Labour's record on employment (part1) - Half of new jobs are created by the state

The Times reports that:

"NEARLY three-fifths of the growth in jobs under Labour during a decade in power was directly or indirectly created by the state, new research shows.

Across the country as a whole, it says 57% of new jobs created during the period 1997-2007 were state or “para-state” — dependent on government spending .

In the West Midlands these jobs accounted for all of the rise in employment, with no new private sector jobs generated overall. More than 80% of new jobs for women nationally depended on the state.

The research, which was carried out at Manchester University’s Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, concludes that Britain’s business model before the financial crisis in 2007 was “undisclosed and unsustainable”.

“We more or less knew that finance had made a negligible contribution to employment,” said Professor Karel Williams, one of the report’s authors. “We were intellectually curious about the gap between the official figures on public sector employment and what we call the para-state.”

The researchers define para-state employment as activities such as rubbish collecting or nursery education which depend for revenue on government funding, together with parts of private healthcare and other sectors partly dependent on government support.

It includes consultants employed by central government and local authorities who are officially in the private sector but whose work would disappear if the public spending taps were turned off.

In all, the researchers calculate that of the 2.24m jobs created in Britain under new Labour until 2007, fewer than 1m were true private sector jobs, while 1.27m were in this wider public sector. In the West Midlands there was a net fall of nearly 37,000 in private sector jobs, offset by a 105,000 rise in state and para-state work. In the northeast, 79% of new jobs were state-dependent, compared with 41% in London and the southeast. "

This Labour government's record on increasing employment looks somewhat less than impressive when you realise that over half the jobs created were public sector (or similar) and a large proportion were filled by immigrants at the expense of British workers.

Some funny TV clips because I think we could all do with a laugh

A TV presenter very cool under pressure...



Tipping the news reporter...

"Kill the infidels" - brainwashing British children to fight for Allah

The BBC seem shocked by the video that shows:

"shows two children, aged about three and six, playing with a pistol and a Kalashnikov rifle.

Material seized separately included the advice: "No child is ever too young to be started off on Jihad training." "

Of course those of us familiar with the practices of Hamas in Gaza know that this sort of thing is par for the course amongst Islamic terrorists.

Here's some video of Hamas training Palestinian children to hate and to kill in the name of Jihad...

Remember this video the next time you hear that Israel has killed 'children' in Gaza.


Here's a Palestinian music video, not quite Beyonce is it...



For more videos showing the perverted minds of Hamas take a look here. FOr more on the dhimmis that infest this UK Labour government and how they liaise with Hamas supporters take a read of Harry's Place.

Will Rajendra Pachauri have to resign over this misleading statement?

The Times reports that (my emphasis):

"The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit, The Times has learnt.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists.

The IPCC’s report underpinned the proposals at Copenhagen for drastic cuts in global emissions.

Dr Pachauri, who played a leading role at the summit, corrected the error last week after coming under media pressure. He told The Times on January 22 that he had only known about the error for a few days. He said: “I became aware of this when it was reported in the media about ten days ago. Before that, it was really not made known. Nobody brought it to my attention. There were statements, but we never looked at this 2035 number.”

Asked whether he had deliberately kept silent about the error to avoid embarrassment at Copenhagen, he said: “That’s ridiculous. It never came to my attention before the Copenhagen summit. It wasn’t in the public sphere.”

However, a prominent science journalist said that he had asked Dr Pachauri about the 2035 error last November. Pallava Bagla, who writes for Science journal, said he had asked Dr Pachauri about the error. He said that Dr Pachauri had replied: “I don’t have anything to add on glaciers.”

The Himalayan glaciers are so thick and at such high altitude that most glaciologists believe they would take several hundred years to melt at the present rate. Some are growing and many show little sign of change.

Dr Pachauri had previously dismissed a report by the Indian Government which said that glaciers might not be melting as much as had been feared. He described the report, which did not mention the 2035 error, as “voodoo science”.

Mr Bagla said he had informed Dr Pachauri that Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University and a leading glaciologist, had dismissed the 2035 date as being wrong by at least 300 years. Professor Cogley believed the IPCC had misread the date in a 1996 report which said the glaciers could melt significantly by 2350. "

For some reason the phrase 'untenable position' comes to mind, along with other less flattering ones. Why is it that the more information that comes out the less savoury so many of the 'warmists' seem?

Zimbabwe update

It's been a while since I last blogged about the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe, wher the story has been one of Robert Mugabe speaking the language of cooperation with the opposition but practicing something else entirely. Today I read in The Telegraph that:

"A secret airstrip is being built in a diamond field illegally seized by the Zimbabwean army 14 months ago which would enable clandestine weapons shipments. "

Robert Mugabe is a tyrant but until South Africa takes action his people will continue to live in poverty; the breadbasket of Africa is now just another African basket-case.

Where did the UK stimulus money go?

John Redwood and his commenters have the answers, and it's not a pretty sight:

" Since 2005 the government has doubled central government borrowing (on its own understated figures ) from £469 billion to £922 billion – an injection of £452 billion.

Since 2004-5 money supply (M4) has surged from £1,212 billion (£1.2tn) to £2,100bn (£2.1 tn) – it has also almost doubled. Notes and coin have gone up from £42 billion to £55 billion.

And what has happened to real output? It is almost the same in Q4 2009 as it was in Q3 2005! No growth at all for 5 years.

So where did all the stimulus go? Much of the public borrowing went on inefficiencies and on imports. Some of the extra money went into price inflation, and some is just circulating less rapidly now, given the poor state of the banks and the new regulatory toughness. "


# Marcelluson 28 Jan 2010 at 4:30 pm

Everyone is warning that an immediate recovery is unlikely, possibly for years.

However, Labour and their BBC robots are currently saying that it is vital not to cut spending now as that would harm the recovery.

This is merely a typically deceitful Labour trap to catch the Tories. They are planning ahead. It is to give Labour a bullet proof attack narrative against an incoming Tory government

If the spending cuts that everyone says are essential are indeed made by the Tories and the economy does not surge ahead immediately – the Labour-BBC machine will say that the economy is not growing BECAUSE of “Tory cuts”.

Their attack along these lines will go on for years and years.

I hope the Tories are aware of what Labour are doing, and prepare NOW to counter it.

John Redwood’s argument in this excellent post is the basis of the defence against that deceitful argument."

Air travel security is about to get even more intrusive

The Mail reports the predictable news that:

"Britain is facing a new Al Qaeda terror threat from suicide ‘body bombers’ with explosives surgically inserted inside them.

Until now, terrorists have attacked airlines, Underground trains and buses by secreting bombs in bags, shoes or underwear to avoid detection.

But an operation by MI5 has uncovered evidence that Al Qaeda is planning a new stage in its terror campaign by inserting ‘surgical bombs’ inside people for the first time.

...

A leading source added that male bombers would have the explosive secreted near their appendix or in their buttocks, while females would have the material placed inside their breasts in the same way as figure-enhancing implants.

Experts said the explosive PETN (Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate) would be placed in a plastic sachet inside the bomber’s body before the wound was stitched up like a normal operation incision and allowed to heal.

A shaped charge of 8oz of PETN can penetrate five inches of armour and would easily blow a large hole in an airliner.

Security sources said the explosives would be detonated by the bomber using a hypodermic syringe to inject TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide) through their skin into the explosives sachet."

This is no surprise since I remember from last year that:

"an al-Qaeda bomber who died last month while trying to blow up a Saudi prince in Jeddah had hidden the explosives inside his body.

Only the attacker died, but it is feared that the new development could be copied by others.

Experts say it could have implications for airport security, rendering traditional metal detectors "useless". "

I hate to break it to you but 'they' want us dead, as many of us as possible and until 'they' can arrange that 'they' will make as many of our lives as uncomfortable as possible.

If Nuclear Fusion power works would the ecomentalists welcome it?

The short answer is "of course not".

The BBC report that:

"A major hurdle to producing fusion energy using lasers has been swept aside, results in a new report show.

The controlled fusion of atoms - creating conditions like those in our Sun - has long been touted as a possible revolutionary energy source.

However, there have been doubts about the use of powerful lasers for fusion energy because the "plasma" they create could interrupt the fusion.

An article in Science showed the plasma is far less of a problem than expected.

The report is based on the first experiments from the National Ignition Facility (Nif) in the US that used all 192 of its laser beams.

Along the way, the experiments smashed the record for the highest energy from a laser - by a factor of 20. "

Now if nuclear fusion can be made to work and provide a cheap, reliable source of power with very low emissions then will the 'warmists' and other ecomentalists welcome it? It turns out that the long answer is also "of course not" because the ecomentalists are less interested in clean power and reducing emissions than they are in controlling us and redistributing wealth.

How the US Democrats spend taxpayers' money

World Net Daily report that:

"It reads like a dream order for a wild frat party: Maker's Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey's Irish Crème, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey … and Corona beer.

But that single receipt makes up just part of the more than $101,000 taxpayers paid for "in-flight services" – including food and liquor, for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trips on Air Force jets over the last two years. That's almost $1,000 per week.

...

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch, which investigates and prosecutes government corruption, show Pelosi incurred expenses of some $2.1 million for her use of Air Force jets for travel over that time.

"Speaker Pelosi has a history of wasting taxpayer funds with her boorish demands for military travel," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said today. "And these documents suggest the Speaker's congressional delegations are more about partying than anything else."

Pelosi, D-Calif., recently joined President Obama on a Judicial Watch list of Top 10 corrupt politicians because of her "sense of entitlement," the group said."

Do read the rest and wonder at how lefty politicians the world over preach equality and fairness but once they have their bums on the seats of power they then get their snouts well and truly in the trough.

More IPCC bogus claims, when will this end?

The Times reports that:

"A STARTLING report by the United Nations climate watchdog that global warming might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its 2007 benchmark report that even a slight change in rainfall could see swathes of the rainforest rapidly replaced by savanna grassland.

The source for its claim was a report from WWF, an environmental pressure group, which was authored by two green activists. They had based their “research” on a study published in Nature, the science journal, which did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning. This weekend WWF said it was launching an internal inquiry into the study.

This is the third time in as many weeks that serious doubts have been raised over the IPCC’s conclusions on climate change. Two weeks ago, after reports in The Sunday Times, it was forced to retract a warning that climate change was likely to melt the Himalayan glaciers by 2035. That warning was also based on claims in a WWF report. "

And still the IPCC, the BBC and most politicians still claim that global warming is 'settled science'. When will they learn? When the money stops being funnelled to it?

Jews place in the world

Jews "had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred."

The words of the former elected leader of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, who felt able to speak openly of Jews this way at an Islamic conference.


Thanks to American Thinker for the spot.

Tom Cruise's dance from Tropic Thunder

Music by Ludacris' "Get Back"

Fined for blowing your nose - the war on motorists contines apace

The Mail reports that:

"When motorist Michael Mancini found himself stuck in a queue of traffic with a runny nose, he instinctively reached for his hankie.

However, the simple act of pulling out a tissue and blowing his nose earned the astonished businessman a £60 on-the-spot fine after a police officer decided he was 'not in control of his vehicle'.

Police constable Stuart Gray handed out the fixed penalty notice even though Mr Mancini was stopped in stationary traffic with his handbrake on."

Police priorities? Controlling the public? Raising money from transgression taxes/fines?

Could have but didn't

"I believe that Andy Murray can beat Roger Federer in the final but I am not sure that he will."

And he didn't. Good third set performance from Andy Murray but needed to convert those set points. Roll on Simpleton but as I have blogged before it's the US Open that will give him his best chance.

Which way for the gold price?

I say up, up, up but George Soros declares that "The ultimate asset bubble is gold."

Which of us is right? Time will tell.

Will Andy Murray benefit from the curse of Gillette?

Thierry Henry disgraced for handling the ball in a football match.

Tiger Woods disgraced for having other women handle his balls off of the golf course.

The curse of Gillette? If so what terrible act will Roger Federer commit and will it be before, during or after the Australian Open Final? For Andy Murray a lot rests on this...

More seriously, I believe that Andy Murray can beat Roger Federer in the final but I am not sure that he will.

The wit of Winston Churchill

I have posted some examples before but today read one that was new to me:

"An aide brought Churchill the morning paper with the news that one of his Cabinet Ministers would have to resign because he had been caught having gay sex with a Grenadier Guardsman in Green Park the night before.

Churchill said: "It was cold last night was it not?"
the aide replied: "Yes Sir, only 23 degrees" (that's -5 in new money)
Churchill replied: "Makes you proud to be British" "

Thanks to 13th Spitfire for the spot.

Dead Kennedys vs Gil Scott Heron - "Revolution Uber Alles"

An odd mix of two great songs that I don't think quite works.

Thoughts on Tony Blair's appearance before the Chilcot Inquiry

So Tony Blair believes he was right; I am shocked. What is more shocking is that vital papers were kept secret from the Inquiry so not all the evidence was made available and of course that Tony Blair was not interviewed by a lawyer or under oath. Whilst I would not necessarily trust Tony Blair to tell the truth under oath I don't see how he is more likely to tell the truth when not under oath.

The Times revealed today that a 'top secret, Downing Street memo from 6 months before 9/11 showed that Tony Blair offered Britain's support to the US in overthrowing Sadam Hussein. Doesn't that blow a hole in Tony Blair's evidence? Maybe he should be called back to be questioned on this, but presupposes that the Chilcot Inquiry is about discovering the whole truth...

Those wacky Italians

Mussolini iPhone app becomes the second-most downloaded item in Italy - 1,000 a day for 59p.
Bless them for their devotion to a fascist leader.

Do Wind Farms cause noise problems?

Some say yes but do read the comments for the ramblings of the brainwashed.

"The noise caused by wind farms can make some people ill, according to experts.

The study by a panel of independent experts found that the irritation caused by the noise around wind farms can effect certain individuals. "

Anti-terrorism police - words fail me

Sometimes I think that the news is made up, this story just couldn't be true, could it?

"Running around the streets in combat gear, waving around glittery hairdryers and claiming to be 'dork hunters', they couldn't fail to attract attention.

But children's TV presenters Anna Williamson and Jamie Rickers never dreamt that their outlandish outfits would warrant suspicion by police who stopped them under the Terrorism Act.

In addition, their so-called 'weapons' consisted of hairbrushes and hairdryers.

Yesterday the hosts of the hit ITV show Toonattik told how they were issued with a warning under Section 44 of the act when they were filming a promotional clip for an animated comedy series for young children.

Clad in fatigues, sunglasses and flak jackets, they might have resembled the assassin characters from the hit Hollywood film Mr & Mrs Smith played by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

But that didn't deter four Metropolitan Police officers on London's South Bank who noted suspicious items including the hairdryers used to advertise GMTV show, 'Dork Hunters from Outer Space', which is popular with four to nine-year-olds.

Miss Williamson, 28, said: 'We were filming a strand called Dork Hunters, which is to do with one of the animations we have on the show.

'We were out and about doing 'dork hunting' ourselves on the streets of London. Jamie and I were kitted out in fake utility belts, we had the whole bulletproof flakjacket thing.

'We've got hairdryers in our belt, a kids' £1.99 walkie-talkie, hairbrushes and all that kind of stuff.

'We were being followed by a camera crew and a boom mike and we get literally pulled over by four policemen and we were issued with a warning "under the act of terrorism".'

His co-presenter Mr Rickers, 32, added: 'We were stopped, not arrested, but they had to say "We are holding you under the Anti-Terrorism Act because you're running around in flak jackets and a utility belt", and I said "and please put spangly blue hairdryer" and he was, like, "all right".'"

Words fail me.

Some perspective on Israel's place in the Middle Esat

"Stop using Jewish history to distort reality. Israel is David in today's Middle East -- one Jewish state and 22 Arab states; 6 million Jews and 300 million Arabs; Israeli territory is one third of one percent of the whole land mass of the Middle East."

From Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon's address to the Council of Europe on Holocaust Remembrance Day Jan 27.

"Employer told not to post advert for 'reliable' workers because it discriminates against 'unreliable' applicants"

Years ago I used to joke that if there was any more anti-discrimination legislation then pretty soon one wouldn't be able to discriminate on the grounds of ability. Well it looks as though that time has come:

"When it comes to hiring staff, there are plenty of legal pitfalls employers need to watch out for these days.

So recruitment agency boss Nicole Mamo was especially careful to ensure her advert for hospital workers did not offend on grounds of race, age or sexual orientation.

However, she hadn't reckoned on discriminating against a wholly different section of the community - the completely useless.

When she ran the ad past a job centre, she was told she couldn't ask for 'reliable' and 'hard-working' applicants because it could be offensive to unreliable people.

'In my 15 years in recruitment I haven't heard anything so ridiculous,' Mrs Mamo said yesterday.

'If the matter wasn't so serious I would be laughing out loud.

'Unfortunately it's extremely alarming. I need people who are hardworking and reliable - and I am pleased to discriminate in that way. If they're not then I really can't use them. The reputation of my business is on the line.

'Even the woman at the jobcentre agreed it was ridiculous but explained it was policy because they could get sued for being dicriminatory against unreliable people."

How did we get to this position? Can we get back to reality?

A contrast in Presidents

George W. Bush and Barack Obama speak to the US Marine Corps and the reactions are somewhat at opposites.


Thanks to Crusader Rabbit for the spot.

The "HARRY_READ_ME.txt" file and its bearing on Man Made Climate Change 'science'

This is a real scandal and the Main Stream Media are all but ignoring this issue. For details please take a trip to An Englishman's Castle, Steve McIntyre and especially Devils Kitchen for a tale of scientists "not knowing what the hell is going on" and glossing over anomalies. However read this a couple of times to see what was really going on at the CRU:

"These are very promising. The vast majority in both cases are within 0.5 degrees of the published data. However, there are still plenty of values more than a degree out."

and how about:

"However, it's not such good news for precip (PRE):
...
Percentages: 13.93 25.65 11.23 49.20

21. A little experimentation goes a short way..

I tried using the 'stn' option of anomdtb.for. Not completely sure what it's supposed to do, but no matter as it didn't work:"

What about

"It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented sufficiently to say that."

And how about this killer line:

"There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found."

So we are going to fuck the world's economy based on data that has no integrity...

Any chance of the BBC covering this story? Come on Andrew Neil you seem to be the only BBC journalist with enough cojones to not toe the BBC line.

Thank heavens for Tesco

"Thank heavens for Tesco, it keeps the scum out of Waitrose". So goes the old joke so I was not that surprised to read that a Tescos branch in Cardiff has put up a sign that says:

"‘To avoid causing embarrassment to others we ask that our customers are appropriately dressed when visiting our store (footwear must be worn at all times and no nightwear is permitted).’"

The reason?

"While the dress code would appear to be common sense to the majority of shoppers, Tesco staff at St Mellons, Cardiff, said they were forced to put up the posters.

This is because increasing numbers of young women have taken to shopping in their nightwear after dropping their children off at school in the morning.

A shopper in her pyjamas is reported to have said "'I just don't understand it. I go in other shops in my pyjamas and they don't say anything.

'You used to always be allowed in Tescos. But not now, it is ridiculous and stupid. I've got lovely pairs of pyjamas, with bears and penguins on them. I've worn my best ones today, just so I look tidy.'

'I walked in with my trolley and the security guard came over and told me to leave,' said she said.

'He said it offends people. But I've never seen anyone offended.'

(The shopper) admitted she is often still in pyjamas in the morning after sorting out her children for nursery.

She said: 'It is just when I'm in a rush or busy with the kids. I haven't got time to get myself all dolled up.

'I would usually put a coat or something over the top and it's not like I'm flashing the flesh or anything."

"get myself all dolled up"! It's not getting dolled up, it's called getting dressed. Put a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt over the top of the pyjamas, have some self-respect and respect for others. You have just spent 7 hours in bed wearing pyjamas, do you think your fellow shoppers really want you wearing them and nothing else as you brush up against the fresh food displays?


Another disgruntled shopper said ‘I won't be bothering with Tesco anymore, I'm off to Aldi.’ Hmmm I may have to amend my opening line!

The Apple iPad per the South African police

The Register has the context...

"Things can only get better"?

The Quiet Man disagrees in a must read article, do take a read.

The Apple iPad user video

The iPad - watch more funny videos

Thanks to Peter Sereafinowicz for the video and not being afraid to cut through the Apple inspired hype.

Tony Blair at the Chilcot Inquiry

Paul Waugh lists 20 questions that he believes Tony Blair should be asked today. Take a look at all 20, but here's the ones that I think are key:

"4 You had a Downing Street meeting on 23 July 2002 with MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove present. A now-infamous leaked memo recorded that Dearlove reported on his recent trip to Washington. It claimed that "military action was now seen as inevitable" but "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy". It added that there was "littled discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." Is any of this accurate?

5. The Attorney General was also at this meeting. The day after he wrote you a letter repeating the advice he had given verbally, that you would need a new UN resolution to authorise military action. He says that this letter was seen by Number 10 as not "terribly welcome". Did you tell any of your aides that this was your view?

7. You claimed in your foreword to the infamous September 2002 dossier that "assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons". Wasn’t it totally misleading to use the phrase ‘beyond doubt’?

8. You told the House of Commons later that month that Saddam's WMD programme was "active, detailed and growing". Isn't it the case that not a single piece of intelligence suggested it was "growing"?

10. Sir David Omand and Jack Straw both now admit that it was a mistake to have included the ‘45 minutes’ claim in the dossier. Do you agree with them or have any regrets about the way MI6 felt uneasy about revealing its sources?

12. Even after the UN adopted 1441, Lord Goldsmith wrote to you on January 14, 2003, to say that there was still no "reasonable case" for war without a further resolution. His advice was not requested by you. Did you have a deliberate policy of not asking for his legal opinion until the very last minute, precisely because you knew that would box you in?

15.The Cabinet met on March 17, 2003. The Attorney presented his new opinion that war was legal without a second resolution. He was ready to read it out and then say a few words, but someone told him 'don't worry, we can read it ourselves'. Who was that person?

20. Have you ever, for even a second, doubted that you made the right decision in going to war in Iraq?"

Today should be interesting and don't forget that you can vote whether you thing Tony Blair is lying "live" by voting here.

Top Gear trivia - the answer

In answer to yesterday's question:

The Ford Mondeo, Subarua Legacy and Renault Avantime; an eclectic selection but I do agree with the choice of the Mondeo as it is a good drive, in fact I think a better touring car than all but the fastest BMW 3-Series.

Why worry? It's not as though the Country is broke because of your last boss.

The Mail reports that:

"Treasury officials have been told to ‘shelve problems’ to help keep their stress levels down in the face of Britain’s dire public finances.

A 70-page taxpayer-funded guide to ‘stress awareness and management’ advises officials to put off difficult decisions to another day if they are causing them anxiety.

It includes tips such as ‘learn how to laugh at yourself’ and a six-point lesson in how to ‘relax your thighs’.

And it reassures staff that it is ‘okay’ to switch off, day dream, make errors and even fail, stating: ‘Stress may be avoided if I allow myself to make mistakes… recognising that sometimes I will make mistakes and that is OK to make mistakes.’"

"It's OK to mistake mistakes"; well that's OK for Gordon Brown then.
"put off difficult decisions to another day"; until after the general election maybe?

How long before the UK's credit rating drops?

Further to this post pointing out that:

"Standard and Poors have just revised their outlook rating of the UK. The UK is now had its outlook revised from stable to negative"

I now read on Reuters that:

"The United Kingdom is no longer classified as being among the most stable and low-risk banking systems in the world, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's said on Thursday.

Britain's weak economy will continue to hinder the credit profile of its banking industry, S&P said in a report, adding it expected the unwind of high levels of debt to weigh heavily on economic growth prospects and banks' financial performance.

"We no longer classify the United Kingdom (AAA/Negative/A-1+) among the most stable and low-risk banking systems globally," Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said."

Hasn't Gordon Brown done a great job in destroying the UK economy and particularly the banking sector? If it was done deliberately it was a work of evil genius, if accidentally then he's a bigger fool than even I thought back in 1995.

Is Tony Blair a liar?

The Telegraph's live coverage of Tony Blair's appearance before the Chilcot Inquiry will include a "lie detector" feature

"Viewers will also be able to vote throughout the hearing on whether they think the former PM is telling the truth or not using our on screen 'lie detector'.

Click the Vote button on the video to register your view, and the lie detector will show running results of public opinion. "

Just a bit of fun?!

Is Barack Obama teleprompter addicted?

I Own The World here and here has the pictures that may prove he is. A teleprompter to address 12 people! Mind you, remember what Barack Obama sounds like when he has no teleprompter ...

Eloquent chap isn't he?

Take a look here for some more examples...

The Apple iPad

That's US show MadTV's take on the iPad from 2006. Doesn't Steve Jobs know how to google?

Thanks to Letters from a Tory for the spot.

Will the suffering of my brethren never end (part xx)

I see that my brethren are suffering again:

"Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has a black goat slaughtered at his house almost every day to ward off "evil eyes" and protect him from "black magic," a newspaper reported Wednesday.

A spokesman for the president told the Dawn newspaper the goats were slaughtered as an act of Sadaqah -- meaning "voluntary charity" in Islam whereby one gives out money or the meat of a slaughtered animal to the poor to win Allah's blessing and stave off misfortune."

"Let my people go!"

Is this comment the result of years of BBC and other left-wing brainwashing on Israel?

" Paul Evans wrote:
It is very sad that Israel forgets the other people that died in the Nazi times! I have no problems with Iran getting the atomic bomb, if only defend themselves from Israeli aggression!
Isreal has broken all of the UN Laws related to human rights and it has broken the Geneva Convention related to War Crimes, only because they believe that they are above such Laws do they continue to do so, USA backs them we Europeans including the Germans should not do so!
Ban Israelis from travelling outside of Israel until they follow International Law, Ban Israeli Goods Worldwide as long as they do not follow International Laws!
It is not that I am Anti Jewish but I am Anti Zionist..."

That comment is from the comments at the end of this piece in The Times entitled "Iran has same plan as Hitler, says Auschwitz survivor". Words fail me.

The war on the motorist continues; no excuses...

The Mail reveals that:

"Drivers who 'pay and display' to park their cars are being fined if they leave earlier tickets showing on their windscreen.

Council traffic wardens are exploiting a legal loophole to penalise motorists who have paid but simply forgot to remove a previous stub from their dashboard or window.

If wardens, or parking attendants, can see more than one ticket, they can fine the motorist."

It is odd how a burglar or mugger, rapist or murderer is given every opportunity to defend their actions but for motorists there are no excuses. We are cash cows waiting to be milked dry by the State and we just take it...

The sixty-ninth weekly "No Shit, Sherlock" award

This week's award goes to The Times for the simply shocking headline "Scientists in stolen e-mail scandal hid climate data". Apparently

"The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming. "

'Warmist' scientists hiding climate data, "No shit, Sherlock"

"Fox most trusted news channel in US, poll shows" and the Guardinista don't like it

Read this Guardian piece and the subsequent comments and wonder at the type of people who think the BBC is unbiased.

First Mike Molloy and now Obama Girl

Following the news that Mike Molloy will now vote Conservative, I read that:

"the bikini-clad "Obama Girl" -- who famously cooed about her "crush" throughout the presidential campaign on YouTube videos -- admits the thrill is gone.

Amber Lee Ettinger -- the buxom sensation who lip-synched about her love for then-candidate Barack Obama -- said she wishes he spent his first year in office more focused on fixing the abysmal economy.

"I think he's doing an OK job," said Ettinger, whose original "Crush on Obama" video, first shown in 2007, has had more than 16.5 million views on YouTube.

"I know he's getting a lot of flak for things that he's not doing," she told The Post. "In my opinion, I feel like he should be focusing a lot more on jobs and the economy.""

Donch just love it when the left see sense, albeit way too late?

Oh wow it's a 'tablet'

Steve Jobs announced the iPad yesterday and the media are in a frenzy; get over it, it's an Apple tablet PC - wow! Why would anyone buy a 10-inch iPad when for around the same money they can buy a fully functioning netbook computer that does so much more? Answer - because it's an Apple an the brainwashed hordes will buy anything with that little Apple logo and Steve Jobs' seal of approval.

When Mike 'Maverick' Molloy says he will vote Conservative then you know Labour are finished

I found a copy of Tuesday's Mail lying around at a client's offices and so had a read, it was Tuesday's and I almost fell off my seat when I read the headline "Mirror man vents spleen at Labour". For the article was about Mike 'Maverick' Molloy, an old acquaintance and former editor of The Daily Mirror and later editor-in-chief of Mirror Group. Mike Molloy has written a piece for Conservative candidate Angie Bray's election material and here are some extracts:

"I was a staunch supporter of the Labour Party, and when they came to power I was confident they would change Britain for the better. ... Well, we all know how wrong I was. The money flowed in, but instead of financing a better way of life for ordinary people, most of it just seeped away into the swamp of stupefying incompetence.

...

What emerged was a Frankenstein's monster. Having imposed stealth taxes that ruined private pensions, Brown set about destroying any opposition in the Labour Party that dared speak of reforming the welfare state.

...


When the financial hurricane finally blew down upon us, the sheer scale of his incompetence was revealed. Twelve years of wasting a river of wealth and not a penny saved.

...

Like some half-witted lottery winner who'd never checked their credit-card bills, Brown has squandered the lot.

...

(New Labour has) ended in catastrophe ... swamped by social breakdown... Yet there is a plush look about so many of those New Labour Party grandees who have prospered in the face of their appalling record."

When formally loyal Labour supporters such as Mike Molloy desert the political party they have supported and indeed helped to power, then you know that the time is up.


I believe that Mike Molloy gave, a certain, Alastair Campbell his break in journalism by employing him as a political journalist at The Mirror, I wonder if Alastair will now get back in touch. Maybe Mike Molloy should keep his eyes open and his windows firmly locked at his house on Culmington Road, just in case Alastair decides to pay him a visit.

Top Gear trivia

In one Top Gear episode Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond & James May say that there are only three cars that they all like; what are they?

Yasser Arafat's legacy

An interesting article on Debka that may have you wondering what lies in Yasser Arafat's papers.


Link corrected.

Peer-review or not peer-review

The excellent Steve McIntyre has an interesting piece on Climate Audit that lays bare the flaws in the alleged peer-review procedures of the IPCC:

"I reviewed relevant EPA policies on peer review and showed that IPCC peer review did not comply with statutory requirements for EPA peer review. This was based on my knowledge of IPCC peer review at that time, which was primarily the handling of chapter 6 of WG1.

The peer review process for WG2 appears to be even worse. David Rose in yesterday’s Daily Mail reported that IPCC Coordinating Lead Author Lal knew the glacier claim did not rest on peer-reviewed research, but put it in anyway to “encourage” governments to take “concrete action”..."

Read it all and spread the word; I have started to challenge 'warmists' and they don't like it, they really don't like it...

At least there is one BBC journalist who isn't a sheep

Andrew Neil has my total respect for being the one BBC journalist not to have totally swallowed the 'warmist' agenda; are there any others hiding in Broadcasting House or White City? His latest blog entry is a must read and the comments from readers show that there is a groundswell of climate change realism that should be harnessed by such as David Cameron.

Here are some extracts from Andrew Neil's piece:

"The dam began to crack towards the end of last year when leaked e-mails from one of the temples of global warming, the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, suggested that a few sleights of hand were being deployed to hide facts inconvenient to the global warming case. An official investigation into these e-mails is on-going.

But the flood gates really opened after the IPCC had to withdraw its claim that the Himalayan glaciers would likely all have melted by 2035, maybe even sooner.

This turned out to have no basis in scientific fact, even though everything the IPCC produces is meant to be rigorously peer-reviewed, but simply an error recycled by the WWF, which the IPCC swallowed whole.

The truth, as seen by India's leading expert in glaciers, is that "Himalayan glaciers have not in anyway exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat."

...

Then at the weekend another howler was exposed. The IPCC 2007 report claimed that global warming was leading to an increase in extreme weather, such as hurricanes and floods. Like its claims about the glaciers, this was also based on an unpublished report which had not been subject to scientific scrutiny -- indeed several experts warned the IPCC not to rely on it.

The author, who didn't actually finish his work until a year after the IPCC had used his research, has now repudiated what he sees has its misuse of his work.

His conclusion: "There is insufficient evidence to claim a statistical link between global warming and catastrophe loss."

Yet it was because of this -- now unproved -- link that the British government signed up to a $100 billion transfer from rich to poor countries to help them cope with a supposed increase in floods and hurricanes.

It was also central to many of the calculations in Britain's Stern Report, which might now need to be substantially revised.

Now after Climate-gate, Glacier-gate and Hurricane-gate -- how many "gates" can one report contain? -- comes Amazon-gate. The IPCC claimed that up to 40% of the Amazonian forests were risk from global warming and would likely be replaced by "tropical savannas" if temperatures continued to rise.

This claim is backed up by a scientific-looking reference but on closer investigation turns out to be yet another non-peer reviewed piece of work from the WWF. Indeed the two authors are not even scientists or specialists on the Amazon: one is an Australian policy analyst, the other a freelance journalist for the Guardian and a green activist.

The WWF has yet to provide any scientific evidence that 40% of the Amazon is threatened by climate change -- as opposed to the relentless work of loggers and expansion of farms.

Every time I have questioned our politicians about global warming they have fallen back on the mantra that "2,500 scientists can't be wrong", referring to the vast numbers supposedly behind the IPCC consensus.

But it is now clear that the majority of those involved in the IPCC process are not scientists at all but politicians, bureaucrats, NGOs and green activists."

The 'warmist' agenda is becoming clear, a transfer of money from the poor of the first world to the rich leaders of the third world and more control of the world by unelected bureaucrats. It's Marxism in another guise but this time they are near to winning.

The UK coming out of recession, sundry thoughts

A 0.1% growth in one quarter; is that exactly 0.1% or was it rounded up to 0.1% and if so from what, 0.09%, 0.08%, 0.07%, 0.06%, 0.05%. Wasn't there an example recently of figures being rounded up from well below the point where figures would normally be rounded up from?
What's that for the last 12 months, -5% (approx)?
£300bn pounds of QE to buy £1bn of ‘growth’.
So with a drop in GDP of around 10% since the peak of the 'boom', all is joy and jubilation at a preliminary rise in GDP of 0.1%. So that's just around 9.9% reduction in GDP, whoopee!
A 0.1% rise in GDP in a quarter when the VAT reduction was in its last throes, when people brought forward car purchases and large electrical purchases.

Wriggle, wriggle Peter Mandelson

There you have Peter Mandelson being as disingenuous and slimy as ever. Note early on in the second video Peter Mandelson's "Who cares?" comment when Ken Clarke said the UK had the "biggest, fasting rising debt". "Who cares?" I'll tell you "who cares" Mr Mandelson; the people of the UK who will be paying back the debt, your Labour government have created, from their earned income.
"Who cares?" I'll tell you "who cares" Mr Mandelson; the people of the UK whose children will be paying back the debt, your Labour government have created, from their earned income.
"Who cares?" I'll tell you "who cares" Mr Mandelson, the people of the UK who don't have huge EU pensions to pay for a life of considerable luxury after their retirement.
"Who cares?" I'll tell you "who cares" Mr Mandelson, the people of the UK who would rather their political leaders left the political scene after one forced resignation let alone two forced resignations, rather than reappearing in ever more senior roles as some sort of modern day Pooh-Bah.


Also note later in the second video the way Peter Mandelson quite shamelessly ignores Jon Snow's question about Alistair Darling's earlier claims being incorrect; preferring to put forward another claim. It is also worth looking at Ken Clarke's face when Peter Mandelson is spouting his misdirections in the run up to the pathetic "swinging axe" charge. Also do note the way that Peter Mandelson's shameless speaking over Ken Clarke does in fact stop Ken Clarke from putting his point forward as Jon Snow moves the discussion on.


A typically Peter Mandelson performance and I am impressed by Ken Clarke's restraint in not thumping Peter Mandelson to teach him such much needed manners.

Denying the Conservative Party the 'oxygen of publicity'

BBC 5Live has been promoting the 'recession is over' and Conservative cuts would 'put the recovery at risk' all morning so when I heard that Gabby Logan was going to discuss this with MPs I was expecting her and the Labour and Lib Dem representatives to gang up on the Conservative MP. The reality was even more bizarre: Laim Byrne for Labour and Vince 'Saint' Cable able to pour scorn on Conservative economic policy, encouraged by Gaby Logan, and no Conservative there to respond.

When I blogged about the new 5Live schedules for this general election year, I predicted left-wing bias, it seems I was correct to do so.

What is a 'tiny minority'?

An interesting view expressed by Leo McKinstry to the consternation of the BBC's Rachel Burden.

Hiding the Climate Change 'mistakes'

The excellent Watts UP With That reports that NASA's website has been edited to remove all references to the Himalayan glaciers melting before 2035, although NASA had actually reported this as by 2030, there is no apology for misleading the public for so long.

The BBC reporting on Sharia Law

Just an interesting video I found on You Tube and thought worthy of repeating.

The recession is over, I SAID THE RECESSION IS OVER, why do people not all agree?

The tone of 5Live's breakfast show is really amusing me this morning. I have been dipping in so it is possible (but very unlikely) that I have just been unlucky with the bits I have heard. A lovely bit just now as Shelagh Fogarty said that they had asked if people thought the recession was over (figures are supposed to prove this later this morning) but most responses had been that it wasn't; you could almost hear the pleading in her voice... Come on people don't you realise that happy days are here again and that recovery from recession means Labour could win the general election.

And after 9am the Nicky Campbell phone-in is "Is your recession over?"

"Figures due out later today are expected to confirm that the UK is out of recession.

What is your experience? Are you still struggling to find work or are things looking up?

From 9am, Nicky wants to hear how the economy is affecting you and your family."

Tuesday morning catchup

Too mnay interesting things to blog about and not enough time this morning, so here's a few in summary form.

1. Prodicus asks "Why the reserve at PMQs? Why no flame-throwers in the campaign to date?" and then writes a piece that summarises so much of what I have been thinking for some time now that I wish I had written it. It's all there from the frustration at David Cameron being 'nice', the bad feelings towards Teresa May for

' That ghastly woman has done more substantive damage to the Conservative Party with her mal mot than almost any other single speech including 'unemployment is a price worth paying' and 'back to basics'. The dread connotation has shaped Cameron's personal and party campaigning from the word go. It colours every - EVERY - Conservative Party policy idea even before it's mooted, hamstringing the party philosophically, politically and practically whenever the Tories should be rallying the country with an appeal to sanity and a call to realism and the prospect of responsible capitalist prosperity for all.

...

Teresa May removed the lead put into in the Tory pencil by Margaret Thatcher. She is the living incarnation of anti-Thatcher Conservatism and I loathe her for it. "

and a wish that:

"Once the election trumpet sounds, I trust the Cameron-Coulson-Hilton grid includes a snarling and biting break for the dogs.

Surely they know that Nice is knifed by Nasty on a daily basis in Brown's Britain? FFS, Gordon Brown is living proof that Nasty can gain power and will do anything to keep it. Don''t be too nice too long, Dave, or you may not outlive a kamikaze enemy.

I'll wait. For now.

But the electorate is angry, Mr Cameron. Fucking furious, since you ask.

We want revenge on Labour. We want some blood, even if it makes you wince a bit. OK, not the all out slaughter of which we have been dreaming. The odd gnash will suffice. Then you can go back to playing nice."

2. Donal Blaney reports the latest piece of US Democrat brainwashing and Obamamessiah news; that:

"In an effort to brainwash kids, Random House have published Barack Obama - Out Of Many, One, a book targeted at 5-7 year olds and that I have been sent by a concerned parent. It makes for very disturbing reading. Needless to say George W Bush didn't merit such a book to be written about him.

...

Out Of Many, One is a piece of propaganda that Goebbels would have been proud to have produced.

Out Of Many, One omits reference to One Term Barry's education at a madrassa in Indonesia, his work with the corrupt community group, Acorn, his underhanded campaigning in the City of Sleaze (aka Chicago) or his consorting with domestic terrorists such as Bill Ayers and hate-filled preachers and race-mongers such as Jeremiah Wright or Al Sharpton. Instead kids are force-fed a diet of one-sided pap that would make Stalin blush. The only surprise in Out Of Many, One is that his white grandmother actually gets a mention. "

I do wonder if the US Democrats really want to encoiurage this 'cult of personality', have they no knowledge of history and how such left wing cults end up - Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot etc. etc.


3. Tory Bear wonders how low the Gordian will go and concludes that:

"Gordon is deliberatly trying to score party political points by stirring up trouble. Now TB knows that sectarian politics is relished in the inner workings of the Scottish Labour Party, but when you are representing the United Kingdom as its leader, you do not stir up a delicate balance of power with references to an English enemy to score cheap shots at your rival. And frankly the piece is a shoddy copy and paste of a one sourced smear."

I am shocked...

Poll Tracker (update)

Last week it took the BBC's Poll Tracker until Thursday to reflect the weekend's Com Res opinion poll. This week Poll Tracker has been updated on Monday. I wonder if the fact that last week's poll was relatively positive for the Conservatives and this week is more positive for Labour had any bearing on the speed of updating? Surely not, but if future weeks show such a pattern I will report back.

Whitewashing climate change data

Roger Pielke has an interesting spot on his website. Take a read and wonder what other figures have misreported as fact?

Truth and the Chilcot Inquiry

The First Post has an interesting angle on this week's evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry. The First Post report thus:

" Two former government lawyers are set to blow the Chilcot Inquiry wide open tomorrow. In the week that Tony Blair and his good friend Lord Goldsmith, the former Attorney General, are due to appear before the panel to explain why Britain went to war against Iraq in March 2003 - Goldsmith on Thursday, Blair on Friday - the two lawyers could help Chilcot put Britain's former prime minister on the spot.

Quite simply, the two lawyers, who for different reasons have never publicly told their stories, will say that they always advised that war against Iraq was illegal without a second UN resolution and that Blair went ahead anyway because he was determined to help George Bush remove Saddam Hussein.

The two lawyers are Sir Michael Wood, who was the senior Foreign Office lawyer at the time, and his deputy, Elizabeth Wilmshurst. They are both fascinating witnesses - for quite different reasons.

Among friends, Wood is supposed to have made no secret ever since the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 that it would not be legal without a second UN resolution. Publicly, however, he has never broken his silence on the matter.

A year after the invasion, he was awarded a knighthood. In 2006 he left the Foreign Office to become a barrister in private chambers in London.

Yesterday, a senior legal source told the Observer that the advice Wood gave "consistently" to Lord Goldsmith was that war would be unlawful.

"The important thing is that Foreign Office advice was given consistently in one way, and then the Attorney General, right at the end, gave advice to the contrary," the source told the newspaper. "That is what will come out."

It is also understood that Wood's legal advice from 2003 could be published for the first time by the Chilcot inquiry.

Elizabeth Wilmshurst is in a very different position - because she she was convinced the planned war was "a crime of aggression" and chose to resign on principle from the Foreign Office on the eve of the invasion. Until now, she has never given a public account of her decision to quit.

According to a report in the Independent on Sunday, she will tell the Chilcot inquiry that she was not "a voice in the wilderness' in harbouring doubts about an invasion and that many senior Foreign Office colleagues agreed with her.

If both Wood and Wilmshurst say tomorrow what their friends are expecting of them, the Chilcot inquiry might finally get to the truth of what persuaded Blair, against public opinion and legal advice, to attack Iraq. Some believe it will also take him a step closer to being charged one day for war crimes."

Interesting, very interesting. This and the report that Dr David Kelly's post mortem and other documents are to be kept secret for 70 years really should be headline news. I wonder if any MPs would like to tackle Gordon Brown about these matters at PMQs on Wednesday? Mind you even they do no doubt Gordon Brown will evade answering the question, he usually does. And if he does the BBC will no doubt protect him form scrutiny.

Strange how the errors are always in the favour of HMRC

The BBC report that:

"Incorrect tax codes may have been sent by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) because of a new computer system.

The codes tell taxpayers how much their employers and pension firms will deduct in income tax in the coming financial year 2010-11.

The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) says taxpayers could be asked to pay up to £108 a month too much.

The Revenue said it had no evidence of a widespread problem but advised taxpayers to check carefully.

"There will be some incorrect tax codes as there always are at this time of year," said an HMRC spokesman.

"But the coding notice tells people what the code relates to and tells them to contact us if it is wrong," he added. "

HMRC being HMRC their reaction is reported thus:

"The Revenue explained that the increase was a natural feature of the new system.

"It creates a single record for customers for the first time, and this, together with increased automation compared to previous years, is resulting in many more people having more accurate codes than before," the spokesman said."

So the increase in errors is a "natural feature of the new system"; interesting, was it in the specification that HMRC drew up?

The Chartered Institute of Taxation have uncovered the root of the problem:

"the CIOT said the system's database was failing to distinguish between current jobs and old ones, leading to tax codes being calculated on the assumption that someone has more than one job.

It said this was resulting in some people having their personal allowance split between two jobs, or allocated entirely to a job they no longer had, which would force their current employer to deduct too much tax. "

Did the HMRC, when specifying a new computerised tax system, really fail to allow for the possibility that people might change jobs between tax years?

That's peculiar

Today I read that:

"Venezuela has imposed an electricity rationing programme which will lead to four-hour blackouts every week across the country. "

But yesterday I read that:

"Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey announced Friday that approximately 513 billion barrels of “technically recoverable” oil were found in the Orinoco belt region of Venezuela – twice as much as previously believed.

Outside the Middle East, the largest oil reserves in the world exist in Venezuela. The Orinoco region spans a 50,000-square-kilometer (19,305-square-mile) area in the eastern portion of the country. Nearly 20 foreign oil companies hold contracts there, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune."

That's odd...

An allegation of BBC bias

Interesting? Now who is the pollster being referred to? Peter Kellner seems a possibility, his wife being Catherine "Cathy" Ashton for Lebour minister and now the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, but maybe there are other senior pollsters married to Labour ministers...

General Election set for 6 May (update)

Further to my posting of yesterday, the BBC did manage to write about this story with this piece headlined "Cabinet minister 'hints' at May date for election". The article was briefly linked from the BBC's main news page but this morning neither appears there or on the main politics news page. For the BBC it is a non-story although if challenged they will point to the page to show they reported the gaffe.

As to whether this proves that the date of the general election has been fixed as 6 May? Part of me thinks that this could be part of a clever disinformation campaign by Peter Mandelson and Al Campbel but then would they really pick Bob Ainsworth for such an important role?

A prize for anyone who can supply a convincing innocent explanation for this decision

"Lord Hutton made a request for the records provided to the inquiry, not produced in evidence, to be closed for 30 years, and that medical (including post-mortem) reports and photographs be closed for 70 years."

This refers to the decision take by Lord Hutton at the time of his 'inquiry' to keep secret documents relating to the death of Dr David Kelly.

So what would be the innocent explanation for the making of this decision?


For more realistic explanations, I suggest keeping an eye on Norman Baker's website and on Caig Murray's blog.


Meanwhile I note that whilst this story has been covered by The Mail, The Mirror, The Press Association, The Morning Star and others there is of course not a mention of this story on the BBC.

Himalayan glacier update

Three articles from the weekend's press that I think need referencing:

1. The Mail reports that:

"The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.

Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.

‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’"

So much for checking data and peer reviews.


2. The Times reports that:

"The chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has used bogus claims that Himalayan glaciers were melting to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Rajendra Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), based in New Delhi, was awarded up to £310,000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the lion's share of a £2.5m EU grant funded by European taxpayers.

It means that EU taxpayers are funding research into a scientific claim about glaciers that any ice researcher should immediately recognise as bogus. The revelation comes just a week after The Sunday Times highlighted serious scientific flaws in the IPCC's 2007 benchmark report on the likely impacts of global warming.

The IPCC had warned that climate change was likely to melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 - an idea considered ludicrous by most glaciologists. Last week a humbled IPCC retracted that claim and corrected its report. "

'Follow the money' is often a good way to discover the truth.


3. Christopher Booker in The Telegraph writes:

"I can report a further dramatic twist to what has inevitably been dubbed "Glaciergate" – the international row surrounding the revelation that the latest report on global warming by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained a wildly alarmist, unfounded claim about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Last week, the IPCC, led by its increasingly controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was forced to issue an unprecedented admission: the statement in its 2007 report that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 had no scientific basis, and its inclusion in the report reflected a "poor application" of IPCC procedures.

What has now come to light, however, is that the scientist from whom this claim originated, Dr Syed Hasnain, has for the past two years been working as a senior employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi-based company of which Dr Pachauri is director-general. Furthermore, the claim – now disowned by Dr Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC – has helped TERI to win a substantial share of a $500,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along with a share in a three million euro research study funded by the EU.

...

Until now it has been generally reported that the IPCC based its offending paragraph on an interview Dr Hasnain gave to the New Scientist in June 1999. This was a time when global warming researchers were busy making ever more extravagant claims in the run-up to the IPCC's 2001 report. It was in that year that Dr Michael Mann in America launched on the world his famous "hockey stick" graph, purporting to show that temperatures had risen faster in the late 20th century than ever before in the Earth's history. The graph was made the centrepiece of the IPCC's 2001 report, though it has since been comprehensively discredited.

In fact Dr Hasnain had first made his own controversial claim two months earlier, in a much longer interview with an Indian environmental magazine, Down to Earth, in April 1999. It was the wording of this interview which the IPCC was to quote almost exactly in its 2007 report.

Clearly the IPCC was aware that to cite a little Indian magazine as the reference for such a startling prediction would hardly seem sound scientific practice. But it discovered that Dr Hasnain's slightly later interview with New Scientist had been quoted in a 2005 report by the environmental campaigning group WWF. So it was this, rather oddly, which the IPCC cited as its authority – even though the words it quoted were taken directly from the earlier interview.

But even before the 2007 report was published, it now emerges, the offending claim was challenged, not least by a leading Austrian glaciologist, Dr Georg Kaser, a lead author on the 2007 report. He described Dr Hasnain's prediction of glaciers disappearing by 2035 as "so wrong that it is not even worth dismissing".

The year after the IPCC report was published, however, Dr Hasnain was recruited by Dr Pachauri to head a new glaciology unit at TERI. In a matter of months, TERI was given a share in a $500,000 dollar study of melting Himalayan glaciers funded by a US charity, the Carnegie Corporation. It is clear from Carnegie's database that a key part in winning this contract was played by Dr Hasnain's claim that most glaciers in the region "will vanish within 40 years as a result of global warming".

In May 2009 TERI was also given a share in a three million euro project funded by the EU. Citing the WWF's 2005 report, the EU set up its "High Noon" project to study the impact of melting Himalayan glaciers. It was particularly keen to foster alarm over the Himalayas as a means to win Indian support for action on climate change at last year's Copenhagen conference."

Christopher Booker deserves a medal for his work on the deceit behind the 'science; of Climate Change, he was pushing the truth in The Telegraph (and elsewhere) when to do so brought only ridicule from the MSM (main stream media).


Meanwhile has there been any coverage of these revelations on the BBC? What do you think...?

Serious questions for Gerry Adams

Read this article and wonder why the mainstream UK media seems completely uninterested in this Gerry Adams story, preferring to concentrate on Peter and Iris Robinsone?

Sunday night is Lily Allen night

Photos from a recent Australian concert...

Lily Allen ois soon to retire from music to raise a family; what a sad loss.

General Election set for 6 May

It seems that the woeful Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, has let the cat out of the bag re the date of the General Election and it's 6 May. The Mail reports the story here, Sky here :

""I think the British public will wake up and rue the day if they wind up with a Conservative government in charge of this country after May 6," Bob Ainsworth said.

Bookmaker Coral suspended betting on date of the election.

Spokesman David Stevens said: "The month of May had been the odds-on favourite prior to Bob Ainsworth's comments on Sky News, and his mention of May 6th as the crucial date was enough for us to close the book."

Mr Ainsworth is not the first minister to appear to give away the date of the election.

Earlier this month Europe Minister Chris Bryant told diplomats discussing recent tensions between Britain and countries including Venezuela: "I hope that by the time of the general election on May 6, relations will have improved."

Later, he told Sky News that he had "no idea" when the election would be."

Of course on the BBC, not a word; there the pretence that Gordon Brown has options persists.

Political party funding in the USA

Here's an interesting table, it shows the "Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2010" in the USA. Many interesting figures are exposed but I found interesting that the second highest sum of money over this 20 year period was donated by American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees. This organisation donated $41,751,311 of which around 98% went to the Democrats. Just like Unison in the UK, public sector workers know who will look after their interests at the possible expense of the Country's interests.

"As long as the BBC is a publicly-funded state broadcasting organisation, its leading current affairs programme is going to take a Leftist view..."

David Hughes' piece in The Telegraph about the 30th anniversary of Newsnight contained an interesting section:

"But the programme today has a drawback for political junkies and that is its general view of the world. If you took all the trendy liberalism that makes up the BBC and bubbled it over the Bunsen burner until you were left with the purest residue, the irreducible core of metropolitan Left-wingery — well, that’s Newsnight.

It regards Right-wing politicians as some alien species, necessary (just) to the political process but viewed with either curiosity or contempt, depending on their demeanour. I’m sure this is not deliberate, that people aren’t consciously trying to present politics from a Left-wing standpoint.It happens because that’s the programme’s mindset.

Take last year’s stunt by the programme to set up a panel to identify candidates for public spending cuts. The four members were Greg Dyke (a former Labour donor); Deborah Mattinson (Gordon Brown’s pollster); Lord Jones of Birmingham (a former Labour minister), and Matthew Taylor (a former adviser to Tony Blair). Didn’t it strike anyone, anyone at all, that this looked just a little rum? Probably not.

This is never going to change, of course. As long as the BBC is a publicly-funded state broadcasting organisation, its leading current affairs programme is going to take a Leftist view of things. It’s the way of the world, pointless complaining about it. But it’s still a shame. Imagine how good it could be if it broke out of its comfort zone occasionally. "

It would be interesting to hear the BBC's response to this charge.

Is this the dirtiest sounding song ever?

The Stranglers - "Nice 'N' Sleazy" - what a bass line.

The dangers of webcams

The never ending war on the motorist

I have received some flack for declaring that this Labour government have instigated a 'war' on motorists. However the news reported today that a group of government agencies including the Kent Police have commissioned the arms manufacturer BAE systems to adapt military-style planes for civilian use. These unmanned flying drones, similar to those used in Afghanistan, are to be used in Britain to spy on drivers as well as campaigners, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers.

Yes the greatest crime in Labour Britain is to exceed the speed limit by 1mph. I wonder if an upgrade will be to arm these drones so that if a driver is driving more that 10mph over the limit then a rocket is fired and no more 'criminal'. Of course that will never happen as its the fines that the Labour government and the Police want.

If the public were asked would they prefer more police on the beat catching burglars and muggers or spies in the sky? But nobody will ask us as the police need their toys and the government need the income and the control.

Only the crumbliest, flakiest, chocolate...

Some reminders of Cadburys Flake advertisements from times gone by to commemorate the takeover of Cadburys by Kraft. Will we ever see such soft core porn advertisements again?

In the meantime, here are some of the new merged Kraft/Cadbury wrappers














Thanks to The Lone Voice for the video spot and ManWiddicombe for the wrapper mashups.

How government (and opposition) works

Thanks to Dizzy Thinks for the spot.

The inspiration behind this Labour government's totalitarianism?

"The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed."

Who said that?

Adolph Hitler, another left-wing totalitarian.

I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist!

I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! invite all Photographers to a mass photo gathering in defence of street photography. Please try attend at 12 Noon in Trafalgar Square.

A birthday vigil for Neda Soltani

Today would have been the 27th birthday of Neda Soltani so at 4pm vigil outside the offices of the Iranian government agency owned Press TV at Westgate Building, Hanger Lane, Ealing, London, W5 1YY.

To reinforce the message that Neda Soltani was murdered by an agent of the iranian state when she was just 27, there will be 27 pictures of Neda with 27 roses (her favourite flower) and 27 candles laid outside Press TV reception. If you attend the vigil you will be able to leave a message in a memorial book which will later be sent to Neda's family.

Come one, come all and demonstrate in favour of freedom of speech.



Oh and if you happen to meet George Galloway remind him of his Daily Record article in which he wrote:

"There are grounds for being surprised at the result of the Iranian election.

Even grounds for being disappointed.

But there are absolutely no grounds for the cats' chorus of criticism and allegations now emanating from some quarters after the cookie crumbled the wrong way.

I have been more closely interested than normal in this poll.

I present two weekly shows for Iranian-owned Press TV.

As such, I know that, uniquely for a developing country, the Iranian broadcast media went to extraordinary lengths to be fair to all four presidential candidates.

More than 85 per cent of the electors turned out to vote - compared with 35 per cent in our own elections recently. That's nearly 40million Xs on ballot papers.

This massive exercise took place without trouble of any kind - the polling stations were kept open longer than required to facilitate the huge lines of people outside.

Indeed, that's one of the reasons I discount the opposition complaints.

When a candidate is reduced to protesting that too MANY people were allowed to vote, you know he's in trouble.

The counting, too, was awesome. And, by the way, there were observers from all four camps present throughout these stages.

Although the western media largely did the usual thing - not straying far from their five-star hotels, talking to those who would happily talk to them and especially if they spoke English - it's clear they mistook the plusher parts of the capital for the country at large. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad commands the loyalty of the poor, the working class and the rural voters whose development he has championed.

He lives like them, looks like them - he's never worn a suit since becoming president - and there's more of them than the English speaking more liberal elites now on the streets demonstrating.

It will soon fizzle out.

This election almost mirrors the class composition of the recent polls in Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez has exactly the same friends in his country. And the same enemies.

I've said many times that Ahmadinejad's comments about the Holocaust are a disgrace. His rhetoric can be ugly and he does not play well in Peoria, the mid-west weather vane here in the US where I am at present.

But he is the president of an important country and we'll just have to accept it."

"This part of Straw's evidence is therefore a huge lie."

"It is the most perverse of lies by Straw to argue that the fact that the Germans and French did not table their draft proved that 1441 authorised war, when we had told them not to table their draft because 1441 did not authorise war."

Like the title of this piece those are not my words but those of former Ambassador, Craig Murray, whose blog entry is a must read for anyone who cares about the truth and Jack Straw's alleged disconnect from it.

Here's a further extract, but do read the whole piece:

"Straw's biggest and most important lie goes right to the heart of the question of whether the war was legal. Did UN Security Council Resolution 1441 provide a legal basis for the invasion, or would a second resolution specifically authorising military action have been required? The UK certainly put a massive amount of diplomatic effort into obtaining a second resolution.

...

As Ambassador in an Islamic country, I was copied all or nearly all of the telegrams of instruction on the diplomatic efforts to secure a second resolution. I can tell you these facts as an eye-witness.

Straw argues that the proof that no second resolution was needed is that

I was not in any doubt about that and neither was Jeremy Greenstock, and for very good reasons, which is that there had been talk by the French and Germans of a draft which would have required a second resolution, but they never tabled it.

But they did not table it because we gave assurances to the French and Germans (and Russians and Chinese) that our draft of UNSCR 1441 did not authorise military action. The instructions were to inform those governments that UNSCR 1441 contained "no automatic trigger" which would lead to military action. I remember the phrase precisely "no automatic trigger". Rod Lyne on the committee must remember it too, because he was one of the people, as Ambassador in Moscow, instructed to give that message.

It is the most perverse of lies by Straw to argue that the fact that the Germans and French did not table their draft proved that 1441 authorised war, when we had told them not to table their draft because 1441 did not authorise war.

I read with enormous care and in real time every single word of the scores of telegrams on the effort to secure the second resolution. Not one word gave any hint at all that a second resolution might not be necessary to authorise war. There was absolutely no mention in telegrams to Embassies of the notion that UNSCR 1441 was a sufficient basis for war, and no second resolution needed, until many weeks after 1441 was passed, just before the invasion.

...

This part of Straw's evidence is therefore a huge lie. "

Maybe the main stream media could press Jack Straw on this matter, but somehow I doubt that they will.