Iranian Dance Troupe

Stick with it for the three and bit minutes. It gets quite surreal when the Islamic sword formation in the colours of the Iranian flag strikes through the Star of David and the US flag formation with a swastika in it. Apparently the music is from St Trinians - oh how I laughed at that one!

Hat Tip: Anorak

Nadine Dorries: Traitor

As published on her blog last night, Nadine Dorries MP has said that the Select Committee that was investigating possible changes to the abortion limits was "hi-jacked by those who have powerful financial vested interests in the abortion industry."

Pretty serious accusations - I didn't even know that we had an "abortion industry" so to speak in this country - it makes it sound like a production line with lots of knitting needles.

However, these accusations pale in insignificance for me compared to something I have just learned from reading Nadine's maiden speech to Parliament. It seems that her grandfather was a founder of Everton FC and she is a Liverpool fan. Blood traitor.

Not so steely morals

Should anyone wish to see a shining example of the stunning moral relativism of the Left today then hop over to the Independent's website and read the commentary by lefty comedian Mark Steel. It begins by slating the appalling human rights record of Saudi Arabia and its treatment of women, then in the second half it attacks the West for its belliscosity towards Iran whilst failing to mention her appaling human rights record and its treatment of women.

Iran you see is merely a victim of Western aggression thus outweighing its own record for torture, public executions, use of chemcial weapons in the war with Iraq, subjugationm of women etc etc. Those issues only matter in relation to Britain's poorly chosen allies you see. The so-called universalism of the fashionable Left's values (for not all of them are like this) is laid bare by the sheer contradiction of the argument Steel makes. You can also bet that if the West or Israel suddenly decided to be belliscose towards Saudi then they'd become instant victims of Western imperialism overnight and the human rights record wouldn't matter anymore. That is how it works you see.

You never have a camera when you want one

It is typical that I should get a flashy new camera-less mobile phone that allows me to blog easily and then see something that would make a perfect picture for the blog. As such I shall simply describe that which tickled me greatly when I arrived at North Greenwich station this evening, a place that also happens to be the home of the Dome/O2 arena.

In the main concourse of the station hangs advertising for the O2 reminding you where you are. It's huge in fact, and the place is always full of people arriving for events. There is also a WH Smith with an Evening Standard board outside. Tonight's screaming headline? 'O2 ARENA POISION GAS ALERT'. Just what you need as you head into the giant white tent huh?

Livingstone the hypocrite strikes again

I shall try my hardest to use temperate language but who the hell does the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone think he is to complain about Saudi hypocrisy on terrorism and suggest it's a 'bit rich' for them to comment?

After all this is the man who cares about London so much that during the period when the IRA was bombing it he shared a platform with and praised known IRA terrorists. In more recent years he has shared a stage with and called a loopy Islamist cleric that wants to kill homosexuals, a 'moderate'.

What is actually 'rich' is Livingstone thinking he has any moral credibility to oppose Saudi when he has made no bones about actively courting the sort of people he says the Saudi's fund. Frankly both of them are taking the piss to think they have the credibility to talk about fighting Islamist insanity.

Rubbish tax pilots go ahead

Well just look at that! Apparently rubbish charge pilots are going ahead. Less than a week after it was reported that Gordon Brown had 'bravely' intervened to stop it happening and it's... errr... happening. I did say it was a 360 degree spin at the time mind.

Eric Pickles told the BBC that "[t]his is a policy, remember, which was on the cards last week, then stopped by the prime minister at the end of the week, now back on again." It was never off though as the Government made clear on the same day it was supposedly vetoed by Brown.

Whatever could he mean?

Whatever could Guido be getting at here with that picture? Can't possibly imagine, although strangely the picture makes me think of a Thorntons' advert for some reason.
Now you must excuse me, there is a Thomas the Tank Engine toy peeping and tooting behind me and I must attend to it.

Reading between the lines

Sometimes it's not the content of Parliamentary reports that spark a reaction from me but the title. Take this one titled, "Helping newly registered businesses meet their tax obligations".

You have to admire the way they've titled it in a way to imply they're doing people a favour, rather than being honest and calling it, "How to ensure we get our pound of flesh".

I didn't realise David Aaronovitch was a gardener

There is an interesting piece in this morning's Times by the commentator David Aaronovitch on the West Lothain Question. He says,

The snag is that the idea of fairness suggested by the West Lothian Question is essentially childish. It was a big, big problem that a House of Commons in which English MPs outnumbered Scottish ones by eight to one (it is now ten to one) could decide all domestic policies for Scotland. It is not, under almost all foreseeable circumstances, a comparably big problem that 59 Scottish MPs might vote on English matters, given that there are 533 English MPs. The English cannot be outvoted by the Scots, period.

Sounds all so plausible doesn't it? But notice the hedge in the middle of it? No? look right there, it says "almost all foreseeable circumstances". A classic rhetorical device to protect against the "forseeable circumstance" that the hedge itself concedes he knows exists. What could it be?

It couldn't possibly be the fact that whilst the total number of Scottish MPs cannot out vote the total English ones, there can, have and no doubt will be future incidents where the Government passes legislation affesting England where it is the Scottish MPs votes which carry it into law, could it?

Mr Aaronovitch Sir, I tip my hat to a marvelllous piece of hedging work in your English country garden. You managed to cut it just short enough to allow others to see over the top.

We don't need limits

Just thought I would link back to my post titled What immigration problem? As one of the bloggers who simply spout out the Conservative Party press releases I thought it worth noting that I don't think we need limits on immigration. I do however agree that we need to sort out the idiotic benefit system that creates a marketplace that sees Brits sitting on their arses not taking jobs that can only therefore be serviced by economic migrants.

Oh my God how incredibly embarassing!

What a pleasure, Bob Piper has linked to me saying I am a "fearless investigator of dodgy dealings in public life". Slight problem, I'm actually just an IT geek who is also a card-carrying Tory with a habit - unhealthy some might say - of writing about politics and attacking the Government. However just to keep him happy I will post about it as the whole point he seems to have been making is that Tory bloggers don't write about Tories.

So, for anyone reading this who hasn't already read Guido's post on the subject, apparently a load of Tory MPs have entered in the Register of Members Interests (over a period of time) flights to places that have been paid for by a company called Flying Lion which is apparently registered in Bermuda but controlled by Lord Ashcroft.

Apparently there is something "whiffy" about these publicly made entries on the Register, because the company Flying Lion is not registered in the UK. However, the rules in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 states that MPs can accept donations from foreign people or organisations if the purpose of the donation is to pay for the travel costs. The travel costs registered are to be calculated based on commercial rates too.

So... errmm... I'm not sure what the problem is exactly. Interestingly Bob Piper also noted that I (and others) might "maintain an embarrassed silence" about the 'sordid' affair. Precisely why I should be embarrassed that some MPs accepted a legitimate donation from a company controlled by a senior Tory peer in terms of travel costs and then registered it as per the rule is beyond me.

But hey ho! No doubt my relaxed and confused attitude to it all will merely reinforce the view that I am playing something down or refusing to investigate a errr.... "Flights for Gifts" scandal because I'm a partisan. Such is life!

How odd.....

Ahh the M25 junction 5, how I love it! Still this travelling means I can listen to Today and shout at the radio. This morning's bizarre argument came from the acting Lib Dem leader Vince Cable about the visit of King Abdullah from Saudi Arabia. Cable lambasted the Saudi regime for its gross dictatorship and general nastiness which was absolutely right of course but the proceeded to say that what should be upheld is the rule of law in relation to corruption allegations and BAE upon which the serious fraud investigation was halted.

The bizarre part of the argument for me comes in this notion of the rule of law, for it was the rule of law upon which the Lib Dems opposed the overthrow of a totalitarian secretive vicious regime in Iraq. Call me a neocon if you must but how exactly can one oppose a regime in strong moral terms and the equally stand by and say that the same moral argument does not apply to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The positions seem entirely contradictory to me.

Surely one can either oppose all forms of nastiness and human oppression by dictatorship or you don't, otherwise the claim for the moral highground looks weak? The position of the Lib Dems, and others for that matter seems to be that dictatorship is bad unless we might be breaking the law in which case sod the poor bastards having their toenails extracted by the people we denounce. These are strange times it seems.

Now I really am going to a meeting.

All day meeting again.....

No more blogging from me today which is why the last post was so long. I shall be in a meeting all day "off-site".

The rise of the faux professional

What a strange year it has been thus far for blogs (or "weblogs" if you're old skool (or insist on pretending to be)). What was a niche publishing medium has become totally mainstream in terms of awareness and the result has been lots of talks about controlling the medium. It all started early in the year amongst UK political blogs when, as many will know, there was what got called a "blog war" between high profile right and left wing blogs with a spillover discussion to others. The spill over debate was that the instinctively Net-authoritarian Left decided that there should be some sort of rules and regulations to stop what they considered to be propaganda and/or disingenuous statements being published by others.

This was a truly bizarre development in my view mainly because those that started to call for such rules were, in many cases, people who had been around for sometime and walked the boards on IRC and Usenet before the Net became as mainstream as it is today. All of a sudden these people that never had a problem with the medium being free from legislative and regulatory control felt that it needed to be tamed. Such about turns struck me as so odd that the only explanation I could really make for it was that all of sudden some people felt the space they had occupied for so long and gained a 'profile' in was being squeezed. What better way to halt its continued and rapid expansion than to make proposals on how to control the medium in your favour?

After all, given how technology had provided the means for everyone and anyone to publish with limited technical skills; and given the expansion of Internet access, it stood to reason that there would be those in their Ivory Towers of Net-analism that would dislike the freedom and potential power of so many newbies. Throw into the mix - certainly in the UK - that the majority of the country is not a member of the "soft-liberal nihilstic Guardian class Left", and is it any wonder that that class (online at least) would recoil in disgust and scream out for some sort of regulation and control? Freedom and liberty to say what you like, when you like, and how you like is a dangerous thing to those that would like to avoid seeing their once dominant views being ever more marginalised by the masses of individuality that the Net creates.

Sadly these calls for regulation were then helped along by "web guru" Tim O'Reilly who, in March 2007, published on his blog a call for a Bloggers Code of Conduct. This was seized upon by some as vindication for their own arguments. A week later, O'Reilly published a draft of the code and the argument appeared to be gaining momentum as those that wanted to restrict how and what people chose to say on their personal websites became more vocal. By April however, O'Reilly had backtracked from the idea altogether saying that "the call for a code of conduct was a bit misguided." Sadly those seeking such things (especially in the UK) didn't report this development. This is hardly a surprise of course as it didn't serve their purpose to let their readers know that the man they were praising (whilst equally being openly smug about their own prescience) had decided the idea was not a sensible one.

Strangely this was pretty much the last anyone heard of a "Bloggers Code of Conduct" argument in the UK. All of sudden the issue went off the radar as quickly as it had arisen. What it showed, yet again, was that the Net produces the perfect flash in the pan fads. All it takes is for someone with a relatively reasonable amount of traffic (a few thousand a day) to say something, and for that to be linked and suddenly the idea rolls away with itself like a snowball. But just like the snowball, when the sun comes out it starts to melt. The difference on the Internet is that the sun kicks out the sort of heat equivalent to the planet Mercury. The snow didn't just slowly melt it disintegrated just as quickly as it had previously grown.

This doesn't of course mean that the Net-authoritarians have gone away, or that their argument that online publishing should be regulated through an official code of conduct has gone either. I'm sure they will keep pushing the case for restricting the liberty of individuals to say what they like, how they like. Ironically though they will also be the first to scream about freedom of speech if they think their liberty has been breached. Doublethink and authoritarianism go hand in hand after all. But what is worth remembering is that far from it being a high-minded principled stand it was, in actuality and irony, all about class - albeit online class.

You see, online there are two classes of people. There's the old hat, and then there is the newbie (or n00b). The call for a Code of Conduct was not really about conduct at all. It was little more than a collective scream by the old hat authoritarians that felt the arena was theirs of "get lost n00b!" as loud as they possibly could. It is ironic therefore that in a time when the blogging phenomena has often been coined as the "rise of the amateur" that the original amateurs should turn head and start to attack the new amateurs for their lack of professionalism.

Even more ironic was that whilst they did this they claimed that it was about protecting the medium's power to engage people in debate. The inherent contradiction of praising the power of the Internet's power of engagement whilst simultaneously calling for that engagement to be controlled along lines that were to be dictated by them was of course lost of them. Which brings us up to today of course. The snobbery and patronising idea of a code of conduct for newbies has died a death for now, but we should remember this when it rears it ugly head again.

If early adopters of the Net and blogs have a lock on how things develop, why should that not be applied to other things as well? For example, why should women vote give they didn't originally? Why should immigrants have a say on things given that they were not there when Birmingham or Leicester were originally built etc etc? The problem with the newbie haters argument is - when placed in these terms - clear for all to see. We wouldn't go down that line in the real world and it should be resisted in the virtual one just as strongly, especially when it's driven by not the amateur but the faux professional.

That'll teach him

Bet of the Day

Who wants to place a bet that if, and I'd rather it didn't happen, but if there is military action against Iran over the matter of nuclear weapons, that the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) will be opposed to the action. Not should I say that I'm suggesting that CND are in anyway nihilistic or inconsistent you understand.

The "I didn't read it" defence

It seems that the Culture Secretary James Purnell is in a spot of bother this morning. Having managed to ride his way through the fake photo row where he was photochopped into a group photo it has resurfaced this morning after the Sunday Telegraph obtained copies of emails casting further doubt on his original statements saying he had no idea doctored photos had been produced and he would never have agreed to it if he did.


In an an email dated July 24th the Chief Executive of the hospital said, "Dear James, Thank you for attending on Friday. I am pleased we were able to catch the photographer so that he could 'drop you into the photographs'." This was almost two months before the story broke. She even then sent him a copy of the doctored photo about two weeks before the news of it emerged.

Unsurprisingly, Purnell has said that these emails were received by his constituency office but he was not informed of them until September 24th by which time everyone was talking about it. Now, in fairness I think that it's plausible for the emails sent a week or so before the news appeared.

However, for me at least, that plausibility is not quite as strong on the matter of the email sent in July which is pretty explicit about what is going on. Although I admit I am judging the minister by my standards on reading email and I guess he might have people to read it for him. In which case he should fire whoever failed to spot a nightmare of a story.

Zebra crossing reinforces a truism

It appears the Oliver Letwin's mind has boggled upon discovering that the cost of a Zebra-crossing is £114,000. Personally it doesn't surprise me one bit, but then I read Hansard so much these days that insane figures for things that should not cost as much as they do is par for the course.

Apparently the Zebra-crossing cost is "made up of £11,000 for designing each crossing, despite their apparent similarity, £16,000 for the equipment and £87,000 for the labour". The breakdown of figures certainly reinforces a truism. It's always labour that stings you!

Why people hate traffic wardens

Is it any wonder that people hate traffic wardens so much when they do something like this? I mean, seriously, ticketing an entire funeral cortege whilst they loaded the coffin and wreaths? Jesus wept.

Some of those arguments about Iran

I don't do foreign policy much I have to admit, but having forced myself to sit through Question Time the other night and listen not just to the pro-Saddam, pro-Stalin, pro-Castro George Galloway, but also some wet Oxford professor making the weakest arguments ever about Iran I thought I would do a bit now.

1: "Iran only wants nuclear civil energy" - So let's get this straight, the country with the second largest conventional crude oil reserves in the world (133 gigabarrels) just wants nuclear energy does it? Pull the other one.

2: "Iran is not making a bomb and doesn't have the material to do so" - OK, let's assume that it is just civil nuclear energy. That would mean a reactor enriching energy from Uranium-238 (not weapons grade like U-235) which produces as a by-product Plutonium-239 (very much weapons grade). They may not have the nuclear material for a warhead at the moment, nuclear "civil" energy will give them it though.

3: "IAEA has found no evidence of bomb making facilties" - Well first of all, just because you cannot find something it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. However, far more important is the fact that nuclear energy will provide the means to produce weapons grade nuclear material. Iran already has conventional mid-range missiles which, in an ever so Soviet way, they have paraded in the streets, it is just a matter of developing the means to change the payload.

4: "Is it a surprise Iran might want nuclear weapons when it looks at what America did to Iraq. She has a right to defend herself" - Well apparently she hasn't got nuclear weapons and doesn't want them according the previous argument rolled out. I guess this is a hedging argument just in case the earlier ones proves to be wrong. But let's think about this for a second, how will having a mid-range nuclear weapon defend Iran against America? They'd need ICBMs which they don't have. No, this is not about defending themselves against America, this about threatening US allies, like the only democracy in the region, Israel. When Iran talks about it's right to defend itself from America she is actually referring to an intent to use Israel as a proxy attack on the US. The Iranian President has after all made his feeling about Israel's mere existence quite clear.

5: "Tough sanctions on Iran merely play into the hand of hardliners" - And the other option is to do what? Just sit back and allow the "civil" energy enrichment of U-238 and hope that they're just responsible with P-239 they produce as a result. If the argument concedes the existence of "hardliners" then it must equally concede that letting the very same people produce weaponised material as a by-product of a "civil programme" (that they evidently do not need), would be universally stupid and definitely not in the interests of the region that they have expressed great desire to dominate. We tried the "do nothing" diplomatic and platitude promises route once before in North Korea. Did it work?

6: "Why should the US et al be allowed nuclear weapons but not Iran?" - This argument is based quite bizarrely upon the assumption that proliferation is better than non-proliferation. Now besides the argument being self-evidently nuts, what is more nuts is that it comes from people that in principle are opposed to nuclear weapons. It is horribly self-contradictory and is reminiscent of the Douglas Hurd line about creating a "level killing field". Nuclear weapons are not good, but the fact remains that some nations by virtue of history, and others by virtue of us looking in another direction during the late 20th Century have them. The reason they have them is because of power politics which have existed consistently and continue to exist. Put simply it is not in anyone's interest for there to be more nuclear nations wherever possible. Disarmament of already existing stockpiles is wishful thinking, but stopping the stockpiles increasing is something that can and should be achieved wherever the possibility arises.

7: "This is just more Western Imperialism by the American Empire" - Yes, because the West have installed a Raj and has colonised Iraq, disenfranchised it's local population and rules with an iron fist. That's not to say that America is not an "Empire" it most certainly is. It's biggest problem is that it is in self-denial about that reality. This whole argument is based upon the silly hegemon theses though that assume that the hegemonic power is always a bad thing and we just need to get rid of it for the world to be a better place. Let's not be under any illusion here, if America wasn't the single global power there would be someone else, the options are Russia (Mafia style Oligarch Capitalism) or China (Communist control of the media and population). The idealistic world where we all have a group hug might sound nice, but as ever with the arguments of the Left it negates human nature and totally misunderstands the reality of power politics.

8: "Well it's all about oil again!" - I'm being disingenuous here because I am yet to hear this argument to be honest, but I don't doubt that as the hypocritical anti-war Left continues to shout louder it is only a matter of time before it appears again. If it were true - and it isn't - but if it were true that this was all the US just wanting to grab oil I would put it like this. What is the least worst option in terms of oil ownership? A nation that hold free elections in two year cycles with a free media and scrutiny, or a theocratic nation that holds questionable elections, subjugates women and actively seeks to remove the existence of it's neighbours and talks about militarily dominating her sphere of influence? Like I say though, the "oil grab" argument simply isn't true, but it is an easy argument to accept if one wishes to be intellectually lazy.

Do we really want "child-friendly" prison visits?

I expect this will not necessarily work in the minds of some people, but yestedray Mark Oaten asked a question about something that seems nonsensical to me and exactly the opposite of what you want to do. He asked the Ministry of Justice "how many prisons in England and Wales participate in child-friendly visit schemes."

Now surely the last thing you want for an impressionable young mind is to make a visit to a prison be "friendly"? If someone takes a child along to see Daddy (or Mummy) do you really want them coming away thinking "well that was a nice place"? Surely you want them to come away thinking "I never want to go there"? So actually, they should be pretty "child-unfriendly" really?

Is he "just like you"?

So yesterday the expenses of MPs were published. A yearly ritual where we find out who is good and who is bad with our money. Who is spendthrift and who is a fat politician that takes the mick with our money providing very little value in return. Take for example, the West Midlands MP, Sion Simon who as you may recall derided David Cameron for trying to be just like you. Is Sion Simon just like you though?

Last year, he claimed £14,176 for rail expenses. OK you may say, but he lives in Birmingham so he has to catch the train a lot right? Well let's see shall we. He claims the full £22,000 a year allowance for staying away from his constituency. And how much does it cost to get to his constituency anyway? Well you can get there for as little as £4. Even at peak times the cost of a Virgin direct train is only around £50 return. Travelling home every weekend for his constituency surgery over a 52 week year could only cost a maximum of about £3000.

Does he go back every weekend for surgery though? No he does not. This MP cares so much about his constituents that he only has seven surgeries a year. Yes honestly, seven. So what's that in rail fares? £350 maximum? Even if he made the journey in every one of the 38 weeks that Parliament sits his rail travel would only cost about £2,000. Perhaps he's travelling first class though? That would be about £69 return taking the total rail cost to around £5,000.

There seems to be somewhere around £10,000 that just doesn't add up doesn't there? After all is an MP that claims £22,000 a year to live in London seriously trying to tell us that his surgeries that are little over 100 miles away cost him £2000 each time he goes to one? One thing is for sure, Sion Simon is most defintely not "just like you".

Dutch Government beaten into submission?

James Forsyth over the Coffee House blog has drawn attention to an Early Day Motion tabled by Paul Goodman and Michael Gove which states,

"This House, recognising that freedom of speech within the law and freedom from violence and intimidation are indispensable preconditions of a free society, deeply regrets the decision of the Dutch Parliament and Government to withdraw protection abroad from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the author, film-maker and former politician, and urges both bodies to reverse this decision forthwith."

Whilst the motion may not in itself carry masses of weight the point being made is a very important one. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the screenplay writer of the Theo van Gogh directed film Submission.

Theo van Gogh was murdered in the street by an Islamist because of the film, and since then Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been given protection by the Dutch Government as well. At least she has until now. Submission caused quite a storm when it was released as it not only led to the butchering of a man but it tackled head-on the misogny and anti-women bent that exists within significant parts of Islamic cultures. It also did a good job of showing up much of the soft liberal-left as tacit ignorers of the worst possible things on the grounds of cultural relativism, but that is a side issue really.

The fact that the Dutch Government has decided to withdraw their protection of Ayaan Hirsi Alin is a sad day for liberty, especially in the supposedly liberal society of Europe. Tackling the subjugation of women is no longer allowed in Holland it seems. One would hope that the British Government tells her she come here and enjoy protection from the loonies that don't like it up'em.

We're doomed!

I note that once again this morning we're all doomed. This is the view of a report that the UN has published by almost 400 of the great and good minds of science. As you'd expect the Indy has splashed it on the front page saying it's not just another environmental scare story (by implication suggesting the others it has run have been?), whilst the Times too makex it front page news and double-page inside coverage.

Amusingly the quotes from the report that have been used don't actually paint the picture of doom in quite such certain terms. They're all hedged. They say we 'may' pass on a bill to our children, or my personal favourite, that we must act now to 'avoid the threat of catastrophic consequences'. So that's not action to avoid catastrophy, but action to avoid the maybe/possibility of catastrophy. That's a bit like me saying that to avoid the threat of being conscripted in any possible future war I should cut off my arms and legs. Now there's a global policy to stop war if ever there was one. Amputation at birth to protect the children of the future from the horrors of land war!

The reporting also plays to the weakest of fallacious argument to bolster the importance and 'rightness' of the UN report. We are told that the top scientists in their field produced it. The subtle appeal to authority is clear. These people are experts therefore what they say must be accepted as right. Now I am not saying they are not right, but the appeal to their position in the body of knowledge is not what makes them right. The Science Editor of the Times however has based part of his commentary on such an appeal.

He argues that this is not just another agenda driven report from a green pressure group, but is instead a sound scientific one that operates by consensus and strict peer review. A group of 'top scientists' getting together and deciding that they share the same view does not however make their view correct. It is a cliche I know, but hundreds of years ago the experts all agreed the sun went around a flat earth. To base an argument on the fact that there is consensus and to claim that it is science is not science at all but a conflation with collective group think.

If you then throw into the mix a bit of politics it becomes clear from reading the excerpts of the report that this is not something free of value judgments. The end game of the report is the developed world is a nasty consumer whilst it allowed the developing world to lag behind with environmental consequence. The master/slave Hegelian world view, along with its Marxian extension based on exploitation and production shines through like the sun on our supposedly doomed planet. The idea that the report is agenda-free is - frankly - risible.

Again though I am not saying that the scientific knowledge that has formed the basis of such hedged predictions and clearly ideological recommendations is by necessity wrong. What is wrong is the way it is being presented to us. The hedged predicitons have become unhedged apocalypse. We're asked to accept it because the people involved simply know more than we do and they all agree with each other don't you know (some might call that a mob). And last but not least we're expected to ignore the ideological politics that run through its recommendations thanks to the appeal to fear about saving humanity from a fate equal to death.

Former Labour MP deselected by text message

Apparently the former Labour MP for Northampton South, Tony Clarke, discovered the Labour Party was firing him as a councillor "on the morning of the nominations by text message without any explanation what so ever".

This has caused a storm on LabourHome with accusations of censorship flying around, as well as people saying that Northampton is "an absolute hell hole" full of people or are either "inbred or dinosaurs". I can't comment on the latter, but the former is unfair because it's not as bad as Newham.

For more details check out Mike Rouse's blog.

Update: Post has been amended due to my poor reading comprehension of the original tale.

Lib Dem calls Tory by mistake and outlines his secret plans

This has to be quite possibly the funniest thing I have read all day. Apparently, a Lib Dem councillor in Hexham called Derek Kennedy (pictured) meant to call his colleague Dougie Watkin but instead called the leader of the Tories on Tynedale Council, Michael Walton and left the following answerphone message.

"Dougie it’s Derek. I’ve been having a think about this, you know, this retention of payments allowance thing at Tynedale. I was thinking because if this gets out it’s obvious all the officers and other districts are going to do the same.

Should we put a motion in at county hall saying we don’t want any recruitment allowances in Northumberland County Council because we recognise that it would be divisive for other staff? And obviously the current status, Tynedale, at Northumberland County Council’s £230m of debt that we shouldn’t pay any such allowances."

"I think if we dress it properly it, you know it’ll make it as though we’re protecting the staff as opposed to giving the officers a big, bloody big pay out. Give us a ring, tell us what you think. Cheers now, tada."

Whoops! Guess he needs to read that mobile phone manual again. Is this what Clegg means by going beyond their comfort zone?

Sir Ian Blair has 'full support' of the MPA

Apparently, the Metropolitan Police Authority says that the Commissioner Sir Iain Blair has their 'full support'.

"The MPA fully supports the Commissioner and his management team and urges that they continue to work to the Authority's strategic reform agenda, which is already delivering real benefits to Londoners.

"The Authority met in private session with the Commissioner and the Deputy at the Full Authority meeting today, to discuss issues that had arisen in the media over the past few days. There was overwhelming support for the Commissioner. No one moved a vote of no confidence.

In today's world he must be worrying slightly more now huh? When they give you their full support you know the time is nearly over. Will he be in the position after the bonus is decided?

Two Observations on the California wildfires

1. That's Arnie's green carbon emission targets screwed then.
2. Watching the CNN ticket earlier it said "BREAKING NEWS: California still burning". I expect soon it will be "BREAKING NEWS: President Kennedy still dead"

Gordon's Aussie counterpart prefers earwax to bogey?

Update: Apparently the "worm" is reference to some sort of tv popularity polling tool they use in the live debates. Original ear wax eating footgage is here

Update II: Appears the original footage was on Play Politcal last week.

Labour does 360 degree spin on bin tax

Reports this morning have all said that the Government, after the intervention of Gordon Brown, has dropped the idea of a "bin tax" on the amount of refuse people keep create. Meanwhile, DEFRA has said that the reports are absolute nonsense saying, "[i]t is pure hysteria and nonsense coming from somewhere and we are going to unveil the scheme to MP’s when we feel ready to."

Then this lunchtime, the Government publishes its response to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee on the matter of refuse collections and charging seemingly saying that the scheme is alive and well but there will give the power to Local Authorities to implement it, rather than impose it on them as a duty.

So let's see. They were for it, then they were against it, then they were for it again in the sapce of 24 hours? I think not! There has been no cave in from the Government, they've just spun the story to make it look like Brown scrapped it when in fact it's just been tweaked so the Government has plausible denial over who decides who pays.

Interesting too that the news in today's papers should come on the same day that the Goevrnment should respond to the Communities and Local Government Select Committee indicating that the scheme was anything but scrapped. News management at its most shamelessly transparent?

Our Bobby Chatroom?

Oh dear I'm such a reactionary old cynic this morning. Have just learned about a new initiative by the Welsh Police Constabulary called Our Bobby which has a chat room facility to let people talk directly to their local bobbies.

I'm sure it's well intentioned but all I could think was "so it is now official policy to have local police officers sitting on their arses at a keyboard discussing crime in a virtual space with Hot_Lips44 and Froggy"?

The archive chat is very amusing though, mostly just bland statements about how crime is actually down in response to people saying "why don't you do something about X". Wonder what the budget for the whole thing was?

Can someone tell me what he did?

Why does everyone want to ban the UN Secretary General from places? Seriously, I see press releases every day that start "Ban Ki-Moon" and I find myself wondering if there is actually anywhere left that this poor man can actually go without being refused entry?

P.S. Bill Posters is innocent too!

Roaming charges scandal hits Labour

This morning's Times carries a rather worrying report about how the Labour Party appears to have conspired with the mobile phone operators in the UK over roaming charges. Purely as an aside and point of interest, Gordon Brown's PPS, Iain Austin MP, sponsors a Commons "secretary/researcher pass" for an employee from Orange.

The Vol au Vent League Table, 2006-07

UPDATED: A new entry at number 4! Communities and Local Government and other departments.

UPDATED: The Home Office leaps into 7th.

UPDATED: Some new entires it seems. The Scottish Office enters the Top Ten. Meanwhile the Treasury leaps in to fifth just edging another new entry, the DWP into sixth.

UPDATED: A new entry in third, DEFRA, the figure is the centrally held information relating to the "core-Department's expenditure".

Should anyone ever have wondered how much Government departments spend on hospitality here is a little league table of current spending for the 2006-07 season. Unfortunately it is not complete but hopefully I can update as more figures come to light.

1. Trade & Industry, £1,420,000
2. Foreign Office, £810,000
3. DEFRA, £309,634
4. Communties, £307,845
5. International Development, £238,000
6. HM Treasury, £197,000
7. Work and Pension, £188,000
   
8. Home Office, £94,044
9. Culture, Media & Sport £64,990
10. Constitutional Affairs, £43,804
11. Scottish Office, £23,410.69
12. Wales Office, £14,279.62
13. Leader of the Commons, £5,823
14. Ministry of Defence claimed they published at this dead link
15. Duchy of Lancaster We'll know in July

Clearly the place to be for nibbles is the DTI, whilst the Harriet Harman is the tight one.

Laws against clearing a blocked up nose?

I heard the strangest of tales last night about someone who had a cold and went to a major high street chemist. They tried to buy two packets of Lemsip over the counter and were told - in no uncertain terms - that they were not allowed to purchase two packets of decongestant analgesic because of the law.

Now there are certainly restrictions on the amount of analgesics (e.g. paracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen) that can exist in a pack. And some stores do have voluntary policy limits. But as far as I can tell there is no law that states you cannot buy more than X at any one time.

Quentin Letts writes on Wright

Whilst waiting for the plane this morning to bring me back to Blighty I managed to grab two English papers, the Daily Mail and the Independent. Shockingly poor I know but what can you do? Anyway, something did leap out at me in Quentin Letts report on Yates before the Select Committee on Cash for Peerages. Talking of Tony Wright MP, Letts reported that Wright said

"We know there's a trade in honours that goes on... But it goes on in covert ways. We said to you, "that's the way the world is". We knew you weren't gonna get anywhere."

I have not been able to corroborate these words against the uncorrected evidence, but as Letts notes this seem to say that the political Establishment view is "Yes, dodgy things have happened. But so what? We're politicians! How dare you apply the rule of law to us?"

Quite!

Nothing to see here....

Well, nothing to see for the next few hours anyway. Am off to Luxembourg in the morning and fly back on Wednesday morning. So unless the Novotel has wifi there will probably not be any blogging. No doubt I will miss some huge event, or worse someone will get annoyed because I've not blogged about some other event.

Update: Dale says "why don't I use the Blackberry phone thingy". Roaming 3G charges? It wouldn't make a difference during the day. I will be in a bunker. I may do a post out whilst at City airport.

Making a profit from wiretapping

Some interesting news from across the pond here. It seems that Comcast, one of America's largest telecommunications company has a handbook which outlines its charge rate to the Federal Government when requests for writetapping comes in under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Apparently Comcast charges $1000 for the initial wiretap and then a monthly charge of $750 to maintain it. Not a bad little profit. This got me wondering, do BT and the other Telco's charge the Government in the UK for wiretaps? Time to FoI the Home Office and ask, although I don't hold out hope of a reply.