The NHS is the envy of the world

Myself and Mrs NotaSheep have recently spent more time in hospitals, both private and NHS, than we would have liked to have done and one thing has been abundantly clear - the NHS is nothing to be envious of. The comparison between the facilities, the staff, the cleanliness (I could go on) at NHS hospitals and Private hospitals does not reflect well on the NHS. Every NHS hospital we have visited has been dirty, the staff disinterested, unhelpful and untidy, the waits interminable; whilst the Private hospitals have been all but spotlessly clean, the staff efficient, helpful and smartly dressed and of course the waiting has been inconsequential.

If the NHS is "the envy of the world" as we used to be often told by this Labour government, then why have no other major industrialised countries copied it?


The Tangled Web has a good article on the NHS today, do read the whole thing but here are four of the points David Vance makes that I think bear repeating:

"1. According to the NHS, 35,000 people die each year "un-necessarily" in NHS hospitals. The death toll in Iraq in 2006 was 35,000 - according to the UN.

Does any other major industrialised country have such a high hospital unnecessary death rate?

2. 6500 people die each year from hospital-acquired infections in the UK. The average figure for northern Europe is 100.

65 times the death rate of the northern Europe average, is that something to be proud of? Maybe this is something that Gordon Brown and his team of incompetents could be questioned about?

3. Since Labour came to power, overall numbers of NHS staff has risen by 20%. The number of managers, however, has increased by 100%, from 20,000 to 40,000. At the same time, the number of hospital beds has fallen from 250,000 to 180,00. In 2007, the NHS confederation argued there should be 195,000 managers - more than one per bed.

The next time Gordon Brown or one of his fellow idiots tries to claim during an interview that all is wonderful in the NHS and if it isn't, at least "we" have "invested" so much money in the NHS, perhaps these figures could be raised and the point pressed home.

4. In 2003, the NHS launched a new IT system which would cost £2.3 billion. This was revised in subsequent years to £6 billion. Then to £9 billion. Finally it has been moved up to £12.4 billion The time scale for completion has moved from 2 to 10 years, but with no guarantee this will happen."

This is one of the biggest scandals of this Labour government, the money spent for so little return is criminal. This Labour government has time after time fallen prey to sharp suited, fast talking IT consultancy companies and their lack of expertise in specifying what they require from a system has been found out time after time. I believe that Gordon Brown should be held personally responsible for the money wasted on each major IT system and PFI scheme and I would be happy to see him work to pay part of the debt off by cleaning the toilets in a gastroenterology ward for the rest of his natural life. Unfortunately, instead of this, he will retire on his huge publicly funded pension, be paid handsomely to write his self-serving memoirs and live comfortably for years - isn't that a depressing thought?

"I can save economy again - Brown"

That's the BBC's headline at the top of yet another Gordon Brown relaunch article. Apparently:

"Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he is the right man to steer the country through difficult economic times.

He blamed "international factors" for rising oil and food prices and housing market problems and said he was taking the right action to deal with them.

Asked if he should stay in his job he said: "There are many people who could take over but I think I can steer this economy through difficult times."

"I have done it before and I can do it again," he told the BBC."

Could someone remind me when he last saved the UK economy, I must have missed that? Was it when he stole from every pension scheme? Was it when he sold half of the UK's gold reserves at the bottom of the market? Was it when he decided to enter into the numerous PFI schemes that will bankrupt the country in years to come? Was it when he backed down to Union pressure and didn't raise the retirement age for public sector employees, so increasing the amount that taxpayers will be paying out in public sector pensions? Was it ...... - please add your own "Was it..." in the Comments.


When Gordon Brown became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1997 he inherited an economy that had been growing for some years; there were low interest rates, low inflation and a budget surplus - let's compare 1997 with 2008 shall we?

Jacqui Smith hoist by her own petard

Take a listen and enjoy her discomfort.

Well if Vera Duckworth says vote Labour...

The BBC Toady programme "reporting" on the Crewe and Nantwich by-election interviewed the actress who played Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street. "Vera" was very pro-Gordon Brown, I wonder if that will convince the Labour voters to come out and vote - the BBC obviously hope so.

The most complicated electoral system

Francesco da Mosto is an engaging TV presenter and Mrs NotaSheep is a bit of a fan of the smooth Venetian. Tonight we were watching Francesco's Venice, a good film about one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The aspect that caught my attention was the complicated method of electing the Doge.

Wikipedia summarises the rules thus:

"New regulations for the elections of the doge introduced in 1268 remained in force until the end of the republic in 1797. Their object was to minimize as far as possible the influence of individual great families, and this was effected by a complex elective machinery. Thirty members of the Great Council, chosen by lot, were reduced by lot to nine; the nine chose forty and the forty were reduced by lot to twelve, who chose twenty-five. The twenty-five were reduced by lot to nine and the nine elected forty-five. Then the forty-five were once more reduced by lot to eleven, and the eleven finally chose the forty-one who actually elected the doge"

That is only a brief summary; for the full rules and an analysis of how the system worked (with some formidable formulae) please take a look at this.


Absolutely fascinating...

Some news the BBC seem reluctant to cover

Google News shows 237 results when you look for ""Ashkelon Shopping Mall" +rocket". The news story is that a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip has hit a shopping centre in the Israeli city of Ashkelon injuring many people. Ha'aretz report that:

"A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, apparently a Katyusha-type rocket, exploded in a shopping center in the southern city of Ashkelon on Wednesday, wounding at least ten people.

According to preliminary reports, three of the injured were in serious condition, two were in moderate condition and at least eleven suffered minor wounds.

A woman and her young daughter were seriously wounded, along with another child, said Leah Malul of Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon. The eight-year-old girl and the woman, both suffering from severe head trauma, were transferred to a hospital in central Israel for further treatment due to the seriousness of their condition.

Witnesses told Israeli radio stations that the rocket caused considerable damage. Rescue service director Eli Bean said at least two people were trapped under the rubble....

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command said its fighters launched the rocket, one of an almost daily pattern of militant attacks from the Palestinian enclave.

The homemade rockets militants usually fire at Israel do not have enough range to reach Ashkelon. Instead, militants use Grad-type Katyusha rockets to hit the city of 100,000, about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the Gaza-Israel border."

The BBC have nothing on the World News front page, I doubt that this would be the case if the "brutal Israeli army" had attacked the "peace-loving Palestinians". The two stories selected for the "Middle East" headlines are:

"Arabs push for Lebanon dialogue
Four Palestinians killed in Gaza"

Currently not a word on theMiddle East news page.



STOP PRESS:

The BBC are covering the story as a piece of video, so you have to search for "Ashkelon" (ie: you have to know that there is a story) and then you find this 45 second piece of video with no audio commentary and the bland description "At least 14 people were hurt after a rocket reportedly fired from Gaza hit a shopping centre in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, officials say.".


You almost have to admire the BBC's single-minded approach to covering the Middle East, there is no room for shades of grey just black and white, evil and good, Palestinians and Jews.

and you think trains on the London Underground are crowded

Thanks to Rachel from North London for the spot.

Unfunded tax cuts

I blogged yesterday that:

"One more thought, the next time a Government minister rabbits on about unfunded Conservative tax cuts or the "black hole" in the Conservative budget, remember today when they found £2.7bn "just like that", where was this money, down the back of Number 10's sofa?"

Not Proud of Britain (but would like to be) puts this quite nicely:

"Number Crunching

£3.1bn: Cost of Conservative inheritance tax proposals condemned by Chancellor Alistair Darling as "an example of where the Tories are making promises on tax which they can't afford to pay for" in October 2007. "If you do that, you create the very instability which is the last thing the economy needs and people in this country would pay for that."

£2.7bn: Unfunded income tax cuts proposed by Chancellor Alistair Darling eight months later. "the measures would be funded through borrowing so as not to take money out of the economy while it was slowing.""

The BBC - spot the deliberate omission

The BBC "report" that:

"At least 60 people have been killed and more than 150 wounded after a series of bomb blasts tore through the city of Jaipur in western India, officials say.

The bombs went off near historic monuments in the crowded old city at one of the busiest times of the day.

The head of state police said it was a terrorist attack. Reports suggest the death toll could rise.

Jaipur, in Rajasthan, is a popular tourist destination about 260km (160 miles) from the Indian capital, Delhi.

No group has admitted planting bombs in Jaipur. It is not yet clear what the motive for attacking the city might be.

Most people in Jaipur are Hindus but the city has a large Muslim minority. Correspondents say it has no history of religious violence.

There have been sporadic bomb attacks around India in recent years. The police have had little success in bringing prosecutions.

Up to seven blasts were heard in the heart of Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan state, starting at around 1915 local time (1345 GMT).

Each came a few minutes apart and eyewitnesses spoke of panic and then a stampede in the crowded old walled city.

Television pictures showed scenes of twisted debris and pools of blood on the streets...."

Now what are they not reporting? The Indian "Hindu News" supplies the unsurprising missing piece of the jigsaw:

"New Delhi (PTI): Banned Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islamia (HuJI), operating from Bangladesh, is believed to be behind the serial blasts that rocked the tourist city of Jaipur on Tuesday evening, killing nearly 50 people besides injuring several others.

Though baffled by the attack as Jaipur was not on the terror radar, sources said the tell-tale signs of the blasts indicate HuJI's hand.

The blasts showed that HuJI, which is being mainly run from Bangladesh, has managed to establish cells in Rajasthan and that the outfit was responsible for previous major terror attacks including the New Year eve attack on CRPF camp in Rampur and serial blasts in three other places in Uttar Pradesh.

The last terror strike in Rajasthan occurred on October 11, 2007 when an explosion in the Dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti in Ajmer left two persons dead and 17 others injured.

HuJI outfit, suspected to be behind the blast at the sufi shrine, had used a mixture of Tri-Nitro Toluene (TNT) as the explosive material.

In today's blasts also, pieces of iron pipe were used by militants as splinters that pierced through victims at the crowded places in the Pink city.

The sources did not rule out the possibility that banned HuJI may have been supported by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) which has been attempting to target tourist destinations and places of economic interests.

The intelligence agencies have already started analysing STD and international calls made out of Jaipur during the last 48 hours."

Now what factor might link Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islamia and Jaish-e-Mohammed? There are clues in their names...


The BBC have a little "box out" that lists some recent bomb attacks in India:

"RECENT BOMB ATTACKS
August 2007: Bombs in open-air auditorium and restaurant in Hyderabad kill more than 40
May 2007: Bomb in historic Hyderabad mosque kills 14
February 2007: Twin blasts on train travelling from Delhi to Pakistan kills at least 66 people near Panipat
July 2006: More than 160 killed by seven bombs on train network in Mumbai
March 2006: Bombs at Hindu temple and railway station in Varanasi kill 15
October 2005: Three blasts in Delhi kill 62"

Strangely the perpetrators of all bar the second attack are not named, although the BBC is careful to show by listing the second one that a mosque had been attacked.


The BBC happy to promote multiculturalism and Islamic views, not so happy to ascribe any blame to the followers of the "religion of peace".

Destroying the last great UK industry

The "City of London" accounts for around 17% of the UK's GDP and the EU hate the success of the "City". The "City" works because it nicely splits the time zone difference between New York and Tokyo, because the local language is Englisha and because regulation is light. The "Big Bang" of 1986 turned the "City" into an economic powerhouse and one that attracts the brightest traders and "quants" from all over Europe, the US and Japan. Walk into a City Investment Bank and you will see American, French, German, Swiss and, if it is a Japanese institution, Japanese bankers all working ridiculous hours and earning money that they spend mostly in London and the rest of the UK. The French and the Germans have long envied London's financial clout and resent the fact that Frankfurt and Paris are not in the same league. So the EU plans to destroy the competitive advantage of "The City" under the guise of fairness but really out of jealousy. This will not aid Paris and Frankfurt, as the business and the bankers with their very portable talents will instead move to New York, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo.


The Telegraph reports that:

"A confidential document prepared for the gathering in Brussels finds the "short-term" pay structure of modern capitalism has become deformed, causing firms to take on "excessive risk" without regard to the interests of stakeholders or society.... ministers are eyeing curbs on stock options, bonuses and golden parachutes.

The move is a clear sign that the EU noose is tightening on bankers, funds and corporate elites that have enjoyed light-touch regulation.

Today's meeting is being held under the auspices of the Eurogroup, the quasi-official club of eurozone finance ministers. The forum excludes Britain and free market allies from Eastern Europe.

Shutting out Chancellor Alistair Darling enables Berlin and Paris to create a head of steam behind possible legislation that could undermine London's competitiveness as the world's leading financial centre....

Ruth Lea, director of Global Vision, said critics of the City have seized on the credit crisis and Britain's current travails to ram through changes that extend EU power over economic policy.

"Brussels has been waiting for this moment. It is typical that they should hold the meeting in the Eurogroup so they can lay out all the groundwork in advance. It is the classic thin-end-of-the-wedge method. None of these new proposals is going to help Europe: they will simply drive business to Hong Kong, Singapore and the States," she said."

The EU socialist agenda moves on apace and we cannot stop it, the only solution is leaving the EU whilst we still can; and that is probably within the next two to three years.

PMQs - 14.05.08

Will Gordon Brown answer the question?

Nice quip by David Cameron about why Gordon Brown should be earning his salary.

Another non-answer by Gordon Brown on the Crewe by-election bribe.

Slight improvement, Gordon Brown has only referred to David Cameron as an advisor not economic advisor to Norman Lamont.

I think the theme of David Cameron's questions today is Gordon Brown and his lack of straightness.

Gordon Brown keeps throwing out the statistics but I don't think anyone believes them any more.

"The Prime Minister is our Prime Minister"

As seen at most good political blogs today; Tamsin Dunwoody thrice refusing to say whether Gordon Brown was an asset or a liability and repeating the rather strange mantra that The Prime Minster is our Prime Minister. Also note her claim that Gordon Brown was unanimously elected Prime Minister; really, by whom...

"There's a hole in my budget"

Finally something funny from Bremner, Bird and Fortune.


Thanks to Dizzy Thinks for the spot.

Alistair Darling and inflationary pressures

On the BBC Toady programme this morning Alistair Darling said that pumping £2.7bn into the economy via a reduction in taxes would not be inflationary, strange that when the same Labour government refused to pay the full amount of the Police pay award it was because that would be inflationary.

10% tax rate U-turn

I see that Gordon Brown's glove puppet, Alistair Darling has, in the words of the BBC:

"put up the personal tax allowance by £600 - meaning anyone earning up to about £41,435 will gain £120 this year.

Mr Darling's £2.7bn tax cut for this year came as part of measures to help those hit by the 10p tax rate's axing.

He told MPs he would lower the level at which 40p tax is paid - so higher earners did not gain from the change."

The BBC go on to report Mr Darling:

"He said it meant 22 million people on low and middle incomes would gain an additional £120 this year."

Of course this is SPIN, the 22 million people would in fact only gain when compared to the position they were put in by the abolition of the 10% tax rate. As I blogged recently, this is typical of Labour - introduce a policy that cuts earnings by x% and then after protests introduce a new policy that reduced the cuts by no more than x% and declare it a great gift to the public - IT IS A CON and the public (unlike the BBC) are no longer fooled by it.


This U-turn has been made because Labour are running scared in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, they cannot afford to lose it and Gordon Brown (and the BBC) will do all that they can to ensure a Labour victory. The BBC will portray anything other than a Conservative victory as a turnaround in Labour fortunes and the end of the Conservative false dawn. Could this £2.7bn in fact be seen as Labour election expenses?


One more thought, the next time a Government minister rabbits on about unfunded Conservative tax cuts or the "black hole" in the Conservative budget, remember today when they found £2.7bn "just like that", where was this money, down the back of Number 10's sofa?


And a final point, what has Frank Field been threatened with to make the apology that you can listen to on the BBC page.

House Price Crash - "We can't know how bad it will get"

That's official - Caroline Flint, one of Gordon Brown's incredibly talented team; she's the housing minister who walked into a cabinet meeting with her briefing notes on show for all to see. Thanks to a telephoto lens, Caroline Flint's "Speaking Notes" on the "State of Housing Market" are no longer quite as secret as the government might have hoped. So we know that the government are predicting "sizeable falls in (house) prices later this year - at best down 5-10% year-on year", remember that the next time a Labour minister claims prices are just steadying and bear this in mind when the government try to increase the shared ownership scheme - would you want shared ownership of a depreciating asset?

Rory Bremner going downhill

Mrs NotaSheep and I stopped watching the Rory Bremner programme a few years back when they moved from witty satire into political polemic. The two John's interview and interviewer were funny for the first two dozen or so sketches but now I can't even watch those parts. We did find ourselves watching a bit of Sunday's show however. After a few minutes of a sketch featuring David Cameron, Mrs NotaSheep turned to me and asked "Who is that meant to be?", I said "David Cameron" and she replied "In which case, why is the voice Keith Floyd?". As usual Mrs NotaSheep got it right and that's another part of the Rory Bremner show that I cannot listen to.

An idea of a question for PMQs tomorrow

Not that Gordon Brown answers any questions, but how about asking him this, "if inflation is really 2.5% why are people experiencing such high price increases?"

The world shortage of food

Prince Philip puts his finger on the reason, a reason that most ignore because of a fear of being thought politically incorrect:

"The food prices are going up – everyone thinks it's to do with not enough food, but it's really that demand is too great, too many people,"

Ah memories

I just found this on Ministry of Truth and I had to put it up here as well. Tenpole Tudor tearing it up a bit in 1981, Eddie Tenpole/Tudor-Pole was of course lined up as Johnny Rotten's replacement in the Sex Pistols and did appear in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle film (in 1978). However the Sex Pistols fell apart instead and Eddie Tenpole/Tudor-Pole was free to make such great music as this...

It's "Bottler Brown" again

Gordon Brown signed the EU Treaty separately from the other EU leaders as he tried to both distance himself from the ceremony and yet still be involved. Then he received the Olympic torch in Downing Street but didn't touch it. Now it is reported that Gordon Brown has decided to meet the Dalai Lama but not in Downing Street, instead it will be at Lambeth Palace.

Gordon Brown seems to be a man unable to make a decision and stick to it, he is so obsessed with his image that he is constantly fiddling around trying to please as many opinions as he can - of course he ends up pleasing nobody, but he doesn't seemed to have worked this out yet. Maybe Alastair Campbell (or Tony Blair - there is some dispute as to who actually said this) was right when they said Gordon Brown was "psychologically flawed".

Labour's new economic policy?

The DAily Mash report that:

"LABOUR is to shift its focus from governing the country to selling books, the prime minister will announce today.

Jim Callaghan now believes the party can best serve the country by writing and promoting tell-all memoirs from Labour's decade in power.

A Downing Street source said a series of Labour autobiographies could even boost the economy adding: "John Prescott got a massive advance for his book. He's bound to spend some of that money in the shops.""

and so on...

Very good indeed and of course more sensible than any of Labour's actual economic policies.

Seventh winner of the weekly "No shit, Sherlock" award

This week the award goes to the House of Commons Public Administration Committee who concluded that "The post of independent adviser meets none of the criteria we associate with independence." They also reported that the independent advisor had "very little independence", was of "limited value" and that his "hands are tied" by being appointed by, and only able to investigate if requested by, the Prime Minister.

"No shit, Sherlock"

EU passport

A week ago I blogged about the EU setting up its own embassies so as to eventually replace those of the EU's constituent countries. Now I learn that the all new passports issued from 1 July 2009 will carry the text of Article 20 of the EU's founding treaty. Prior to that date, the European Commission has told EU governments to produce stickers quoting the article and to encourage as many people as possible to put them on their passports.

Yet the Labour government will still insist that the EU will not become a country in its own right. So the EU will have a government, tax raising powers, a standardised pasport, a police force, an army and a standardised judicial system but won't be a country? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

How would the US and UK media report this sort of "mistake" if it had been made by George W. Bush or John McCain?

That's Barack Obama saying he had visited 57 US States so far, had one more to visit and would unfortunately be unable to visit Hawaii or Alaska. Not a peep from CBS, ABC etc. in the US and certainly nothing from the BBC in the UK. Can you imagine the sheer joy these media outlets would have taken if this had been a Republican politician making the same mistake? Remember the constant broadcasting of the video of Dan Quayle misspelling "potato" and of George Bush trying to exit through a locked door after a press conference. Surely all Americans know how many States there are in the Union, 50. I await Barack Obama's explanation for this piece of video; maybe like Hillary Clinton he "misspoke", maybe he's actually an idiot or maybe (like so many left wing politicians) he's so used to exaggerating statistics that he does it automatically now.


The media "narrative" is that Republican politicians are stupid and so anyone who votes for them must be stupid, whereas Democrat politicians are good honest people as are people who vote for them A verbal slip by a Republican shows stupidity, a lack of knowledge by a Democrat shows tiredness or just isn't worth mentioning.





Thanks to Instapundit for the spot.

Does Trevor Kavanagh read my blog

I only ask because last week I blogged that:

"I was going to write something about how I wanted to see the same bewildered look that appeared on Nicolae Ceauşescu's face as he realised that the formerly submissive crowd were turning on him, on the face of Gordon Brown and soon. Then I spotted that the man who ushers Ceauşescu away is a dead ringer for John Prescott, very odd."

Today in The Sun Trevor Kavanagh writes:

"A FEW years ago, TV cameras captured the face of doomed Nicolae Ceausescu as the Romanian people turned fatally against him.

Arrogance dissolved into terror as he realised the game was up.

There is something of that today in Labour’s response to public fury over their 11 years of unbridled power.

Nobody is threatening Gordon Brown with a firing squad — though The Sun poll showing Labour on 23 per cent is effectively a death sentence. Rattled ministers are pleading for mercy."

Maybe it is just a coincidence, but whatever the reason I am glad that Rupert Murdoch's tabloid paper is finally turning against Gordon Brown and the Labour party. Maybe the powers that be realise that Labour are a dead duck party. Read the whole article it's not the article that a Labour supporting paper would carry.

The loans

If Gordon Brown didn't know about the "secret loans", then shouldn't he have known about them? Odd for a control freak to have had no knowledge of how his party was being funded.

International comparisons

That's the UK's Minister for Women - Hariet Harman and her Italian counterpart Mara Carfagna. Hmmm; Italia douze points, Royaume Uni deux points.

"Heidi Klum has given Victoria Beckham a year's supply of cupcakes as a birthday gift"

The Mail on Sunday reports that "Heidi Klum has given Victoria Beckham a year's supply of cupcakes as a birthday gift", presumably that is as many as 12, I can't imagine Victoria Beckham eating more than 1 cupcake a month. Read the article in the Mail if you want celebrity gossip.

Inside Zimbabwe's secret torture camps

To understand what is happening in Zimbabwe and to what lengths Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF thugs will go to ensure victory in the run-off Presidential election you must read The Telegraph's article on this matter. This article is truly harrowing and every single member of our Labour Government should be made to read it and asked what they intend to do about it. Copies should be mailed to the vile Thabo Mbeki who one day will be held to account for what has happened in Zimbabwe whilst he looked on.

Listen to the debate

Watch this video and decide for yourselves. Mark Steyn and three of his accusers on the Canadian television programme, The Agenda.

Don't you just love lawyers... They beautifully ignore the questions they are asked and instead answer the ones that they want to answer.

Pretty excellent chairing of the debate by Steve Paikin.

John Prescott's diaries

My position re covering John Prescott's diaries is as I wrote about Cherie Blair and Alastair Campbell's diaries. I will not be reporting on any of their books, I have no interest in helping these vile people to make even more money from this Country.

A guide to think tanks

Here is a good round-up from Cassillis, keep it to hand when the BBC introduce someone from a think tank.


Thanks to Guido Fawkes for the spot.

"flash, bang, wallop, what a picture"

From today's Sunday Times comes this photograph of three of the most vile politicians ever to achieve high office in this country.


As Tommy Steele sang:

"'Old it, flash, bang, wallop, what a picture
What a picture, what a photograph
Poor old soul, blimey, what a joke"

Crime and punishment

From The Telegraph comes this story of another violent unprovoked attack in Britain and the pathetic sentence handed down to the perpetrator:

""A judge has told a teenager who carried out an unprovoked attack on a married couple that he was "the personification of yob Britain."

Joel Herd, 18, assaulted the couple while they were walking home from a village restaurant.

He punched businessman Andrew Miller, 41, unconscious and repeatedly hit his wife, Jane, 42, in the face.

Judge Roderick Denyer said: "Here was a respectable couple walking home after a pleasant evening in a restaurant and this man attacks them. He didn't know even them."

"It was outrageous behaviour after an offensive remark was made to Mrs Miller."

Turning to Herd, he said: "You were drunk, you had smoked cannabis and you were out of control.

"You are, I am afraid, the personification of yob Britain."

Prosecutor James Wilson said: "The couple were making their way home when they passed a group of youths in the centre of the village where they live.

"Herd shouted to Mrs Miller: "Get your **** out".

"As the couple crossed the road Herd punched Mr Miller in the mouth and to the right temple. He fell to the ground and lost consciousness.

"Mrs Miller saw Herd stamping on her husband's head - he then punched her two or three times and she too fell to the ground."

Newport Crown Court in Wales heard Mr Miller came around and tried to protect his hysterical wife.

But Herd told him: "I know where you live, I'm going to kill you and your wife".

Mr Miller suffered split lips, bruising, and cuts to the back of his head. The court heard he now suffers from headaches.

Mrs Miller - whose handbag was stolen in the attack - had bruising to the cheek and ear.

The court heard the couple felt "violated and shattered" by what happened to them in their home village of Caerleon, near Newport.

Herd's previous convictions included burglary, causing criminal damage, being drunk and disorderly and harassment. "

So what "punishment" was handed down to this thug who attacked two innocent people, punching both and stamping on one's head? The judge had called him the "personification of of yob Britain" and he had previous convictions for burglary, causing criminal damage, being drunk and disorderly and harassment. He also threatened to kill both of the couple "I know where you live, I'm going to kill you and your wife". So what would be a fair sentence? Well the judge decided that an adequate sentence was three years in a young offenders' institution. So in 18 months Joel Herd will be out and able to threaten and attack more innocent people in the Newport area, I wonder if Andrew Miller's headaches will have disappeared by then? As I have said before: if the punishments are feeble, the chances of prosecution slight and the chances of detection even slimmer; then why should the thugs be scared of committing vicious crimes?

Israel a "stinking corpse"

Haaretz report that:

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday called Israel a "stinking corpse" which is doomed dissappear, as the state celebrated 60 years of independence.

"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

"Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation," he said.
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Ahmadinejad added that Israel "has reached the end like a dead rat after being slapped by the Lebanese" - a reference to the 2006 war between Israel and the Shiite Hezbollah militia."

Seems like a nice peaceable man, just the sort of leader who should have nuclear weapons. Nobody will be able to say they weren't warned when Mr Ahmadinejad launches that first strike on Tel Aviv or supplies terrorists with dirty bombs to explode in several Israeli cities.

Lebanon

I have blogged before about the unfortunate country that is The Lebanon and the unwillingness of the rest of the world to look after its interests. In the past few days the Iranians, via their proxy army of Hezbollah (The Army of Allah), have started yet another attempt to take over The Lebanon. Of course since Israel is not involved, the coverage in the UK has been muted. Our media like to keep story lines simple for the "proles" who they must entertain and inform; the Middle East is therefore portrayed as a place whose peacefulness was disturbed by the unwelcome introduction of European Jews into Palestine when Israel was foisted on the area by the British and Americans. Compare the coverage given to this attempted takeover of a sovereign country by Iranian backed terrorists to that of the Israeli incursions to take on the same terrorists a few years ago. This sort of media bias makes me feel so angry and certainly more angry that I want to feel today.

It's all the fault of the Internet

The tone of this report in The Telegraph is unfortunate.

"A police source said: "There are several possibilities, one of which is that this was a home-made explosive which was cooked up using a recipe on the internet. The methods for making these liquid bombs are all over the internet.

"We have seen with recent terrorism trials that there are plenty of things on the web, but it would obviously be an extraordinary and disturbing development if a girl gang has decided to settle a dispute in such dramatic and tragic way.""

We should not blame the Internet for this attack. The Internet has all this information but then the information also resides in books. The Internet is often a convenient scapegoat when one is required to cover the basic breakdown in society in this country.

Cherie Blair's interviews

As with Alastair Campbell's diaries I will not be reporting on Cherie Blair's upcoming book and the sneak previews that have started appearing. I have no interest in helping this vile woman to make even more money from this Country.

Googling (Update 2)

A few more interesting search terms that have recently lead people to this blog:

bastards - For which this blog appears in the low 300s

Lord Kinnock loquacious - For which this blog appears at number 5

good riddance ken livingstone - For which this blog appears at number 3 (I am so proud)

Ed Miliband homosexual - For which this blog appears at number 1, despite never mentioning Ed Miliband and homosexuality in the same article. Are there even such rumours around? I have never heard them.

boris johnson's wife sikh - For which this blog appears at number 11

how to make the people who does't belive global warming are happening believe there is global warming - For which this blog appears at number 3, although I can spell unlike the querier

edexcel 2008 maths gcse exam - For which this blog appears at number 6



Not via google, but who came to my site from Robbie Williams News and why?

Gordon Brown on This Morning with Fern Britten

This is trainwreck TV. Gordon Brown comes over so badly, I did enjoy Fern saying this would give Gordon Brown an opportunity to be a "human being". Gordon Brown speaks so quietly throughout, he's trying to sound conciliatory and calm but he is still smiling at inappropriate moments.

Fern asks the question about Fuel Duty that the "heavyweight" interviewers don't, not that Gordon Brown answers the question properly.

Fern Britten also asks Gordon Brown where the Shared Equity money comes from, Gordon Brown claims that the Government has put the money aside for this, is that true?

Fern Britten asks GB about student debt whereas he didn't. GB waffles about more grants in the years to come. This is a typical GB trick; cut something by 100%, then when questioned about it announce 20% is being put back as though this was a great achievement.

"Dirty Hospitals, failing schools... pathetic"

Fern Britten asks about cleanliness in Basra and why not as good in the UK. The reply before I lost the will to live was along the lines of matrons, matrons, new uniforms, jam tomorrow, things can only get better.....

When is a loan not a loan (update)

Further to my piece about the financial stability (or otherwise) of the Labour party, I see in Tribune that:

"Labour chiefs have until the end of this month to plug a £4 million hole in the party’s finances and avert the possibility of a formal declaration of bankruptcy....

Auditors are due to sign off the party’s accounts soon after the end of May, but there are fears that they will refuse to do so and instead declare the party insolvent.

Arrangements have been made to account for most of the party’s £21 million debt, through negotiations with the Co-op Bank and rescheduling deals done with the donors of the controversial loans which led to the “cash-for-honours” affair.

But officers have identified a gap in the balance sheet of around £4 million which must be closed in order to satisfy the auditors, either by cash in the bank or certifiable promissory notes."

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

As I said yesterday:

"Now look out for the Labour Party suggesting that the state funding of political parties is the best solution to the "democratic deficit" in this country. They could use their large majority to get this into place before the next election and will choose to base the calculations for the funding on an average of the votes received at the last three elections so as to avoid the full impact of the coming election."

Look out Gordon, Ken may have his eyes on your job

Ken Livingstone has written a piece for The Guardian's Comment Is Free section. It is a long piece explaining how he, in London, did much better than Labour did nationally and why this was. He ends with this message:

"Amid the worst electoral defeat for 40 years, even Labour's best electoral performance in the country could not stop London entering into a period of Tory decline. But as that decline proceeds, a new progressive alliance will be forged, which will go on to regain its position and restore London as the greatest capital city in the world. I'll have plenty of time to do some very welcome gardening - and to participate in that resurgence."

I think we will see Ken Livingstone back as a Labour MP very soon and then maybe he will try to do to Gordon Brown what he did to Andrew McIntosh back in 1980.

Boris starts cutting costs

Iain Dale is reporting that:

"When Boris sat down at his desk on Monday morning he was presented with a huge press cuttings file, which included loads of articles from the Morning Star. 'Why on earth are you including these?' he asked one of his staff. 'Well,' said the staff member, 'Mayor Livingstone was keen to support the Morning Star'. 'In what way?' asked Boris.

It transpired that the GLA Building had a subscription of forty - yes, forty - copies of the Morning Star delivered every day. Boris's first action as Mayor was to cancel all forty subscriptions to the lefty rag, thereby halving its circulation with one stroke of the mayoral pen. That's what I call the mark of a real Conservative - annoy the leftists and save the taxpayer £10,000 a year at the same time."

Well done Boris, there will be many such opportunities to cut costs at the GLA and many such instances of wasted money.

Can I suggest a few subcriptions to The Spectator might be in order.

Piers Morgan

That is Piers Morgan falling of a Segway and breaking three ribs, ouch. The funny thing is that he had previously insulted President George Bush thus:

"You'd have to be an idiot to fall off, wouldn't you Mr President." "If anyone can make a pig's ear of riding a sophisticated, self-balancing machine like this, Dubya can."

You'd need a heart of stone not to laugh...

"What a f***ing liberty"

It appears that:

"TV presenters Ant and Dec are to return a prize they were awarded at the 2005 British Comedy Awards after ITV revealed that they did not win.

The Catherine Tate Show collected more votes for the People's Choice Award, an independent report on the affair says.

It is thought that presenter Robbie Williams had been given assurances that Ant and Dec were the winners."

As Nan might say - "What a fucking liberty"

Another record poll (update)

The BBC have finally managed to write about the latest YouGov poll. They have of course spun the article nicely; the piece is entitled " Voters 'are confused by Labour'" and starts:

"Voters are confused about what Labour stands for, innovation and skills secretary John Denman has said.

The party was being hammered in the polls because people felt it did not understand "what is happening in their lives," he added.

His comments come as Labour slumps to a record low of 23% in the latest opinion poll - 26% behind the Conservatives.

The YouGov survey for the Sun newspaper suggested David Cameron's party had the support of almost half of voters (49%).

However, other recent polls have suggested the gap is smaller. "

I particularly like the "David Cameron's party had the support of almost half of voters (49%)", as though less than 50% was a minority and not worth concerning ourselves with. Remind me what percentage of the popular vote Labour received in their landslide victories... Also can anyone remember the recent local elections? I thought that even the BBC had to describe that

"Labour's poor local election results - in which their projected share of the national vote dropped to 24%"

. 24% or 23%, why don't the BBC just admit that the tide has turned and their beloved Labour party has been found out for what it is?


The "other recent polls have suggested the gap is smaller" is also precious, trying to give some solace to Gordon Brown and the BBC's other political friends in the Labour party.


John Denham's remarks are quoted at length and a few are worth repaeting:

"For several years, we have tailored different messages to different people, at the cost of a vision of society that unites voters from different backgrounds."

It is interesting how it is now OK for Labour MPs to speak about the problems of multiculturism in a way that if a Conservative MP had done so a few years back would have lead to the media calling him a racist and calling for his sacking. Playing the race card appears to be acceptable now because it is Labour who are dealing the cards.

Another Boris appointment

Former BBC political correspondent Guto Harri is rumoured set to become Boris Johnson's Director of Communications. He left the BBC a few months back so is the first recent example of a BBCoid movong to the Conservative party rather than the Labour party? The BBC itself will stay resolutely pro-Labour though.

Is Gordon Brown as secure as PM as we all thought?

For a while now the consensus opinion has been that a Labour challenger to Gordon Brown would need to garner the support of a fifth of Labour MPs. The FT have found a possible way around this:

"There is a Labour rule that would allow for a change of prime minister without the immediate need for a party leadership election. It is effectively the “silent coup” clause.

If the cabinet joined forces and convinced a serving Labour prime minister that his time was up, he would become “permanently unavailable”, in the words of the party rule book. The cabinet, “in consultation with the NEC”, would then be able to anoint a new prime minister “until a ballot…can be carried out”. An election is not immediately triggered: the cabinet could decide to “leave the post vacant until the next party conference”."

The party rule itself is:

" 4B.2e Procedure in a vacancy

(i) When the party is in government and the party leader is prime minister
and the party leader, for whatever reason, becomes permanently unavailable,
the cabinet shall, in consultation with the NEC, appoint one of its members to
serve as party leader until a ballot under these rules can be carried out.

(ii) When the party is in government and the deputy leader becomes party
leader under (i) of this rule, the Cabinet may, in consultation with the NEC,
appoint one of its members to serve as deputy leader until the next party
conference. The Cabinet may alternatively, in consultation with the NEC,
leave the post vacant until the next party conference."

So the Labour party do have a "men in grey suits" clause, but can you imagine them using it? Under what circumstances would Gordon Brown be "permanently unavailable" and could he ever be persuaded so to be? Would the Country stand for a second unelected Prime Minister being foisted on them, one whilst he and his party were popular was acceptable; I doubt it would be as easy with Labour in the doldrums as they are now.

"This was comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules."

Nick Robinson's BBC blog about Gordon Brown "Opening Up" has a lot of comments that have been "removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules." I wonder which house rules were broken, maybe the one which says - "Thou shalt not insult Gordon Brown too much".

The Army Rumour Service (ARRSE)

In the last hour or so, I have had a lot of visitors to my blog from people googling "Army Rumour Service". Two questions come to mind; first what has happened this evening to make people want to look for the "Army Rumour Service" and secondly how on earth did my blog make it to number 7 when you search on google for that?

Another record poll

The Sun is reporting that:

"LABOUR has slumped to its lowest point since records began in the 1930s, a devastating Sun poll reveals tonight.

And the Tories are enjoying their second biggest poll lead in history....

The Sun’s survey puts the Tories on a massive 49 per cent with Labour trailing at just 23 per cent - a gap of 26 per cent."

Sky manage to cover this story:

"An opinion poll in a national newspaper puts the Conservatives 26% ahead of Labour - with the Government's rating said to be the lowest since records began in 1930.

The YouGov poll in the Sun puts the Tories on 49% with Labour trailing on 23% and the Lib Dems at 17%.

The Sun says the only time in history the Conservatives notched up a bigger runaway lead was in 1968."

Strangely the BBC are not reporting this news; as I blogged a few weeks ago they seem to have stopped reporting polls since the polls turned against the Labour party.



As to the poll itself; it does seem a little out of line with other recent opinion polls but it may reflect the fact that a tipping point has been reached and Labour support may settle at its bedrock level - around 20%.


Interestingly the Sun seem at great pains to report that:

"But Labour would be doing EVEN WORSE if Gordon Brown was dumped for another leader, our exclusive YouGov survey reveals....

Our poll shows that Labour would be in deeper trouble even if they were led by Tony Blair.

And it confirms potential successors Ed Balls, David Miliband, Jack Straw, Harriet Harman, Andy Burnham, Alan Johnson and James Purnell would ALL make things even worse in voters’ eyes.

Asked if voters would back Labour under a different leader, all of the suggested alternatives have a minus net reading.

This means they would all make Labour’s position in a general election worse...

YouGov asked voters if they would be more or less likely to vote Labour if a string of candidates were leader instead of Mr Brown.

Taking the two results, Tony Blair would have a minus three rating.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw would be on minus four and Foreign Secretary David Miliband the same.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson would also be on minus four as would Culture supremo Andy Burnham.

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell notched up minus five.

And least popular would be deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman and Schools Secretary Ed Balls, both on minus 10. "

So however bad it looks for Labour under Gordon Brown, the message is it would only be worse under someone else. Ed Balls won't be happy with his position though will he?

Is this the most incompetent Government ever?

The Telegraph reports that:

"Thousands of foreigners are being allowed to work in high security parts of Britain's airports without passing proper criminal record checks, it was disclosed last night.

Despite warnings that terrorists would try to recruit people working "airside" in terminals – with direct access to aircraft and baggage – no attempt has been made to check whether foreign workers have committed any offences abroad.

The vetting process checks only for crimes committed in Britain. Foreign workers – arriving from inside or outside the European Union – are not checked in their country of origin."

So the sheer genius that is this Labour government implements security checks on all British workers but no such checks on foreign workers. Does anyone else think that employing non-security checked foreign workers "airside" at a major airport might be a dereliction of duty?


Hold on, our beloved Labour government has an excuse, and here it is in all its mealy-mouthed glory:

"The Government said that it did not want to carry out foreign criminal record checks because it would take too long and involve complicated comparisons between legal systems in different countries."

It would take too long, too long to safeguard the security of hundreds of thousands of travellers; that's OK then, we wouldn't want to inconvenience foreign workers or BAA.

When is a loan not a loan?

The Financial Times reports that:

"Labour is in emergency talks to renegotiate more than £10m of loans from wealthy businessmen to prevent itself running out of money.

Most of the millionaires who secretly lent money to Labour in the run-up to the 2005 election ought to be repaid in the coming months but the party – which is £20m in the red – is in no position to do this.

As a result, it is holding combined talks with all the lenders to find a single agreement that would allow the party to stagger repayments over up to nine years. An announcement is just weeks away, according to sources on both sides of the discussions."

Some thoughts come to mind:
Can the Labour Party meet it's debts as and when they fall due? If not, does that mean they are trading whilst insolvent?

How many times can a "loan" be rolled over before it is a donation not a loan?

The "loans" were claimed to have been made on commercial terms, have the terms been made public on any of these "loans"?



Now look out for the Labour Party suggesting that the state funding of political parties is the best solution to the "democratic deficit" in this country. They could use their large majority to get this into place before the next election and will choose to base the calculations for the funding on an average of the votes received at the last three elections so as to avoid the full impact of the coming election.

Green taxes

Absolutely staggering, who would have thought it here is some news:

"A new survey by Opinium Research shows just how unpopular green taxes are. It says that 67% of British people believe that the green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes. 72% of Brits would be unwilling to pay more in taxes, even if used for environmental purposes."

Have the British public finally worked out that "green taxes" are a con?

Bizarre

I was just watching Dan Cruikshank's Adventures in Architecture, episode 6 - Power. I was going to write something about how I wanted to see the same bewildered look that appeared on Nicolae Ceauşescu's face as he realised that the formerly submissive crowd were turning on him, on the face of Gordon Brown and soon. Then I spotted that the man who ushers Ceauşescu away is a dead ringer for John Prescott, very odd.

Boris - another good appointment

Mr William J. Bratton, who is currently Chief of Police in Los Angeles and was formerly responsible (as the Commissioner of the NYPD under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani) for doing much to clean up crime in New York, has been appointed an advisor to Boros Johnson on clearing up crime in London.

Labour's ongoing war on the motorist

I see that The telegraph are reporting that:

"Figures compiled by the AA show that the average motorist pays more than £1,800 annually in fuel duty, car tax, VAT on petrol and other levies – an increase of more than 50 per cent in little more than a decade."

Taxes on motoring will continue to be increased as Gordon Brown needs the tax receipts to cover up the "black holes" in his finances.

Vote Gordon Brown OUT

Since Gordon became Prime Minister without an election, even an internal Labour Party one, this could be your only chance to deliver a verdict on him. He says he wants to listen to the public, so let's deliver a resounding message. It's the Madam Tussauds Gordon Brown In or Out vote; go on, have your say before May 14.

Where to begin? (one year on)

Sorry to be a little self-referential, but one year ago I started this blog for something constructive to do, rather than shouting at the radio news and so irritating Mrs NotaSheep.

My first post on 7 May 2007 was on BBC bias and read thus:

"One of the first subjects that made me realise that the Beeb wasn't the source of impartial information that I had been lead to believe it was, was its coverage of the EEC/EU. The unquestioning support of the European Project started out as an annoyance but as I read more about how the EU functioned and aggregated power to itself at the expense of its constituent countries governments, I began to realise that I was being fed a politically biased line. This feeling was exacerbated during the 1990s as the BBC used Europe as a stick with which to beat the hated (by the BBC at least) Conservative government."

A year on from that initial post, I feel first that I have been banging on about the same subjects but also that the tide is turning. Whilst a year ago if I mentioned such concerns I got a look of blank indifference from family and friends, now it seems that many are "seeing the light" regarding the BBC and also the fraud that is Gordon Brown. "GB" was indeed the subject of my second article a full four days later, entitled "Mini rant regarding BBC and Gordon Brown":

"It's my own fault, I was asking for it; I shouldn't have done it, in fact yesterday I swore I wouldn't do it again. In my defence today,it was early, I was tired, the car radio was tuned to Radio 4. So what do I hear? I hear that GB will change the type of Premiership to one that is serious, sober and .... and that he is determined to mark the end of the era of celebrity. Serious, from a man with those photos that supposedly may come back to haunt him? Sober, from a man who has been fixated on power for so long. from a man who...... Now to his wanting to end of the era of celebrity. I must be confused, I am sorry and I apologise for this, but wasn't it GB who was first politician to comment on the earth shattering Shilpa Shetty affair? Wasn't it also GB who had "secret" drinks with that political guru Kylie Minogue. I presume he wanted to keep that meeting secret and that it was leaked to the Sun by a political enemy, maybe not... Maybe he has always admired Kylie's musical ability and shapely bottom. Maybe he admires "Kylie Minogue, the pop sex goddess of the moment, hip chick, gay icon, and a fair old belter out of a dance tune" (David Lister, Independent, 23.02.02), I wonder why? I am sure that the lunch had a serious purpose, who else attended? Stephen Fry, one of my favourite comics and I am sure one of GB's as well. The purpose of the lunch - pick one of these two - to get people behind GB in his crusade to guarantee every child in the world a place in school or to try and soften his dour image. If the former it would be laudable, if deluded; if the latter then the word hypocrite comes to mind. I am sure that GB with his renowned attention to detail has now learnt who all the major celebrities are and is now better briefed than he was when he misidentified Jermaine Jackson's wife as Jermaine at an official function earlier this year. Well how should GB have known that one of the Jackson 5 was a man.? This is a man unworried by celebrity so he wouldn't have watched Celebrity Big Brother, or read a paper about the programme, would he? Hold on, what about Shilpa Shetty (above)?"

One year on the sober, serious Gordon Brown has been exposed to all for the politically inept loser that I knew he was. It is now really only elements of the Labour Party and the BBC that will back him to the hilt, right up until the moment that he has to leave office - when they will transfer their allegiance to the next leader of the Labour party.

The Public Accounts Committee's report on The budget for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

I will put my cards on the table, I was against the London bid for the 2012 Olympic Games because I suspected that, like all Government flagship schemes, it would go hugely over budget and also because I had little faith in the facilities being ready in time. As time has passed my first objection has looked to more and more justified. Last week the Public Accounts Committee under the forensic leadership of Mr Edward Leigh presented its latest report and it did not make good reading for Tessa Jowell and her team. This is a long and detailed report, but the summary and the Conclusions and Recommendations sections should provide you with enough information re this debacle.

Some key points that I think need repeating are:

"At the time of London's bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012 the cost of the Games was estimated to be just over £4 billion. The costs were to be met by public sector funding of £3.4 billion, with a further £738 million from the private sector.

After London was awarded the Games, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Olympic Delivery Authority reviewed the cost estimates and in March 2007 announced a budget of £9.325 billion."

That's an increase of 133% and this is partly because:

"The March 2007 budget included contingency provision of £2.747 billion. This sum was not included at the time of the bid despite Treasury guidance that budgets for major projects should allow for the tendency to underestimate costs."

Two more omissions were:

"The March 2007 budget also included a preliminary estimate of £600 million for policing and wider security, over and above the cost of site security during construction. No estimate for the cost of policing and wider security was included at the time of the bid. In addition, the Olympic Delivery Authority's programme delivery budget has risen to £570 million, compared with an original estimate of just £16 million."

There was also the infamous omission of VAT from the budget, something that I still find hard to believe.


The original budget was also "out" on the amount of private sector funding, only a little out:

"The estimate of £738 million private sector funding towards the cost of venues and infrastructure at the time of the bid was revised to £165 million "

just how was the budget arrived at? What was done to ensure it was an accurate estimate?

The first "Conclusion and Recommendation" is:

"Contrary to good practice, the Department did not include programme contingency, now £2.7 billion, because the scale and complexity of the undertaking were not appreciated at the time of the bid. The costs of tax and security, now estimated at over £1.4 billion, were also excluded from the estimates as they were uncertain. Yet £738 million of funding from the private sector was included, despite not being supported by robust analysis. All costs and revenues should have been included from the outset, with the uncertainties explained and a contingency provided."

In other words the initial estimate was, as we say, "dodgy".


Read the rest of the report at your leisure, the bottom line is that the bid was massaged so that London could win the vote and then the real costs were calculated. This is typical of the way New Labour have managed large projects; ineptly.

He really has the anti-Midas touch

Apparently :

"Madame Tussauds has decided against having a Gordon Brown waxwork amongst its world leaders - he dithered over whether to sit for its sculptors and they got fed up waiting for a reply. "Since then we have had no response and, reflecting the climate after the Government's performance in the recent local elections, our guests have become decidedly split about whether we should feature Mr Brown at all," general manager Edward Fuller said."

Poor Gordon, maybe he should just ride off into the sunset and leave us all in peace.

Boris starts the building of his team

Ray Lewis has been appointed Deputy Mayor for Young People - I have seen much of Ray Lewis over the last year and have been most impressed by what I have seen. He seems to be a man of action rather than words, a man of principles rather than ideology - a refreshing change from the Livingstone years.


Further appointments include:

Richard Barnes, Assembly Member, has been appointed Mr Johnson’s Deputy Mayor - a specialist in health related matters.

Ian Clement who becomes Deputy Mayor, Government Relations - a tough job to liaise with people who will want to discredit Boris's team immediately as a way of attacking David Cameron.

Kit Malthouse, Assembly Member, who becomes Deputy Mayor, Policing - a veteran of sound finance from Westminster Council, there is a lot of fat to cut at the GLA and the Met in this area.

Sir Simon Milton who becomes Senior Adviser, Planning - Much experience of planning from his Westminster Council days; maybe he will be able to say no to City developers who want to build more and more skyscrapers, unlike Ken.

BBC - serious broadcasting?

Is this any way for a serious news broadcaster to cover a set of major elections? This is pathetic, I am embarrassed to watch it. Why can the BBC not cover an important story in an adult way? Are they deliberately trying to trivialise this important subject? Did they have a bet on as to how low they could pitch their coverage? Maybe for the next General Election they could ask Chris Tarrant, Lenny Henry and Sally James to host an election night Tiswas as part of the coverage - putting the studio representatives from each of the main parties in the gunge tank and getting the flan flinger to surprise politicians whilst being interviewed.

Another Labour fool?

Bob Marshall-Andrews is often described as an independent minded Labour MP, his left-wing view are tempered by a sense of humour and I have occasionally been impressed by his grasp of the duplicity of Blair and Brown. However his article in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph included a recommendation of 7 days action that Gordon Brown should take to restore Labour's fortunes. Six were the expected and mostly sensible but one shows the inbuilt prejudices of too many of the left of poliytics in this country:

"Friday: summon the Israeli ambassador who will be told that unless there is an immediate, verifiable programme for dismantling the illegal settlements on the West Bank, Britain will press the UN for a programme of economic sanctions against his country."

Maybe it was a lack of space that prevented Mr Marshall-Andrews from suggesting that the Hamas representatives be summoned and told to stop firing rockets at Israel and demanding the destruction of Israel. Maybe it was the lack of more days in his week long plan that stopped Mr Marshall-Andrews from suggesting that Fatah representatives be told to remove the call for the destruction of Israel from their Charter, from the educational curriculum of their schools and from their television programmes. Maybe, maybe, maybe... or maybe Mr Marshall-Andrews is a blinkered fool on the matter of Israel and the Palestinians.

Loyalty?

David Miliband is very good with loyalty, he has just stated that Gordon Brown was "the right man to take us forward into the next general election" and urged the party to pull together. He also said the whole cabinet should take responsibility for the "big beating" Labour took in the recent local elections.

Oddly Mr Miliband was just as loyal to Tony Blair just over a year ago when on Question Time he said, before Tony Blair resigned, that "People will be saying 'wouldn't it be great to have that Blair back because we can't stand that Gordon Brown'". The ever loyal David Miliband then tried to have his cake and eat it by saying that Mr Brown would be a "very successful" prime minister.

You almost have to admire David Miliband's 100% focus on keeping his Government job with its (limited) power but then maybe it's the salary, the expenses, the perks or of course the taxpayer funded final salary pension scheme that keeps him motivated. Or maybe it's the fact that in the real economy his chances of highly paid employment are rather low. Mind you he could always fulfil childhood ambition and become a bus conductor, perhaps Boris could put in a word for him at TfL.

Kevin McCloud's career, RIP

It is with great sadness that I have to report that tonight at around 20:05 the once promising career of Kevin McCloud passed away. The career that previously seemed so glittering and indeed secure, came to an end almost as soon as Grand Designs Live started.

The money men at Channel 4 have requested that no awards be given to Grand Designs Live and that the week long series be allowed to drift away peacefully as Kevin McCloud's career did.



Seriously, why Kevin, why? Mrs NotaSheep is a huge fan of yours and I have enjoyed many of your Grand Designs programmes, but what were you thinking of?

'Unite communities'

The BBC are continuing their attacks on Boris Johnson, today this piece notes his presence at the Sikh New Year festival, Vaisakhi, in Trafalgar Square. The BBC faithfully report that:

"The new mayor is expected to build bridges with the city's ethnic minority groups, after being accused during his election campaign of being a divisive figure who could not represent all of the metropolis."

Now I wonder who accused Boris of being a divisive figure and which media organisation faithfully reported this?


The BBC continue:

"Operation Black Vote's Simon Woolley said Mr Johnson "must now demonstrate that he understands what it means to govern a multi-cultural metropolis" and address issues of poverty."

That's Operation Black Vote, the non-political organisation that exists to get "blacks" involved in public affairs? Simon Wooley who wrote on 30th April:

"Today is the day we make ourselves heard. Let’s first and foremost democratically crush the politics of race hatred: the Far Right. In London every vote for the Greater London Assembly counts.

Your no vote in affect becomes a vote for the Far Right. In the battle for racial justice Black people don’t have the luxury not to vote.

Equally we should vote for a candidate that we believe will best serve the interests of our communities, and London as a whole. Ours is an international city, with a vision, culture and its politics that transcend way beyond capital. We must be central to the governance of our capital city.

It’s easy to make an excuse not to vote today. Lets care enough not to do that.

Simon Woolley
OBV Director"

No indication there of who Simon Woolley would like "Black people" to vote for is there? Well maybe a little hint that a vote for the Left would be preferable to a vote for the "Far Right". I wonder if Simon Woolley thinks of Boris Johnson as of the "Far right"?


Simon Wooley who wrote an article for the politically unbiased New Statesman on 15 April entitled "Race, diversity and 1 May" that included these thoughts:

"why has race negatively come to the forefront this time around? There are two main factors. The first has been the wholly disproportionate attention towards Ken Livingstone’s former equality aide Lee Jasper, and a number of black groups and individuals, including Doreen Lawrence and Pastor Nims.

No-one in the black community condones financial wrongdoing but many have asked, was the scale of this focus on these allegations fair, and how come everyone targeted by this media onslaught just happens to be black?"


"The second element has come from Boris Johnson himself. His remarks about Africans and Africa have forced him to make an unreserved apology. Johnson has had to learn quickly that the politics of London demands that it’s not enough not being a racist, you have to be a passionate anti-racist."

Simon Woolley who the New Statesman describe alongside his article thus:

"Simon is Director and co founder of OBV. He sits on a number of Gov Task forces tackling race inequality. He writes in the national media and is a regular contributor in the Black press."

Operation Black Vote whose list of "black peers" excludes Baroness Warsi the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action. Presumably the list of Labour supporting black peers could not be contaminated by the presence of a black Tory...


I think we can see that Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote may have an agenda somewhat at variance from that of a director of an unbiased organisation. Let's see who else is on the OBV team, look at the bottom of the page, the "management team" consists of two people - "Rita Patel" and "Lee Jasper". Lee Jasper, that name rings a bell, wasn't he Ken Livingstone's Senior Policy Advisor on Equalities until he had to resign?


Oddly the BBC report omits to mention on a page that at least ostensibly is about Boris Johnson's visit to the Sikh New Year festival, that Boris's wife is half Sikh, her mother being Dip Singh. I suppose that might make him seem more able to understand how "to build bridges with the city's ethnic minority groups" than Ken Livingstone, Lee Jasper or Simon Woolley.

" Labour will recover, says Brown"

The BBC continue to spew pro-Labour propaganda like the Labour supporting scum that they are. The whole day has been devoted to explaining how Gordon Brown will fight back and lead the Labour party back to eternal power, the thousand years of Labour rule was not ended by the 2008 local elections - that sort of thing...


Meanwhile the BBC are covering Boris Johnston's victory with remarks like this:

"Hackney North's Labour MP Diane Abbott said Mr Johnson was "an accident waiting to happen"."

As opposed to the blemish free record of Comrade Ken who deliberately insulted a Jewish reporter, collaborated with South American and Caribbean dictators and some supporters of terrorism - I think Boris will have to go it some to reach those levels of "an accident waiting to happen".

Embassies of the Union

Take a read of The Telegraph reporting that:

"The European Union will open its own embassies under a plan critics fear represents a "power grab" by Brussels officials pushing for a federal superstate.

The secret plan represents the first time that full EU embassies have been discussed seriously.

The "Embassies of the Union" would be controlled by a new EU diplomatic service created by the Lisbon Treaty.

The Daily Telegraph has seen a high-level Brussels document discussing plans for a "European External Action Service" (EEAS) which was proposed under the new EU Treaty, currently being ratified in Westminster."

Note that the report claims:

"The new service would rival established diplomatic services."

This is of course rubbish, the "new service" is not designed to "rival established diplomatic services", it is designed to replace them. It is staggering how the general population, most politicians and commentators don't seem to realise what is happening, it is almost as though they don't want to see...

Iran

Many liberals in the West are oft heard bleating about the restrictions on freedom in the US and the rest of the evil Western world. They love the freedom that the population of countries such as Iran enjoy. Here's an example:

"IRAN has handed a feminist a suspended sentence of 10 lashes and six months in prison, the Kargozaran newspaper has reported, in the fourth such punishment for a women's rights activist in Iran within weeks.
The sentence for Rezvan Moghadam imposed by Tehran's revolutionary tribunal is suspended for three years, meaning it will be implemented if she repeats the stated offence within that time.

Moghadam and 32 other women activists were arrested in front of Tehran's revolutionary tribunal in March 2007, where five feminists were being tried for taking part in a demonstration in June 2006.

The exact nature of the charges against her was not made clear.

In recent weeks the court has handed three other women's rights activists - Nahid Jafari, Nasrin Afzali and Marzieh Mortazi Langueroudi - identical suspended sentences for taking part in the same 2007 demonstration.

Iran has exerted mounting pressure on women's rights advocates, and in recent months several have been arrested for calling for changes to Iranian laws or for taking part in public protests.

The activists have been promoting the "one million signature'' campaign backed by Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi - an attempt to change Iranian laws that discriminate against women by collecting signatures online and in person.

The five feminists tried in March 2007 were accused of acting against national security for the June 2006 demonstration in Tehran's Haft-e Tir square, where 70 people were arrested amid allegations of police brutality.

Protesters demanded equal rights for women in marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody.

"


Strange I thought that "equal rights for women in marriage, divorce, inheritance and child custody" were all rights that existed in the evil West, I must be mistaken.



Quote gratefully taken from news.com.au

Sixth winner of the weekly NotaSheep "No shit, Sherlock" award

The Sunday Telegraph reports that:

"More than 30 state schools in England are made up solely of ethnic minority pupils with no white children on the roll, according to government figures.

The finding follows a warning from Britain's race watchdog that schools are becoming increasingly segregated along racial lines.

This year's school census, carried out in January, found that 27 primaries and four secondaries were entirely non-white.

The schools, which were not identified, are likely to include England's nine state Muslim schools and two state Sikh schools."

and the pay-off line is:

"The remaining 20, all primaries, are likely to be in areas with large ethnic minorities."

No shit, Sherlock.

Ken's friends at MPACUK are unhappy

The Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the UK are unhappy that Boris Johnston has been elected London Mayor. This page calls Boris Johnston "The BNP's Second Favourite Candidate" and reminds us that Boris has met Israelis. Presumably MPACUK were happy to support a man some of whose friends believed in hanging homosexuals, stoning adulterers and in suicide bombers killing Israeli civilians.

Happy Star Wars Day

May the 4th be with you...

A Lib Dem vote is a wasted vote

A Lib Dem vote is a wasted vote is what many people used to say about voting for the Liberal Democrats. However if Comment is Free are to be believed, it is a vote by Lib Dem Brian Paddick that was the wasted vote. Dave Hill reports that:

"One small mystery has been solved. Brian Paddick has apparently revealed to a radio station that his second preference vote for mayor was cast, not for Sian Berry as I had expected, but for Lindsey German, the Left List candidate. Now there's a turn-up. I'm still getting my head round that one."

Obviously Brian Paddick didn't understand how the second preference system works: that a second vote for anyone other than Livingslime or Boris was a wasted vote and that a second preference vote for one of those two was worth the same as a first preference vote when your first choice was eliminated. Maybe Mr Paddick should have read this or this or this which would have explained it to him. Never mind, no harm done.

http://www.london.gov.uk/ and some advice for Boris

The GLA website was a website that I only visited in extremis, as it gave me a really nasty turn to have to read the pro-Livingslime propaganda it contained. This morning I thought I'd see if the new regime had taken over. The top story is "Boris is London's Mayor" so that is at least reflected.

Now for a good sweep out of the left wing lice that have been leeching (to mix my little creature similes) off taxpayers money for so long. It is time for Boris to stop being nice about Ken and his "team", they misrepresented your views and policies and underneath the fake smiles they really hate you and what you are. You are in power now Boris, make sure London and the world know what was done in Labour's name to London over the last eight years and make sure the miscreants have to account for what they have done. Your first two years may serve as a blueprint for how David Cameron acts after the Conservatives win the next general election and the true scale of Labour misrule is exposed.

Was it all a dream? The BBC are pretending it was.

The BBC (presumably under Labour instruction) have decided that the best way to present yesterday's results is to "go big" on Boris, who they will be then attacking with all the fury that their leftoid minds can muster, rather than the incredible wind for the Conservative party over much of England and Wales in the local elections.

The BBC news UK home page has as its main headline "Johnson is London mayor: Conservative Boris Johnson is the new mayor of London - ending Ken Livingstone's eight-year reign at City Hall." but apart from the election chart, nothing about the Conservative victories.

The BBC news England home page has the Boris story as second lead with the main lead "Prayers for McCann anniversary - Church services will be held in Portugal and Britain to mark a year since Madeleine McCann went missing.". An obviously far more important story than that of the Conservative party's ever upwards trajectory.

For any "front page" news on Labour's rout, you have to go to the BBC news Politics home page where the number 2 story (how appropriate) is "Brown 'disappointed' by poll loss - Gordon Brown admits to "bad and disappointing" results, as Labour has its worst election showing in decades." Strange how the story is, even here, told in terms of what has gone wrong for Labour rather than a positive story about the Conservative party. The BBC just cannot bear to be positive about the Tories, can they.

00:24 and I think the BBC are in denial

The BBC England news page is still showing "Livingstone win 'highly unlikely'". I would say all but impossible as the result was declared half an hour ago. It's amazing how quickly the BBC can react to a news story, maybe they need some more money to beef up their service.

Strangely the last updated information is "Page last updated at 23:02 GMT, Friday, 2 May 2008 00:02 UK".

Good bye and good riddance to Ken Livingstone, and the aftermath

Good bye and good riddance to Ken Livingstone, a disaster for London in the 1980s and again from 2000. The damage that this piece of slime has done to London is immeasurable and I hope that in time he will pay the price.

I am writing this whilst watching Sky's live coverage of the Mayoral results and speeches. I am quite impressed by Boris Johnson's speech but not by his kind words about Ken Livingstone, Ken Livingstone does not deserve anyone's thanks, he has almost destroyed the London I have grown up in and once loved. I am staggered by Ken Livingstone's kind words about Labour and taking the responsibility for the loss. Brian Paddick a so so speech.

I'd quite like to hear the other candidates' speeches but Sky like the BBC will not give the BNP a platform. On that point it is a shame that the BNP didn't quite overtake the Green party as that would have stopped the Greens portraying themselves and being portrayed by the BBC as the fourth party in British politics. The BBC even now are showing just the top four candidates on their News front page, despite the difference in votes between the Green and BNP candidates amounted to less than 0.31%. This does not mean I support the BNP, I do not. However I am heartily sick of the holier than thou attitudes they espouse and the way that they are so wrong on so many issues and yet are so respected by the BBC.

Remember Boris; this may be important

As I blogged a few days back:

As soon as you win the election, demand all the backup media for the Exchange Server(s) at the Mayor of London's office. You want all the backup media as far back as possible, the last year end media, any media stored on-site, off-site or at a disaster recovery site. The truth as to what Ken Livingstone and his "team" have been up to may be only on those media. If there are no backups then an immediate investigation is called for and remember there are people who can retrieve data from mangled media and emails deleted from Exchange.

Not quite 1997 at the BBC tonight

Chris Evans on his Radio 2 show this evening said something along the lines of:

"It's strange seeing everyone walking around with their heads hanging down... I mean... what's happened... not that we don't like Boris, of course, but just that..."

Somewhat different from 1997 if you remember Jane Garvey's recollections:

"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. "

Ocado shopping

A brilliant service but some of their suggested alternatives for out of stock items are weird:

Want: 2 x organic avocado pears
Suggestion: Plums

As if by magic

Peter Allen on 5 Live says that the show has been receiving lots of texts about the local elections and they have all been anti the Labour government. Five minutes later, as if by magic, Peter can happily read out a text from a "labour supporter" that insults Conservative public schoolboys; the normal state of affairs is resumed, Peter can breathe easy once more.

16:10 interview on Radio 5

Absolutely hysterical defence of Gordon Brown by Yvette Cooper (Mrs Ed Balls), do try and get a listen if you can find it.

If I hear one more Labour minister referring to 15% interest rates under the Tories and the tame BBC interviewer not clarifying the issue I may explode.

Alistair Darling may be in need of medication following this news

The Times has the details:

"The blow to tax revenues from the credit crunch is set to send the Chancellor plunging £16 billion or more deeper into the red over the next two years than he has planned, calculations for The Times indicate today.

The estimates of the toll on tax receipts by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research will aggravate the acute financial headache already facing Alistair Darling."

Do read the rest of the article.

More Labour Government incompetence/duplicity

The Labour government have not built enough prisons to house our rising prison population, rising because crime is rising. So what should they do? Their answer, to build small bail hostels for up to four people each to house criminals released from prison early. Less than four people so they can avoid planning controls and so they can try and justify not having any on-site supervision. So what we have here is prisoners being released from prison early to live in paid for accommodation with no supervision in a house near you... but presumably not near Gordon Brown or Jack Straw, the current and the next Labour party leader.

Ha, ha, ha

No, not the local elections but the quite hysterically funny news that the Climate Change lobby have finally addresses the recent drops in Global temperatures. They now claim that we are experiencing a natural lull in the rising temperatures that will last until 2015.


I think the message is climate change yesterday (through faked statistics), climate change tomorrow (through inept predictions) but no (climate change today (because they can't show any).


Greenie Watch has all the detail you will need.

The Labour line

"The Tories' policies are going to come under increased scrutiny".

Hariett Harman has said it, so has the Hazel Blears and a Labour spin doctor has just said it. According the last of these three, people only voted Conservative as a protest vote on minor issues but will return to Labour once they start to look at the major issues; even Victoria Derbyshire sounded less than convinced.

I presume the above is the decided Labour line to follow on from calling David Cameron a "mere salesman" and continuing to claim that the Conservative party have no policies. I would also predict that Gordon Brown will continue to ask questions of David Cameron at PMQs and will be fed some patsy questions from tame Labour backbenchers allowing him to attack David Cameron as well.

BBC reporting of the election results

The BBC are in a deep depression about the local election results and are trying to minimise the damage to their beloved Labour party. The Radio London news at 11:00 was interesting, the lead story was the local election results followed by how Labour will fight back - with short speech by Gordon Brown - then how the Lib Dems had done fairly well - followed by a short Nick Clegg speech - nothing from the victorious Conservatives at all. Then quick coverage of the London mayoral election.

Come on BBC, your team lost - accept defeat gracefully.