on there... and then have it nicked and broadcast for the waiting mob to really worry about accuracy before 'responding'.

And imagine the powers that be trying to unravel whether being on a list means you actually wanted to be on the list, much less sharing the views of fellow listees to the same extent... if at all.

But I am sure if 'proper procedure is followed' then while a few innocents might suffer the overall stats will be good. Now, where have I heard that before recently?

Gotta love the Guardian, CiF and that Animal Farmian mindset that can often be selectively applied by some. Who says we can't still do great irony in this country?

Gaurdian - The BNP has rights too

Telegraph - Does the BNP shop at M&S? - As the topic is 'guilt by association'

Telegraph - The BNP is a problem for Labour, not the Tories

To paraphrase Groucho Marx, 'I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that could have me down as a member.. and then lose it'. This of course includes other data careless organisations I have even less choice over currently.

Newsnight -

Newsnight -

'Are you, or have you ever been...?'

I hate the "Popular Tory Front" more than the "Front of Popular Toryism".

As I have found myself in agreement with most of the rest (might have stumbled over 'execute' even if in jest) of what you have written (and, need it be said, your right to say it), but I even though just making a point I would wish you had not used this particular word here in such context.

While it has been devalued in many ways, and now includes Broccoli, I have tried to persuade my kids that 'hate' is something to be reserved for, and applied to only truly exceptional circumstances, if at all.

A difficult job when the visceral manifestations of this extreme sentiment is on display daily, and at/from the the highest levels, and easily picked up on and amplified by various tribal groups in need of targets to unite them.

I was once, I think, member of some Local entity with the word 'Conservative' in it (Hence enough enough for me to be described 'You Tory voter' in some minds, no matter how misguided). Why did I join? Well, they held monthly business breakfasts and hence seemed a nifty way to network (not so much as it turns out, so I have long forgone the £15 full-English and 6am wake-up).

Will I have cause to rue this 'lapse' with the new world order we are heading towards? Hard to imagine a while ago, but not as I listen to Breakfast News intone its near daily raft of 'new measures announced by the government', most barely or simply ill-thought out, and almost every-one pure 'catch-all' but 'do-nothing to the quality of justice but make it easy to fine all others' in nature.

Indy - Union: 'Ban teachers who are BNP supporters' - First they came for...

Who leads wins

The great thing about a recession is it makes governments do popular things

You know, I don't mind if my politicians are not popular. I don't really have a need to like them.

I just need them to do what is necessary, and right.

Being honest, especially with oneself, would seem to be pretty key in arriving at the best decisions to achieve these.

But even the most supportive of the media glee club members seem able to recognise that honesty, in any form, is a rare trait, but oddly can still reconcile its total lack with 'popularity'.

I can't, and hence don't like it, or those who seem to think they can get away with it. And the test of how popular that notion is will be when I vote.

Now, wash your mouth out with soap

Political hypocrisy - don't you hate it?

No matter how 'sophisticated', my contempt for any hypocrisy, from any profession, is total.

ps: For "uptight, right hypocrites", I'd suggest selfishly, self-interestedly, self-delusional... at best... might be a wee bit closer the mark.

IMHO, that we have now a politco/media establishment class who see 'Don't do as I do; do as I say' as a valid motivational piece of leadership explains quite a lot about where 'we' find ourselves these days.

Alastair Campbell's legendary college antics

Michael White has an essay on political hypocrisy this very day.

Many in the media would do well to read it... and this. Then look in a mirror... then look in their photo albums.

The idea that young (predominantly) men got gussied up in twatty outfits, drank too much and behaved 'poorly' in their late teens/early twenties.

The very idea.

Must have been a riot hanging out with most NuLab pols and their Westminster Village Useful Idiot cheerleading mates back when they were in short woolly knickers, drinkin' 1/2 pints and lecturing the huddled masses on their evil ways.

Lord help my boys should they ever be tempted into 'public service'. Prom night at their very fine state secondary usually results in some awesome material for the po-faced commissars of class: DJ's, stretch limos, etc.

I must caution them to cease having a life right away lest a stray spinner be given an outing by a compliant media matey. Or... not.

Priorities

I post this not becuase of the main story, but the one that goes into its telling.

Harman makes a tough choice

A poster writes:

Um, is there a sentence or paragraph missing from the end of this piece?

On feminist issues Harman is one of nature's fundamentalists, brave enough to march into any minefield under enemy fire

??
Is it brave to engineer a cave-in?
Isn't this a prime example of hypocrisy from Harman, not fundamentalism?

And the author replies:

Well spotted, AlisdairCampbell. The above article was edited to appear in the Guardian and sometimes has to be cut. It's usually skillfully done, was last night, but a nasty ad popped up at the bottom of the page ( it pays our salaries!) and the last 150 words disappeared.
What i suggested there was that Harman must have been bound by collective ministerial responsibility to do what she would not otherwise have done, had she been acting alone. That's politics and I have no complaint, though others do, Polly Toynbee for instance in a column this week.
In both Scotland and Northern Ireland - in Ulster all the main parties are hostile to abortion and it remains illegal - it's a very hot and divisive issue; hence reserved to Westminster under devolution. Polly got cross about this in her column, but seemed to concede that public opinion in Northern Ireland remains anti-abortion, Catholic and Protestant.
That may be harmful to many women, especially those too poor to come to England for an abortion, but if it's hypocrisy - it is - it seems to be majority hypocrisy.

Thing is, after 8hrs, it does not look to have been addressed properly. At least the guy read his critics, but evidently not his own piece. Amazing. I have long suspected the Newsnight crew just 'post 'n forget', but even here, with subs and all, things just get stuffed up the same way.

Another 'Gate' opens..

Problems in the post for Mandelson

'..well he was cleared of any wrongdoing..'

What a trooper. I am always curious as to how, when, against or for whom, by whom and to what volume this phrase gets applied. It is, of course, deliciously ambiguous, providing almost anyone (including, and maybe especially the protagonist) the opportunity to make of it what they will. And hence has little value.

We are in an era of impressions. For instance, there may not be anything wrong for a senior Eurocrat enjoying the hospitality of a host whose interests are subsequently well served, but to those not invited on a daily basis to private islands or yachts it just looks as it smells.

But I guess its just down to one's political leanings when it comes to which gates get opened to see what horse might be persuaded to bolt into the traffic.

Telegraph - Why didn't the BBC report the Mandelson story?

Yes, is Sophie Rayworth now hanging on a hook in Andrew Marr's basement so he can show his dinner guests how they deal with those who don't foloow the party line?

I have got a bit fed up with penning 'Angry of Mayfair' (or, in my case, 'Cross of Ross') blogs on this.

How the heck does one go to to get some action? I don't like and don't want to pay for propaganda, especially under threat of fine.

I bumped into my MP t'other day. He's off next election so couldn't give a monkeys, so the Conservative and Lib Dem PPC's gunning for his slot can tell me what they'd do.

Any BBC mechanism is hardly worth thinking about, from the joke that is Newswatch through template-issuing 'Complaints' to the most woefully named entity in the world; The Trust.

My MP suggested The DCMS Secretary of State, but as this is an entity employed by the very outfit writing too many PR... er... news items for the BBC and its tame mouthpieces, and knows my vote is a lost cause, I suspect that is an unproductive line of attack.

Any suggestions that might make a darn difference? If the mounting unrest I am coming across, and often overt rumblings in many major media (even the Grauniad for heaven's sake) is anything to go by, it will need something pretty special to shake this uniquely funded institution out of its total self-belief that it can act any way it wishes... and get away with it.

Prudently irresponsible?

The age of irresponsibility: when did it start? Discuss

At risk of awakening the ire of the creationists and their detractors, I'd say that in a human sense it was about when that bloke and his bird didn't pay attention to some good advice from upon high in their choice five a day.

Or when Ug ignored 'Elfin safety and tried to tackle a Mammoth crossing without a high vis.

Politically, I'm guessing, roughly... about... when if you got power but no effective accountability whatsoever. Plus kept the pay and pensions despite doing over all you (were supposed to) serve.

Yep. That's about when I think it happened.

Newsnight - A New Bretton Woods? Where is Keynes? Where is Dexter White?

I do confess that most of my education on the mechanisms and machinations of the banking profession comes at the hands of 'Alex' in the Telegraph.

Like 'Yes, (Prime) Minister' it used to seem an amusing fiction.

Other than our cheery PM (Hor! Another bank's gorn t*ts up on my watch... hor!) and his media 'Village people' cheeryleaders who dote on his every sprinkle of fairy dust (Look... the new cut of the jib, the quality of the cloth, the deftness of the riposte... the steeliness of the eye glint..), I am unsure who is still laughing, mind.

Feel free to mention that next time he swings by to be interviewed... oh, yeah, right. It's just US aspiring VPs who we take to task for not doing that.

Indy - Leading article: A clarification -

Imagine if it was not off the cuff, but staged?

Here's one...

Qu: 'What's the difference between the current UK government and too many in the media establishment divorced from the real world?'

Ans: 'Nothing!'

No, it's not funny either.