What's news?

Yesterday Gordon Brown had to admit that he mislead the Chilcot Inquiry over the relative levels of defence spending. His admission did not encompass the whole truth as he said just that "I do accept that in one or two years defence expenditure did not rise in real terms." when in fact defence spending in real terms fell in four years. Gordon Brown did not apologise for misleading the House of Commons at last wee's PMQs when he repeated the same stark claim:

"I put the facts before the inquiry on Friday. I said to the inquiry very clearly first of all that the expenditure of the Ministry of Defence has been rising in real terms under this Government.

...

I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that the defence budget has been rising every year. He might have had a complaint if we were cutting the defence budget every year, but it is rising every year."

Now this was not an off-the-cuff remark, it was a prepared response to the Chilcot Inquiry and one Gordon Brown was happy to use as one of his prepared answers at PMQs. So was Gordon Brown's research inadequate? Was he careless as to the accuracy of his claims? Did he deliberately mislead (some might say lie) in order to protect his position in front the Chilcot Inquiry, knowing that it was unlikely that the truth would come out that day? Questions that are a) interesting and b) relevant to understanding the man that is Gordon Brown.

So what is the BBC's reaction to Gordon Brown's partial admission of guilt yesterday? The News front page makes no reference to Gordon Brown's admission at all, although they do find room for "No 'secret' Ashcroft deal - Hague " as the fifth top story. So I take a trip over to the Politics News front page where the main story is the "No 'secret' Ashcroft deal - Hague" story with three further links to related stories " Q&A: Lord Ashcroft", "Tax status new to Cameron" and "Profile: Lord Ashcroft". The Gordon Brown story is relegated to position four, the first small headline and the headline chosen is "PM misled Iraq inquiry - Cameron". Yes the BBC turn the headline so that it seems as though the claim is David Cameron's rather than an admission by Gordon Brown. Hidden away near the end of the article is the Gordon Brown defence (my emphasis):

"Mr Brown's spokesman said the prime minister had "taken the first opportunity" to tell MPs about his mistake but would not say when he first became aware of it.

Asked how Mr Brown had made the mistake, Downing Street said budgets were "pretty complex" and defence was one of the biggest.

So Gordon Brown's team are not saying when Gordon Brown first knew of his mistake in evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry, ie: was it before or after last week's PMQs. The other line of defence is that the subject is "pretty complex"; so much for the giant brain that was supposedly possessed by Gordon Brown!

So I turn to the BBC's top political story; it's a supposed leak but the 'leak' seems as much an embarrassment to Number 10 as to the Conservative party as the article itself has to acknowledge, albeit quietly (my emphasis):

"Former Conservative leader William Hague has denied any "secret" deal was done over Lord Ashcroft's tax status.

The Tory donor was made a peer in 2000 after undertaking to become a permanent UK resident, which was widely believed to mean he would be a full UK taxpayer.

But Mr Hague told the BBC leaked papers showed No 10 knew the agreed deal had not included the peer's tax status.

...

"The idea that this was a secret Tory deal for Lord Ashcroft to avoid whatever people thought he should have paid is rather blown apart by the knowledge this was all copied to Downing Street," he told BBC Radio 4's Today."

However the best comment is saved for near the end:

'Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said the leaked document showed William Hague and Tory leader David Cameron had been "economical with the truth"'

You have to admire the cheek of Peter Mandelson to accuse anyone of being "economical with the truth", he truly is a man without shame.

But that's not the end of the BBC coverage, here's the very last sentence of this report:

'Lord Ashcroft has pumped millions of pounds of his own money into the Conservative Party over the years and in 2005 was made its deputy chairman, with responsibility for targeting marginal seats at the general election.'

Breathtaking the BBC bias isn't it?


Away from the BBC's bias it is also interesting to note that Lord Ashcroft is not accused of anything illegal, he is paying tax on all his UK income as he must do as a UK resident. However as a non-dom he does not have to pay tax on his foreign income as that tax is deemed to be paid elsewhere. The difference between residence and domicile for tax is not that difficult to understand but it is one that the Labour party and their propaganda wing - the BBC - are quite happy to confuse.

Of course the fact that the reappearance of the Lord Ashcroft story has occurred just as the media spotlight was being shone on the UNITE union's links to and control of Gordon Brown and the Labour government must be entirely coincidental.


The BBC are getting more and more desperate and so fearless in their support for this Labour government. The BBC realise that with, probably, less than two months until the general election there is very little time for the Conservatives to change tack and point out the BBC's political bias and so the BBC feel free to push on and see how far they can go. What is worrying is that the BBC are not yet on a war-footing; so if you think their bias is bad now, just wait a while...

Confused by the unemployment figures?

Burning Our Money has a great analysis and explanation of how unemployment can be down:

"Conclusion? The next time some government minister or apologist spouts all that stuff about how brilliantly they've managed to stop unemployment rising in this recession, you need to remember two key points:

1. Unemployment has been artificially held down by a wholly unsustainable 300,000 recruitment binge in the public sector - a binge that will have to be reversed after the election.
2. Real unemployment - including the 370,000 growth in the number of so-called economically inactive - has increased by 750,000 in the last year.

Modern nursery rhymes - "There was a crooked man...."

"There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse
And they all lived together in a little crooked house that he bought with a secret loan from a millionaire chum that he didn't declare to his mortgage lender because he's a sleazy prick who thinks he's better than you."

More at The Daily Mash.

OK, here's another:

"One, two buckle my shoe
Three, four, knock at the door
Five, seven is it? I'm sorry, I went to a state school that felt that arithmetic was not as important as teaching me about lesbians and socialism."

Now go and read the rest at The Daily Mash.

Mea culpa - or not!

I have made a mistake, sorry. It seems that I have several times, most recently here accused Gordon Brown of misleading the House of Commons over defence spending and used Channel 4's Fact Check as evidence. It seems that I was mistaken..... Not that Gordon mislead Parliament, that really is true, it's just that Iain Dale explains that it was in fact "the News of the World Defence Correspondent, Paul McNamara, who wrote the story on Sunday, 24 hours before Channel 4 News covered it.".

Sorry; a word that Gordon Brown really needs to use more.


UPDATE: I must stop trusting Iain Dale as he now apologises for mistakenly attributing the Fact Check facts to the News of the World when the piece did in fact as I blogged at the weekend originate at Channel 4. So my original piece and follow-up were correct and I only went wrong when I started listening to Iain Dale!

Has Frank Field really offered himself as a Minister to David Cameron?

It's a rumour that is spreading but the Iain Dale page that I was referred to seems not to exist now!

For what it's worth I see Frank Field as a Labour MP who I would be glad to see join the Conservative party, he has a lot to offer.

"Brown admits mistake on defence spending evidence "

The BBC reports that:

"Gordon Brown is to correct his evidence to the Iraq Inquiry after accepting defence spending had not risen in real terms every year under Labour.

The PM, chancellor during the war, said he now accepted it "did not rise in real terms" in one or two years.

...

Mr Brown told MPs he had written to the inquiry chairman Sir John Chilcot. "

That's odd because I blogged about Channel 4's "Fact Check" piece on Gordon Brown's armed forces funding claims last weekend. However this Channel 4 piece was not about Gordon Brown misleading the Chilcot Inquiry but about him misleading the House of Commons. I presume therefore that Gordon Brown will now apologise to the House of Commons for his claims that

"I put the facts before the inquiry on Friday. I said to the inquiry very clearly first of all that the expenditure of the Ministry of Defence has been rising in real terms under this Government.

...

I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that the defence budget has been rising every year. He might have had a complaint if we were cutting the defence budget every year, but it is rising every year."

If Gordon Brown does not apologise of his own free will then I hope that an apology is demanded of him by the House of Commons authorities, as misleading the House of Commons is a very serious matter.

Claim after claim from Gordon Brown stated with absolute certainty as absolute fact, when he must have known it was not true. Here's that Channel 4 news piece for you to watch...

Now Gordon Brown has only admitted that defence spending "did not rise in real terms" in one or two years. The Channel 4 FactCheck shows that it actually fell in four years - 1998-1999, 1999-2000, 2002-2003 & 2007-2008. As I said at the weekend I think "playing fast and loose with the figures" just about sums up Gordon Brown's performance on Wednesday and indeed much of his career since 1997. And that Channel 4 summary again: "Gordon Brown's central claim... is fiction".

A severely traumatised dog?

The Telegraph report this automatic dog (and cat) washer dryer as a humerous animal story. However note the dog's frantic scrabbling to escape when the machine door is shut and the way it clings to the handler when taken from the machine; this looks like a very cruel way to treat an animal to me.

Finally some good news for those of us who are receeding slightly

The BBC report that:

"A receding hairline can be a good thing, according to US scientists, who say men who go bald by 30 appear to be less likely to develop prostate cancer.

Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine studied 2,000 men aged between 40 and 47.

They were able to link high levels of the male hormone testosterone in those who lose their hair earlier with a lower risk of tumours.

The findings are published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology.

Half of the men in this study had suffered prostate cancer.

Researchers compared the rate of tumours in those who said their hair had thinned by the age of 30 with those who did not suffer hair loss.

Men who had started to develop bald spots on the top of their heads as well as receding hairlines had a 29% to 45% reduction in the risk of prostate cancer. "

God's pliers?

I have previously remarked on the odd things you see on Google Maps and Google StreetView so these giant pliers sightings were right up my street (so to speak).


View Larger Map



View Larger Map


Either God was doing some DIY or someone left some pliers rather close to the Google StreetView camera on top of this car.


StreetView Fun has some more odd spots, with their number one unsurprisingly being this 'lady' in Homewood, Illinois looking for fame...And there's lot more of that type of shot elsewhere on StreetView Fun.

Labour has started hiding embarrassing statistics

Labour has started hiding embarrassing statistics pre the general election and the first one is a Home Office statistic. The Independent reveal that:

"The Government was accused last night of delaying the publication of potentially embarrassing crime figures until after the general election, in contravention of its own rules.

The Youth Justice Board (YJB) told The Independent that statistics showing the number of crimes committed by under-18s would not be published until the autumn, nearly six months later than the normal publication date. "

The Independent then reports the usual plausible, but incorrect, Labour government explanation:

"An official for the government agency said that the data was being delayed because of the looming election and the official "purdah" period, which prevents civil servants from releasing overtly party political information."

Before explaining why this is a lie:

"But official civil service rules state that "purdah" only begins when an election is called. Senior youth justice sources expressed surprise at the decision of the Government to use "purdah" as an excuse for a delay. They said the publication of crime statistics was not a political act and should not be covered by the "purdah" protocol. The Conservatives said that unless the information was published before the election, the public would be entitled to think that the Government had "something to hide"."

maybe this could be another line of attack for David Cameron at PMQs today.

David Cameron's tactics for PMQs 17 March 2010

So how will David Cameron tackle the great dissembler at PMQs today? He could go on Army underfunding again, maybe drawing attention to the subtle way that Gordon Brown has changed his stock answer from never refusing an army request to never refusing an "urgent operational requirements" request. Alternatively he could attack on the economy pointing out that despite Gordon Brown's claims that everyone agreed with him on how to manage the 'recovery' the EU Commission have declared that the UK is not on course to cut its deficit in line with EU rules by the 2015 deadline. Or David Cameron might attack over the UNITE unions ownership of Labour; half the cabinet!

So much choice but which line of attack will Gordon Brown find most irritating and hard to answer? Last week Gordon Brown showed a willingness to be less than straight about army funding and maybe that subject is getting so involved that the general public just can't follow it. The European Commission report looks a promising point but Gordon Brown will doubtless see that as a way of first attacking the Conservatives for being "wrong, wrong, wrong" again, even though it is his predictions that have been shown to be faulty time and time again (I may return to this subject later in the week) and second of calling the Tories 'anti-European'. So maybe the UNITE/Labour angle would be most profitable, after all Gordon Brown will no doubt bring up Lord Ashcroft again, so why not get in there first? The Sun's front page could give David Cameron some popular ammunition and its presence on the newsstands today does mean that David Cameron could could attack on a point that is fresh in the public consciousness.

Soon after 12:00 we will know...

Is the BA cabin staff strike really a Brown/Balls v Mandelson/Adonis dispute?

Events, dear boy, events has a fascinating analysis of the BA cabin staff strike that goes beyond the usual UNITE angle to decide that: "There is little doubt that Gordon Brown is using Unite to ensure Ed Balls becomes his successor". Do take a read, there's more detail there than in any of the BBC reporting.

Gordon Brown, as deluded in 1992 as he is now

Gordon Brown declaring that there had been a bigger swing to Labour in 1992 than at any election since 1966. "How would you define a Conservative defeat?" I wonder how Gordon Brown will react in a few weeks time if Labour finish just a few seats short of an overall majority, will he say that Labour has no mandate to govern?

Has Speaker Bercow crossed a line?

Paul Waugh thinks that many Conservative MPs think he might have done and are discussing what action to take. Read The Standard article for the specifics, here's the conclusion:

"Some Tories tell me that the private discussions about unseating the Speaker are now becoming matters of open debate in the Tea Room.

"It's a question of when, not if, he is challenged," one says. "I don't wake up wanting to pick a fight with Mr Speaker. But I wonder whether he wakes up in the morning and wonders which Tory MP he wants to pick a fight with."

...

UPDATE: Tory backbenchers are going to the whips tonight to express their displeasure with the Speaker. I hear that one of the delegation is also to go directly to David Cameron himself."

I thought they were probably Labour MPs

The BBC article about MPs (and former MPs) having to repay expenses is missing a few details. The first two MPs named are described as "Tory Liam Fox... and Labour's Shahid Malik". But after that the MPs named seem to be missing their political party affiliations; my suspicions were aroused so I had to do some fact-checking:

"Other MPs who had appeals rejected were Roger Casale, Chris Pond and Betty Williams.

Six MPs had their appeals upheld in full and a further four - John Lyons, Denis MacShane, Alan Simpson and Derek Wyatt - had their sums requested reduced by sums ranging from £121 to £7,866. "

Let's see that's MPs whose appeals were rejected in full or part:
Roger Casale - former Labour MP
Chris Pond - former Labour MP
Betty Williams - current Labour MP
John Lyons - former Labour MP
Denis MacShane - current Labour Minister
Alan Simpson - current Labour MP
Derek Wyatt - current Labour MP

No I can't see why the BBC would drop the listing of party affiliations, can you?

The BA Strike, UNITE, Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown and a theory

Is it not possible that the BA strike is being talked up so that Gordon Brown can 'solve' the strike problem just in time to ensure that the weekend news bulletins are not full of upset Easter holiday makers but instead can concentrate on the bravery of Gordon Brown taking on Unite even though they fund the Labour party? Maybe I am suspicious but I just cannot see Charlie Whelan and Gordon Brown not discussing this idea whilst they compare who (in the words of The Sun) is the real "foul mouthed Rottweiler".

The seventy-fifth weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week's prize relates to something said a while back but I read this article today and it reminded me.

The prize goes to Barry Sheerman, the Children, Schools and Families Committee chairman, who described Ed Balls thus: "He is a bit of a bully, he likes to get his own way."

"He is a bit of a bully, he likes to get his own way." - No shit, Sherlock!

Why is the petrol price going up?

The BBC manage to report that

"Petrol prices could hit a record high of £1.20 a litre in the next few weeks, according to the AA."

without mentioning how much of the price of a gallon of petrol at the pump is taken in duty and tax. I was going to refer to ABD's useful table but that only goes up as far as £1.099 a litre, being a year or so old. So I used the ABD Fuel Tax Calculator and that shows that with a pump price of £1.20 per litre, VAT accounts for £0.1787 per litre, fuel tax for £0.5619 per litre; so tax and duty makes up 61.72% of the price paid at the pump or put another way - the tax and duty rate on petrol is 161.22%. Now why would the BBC not be interested in revealing that sort of information?

Muslim Holy Sites

Sunday's Brian Cox fronted programme, The Wonders of The Solar System, was a great watch and what BBC TV should be like. However even this programme had a dhimmi nod. It started in the 4th or 5th (I forget which) holiest site in Islam, a Mosque in Tunisia, where an awed Brian Cox explained the antiquity and when the five daily prayers were said. As I watched this I started to wonder how many 'holy' sites are graded by Islam? Is there a top 10, a top 20, a top 100? Are their positions fixed or is there any movement? If the latter will in the future Radio 1 give us the latest top 40 Islamic holy sites countdown on a Sunday night?

So this morning I was reminded of the BBC's habit of referring to the Al-Aqsa mosque as Islam's third holiest site, but never referring to the Western (Wailing) Wall of Herod's temple as Judaism's holiest site. I wonder why?

A difference in reporting

Moody's Investors Services released a report on the financial position of major AAA rated governments and I was interested to read two rather different accounts of what it said. The financial specialists at Bloomberg reported the headline news as

"The U.S. and the U.K. have moved “substantially” closer to losing their AAA credit ratings as the cost of servicing their debt rose, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

The governments of the two economies must balance bringing down their debt burdens without damaging growth by removing fiscal stimulus too quickly, Pierre Cailleteau, managing director of sovereign risk at Moody’s in London, said in a telephone interview.

Under the ratings company’s so-called baseline scenario, the U.S. will spend more on debt service as a percentage of revenue this year than any other top-rated country except the U.K., and will be the biggest spender from 2011 to 2013, Moody’s said today in a report.

“We expect the situation to further deteriorate in terms of the key ratings metrics before they start stabilizing,” Cailleteau said. “This story is not going to stop at the end of the year. There is inertia in the deterioration of credit metrics.” "

However the BBC reported the news thus:

"The credit ratings of major AAA governments, including the US and the UK, are well positioned, says Moody's Investors Services.

Moody's released a report on the financial position of major AAA rated governments.

This includes the four largest - Germany, France, the UK and the US - as well as smaller ones, including Spain.

The report will reassure the bond markets about the ability of the US and the UK to make future debt payments.

A key finding is that the AAA ratings of the UK and the US are secure because of the capability of their respective governments to reverse recent deficits. "

Both accounts cannot be correct and I think I would rather believe the account of the unbiased Bloomberg than the pro-Labour spin of the BBC in the run-up to a general election.

Barack Obama's private army

Summer Patriot has more on a subject that I have blogged about several times before...

Happy Birthday internet

I note that today is the 25th anniversary of the first .com domains being registered - Symbolics a Massachusetts-based computer added dotcom to its name on 15 March 1985, it was shortly followed by Bbn.com and Think.com. There are now around 84 million domain names registered.

It's a Labour MP so not a word on the BBC

Whilst Guido Fawkes is able to report that:

"Transport Minister Sadiq Khan is in hot water this afternoon after it has been revealed that he lied to the press and to the Parliamentary authorities. He is paying back £2,500. Having had over a grands worth of greeting card receipts rightly rejected from his Communications Allowance claims, Khan then went back to the printers and had them create a new receipt, for the same amount, but without the birthday cards itemised on them. This fraudulent receipt was then accepted by the Fees Office."

The BBC seem unable to report the same news; I presume that they are either waiting to find a Conservative MP with a major honesty issue or are awaiting instructions from Labour's spin department as to how to report this story.

If Joe Biden is the most pro-Israel senior member of the administration then I wouldn't like to meet the least

Double Tapper dissects Joe Biden's real record on the Middle East - pro-Iran and anti-Israel.

"The fact that before becoming vice president Biden had one of the most pro-Iran voting records in the Senate has done nothing to mitigate this perception. Indeed, despite the fact that Biden voted repeatedly against sanctions on Iran, claimed that Iran’s quest for nuclear bombs was understandable and called for the US to sign a nonaggression pact with the mullocracy while threatening to move for president George W. Bush’s impeachment if he were to order a military strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons programs, Biden continues to be mistakenly viewed as a solid supporter of Israel.


During USA Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel this week, he spoke a lot about how Israel should change it's policies to move the Obama peace plan forward and explicitly warned Israel against venturing to attack Iran without prior American permission, but neglected to make any statements on the Hamas policy of spreading hate and encouraging terrorism. "

Same old Gordon, same old dissembling, same old refusal to answer a straight question

Gordon Brown incapable of admitting any fault

Watch the video, especially from 4:03 and note how Gordon Brown just cannot admit that he made any error.


"I didn't, I didn't..."
Nasty evasive piece of work isn't he?

Jane Garvey to interview Gordon Brown

10:00 Radio 4 Woman's Hour and Jane Garvey will be interviewing Gordon Brown. I wonder if Jane Garvey take the opportunity to reminisce about election night 1997:

"Jane Garvey: I do remember I walked back in - we were broadcasting then from Broadcasting House in the centre of London, all very upmarket in those days - and the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles. [Hearty laugh from Peter Allen] I'll always remember that. Er... not that the BBC were celebrating in any way, shape or form…

Peter Allen: No not all...

Jane Garvey: ...and actually I think it's fair to say that in the intervening years... er... the BBC, if it ever was in love with Labour has probably fallen out of love with Labour, or learnt to fall back in, or basically just learnt to be in the middle somewhere which is how it should be. Um, but there was always the suggestion that the BBC was full of pinkos who couldn't wait for Labour to get back into power. That may have been the case - who knows - but as I say there have been a few problems along the way over the last ten years. Wish I hadn't started this now. "

The audo is here if Jane and Gordon want to wallow in pro-Labour nostalgia.

"Look Out for the Forces of Hell, My Lord"

Iain Martin in the Wall Street Journal warns Lord Adonis to be careful and points out the links between the Unite trade union, especially 'Charlie Whelan, head of the political department at Unite who is also back at the Prime Minister’s right hand as a top election adviser.', Unite's £11 million in donations to Labour since 2007 and Gordon Brown's silence about the strike.

As Iain Martin writes

"People might draw the conclusion that there’s a fight going on about this strike in government and the party, with the remaining New Labourites not very happy with Charlie Whelan’s Unite. And then there’s all that money the union causing the strike is giving Labour to pay for its election campaign (did I mention this?)

Goodness, this could easily turn very nasty indeed. The press has started to cover the affair and the public might start to notice soon too. People might even get the impression that Adonis, an arch-Blairite, is not prepared to let the union of an arch-Brownite such as Charlie Whelan hold his party and the travelling public to ransom.

But I would be careful if I was Lord Adonis. If he doesn’t pipe down pronto, someone might unleash the “forces of hell” on him."

Another piece of Labour's mania for control and criminalising as many people as possible

The Times reports that:

"Lord Adonis, the transport secretary, expects an official review of the law to recommend reducing the legal limit from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg. He said he would take this “very seriously” and added: “A strong case has been made to have a lower limit.”

At present the 80mg limit allows a man of average build to drink 1½-2 pints of normal-strength beer or three small glasses of wine and remain within the law. With a 50mg limit, the average man would be limited to just under a pint of beer or a large glass of wine and women to half a pint of beer or a small glass of wine.

The change could force some country pubs to close."

A Tangled Web thinks this is another example of

"The neo-Puritans in Labour seek(ing) to stop people having any alcohol when they go out for a meal or just a night with friends, especially in rural areas where there is no public transport... this is all about ideology, not science, not saving lives. This is aimed at furthering the criminalisation of drivers, a key part of their agenda."

David Vance is right and as I said earlier today:

"The end-game for authoritarian governments, such as the UK's Labour government, is for there to be so many laws that everyone is guilty of something at some time. Then it is easy enough to arrest and punish malcontents as the government wishes. Labour's new laws are not about reducing drink-driving or eliminating smoking in a public place but about controlling and instilling fear into the populace."

'not supported by solid science'

Climate Change of course; the story is in The Times and is that

"TWO government advertisements that use nursery rhymes to warn people of the dangers of climate change have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for exaggerating the potential harm.

The adverts, commissioned by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, used the rhymes to suggest that Britain faces an inevitable increase in storms, floods and heat waves unless greenhouse gas emissions are brought under control.

The ASA has ruled that the claims made in the newspaper adverts were not supported by solid science and has told the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that they should not be published again."

The article also contains this interesting section that I think needs wider dissemination (my emphasis):

"The rulings will be an embarrassment for Miliband, who has tried to portray his policies as firmly science-based. He had commissioned two posters, four press advertisements and a short film for television and cinema, which started appearing in October last year in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks.

They attracted 939 complaints — more than the ASA received for any advertisement last year. The deluge posed problems for the ASA, which is not a scientific body, so it decided to compare the text of Miliband’s adverts with the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Based on that comparison, it ruled that two of the DECC’s adverts had broken the advertising code on three counts: substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims."

So even when compared to the increasingly discredited IPCC report, Ed Miliband's department's claims were found to have broken the advertising code "on three counts: substantiation, truthfulness and environmental claims". When will the 'warmists' stop lying to us?

3:20 is that too long to look at Laura Frison's buttocks?

Laura Frison in Yes Club's "Yes, yes, yes"

As blogged elsewhere

"The end-game for authoritarian governments such as the UK's Labour government is for there to be so many laws that everyone is guilty of something at some time. Then it is easy enough to arrest and punish malcontents as the government wishes. Labour's new laws are not about reducing drink-driving or eliminating smoking in a public place but about controlling and instilling fear into the populace."

See A Tangled Web for the context.

And the Labour government dispense with another right in their endless pursuit of being good EU subjects

The Telegraph alerts us to the fact that:

"Britons arrested in Europe will not have the right to demand a full translation of the charges they are facing, under proposals supported by the government. "

Yes Labour are willing, nay keen, for British subjects to be arrested in the UK if a European Arrest Warrant issued against them (under Schengen Information II rules), extradited to the EU country that issued the warrant (under Europe's fast-track extradition system) and then tried without all relevant documents
being translated into English.

If that were not enough we are advised that

"Britain has also supported a loophole that would allow a suspect to give up his rights without a lawyer present and without any written evidence, a move that could easily allow police officers to ignore the translation requirements altogether."

This is a heavenly opportunity for the EU and other totalitarian governments; they can have citizens of one country being extradited to another where they will be tried without having full access to the details of the evidence against them and then imprisoned without proper access to appeal. Let nobody be in any doubt as to the rights and freedoms that are being taken from us by this Labour government and the EU. How long before a UK subject is arrested by British police and extradited to a former Warsaw Pact country for questioning the democratic credentials of that country? How long before the EU itself gives itself the powers to try EU citizens for crimes against the EU; crimes such as questioning the powers of the EU, the lack of budget security or the alliance of the EU powers and radical Islam?

Another Gordon Brown inspired dividing line

I hear that Jack Straw will be unveiling plans to abolish the House of Lords. This is obviously designed to trouble David Cameron, who will have to choose whether to oppose this plan and risk being portrayed as a protector of privilege or support the plan and risk splitting the conservatives in the Conservative party.

I'm sorry but I don't understand

Could someone please explain how Baroness Uddin was not prosecuted because it could not be proved that she had not visited her 'main' home once a month yet Lord Paul is not prosecuted despite admitting that he had never spent a single night at his 'main' home?

The Telegraph's latest report on Lord Paul confuses me. First we are told that:

"Lord Paul, a major party donor, was told by Scotland Yard last week that he will not face charges over his expenses claims. "

Second we are told that:

"The peer has admitted that he never spent a single night at an Oxfordshire flat that he registered as his main home while claiming money in overnight expenses for a London property. "

How does that work> Earlier this week I reported that:

"Baroness Uddin will not be prosecuted as... threshold that peers must visit their "main home" at least once a month."

I know it's wrong but when I was 15 (update)

Further to my article about the teacher who had regular sex with a 15 year old male pupil, I have just found this Rod Liddle article. Do read but also read the comments, quite a difference in opinions... For myself when I was 15 I had a near permanent erection and the attentions of a teacher like Sarah Pirie would have been most welcome.

So it's clear who the Lib Dems would support were they to hold the balance of power in a hung Parliament

The BBC report that

"The Lib Dems would not support a government which tried to make major spending cuts in the next financial year, leader Nick Clegg has said."

So that's clear; as the Lib Dems could not be the largest party after a General Election then a vote for the Lib Dems would be as good as a vote for Labour as the Lib Dems would only support a Labour minority government not a Conservative one.

So vote Labour and get Labour, vote Lib Dem and get Labour. Is it any wonder the BBC were reporting Vince Cable's words so positively this afternoon?

I think I may have a new hero - Amy Alkon

Amy Alkon explains some of her philosophy



Thanks to Theo Spark for the spot.

Fresh from Friday night's Jonathan Ross's TV show

Plan B - "She Said"

I do like this song but why does a man from Forest Gate have to try and sound like he's from the Bronx? English style rapping works; see Mike Skinner AKA The Streets for a good example.

Trixy on the EU

Trixy explains why she doesn't love the EU any more in a post from 2007 that deserves wide readership. I was especially pleased to note her opposition to:

"4) Galileo satellite system: Multi billion pound 'grand project' that is driven by delays, costs and technical problems. Will be superseded by competition. The need to pay for this project is the main reason for the hated road pricing scheme."

I was worried by one point that I had not heard of before:

"24) PC lexicon: The European Commission has issued a document to go to all member states informing them of the language they are able to use and words which are forbidden, in the event of a terrorist attack. They have refused to release this guide, but admit it exists."

Is David Cameron prepared to show some bottle and drop George Osborne?

Yesterday Paul Waugh in The Standard reports that ConservativeHome's Tim Montgomerie on Friday posted a piece revealing that

"following a less than stellar few weeks for CCHQ, Andy Coulson and Steve Hilton (the yin and yang of Cameronism) are now sharing an office. Coordination between strategy and tactics should be improved, we're told."

But more interestingly Tim Montgomerie stated that:

"The Shadow Chancellor's Mais lecture was his last big economic statement before the election, he says, and he will be stepping back from the front line to focus on his other job as campaign chief.

"Ken Clarke will fill the gap by being more of the public face for Conservative economic policy"."

Remember that

"City AM had a poll suggesting that the boys in the Square Mile and Canary Wharf prefer Ken to George. "

Meanwhile I note that The Mail report that:

"David Cameron has revealed that he would be prepared to sack his closest ally and 'good friend' George Osborne if necessary.

He said the pair have discussed the Shadow Chancellor moving into another job 'several times' over recent years.

'We get along very well, as friends and we like each other which is always a good start,' the Tory leader said in an interview for Trevor McDonald Meets David Cameron.

...

'George is a big man. He understands politics is about big decisions and he wanted to bring Ken back, the last chancellor to bring us out of a recession and I thought "Great",' Mr Cameron said."

Could David Cameron be about to make an announcement that will spike some of Labour's guns? Could he, would he? Labour could spin this as a panic move but Ken Clarke is a more congenial figure than George Osborne, who has an unfortunately very punchable face. Also Ken can talk about how Gordon Brown has destroyed the golden economic legacy that he left when the Conservatives lost the 1997 general election.

Catchup post

Too many articles have held my interest over the past few days but I have not had the time to post so here's a catchup:

1) Events Dear Boy Evens warns us that despite everything seemingly pointing to a set budget and 6 May as the date of the general election that we should be careful:

"But wait. We have to consider the mind of short-term tactical Brown.

It's not like him to walk down the path of the all-so-obvious. He will want to wrong-foot the Tories with some trumped-up dividing lines on Budget Day, as well as sending us voters a few morsels to chew on. Furthermore, there is no better way of throwing the Tories and LibDems election plans into disarray by seeking the dissolution when its least expected.

Be prepared. Brown will pull a few rabbits out of the hat in the coming weeks."

2) The Mail reports yet another story of a victim of crime being arrested as when a

"restaurant owner found two teenage yobs raiding his beer cellar, he chased them and held them while his staff dialled 999.

Sal Miah assumed police would commend him for catching the young criminals.

But when officers arrived they arrested 35-year-old Mr Miah on suspicion of assault and battery."

As is becoming normal the police don't apologise but instead

"Sussex police said Mr Miah should have 'observed from a safe distance' before dialling 999.

The spokesman said: 'On no account should any attempt at aggression be made as this could easily escalate into violence.'"

3) A Tangled Web reports that:

"non-white children born this year will form a majority of the country's newborns for the very first time. By 2050 it will not so much be a case of Uncle Sam as Uncle José.

...

As Hispanics overwhelmingly endorse the Democrats (Obama received 67% of their vote in 2008), what does it say about the chances of the GOP maintaining its dominant hold on the White House in the 21st Century? The 20th Century saw 10 Republicans and only 7 Democrats in the Oval Office. Will America's emerging status as a white minority country reverse that trend? Moreover, what of foreign relations? Will, for example, a future US President anxious to placate an ever-increasing Hispanic voter base look less to Europe for traditional allies?"

4) Trixy reports on the woeful Baroness Ashton's latest appearance in front of the EU Parliament:

"Addressing the Parliament for the first time in the 100 days since she's been appointed the job of EU Foreign Minister, she spoke about the need to, well, remove any concept of nation states within the European Union.

She's the highest paid female politician in the world. I like the way she earns that money with her little school ground impression at the end of the speech."

Here's the video of Mr Paul Nuttall's speech and the always unelected Cathy Ashton's immature response to some much deserved ridicule.


5) The Mail has an interesting article about Frank Field headlined

"The only politician with the guts to speak out about immigration: Frank Field reveals his candid opinion on the future of Britain"

6) Anna Raccoon has a long piece mostly about the power of the people/blogosphere and specifically about Nick Hogan, it includes this rather chilling note

"In the meantime, Russia’s main television channel is flying into Manchester to interview Nick Hogan as part of a special investigation* into the totalitarian regime that they see emerging in Europe – Oh! The irony! Post Perestroika Russia sees Britain as an oppressive regime! Was it only yesterday that we were lecturing them on Freedom?"

7) The BBC seem shocked that the month after the stamp duty holiday ended that

"Mortgages agreed with house buyers fell by 49% from December, after buyers rushed to beat the reintroduction of the old stamp duty thresholds.

There were just 32,000 loans approved for house buyers in January.

The number of loans for first-time buyers fell by 54% in January to 11,300."

Of course no blame is ascribed to Gordon Brown, although they were happy to give kudos to Gordon Brown for the uplift in the economy in the last few months of 2009.

Cutting the deficit

Why does nobody point out to Gordon 'Brownie' Brown that cutting the deficit in half means that the National Debt is still increasing by over £100 billion a year for three of the next four years and by £100 billion in year four. By not pointing this out, interviewers are allowing Gordon Brown to persuade people that total debt is being reduced not the annual deficit - there is a difference and that difference needs explaining.

BBC spelling error

The BBC's election timetable has a rather daft spelling mistake:

"THURSDAY, 8 APRIL - ADJOURNMENT OR PROROGATION

MPs and peers stop sitting in Parliament after traditional scramble by party bosses to see what legislation can be saved. Parliament continues to exist until it is formally dissolved the following Monday. After dissolution there are no longer any MPs, although ministers keep their jobs during the election campaign. Local returning officers receive election wits. "

I think that should be "writs".

The BBC and Islamic propaganda

Have a read of this article and despair. Here's the start, do read it all:

"Down at that self-proclaimed centre of ‘tolerance and harmony’, the East London Mosque, they’ve been holding some pretty tolerant and harmonious meetings lately. On 9 July last year, for instance, there was the half-day conference on ‘social ills’. One of the ‘social ills’ — with an entire session to itself — was ‘music’, described by one of the speakers, Haitham al-Haddad, as a ‘prohibited and fake message of love and peace’.

Then there was the talk, on 26 June, by a certain Bilal Philips — named by the US government as an ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. And if that particular outrage was a little too small-time for the dedicated holy warrior — only six people died — the East London Mosque was also kind enough to host, on 1 January last year, a video address by Anwar al-Awlaki, spiritual leader to two of the 9/11 hijackers. This event was advertised with a poster showing Manhattan under bombardment.

Over the past 12 months, the East London Mosque has hosted at least 18 hate, fundamentalist and extremist speakers, many of them more than once. Over the past few years, there have been dozens — all approved, and many explicitly endorsed, by the mosque authorities themselves (in March 2008, for instance, Mr Philips was invited to deliver the Friday sermon). But perhaps the most bizarre event of all involved that notorious apostle of jihad, Jonathan Dimbleby, and the hated extremist propaganda network, BBC Radio 4.

Last week Any Questions, the station’s flagship political discussion show, conferred the honour and prestige of its presence on a mosque whose true nature can be found with little more than a Google search. Less than five weeks before the programme, the very hall from which it was broadcast hosted a speaker, Murtaza Khan, who has called for women who use perfume to be flogged. From the same platform which last week echoed to the pieties of the Lib Dem shadow communities secretary, a preacher named Abdul Karim Hattin hosted a ‘Spot the Fag’ contest. "

Are you depressed about the UK economy?

Read Allister Heath in The Spectator and you will be. Here's a few brief excerpts:

"A few months ago, Alistair Darling was asked how long he thought his government could continue to borrow £600 million a day. Might creditors one day refuse? The Chancellor gave an oblique reply. ‘When you walk over ice, you never know it is too thin — until you fall through.’ He said no more, but his message came across. If the bottom falls out of the British economy, it will do so instantly and dramatically. There will be no warning.

...

The markets are already growing jittery at the prospect. Gilt yields have risen sharply: the UK government now has to pay close to 1 per cent more in interest than the German government for a ten-year loan. Such rises will ricochet down the economy, passed on to companies and homeowners. Not only do we need to pay more than the Americans and French — but our debt is now deemed to be a riskier prospect than even Italy’s, an astonishing about-turn and humiliation. British government IOU notes have long been costlier to insure than those issued by McDonald’s.

...

Saxo Bank believes that we have witnessed ‘what can justifiably be called the beginnings of sterling’s collapse’ — and one caused by the prospect of a political power vacuum. It sees the pound tumbling to $1.20 by the summer — it was $2 two years ago and fell to $1.50 this week. Even if one is not that pessimistic, it is clear that the only way forward for sterling — or the GB Peso, as its detractors call it — is down.

While it is hard, almost impossible, to predict how close Britain is to the edge of the financial vortex, we know — by looking at the countries that have already slid in — what happens when things go too far. Expectations of collapse drive reality. A serious sterling slide would trigger widespread panic and further spook the debt markets. Why would foreigners continue to buy UK gilts if the value of sterling keeps on falling? They would be watching the value of their investment plunge. So they will demand even higher interest rates to compensate them for the risk — which, in turn, will frighten the markets, and burden British taxpayers even more. "

OK, now are you depressed? I am and I don't understand people who say "don't worry, we'll muddle through".

Could someone do a similar job on Gordon Brown?

Barack Obama as The Great Reneger.



Thanks to Theo Spark for the spot.

Beau Bo D'Or imagines Tony Blair's autobiography's front cover

Even more disturbing that the original that I think made it to a Rolling Stone magazine cover of John and Yoko...


You can read the story of the making of the Tony Blair / George Bush image here.

Channel 4 - Fact-checking Gordon Brown's claims at Wednesday's PMQs

I think "playing fast and loose with the figures" just about sums up Gordon Brown's performance on Wednesday and indeed much of his career since 1997.

And that summary again: "Gordon Brown's central claim... is fiction".

I wonder if the BBC have the resources, the honesty or the willingness to check Gordon Brown's figure work? I think I know the answer to that question.




Thanks to Daily Referendum for the spot.

It's all in the definition

Baroness Uddin will not be prosecuted as the CPS has apparently decided that expenses rules gave prosecutors a "very real difficulty" when it came to deciding whether to prosecute and that the definition of that residence in the Lords expenses scheme would always have been "critical to any possible criminal proceedings against Baroness Uddin".

So with the Clerk of Parliaments Michael Pownall announcing last November that ultimately "it is up to members to designate an address as their main residence as they see fit" and setting a threshold that peers must visit their "main home" at least once a month. It became all but impossible for the CPS to successfully prosecute Baroness Uddin.

Of course in the real world a person's "main home" would be where they lived the majority of the time, but in Labour "snouts in the trough" Britain: "it is up to members to designate an address as their main residence as they see fit".

How convenient, how cosy, how bloody ridiculous, how unlike the rules that apply to the rest of us; but we are just taxpayers not members of the Labour elite so we have no say in these matters.

Hasn't Gordon Brown changed his mind on the scale of debt he will allow

"Interest payments on the national debt are £25 billion a year. We're spending more on national debt repayment than on schools or law and order, and that is a situation I don't want as a hallmark of a Labour governmente... The public borrowing requirement was £23 billion last year. We plan to get it down very substantially."

Then, turning on the Tories, Mr Brown barked: "In 1992, they [the Conservative government] predicted the deficit would be eliminated, and by 1996 it had become £50 billion. I will not allow the country to get into that state again... We're not going back to that sort of situation where imprudent decisions, based on a misreading of the cycle, lead us to make spending apportionments that we cannot afford."

For more have a read of Jeff Randall in The Telegraph as he recalls a meeting with Gordon Brown in 1998.

Here comes the Sterling crash

The Telegraph report that:

"UniCredit has alerted investors in a client note that Britain is at serious risk of a bond market and sterling debacle and faces even more intractable budget woes than Greece.

...

"I am becoming convinced that Great Britain is the next country that is going to be pummelled by investors," said Kornelius Purps, Unicredit 's fixed income director and a leading analyst in Germany.

Mr Purps said the UK had been cushioned at first by low debt levels but the pace of deterioration has been so extreme that the country can no longer count on market tolerance.

"Britain's AAA-rating is highly at risk. The budget deficit is huge at 13pc of GDP and investors are not happy. The outgoing government is inactive due to the election. There will have to be absolute cuts in public salaries or pay, but nobody is talking about that," he told The Daily Telegraph.

"Sterling is going to fall further over coming months. I am not expecting a crash of the gilts market but we may see a further rise in spreads of 30 to 50 basis points."

Yields on 10-year gilts have already crept up to 4.14pc, compared to 3.94pc for Italian bonds, 3.48pc for French bonds, and 3.19pc for German Bunds, though part of this reflects worries about higher inflation in Britain.

Ian Stannard, currency strategist at BNP Paribas, said markets are fretting over how the UK will cover its deficit following the pause in quantitative easing by the Bank of England. The Bank has absorbed £200bn of debt, more than total Treasury issuance over the last year.

"The UK may have difficulty in attracting extra investors to fill the gap. We think they will have to do more QE as recovery falters," he said.

BNP Paribas expects sterling to drop to $1.31 against the dollar this year and reach parity against the euro despite troubles in Club Med. "We're very bearish on the UK," he said. "

The BBC have decoded not to report this story; I wonder why? Is it because it does not fit the agreed 'narrative'?

Question: When is a split not a split?

Answer: When it's a Labour debate.

Can you imagine the furore on the BBC if George Osborne and David Cameron or Ken Clarke put a slightly difference of emphasis on taxation or public spending? There would be, indeed in the past there have been, strong interviews on the Today programme , detailed analysis on the web and maybe even Michael Crick waving his microphone in front of their faces demanding 'answers'. Today there seems to be a guge difference in approach between Alistair Darling and Liam Byrne and that is seen only as worthy of a short comment in the newspaper review.

It would seem that in the BBC, any Tory policy disagreements are vitally important and show a deeply divided party, whilst Labour policy disagreements are merely a matter to note and move on from.

The BBC's cheerleading and setting 'the narrative' for Labour is increasing in intensity and the Conservative leadership seem powerless to say or do anything to stop them. Either David Cameron and his team get off their arses and do something or we will face a re-elected Gordon Brown.

An interesting debate

Ben Brogan's article and comments make for some interesting reading. It's headlined "Gordon Brown has voters in a trance - it's time for a wake-up call" and is profoundly depressing.

"We are being hypnotised. There is no other word to describe the mesmerising effect Big Brother Brown is having on the national consciousness. We have gone beyond disbelief at the outrageousness of his political lies, through pity for the miseries assailing those ashen jowls, and we are now emerging somewhere approaching grudging admiration for the sheer, bloody-minded resilience of the man.

...

Some of what he said was absurd, monstrous. The idea that there was a shared view between the parties about defeating the Soviets, for example. This from a politician who stood for Parliament in 1983 alongside his friend and KGB "useful idiot" Michael Foot on a red manifesto that would have run up the white flag of unilateral disarmament. Yet from the Commons the Prime Minister emerged victorious, another step nearer his reinvention as the greatest political survivor of all times.


...

Truth is, the British electorate is being hoodwinked by the Prime Minister. He and his gang of ruthless operatives will stop at nothing to save themselves from defeat. They will use every dirty trick in the book, and are already doing so, to knock Mr Cameron off his stride and sow doubts in the receptive minds of uncertain voters. Yet the Tories dare not say so, for to suggest as much would be to admit their own incompetence. To complain about those nasty Labour bullies, or their friends at the BBC, would be about as useful as observing on the religious affiliation of the Holy Father.

Part of their problem is their own disbelief: they cannot quite believe that Mr Brown is getting away with it. They are overwhelmed by the sheer gall of a Prime Minister who could say, in a speech yesterday, "with me, what you see is what you get", when the records show the precise opposite is true. They have read Andrew Rawnsley's forensic exposition of the hatreds and deceptions that mark the Prime Minister's career and cannot fathom why the rest of us cannot see the serial dishonesty, the political opportunism, the dangerous indecisiveness, the directionless moral compass, let alone his serial policy failures. How, they wonder, can we possibly be contemplating giving this guy another five years?

...

Mr Brown's act of hypnosis is to make us ignore the facts about what will become of Britain should he be left in charge for much longer: economically relegated, permanently crippled with debt, addicted to public spending and big state interference, reliant on ever higher taxes and ruled by the trade unions.


...

Mr Brown has also lured the Tories and their supporters into a circular debate about what their strategy should be, who is up or down in the circles of power around the leadership, and whether their policies stack up. Behind us lie 13 wasted years, yet we're considering whether a further five might not be better than the uncertainties attached to the Conservative offer. The arsonist is standing there with a tin of petrol and a packet of matches; the house is ablaze, and he's questioning the size of the fire brigade's hose.


...

It's time to snap out of it. The Tories need to stop wondering in private about the unfairness of the media or the brutishness of Peter Mandelson. They need to come out and fight fire with fire, show the kind of ruthless killer instinct that comes naturally to Labour. But rather than match Mr Brown's dishonesty, they need only remind us every minute of every day why, when he tells us that "for better or for worse, with me: what you see is what you get", what we see is truly terrible, and far, far worse than any alternative."

First no real jobs, now no real shops

The BBC cheer the news that:

"Fake businesses are to be used to lessen the impact of the recession on high streets in North Tyneside.

With 140 empty shops in the borough, council bosses think they have come up with a unique way of ensuring shopping areas remain as vibrant as possible.

The first empty shop unit to be given a makeover with a "flat pack" shop front is in Whitley Bay.

...

Empty shops in Wallsend and North Shields are now being earmarked for similar treatment, which costs about £1,500 a time. "

That's the BBC for you, turning the truth of shops closing because of Gordon Brown's failed economic policies into a good news story. £1500 per shop, don't worry it's only public money. Wouldn't a better use be to help existing business by subsidising their rates.

Illiterates support the BBC

38 degrees are organising a campaign to persuade the BBC to change their minds about cutting services. It's a bit unfortunate that they can't spell "has":

"Hi, Have a look at this: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/BBC-stop-the-cuts
The BBC hsa announced proposals..."

Do go to 38 Degrees and tell the BBC what sort of cuts you want them to make.

The graceless Ed Balls

It staggers me that 'men' like Ed Balls are incapable of apologising when they make a mistake. What do they think will happen if they do?

Also Ed Balls with his wild, staring eyes and his ready for a fight look is quite a scary individual isn't he? What a fine pair he and Gordon Brown make.

How do you solve a problem like Gordon?

In December 2007 I posted an article about Gordon Brown's somewhat distant relationship with the truth and I linked to a Fraser Nelson article on Gordon Brown and party funding. First here's a piece of Fraser Nelson:

"Gordon Brown is an accomplished expert in the art of misrepresentation

...

this is how Brown operates – and it’s a skill. Perhaps his biggest one. Natural as breathing, he slips out claims so outrageous that even Blair would choke on them, and he is often believed. He did this all the way through the last election campaign (with his fake claims of 'Tory cuts'), and we can expect him to keep doing so if he makes it to the next election."

Next here are a couple of comments posted to Fraser Nelson's article (my emphasis):

"Jo - Exactly so. However, it is the Opposition's job to ensure that Brown is not allowed to get away with these statements. One should be able to rely on the media to point out these misrepresentations but with a few honourable exceptions this is unlikely to happen. Brown will continue to say that black is white and vice versa (read Tom Bower's biography of GB for chapter and verse) for as long as he is allowed to. Landing a few good punches at PMQ is not enough: the Tories need to deconstruct the GB myths at every opportunity."

"Mike - The Conservatives need to get their "rapid rebuttal" service up and running asap to counter Browns blatant lies. Plus they need to show him up to be the spinner and liar he is"

"TGF UKIP - Brown gets away with it because the Tories allow him to. At a similar stage Blair, Brown Campbell & Mandelson were ferociously dismembering John Major. It was bareknuckle, eye gouging, below the belt stuff - and it worked, boy did it work! No use you Tories huffing and puffing in The Speccie or the The Telegraph (now promoters of Brown anyway) about his skill in "the art of misrepresentation" that simply by-passes at least 90% of the population. It,s time to do a "Gordon" back and get down and get dirty. Cameron, or someone very senior (my man DD would have just the right touch) needs to go on the BBC, ideally on Marr, and use the "L" word and when Marr responds "Are you really calling our PM a liar" the answer should come "Andrew, we're not just fed up with Browns lies and misrepresentations we're even more fed up with parts of the media and particularly the BBC not challenging him over what they know to be falsehoods." When Marr coughs and splutters Dave or DD should simply produce an impressive looking file and start on the examples. They won't do it of course because Dave, Boy George, Hilton and Coulson aren't Blair, Brown, Mandelson and Campbell."

So which Conservatives feel up to the job of taking the battle to Gordon Brown and his supporters at the BBC? Because unless someone starts soon, then Gordon Brown will still be sitting in Number 10 in June and how sick will that make you feel?

'The envy of the world'?

Yes it's the NHS again, that unchallengeable totem of British politics. The Telegraph reports the appalling case of

"A hospital patient, Kane Gorny, died of dehydration after becoming so desperate for a drink of water that he called police for help. "

It seems that this patient was not given his vital post-operation medication by the staff at St George's Hospital in Tooting, south London. Mr Gorny

"became very dehydrated but his requests for water were refused and nurses called in security guards to restrain him when he became angry.

He became so frustrated that he rang the police from his bed to demand their help but officers were assured Mr Gorny was fine.

She said nurses assumed he was just badly behaved."

That's bad enough but the fact that "Mr Gorny’s cause of death was determined to be dehydration." is beyond belief. I wonder if the police investigation will be able to find a culprit and what the hospital is doing to find the person or persons who killed Kane Gorny in a slow and painful manner.

Meanwhile the defence is the usual pathetic corporate management speak:

"A spokesman for St George's Hospital said: “We are extremely sorry about the death of Kane Gorny and understand the distress that this has caused to his family."

Understand the distress? Their relative died because staff at your hospital allegedly failed to keep him hydrated and medicated. Their relative
allegedly died because your staff thought that he was being badly behaved because he kept asking for a drink.

"“A full investigation was carried out and new procedures introduced to ensure that such a case cannot happen in future."

Did the 'full investigation' allocate blame or is the hospital a blame free zone?

"“We have written to the family to explain the actions that have been taken and to answer their concerns about Mr Gorny's care."

Really and did you explain how a large hospital does not have the procedures in place to ensure that a patient does not doe of dehydration? If Mr Gorny had been a quiet patient who died quietly without making a fuss I could almost understand how his plight was missed but he even called the police, surely someone should have taken a look at his file to see what was amiss.


Now I know whay O have private medical insurance; the only times I have been to an NHS hospital I have been disgusted at the lack of cleanliness, the dreadful way patients are treated by the doctors and nurses and the way that non-medical staff act as though they are doing patients a favour by even speaking to them.

The NHS the 'envy of the world'? I think not.

Gordon Brown - crap at Maths or History? (update)

From the following video it would seem that the answer to the question I posed yesterday is Maths as at 1:52 he acknowledges the importance of 1989.


So the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and current Prime Minister is a mathematical incompetent, reassuring isn't it?

Is Gordon Brown 'fiscally illiterate' or was he misleading Parliament?

When Gordon Brown claimed at yesterday's PMQs that "The defence budget has been rising every year…. The only time the defence budget has been cut was in the 10 years before 1997″ was he telling the truth? Cathy Newman at Al Jahom thinks not and has the interesting proof. The whole article is rather instructive as it shows the many tricks that Gordon Brown habitually uses to mislead and obfuscate the truth. Here are a few of the article's findings:

"In real terms – i.e. taking account of inflation – Gordon Brown is wrong.

...

The MoD says Gordon Brown wasn’t talking about real terms growth, but was instead referring to “near cash” rises in the defence budget. “Near cash” is the simplest form of the military budget, the most basic cash figure – without inflation or depreciation taken into account.

According to the Institute For Fiscal Studies, inflation has to be factored in to make spending comparisons meaningful. So Brown was at the very least playing fast and loose with the figures by ignoring inflation.

...

“If you look at Nato’s figures Gordon Brown’s statement is incorrect,” says Stoker. “Either way, both sets of data indicate that the budget has not risen every year.”

...

Defence spending has gone up in “near cash” terms, but it’s fiscally illiterate to use this measure, and the former chancellor knows it."

Please read the whole of Cathy Newman's article and send it to as many people as possible. But also ask yourself this question: if Cathy Newman can uncover the truth so easily, why are the BBC not interested in fact-checking Gordon Brown?

Gordon Brown not understanding what a "cut" is

The BBC report under the headline "Senior public servants' pay to be frozen" that Gordon Brown said

'the "tough approach" to public sector pay would save £3 billion by 2013/14.'

I think you'll find that it won't save and money, it will just not add £3 billion to public sector pay. The fact that Gordon Brown doesn't understand the difference really speaks volumes for his intellect and grasp of economics, let alone his chances of 'cutting' public spending.

Somehow fitting

It seems somehow fitting that if you try and access ClunkingFist.co.uk you get the message:

"This account has been suspended. Either the domain has been overused, or the reseller ran out of resources."

A domain about that great waster of money, Gordon Brown, may have run out of resources; now that's apt.

Gordon Brown - crap at Maths or History?

At PMQs today Gordon Brown quipped that when the Cold War ended David Cameron was still at school. Either Gordon Brown does not know when the Cold War ended, which could be argued started as early as Ronald Reagan's call to Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!", but is more normally dated to the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. Either way; David Cameron left school, after taking the Oxford University entrance exam, towards the end of 1984. In case the great infallible Brown claims he meant 'in education' not 'at school', David Cameron left Oxford University, after his three year degree course, in 1988.

So either Gordon Brown doesn't know when the Cold War ended or he can't do simple maths. Actually more likely is that he thought it sounded good and knew that no interviewer or commentator would pick him up on his mistake.

Every day Gordon Brown becomes a less impressive figure; he seems to live in a make-believe world where he bestrides the world like some intellectual colossus when in reality he is becoming a laughing-stock to most right-thinking people.

An end to celebrity culture, my arse!

The great Clunking Idiot has once again tried to get in on the Celebrity Game by attempting to appear on Match of the Day 2. The Guardian has the story:

"Downing Street asked if Brown could appear in the MOTD2 studio alongside the presenter, Adrian Chiles, and pundits, who include Lee Dixon, towards the end of last year. The prime minister's advisors wanted him to talk about England's bid for the 2018 World Cup, but after taking advice, the show's production team declined.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "We made the judgment it wouldn't be appropriate in the run-up to the election"."

I think you can judge what my reaction to this story is going to be, so let's instead look at three comments form Guardian readers:

"* Northumberland

Downing Street asked if Brown could appear in the MOTD2 studio alongside the presenter, Adrian Chiles

Is there anything this bloke won't do to ingratiate himself to the public. What next, tight pants, shirt unbuttoned down to the navel and a guest appearance on Dancing on Ice? What a tosser....


*outofbubble outofbubble

What a desperate twat.


* thirdattempt thirdattempt

Gordon Brown once claimed claim that his favourite goal of all time was scored by Paul Gascoigne for England versus Scotland.

He would be the only Raith Rovers supporter in history whose favourite goal was scored by England (never mind the fact that it was against Scotland).

Or, rather more likely, he is a liar who will say anything his handlers tell him, no matter how ridiculous it is.

Do you think he is listening to a lot of Arctic Monkeys at the moment?"

"If new tax law comes, I won’t give money"

Not Lord Ashton, in which case this would be the banner headline on the BBC, but Lord Swaraj Paul as reported by Thainidian News.

"the 78-year-old Punjabi, who was made Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last year, issued a stark warning ahead of a debate in parliament Monday over a bill that would stop political funding from so-called ‘non-doms’.

“This is a strange bill before parliament, but I will follow the law. If the law comes in, I won’t give money,” Paul said in comments published in The Observer newspaper Sunday.

With the bill having been promised government support by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, Paul’s opposition was echoed by another well-known Labour backer, Sir Ghulam Noon.

Noon, known as the Curry King of Britain for his vast frozen food and catering empire, said: “It is very surprising the government is introducing a law like this at a time when they are in dire need of money to win an election,” adding he too would stop giving money to Labour if the bill goes through parliament Monday."

Two Labour non-doms that is no story.

"Common Ground" - PMQs 10.03.10

Gordon Brown's refusal to disassociate himself from his backbenchers' remarks spoke volumes and as far as I am concerned he has crossed a line and the 'forces of hell' should be unleashed against him. Gordon 'dividing lines' Brown calling for agreement on 'common ground' would be funny if it were not so unbelievable.

Gordon Brown has a vile character and the sooner he is kicked out of public life in this Country the happier I will be.

Cpl Sarah Bryant and the three SAS reservists, a difference in reporting

The BBC report the inquest into the sad and probably unnecessary death of four soldiers in Afghanistan by concentrating on Cpl Sarah Bryant's death, she is the first female soldier to die in Afghanistan. They do mention that

"The coroner at an inquest into the death of four British soldiers in a blast in Afghanistan has pointed to "inadequacies" in training.

In his summing-up, Wiltshire and Swindon coroner David Masters said there were issues with how soldiers were trained to deal with bombs. "

and that the four were travelling in a 'Snatch Land Rover' and he went on to comment on this vehicle. The BBC reports part of what he said in this passage:

"Mr Masters repeated what witnesses had told the court, that shortages in other vehicles meant soldiers had to used the lightly protected Land Rover, which was not adequate for the purpose.

The soldiers died after the back wheel of their Land Rover hit a 50kg to 100kg (110lb-220lb) pressure-plated roadside bomb as they crossed a ditch.

...

Concerns about the Snatch Land Rover were raised as long ago as 2003.

The lightly armoured vehicle's vulnerability to roadside bombs and other explosives has led some soldiers to call it the "mobile coffin".

The Ministry of Defence is upgrading the Snatch with improvements to its armour and better electronic counter-measures to detect roadside bombs. But that work has yet to be completed. "

That extract is damning enough, soldiers dying in a vehicle that was known to off inadequate protection to its users and one that has still not been upgraded by the Government.


The Telegraph's report gives us more of what the coroner said, including his criticism of the Labour government that the BBC decided to kept from its readers (my emphasis):

"Wiltshire Coroner David Masters said he would write to the Ministry of Defence to raise concerns about "theatre-wide" equipment shortages and gaps in training which led to the deaths.

"I intend to submit a report to the Ministry of Defence which will take up a number of these issues which this inquest has quite properly canvassed," Mr Masters said at the conclusion of a six-day inquest into the deaths at Trowbridge Town Hall.

...

The use of the Snatch Land Rover has long been controversial due to the numbers that have died in them and the inquest heard that it had been nicknamed the "mobile coffin" because of the lack of protection it afforded troops.

The vehicles could not cover soft ground and became stuck in a little water, which restricted the unit to driving along dangerous tracks, witnesses said.

The commanding officer of 23 SAS regiment, the Territorial Army battalion, told the hearing that he had raised concerns about the lack of safer vehicles and was told that he would have to make do as no others were available.

Mr Masters said the commanding officer, named only as Colonel A at the inquest, had wanted the better-armoured WMIK vehicle to replace the Snatch - even though it too might been badly damaged by the "massive" bomb concerned.

"There was a limited pool of vehicles available, a general shortage of vehicles available during that period," said Mr Masters.

"He wanted WMIKs because of the nature of the territory. He put in a request and justified it but he didn't get them. That shortage meant that they were unavailable to him. There was only a finite supply of vehicles to be allocated across the whole brigade."

Major Sebastian Morley, Cpl Bryant's SAS squadron commander in Helmand, later resigned, accusing the Government of being "cavalier at best, criminal at worst" for ill-equipping troops.

Mr Masters heard that shortages of metal detectors meant soldiers had not been shown how to use them before deploying to Afghanistan and were forced to ask an expert on base in Afghanistan how to do so.

An Ebex metal detector became available only four months into the deployment, until which point the soldiers had to scan the ground for improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

One witness told the coroner of his training on the Ebex: "We worked it out ourselves with the use of the manual."

"There was a theatre-wide shortage of that piece of vital equipment," Mr Masters said.

He said that the lack of Ebex meant convoys took longer to move along a route and their slow pace opened them up to increased risk of attack.

"In my judgment there was an inadequacy in training for this unit and its members," he said. "

The BBC do not report the parts of the evidence and report that are most detrimental to the way Gordon Brown underfunded the armed forces. Some of the evidence contradicts some of Gordon Brown's evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry and that should not be hidden from the British voter just because the BBC want to ensure a Labour victory at the general election.

I presume that David Cameron will bring up this coroners verdict at PMQs today and that Gordon Brown will dissemble as his way.