Eton College - aka thec***factory.com?

Made me giggle anyway.

Click Image for Larger/Ruder Version
Perhaps someone should register thebollockscloset.com and redirect it to Nottingham High School.

Note: Submitted via email with no explanation as to what was being searched for when it was found.

A perfect storm or a light shower?

So today is crunch day for the BA strike. Some think it will be called off at the last minute. If it is, then you can guarantee that Gordon Brown, who as we all remember, "saved the world" will try to claim credit for it whatever his role may be.

The problem is, he has another strike looming too, the RMT and there nutty Trotsykite leadership are now threatening a total national strike that will halt the railways completely for the first time in 16 years.

From the frying into the fire?

The thing is, what will be the impact if the BA strike doesn't get called off and then the RMT take out the national railways over Easter too? It is, to use the cliche a "perfect storm". Total travel chaos bringing Britain to a halt. What would the gridlock knock-on effect on the roads.

Of course it could all just turn into a light drizzly shower, but if the Unions continue to flex their muscles, can Gordon Brown - the man who leads a party totally reliant on Union funding* for it's financial survival - credibly face them down?

* Whilst the RMT is not like Unite in terms of Labour funding, its the word "unions" that will chime with people and "guilt by association" as it were.

Labour unveils its radical new strategy

According to Douglas Alexander, at the heart of the Labour strategy for the election is going to be word of mouth. This stems from the idea that we live in a networked world now so your message spreads through these networks. You see, back at the last election, coffee morning's didn't exist. Nor did social clubs, or sports clubs.

Labour have realised that now we are no longer sat on our sofas being drip-fed food and drugs like we were in 2005, they can use the "word of mouth" strategy to win the election. The plan is to take advantage of a new medium called "language" and something researchers have called "meeting people" in the hope those using the new technology will not talk about who Ashley Cole is currently shagging.

The strategy has also been noted to have a useful side-effect known as the "chinese whisper" theory. This is where the message can be put out as "we'll give you lots of free stuff unlike the Tories" and by the time it has spread it has quite rightly become "the Tories are going to buttfuck you senseless, murder your family, and take your free stuff away...shhhhhh vote labour".

The secret weapon in the "word of mouth" strategy will be Gordon Brown, who will be visiting "ordinary" voters that are pillars in the community. They will visit their local Post Office - assuming it is still open - and tell at least ten of the people collecting their non-earnings linked pension how brilliant he was and how "you really didn't feel like the glass eye was looking elsewhere".

Each of those ten will tell another ten people, and they'll tell another ten people and so on and on and on and on towards ultimate victory. This is known as the "pyramid dimension" of the "word of mouth" strategy.

As you can see this really is a radical new approach to politics that has never been seen before and it will tap into the power of "talking" that has been so lacking at all previous elections.

This is truly a brave new world in which we live and not a pseudo-intellectual theory inspired by dodgy illegal selling practices.

Insane Telegraph headline of the Day

Inspired purely by the completely absurd story on the front page of the Telegraph this morning, which Tim Montgomerie over at ConservativeHome has summed up particularly well.

However, I can't help but wonder, now that the paper is going down the Sunday Sport route of journalism, how long it will be before we get something like this from the supposedly "serious" newspaper?

Note: The Telegraph and its owners, do not have a vendetta against Nadine Dorries. Headlines with no evidence to back them up in the article are just par for the course and not in the least bit personal. Absolutely not. 100% no. They lubs her don't you know!

Why is Gordon so secretive about his website?

Do people remember, back in the summer of 2008, when Downing Street launched a new redesigned website? At the time there were rumours about how much it had cost, but the figure has never been officially known.

Not that people haven't tried to find out of course.

Just like the Downing Street Gift Shop, question after question has been asked in Parliament to try and find out exactly how much of our money was spent on the redesign, and time after time there is a complete refusal to tell anyone the answer. Occasionally they even mislead Parliament and say things like,

"The cost of the Prime Minister's website redesign was met from the running costs of the Digital Communications Unit. It is not possible to separate out the specific costs associated with the redesign."

I call this misleading because in response to a Freedom of Information request last week, the Cabinet Office admitted that they do hold information on how much it cost, which kind of contradicts the ministerial response above.

However - sadly - even Freedom of Information hasn't worked in finding out the answer. Downing Street refuses to disclose how much the redesign of website was, and the reason? They say it is in the public interest but would be commercially prejudicial and inhibit their ability to tender for contracts in the future. Before you ask, yes, an internal review has been requested - although no one has yet bothered to acknowledge it*. I've pointed out to them that other departments are not so coy about disclosing how much their website redesigns cost the public purse.

Frankly, the failure to disclose the information says more about the culture of secrecy in Number 10 than it does about Gordon Brown's professed desire to provide open and transparent information on public spending - not a surprise really given Gordon Brown had to admit yesterday that he'd been misleading people about the Defence budget for years.

However, should anyone from the Cabinet Office's Freedom of Information team be reading this - yes Yasmine I mean you - I thought I would give you some links to where the rest of Government is transparent whilst you are secretive. Just to help you out as it were!

Incidentally, these are also the links I'll be sending to the Information Commissioner should you continue to refuse the disclosure of what is in the public interest (as you have acknowledged).

Open and Transparent Departments on website redesign costs:

• Wales Office
• Scotland Office
• Northern Ireland Office
• Solicitor General
• Ministry of Justice
• Ministry of Defence
• Department for International Development
• Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (now defunct)
• Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
• Department for Energy and Climate Change
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• Department of Health (also here)
• Department for Children, Schools and Families
• Women and Equalities Office
• Leader of the Commons Office
• Department for Transport (also here)
• Department for Culture, Media and Sports
• HM Treasury
• Home Office
• Department for Communities and Local Government
• Cabinet Office (some of it)
• Department for Work and Pensions

Closed and Secretive Departments on website redesign costs:

• Number 10 Downing Street

I guess if they don't respond I shall have to hope for a change of Government on election night. At least then there might be an open attitude to the truth when it comes to public spending.

*Update:* Approximately 2.5 hours after this post was published I received acknowledgement of the request for an internal review.

Caption Competition

Lorry driver fail to spot car stuck to his lorry?

Have just spoken to Arclid Transport about this video that's appeared on YouTube. The guy refused to pass any further comment other than as far he knew it's genuine and isn't some sort of crazy viral.

Incredible huh? Apparently filmed on the A1.

Hat Tip: Arbroath Blog

Labour party worker talks about the #changewesee

What a brilliant admission of failure!

Ironically I found this just after reading this from Martin Salter MP. How right he is/was.

Bloody media coverage... by the way, have you read my book?

Alsitair Campebll, who's blog is really annoying in that it doesn't do permanent links to posts, has written a post this morning complaining that the BBC didn't cover Michael Foot's funeral and instead reported the David Beckham Achilles story and Kate Winslet's separation. Campbell poses the question, "Is Kate Winslet's split more important than Michael Foot's funeral?".

Now personally speaking, I'd say the answer is yes, it is more important because the vast majority of the great British public is not particularly interested in the funeral of a politician who never actually made it. The same will be true for the funerals of many other UK political leaders who didn't make it. The death will be reported, but the funeral will remain a private affair.

Sorry, you might not like it..... but it's the truth.

Of course, one might have a little more sympathy for Campbell's complaints if he hadn't found the space to promote his latest fictional novel when making his argument. It was I must say, delicious to see a post that started terribly serious and sombre to then suddenly see the whole thing turn into an "in my novel" bit of self-promotion.

Classy!

Labour Twitter Engagement Tsar says 'leave me alone proles'

Bless!