O tempora, O mores!

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...but it's not The Times (hehe) it's the Telegraph.  "The Telegraph guns for Danny Alexander after toppling David Laws". As I said on Friday, "How much more of this shit is waiting to be drip fed?". 

Nam et ipsa scientia potestas es 

[Image and hat-tip: Conservative Home]


Update: could be interesting: Mark Pack at LDQ: "not paying something that's not due is not a story"...will the DT apologise?

Offence or opt out...

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Great ad...how times change! Should smoking be an offence? Or should we allow an 'opt out'? Passive smoking would suggest the latter to be unworkable. Anyway, today is the World Health Organisation World No Tobacco Day. Tobacco in and of itself is perfectly harmless but like other plants (Erythroxylon coca for example) it can be processed and used for not entirely good purposes, thus is man. The WHO suggests tobacco misuse and addiction (and hence ill health and the all too often fatal consequences) to be the leading preventable cause of death worldwide. Some of the facts are startling, even now: tobacco kills up to half of its users and is directly responsible for an annual death toll of more than five million people. In 'the West' we see constant bans and illegality of smoking and it gives us the impression of progress BUT "total consumption of tobacco products is increasing globally". The theme this year is "Gender and tobacco with an emphasis on marketing to women". Apparently, among the industry's marketing targets, one of the biggest is women because fewer women than men smoke or chew tobacco [Link]. Also, the WHO says that only about 9% of women smoke, compared with 40% of men.

"With women, the industry simply has more room to expand."

Old Oxfordian overseers II...

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I didn't realise yesterday when it was announced that Danny Alexander would be David Law's replacement at the Treasury, but...he's another one...and I don't mean Scottish politician! "Daniel Grian Alexander gained a BA in politics, philosophy and economics from St Anne's College, Oxford".[BBC].

So in the cabinet there's David Cameron (PPE Oxford), William Hague (PPE Oxford) Chris Huhne (PPE Oxford) and now Danny Alezander (at least; there could be more). New Labour Leader from: David Miliband (PPE degree from Oxford), Ed Miliband (PPE degree from Oxford), and Ed Balls (PPE degree from Oxford) One of those is assisted by Yvette Cooper (PPE Oxford); one or more assisted by Peter Mandelson (PPE Oxford).

One off?...

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One of many, or at least the first "scandal" for the coalition and it is for one of the most impressive performers thus far: David Laws said: "I regret this situation deeply, accept that I should not have claimed my expenses in this way and apologise fully." WHY HIM?...WHY NOW?!! How much more of this shit is waiting to be drip fed? The Daily Telegraph reveals how the Treasury chief David Laws claimed up to £950 a month for eight years to rent rooms in two properties owned by his long term partner.

Update Saturday, 8pm (BST): It appears Laws has resigned.

Update 2: Sunday. I have just edited the above post to remove a name that in itself bore no relevance to the subject or the outcome. Just to add that IMHO it is a shame that Laws has gone but it was essential if the coalition wants to be seen as different from what went before. The one important point that I touched on before is the manner and the timing of this "tabloidesque" revelation; I think it time the Telegraph published everything it has NOW before it does any more intentional damage and it certainly would be to their financial benefit because if they do something similar in a few days, or weeks, or months it could be construed as an attempt to deliberately harm the UK or a popular government and in so doing have an adverse effect on their readership.

Oil-only output...

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Venezuelan stagflation: analysts say that "socialism" is devastating local productive capacity and becoming more dependent on soaring imports, the country's economy is only boosted by revenues from oil exports. My translation [Link]:

"Analistas afirman que el "socialismo" está arrasando con la capacidad productiva local y haciendo cada vez más dependiente de las ya altísimas importaciones al país, cuya economía sólo es dinamizada por los ingresos por exportaciones petroleras."

"We will bury Venezuelan capitalism, we are going to bury it!" In the first quarter of 2010 non-oil exports of the private sector had declined 67% compared to the first quarter of 2007 (less than in 1997); non-oil exports of the public sector suffered a 12 percent decrease over the same period in 2007.[El Universal - English Daily News] The country is in a spiral decline since the ominous overtones when Chavez the clown began nationalising companies and the stupid fool can only crow because, as he puts it, "the economy that is falling in Venezuela is the capitalist economy". Fucking brilliant.

The energy crisis continues and hunger, riots and strikes cannot be too far in the future, this month's "forced acquisition" of Monaca and threats of expropriation posed to Empresas Polar has spread fear among the country's farmers: the two companies buy the equivalent of 70% of national cereal production...food, the last thing you want in madass ignorant idealogue politicians' hands.

Opposition options...

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Not what you think! Of course the opposition is now primarily Labour. Anyway, there seems to be a "Row over Alastair Campbell on BBC Question Time panel". The BBC are bigging-up the refusal of the government: they says "No 10 refused to put a minister on Question Time unless Tony Blair's former adviser was removed" (Page last updated at 09:16 GMT, Friday, 28 May 2010 10:16 UK...just in case they change it). Is that right? No, I suspect it's a lie.

The Beeb's Gavin Allen on his blog says "According to No 10, a senior member of the cabinet was available to do Question Time but only if Alastair Campbell was replaced by a member of the shadow cabinet." and is quoted saying "It is for Question Time, not political parties, to make judgements about impartiality and to determine who is invited to appear in the interests of the audience"; clearly that is fair and the comments on that blogpost are half and half for and against the decision; HOWEVER the government didn't pull out because it was Campbell, they, quite reasonably, wanted a representative of Labour, a shadow minister or at the very least an MP, but Al Campbell?...and bear in mind Piers Morgan was on the panel too! I think the real question should be why couldn't Labour forward an official representative, this is the point the BBC are trying to cover up in their labour-luvvie way. Paul Waugh on his London Evening Standard blog seems to have an inside track on more detail:

"In the week of the Queen's Speech the BBC booked Alastair Campbell in the place of an Opposition frontbencher to appear on Question Time - which we questioned. Before a final decision was made on who might appear on behalf of the Government, the BBC directly booked John Redwood MP to appear."

Funny thing about Question Time, no matter where they are, no matter which city or town or constiuency, no matter which party runs the council or has the local MP, the Labour speakers always get more time, less interruptions (both points proven) and more applause. Wierd. However the BBC spin and lies has had its effect and all the media are seeing it as the government trying to control who appears. HOWEVER, the BBC sow the seeds of its own defeat in all this mischief: they keep referring to this editon of the programme as an important one because of the Queen's Speech yet the ONLY elected MP (and Ex minister) on the panel came from the Conservatives and they have two self-promoting, discredited, arch-Labour spinning liars Campbell and Morgan. Jeez. 

Oily obturation operation...

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A few hours ago the LA Times reported that engineers had managed to succeed ("at least temporarily") in stopping the flow of oil and gas from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon (Macondo Prospect) oil spil. Click on the image to enlarge and get a decent view of the view from space, courtesy of NASA and Wiki. It seems odd that the "top kill" plan (an attempt to stem the flow of oil by pumping drilling fluid - "mud"...sludge - at high pressure into the well, then concrete to seal it: this latter is not yet done) could succeed within less than two days when the origianl explosion and subsequent spill started over five weeks ago!

Not only are dozens of US government officials heading southwards, so are the opinion polls of Obama's handling of the situation; naturally he is on the defensive about the US government repsonse. 

The news coverage, certainly in the UK and Europe (IMHO!) hasn't been as in-depth as I would have expected, especially seeing as the company involved, BP probably among - if not THE - jewel in the British crown. And considering the size of the spill is estmated to be between 2500 and 9000 square miles [Wiki]; just to put that in an understandable mental image: Wales is just over 8000 square miles (FFS!)

The ecological disaster has bearly been mentioned yet it will be among the worst ever in the history of ecological disasters! The Gulf is laden with beautiful coastline, marshland, wetland ecosytems, nature reserves etc much of which is still recovering from Katrina...but there is more: this is the first oil "blowout" to spill oil in such deep waters: nearly a mile deep and so the damage to the various and distinct ecosystems at different levels will be one of "The Great Unknowns in Gulf Oil Spill" [Newsweek]. Also this year's hurricane season fast approaches, we are currently in the middle of "Hurricane Preparedness Week". This should be of great concern to the efforts to stop the spillage plus the containment and clean-up operations.

Outwardly overindulgent...

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LOL! Archvampire Tony Blair has landed yet another job; this time the lying, evil hypocrite is to bring his 'global relationships' to a Silicon Valley venture capital firm Khosla Ventures. Not "pro bono" was the bloodsucker's answer when asked about his salary. Amusingly, Indian-born billionaire Vinod Khosla (a founder of Sun Microsystems...no doubt doing very well from carbon trading as he did with ethanol subsidies) - re cutting energy consumption - argues that the world should look for technological breakthroughs in the quest to find "clean" alternatives to oil and coal etc. Apparently their website says 'the firm embraces a direct style': "We prefer brutal honesty to hypocritical politeness." ROFL! So what the fuck is Blair doing there then?

Overload...

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The Independent's front page demonstrates nicely the size of the problem facing the UK. In fact they underestimate a bit as the debt 'all-in' is estimated between one and three trillion. The cuts announced yesterday are the little bit shaded red in the corner. "A savage start? Maybe, but this is just the very beginning." Click to enlarge. As Hamish McRae of The Independent puts it, rather well:

"In a way, the cuts we have just heard about are the easy bit of the story. The tough choices are ahead."

Hat-tip Conservative Home.

Oncoming opportunities...

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Does the Chinese word for crisis = danger + opportunity? No! This is a widespread public misperception. However, there certainly may be opportunities ahead: our current crisis is indeed an "incipient moment; crucial point (when something begins or changes)". This week looks to be another interesting one: not only will Osborne be spelling out the first 'tranche' of UK cuts tomorrow, for which Clegg was bravely preparing the ground this morning: "that turbulence in the eurozone had lent a greater urgency to balancing Britain's books",

"So not only are we going to have to deal with cuts, we are also going to have to actually deal with some of the pledges that the government made in the past which they didn't even provide budgets for.

The age of plenty where money could be thrown around in almost carelessness, which is what the outgoing Labour government has done of some time, now is over."

...but also, the crisis continues apace: "Markets on alert after bank bailout", [Times] The Spanish central bank will bail out Cajasur, 146 years old and with religious roots - founded by the Cordoba Cathedral Chapter - it is 20th biggest in the sector; they had fooled everyone (including most of their staff) up until Saturday, rejecting a merger offer on the table. The bailout is half a billion Euros (for starters), which coincides almost with what they lost in the last year. Now it will be up for sale to the highest bidder. The collapse of the property market (and the construction business) has put Spain in a very poor situation, even among Euro colleagues. Last weeks near bond failure [FT] and sliding Spanish debt are making headlines but bearly making waves 'in the street', knowing the Spanish no doubt that will come soon enough: street demonstrations are a national pastime; and why should it be top news when we have the world's worse kept secret the Real news "Mourinho to quit for £40m Real Madrid deal."

Olé...OUCH! II...

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Take a look at the image on the left and what at first glance appears to be a gumshield or the tongue of torero Julio Aparicio is in fact the horn of the bull! Just for good measure the aggrieved toro is kneeing him in the balls as well. Click on the image [ don't bother: as so often these days with old blog posts, the link is 'dead'] to get an enlarged, glossy, quality, in all the gory sweat and blood details version. 

The damage is serious but probably not as bad as those more common injuries when the bull spears the thigh/ groin area. Incredible photo though. [Photos: Cristóbal Manuel, Link: El Pais]

Olé...OUCH! II...

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Take a look at the image on the left and what at first glance appears to be a gumshield or the tongue of torero Julio Aparicio is in fact the horn of the bull! Just for good measure the aggrieved toro is kneeing him in the balls as well. Click on the image to get an enlarged, glossy, quality, in all the gory sweat and blood details version. The damage is serious but probably not as bad as those more common injuries when the bull spears the thigh/ groin area. Incredible photo though. [Photos: Cristóbal Manuel, Link: El Pais]

Oooogle...

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Brilliant. Google have a 30th anniversary 'Doodle' of Pac-man and it's playable! Story HERE (in Spanish) and not sure if it is available in the US/UK version...of course I'm not sure how long it will last! Screengrab (note "Insert Coin"). With any luck you can play it HERE.

"El logo de Google se convierte por primera vez en un videojuego interactivo"

Update: I knew it couldn't possibly NOT be in English too: on CNET News "Google gets Pac-Man fever" and they even have a handy video game (beware soundtrack could become addictive). And on The Inquisitr, "Quit playing Google Pac Man and get back to work, everyone!"

Other opportunities II...

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Well, what of the 150 or so MPs (100 from labour) that left parliament this year? Many will cut and run with their massive payouts: all get a pay-off of £64,000 each in addition to their index-linked pensions and any troughing and flipping they have managed to get away with. Others like former Labour cabinet minister Ruth Kelly have landed on both feet in very good £200,000 salaried banking positions (funny how she didn't chose a bank that the government she was part of had dealings with) whilst others could face the public again in positions even more stressful than when being a politician: Lebit Opik it appears to be turning into his caricature: he is planning a new career as a stand-up comedian. How many had/will have deductions because they were sacked? How many will be brought to trial or imprisoned for gross misconduct? Many are no better than thieves but NONE will suffer. "DISGRACED and retiring MPs are to net £153m in payoffs and pensions as they step down at the general election."

On average, the 148 MPs who have announced that they will quit the Commons are in line to collect more than £1m each, according to an analysis for The Sunday Times. [from April]

Occasional offence...

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The first but almost certainly not the last in Europe: the first case of burka rage: "France has first 'burka rage' incident". [Link] An argument started involving a lawyer aided by her daughter as they came to blows with a burkha-clad fellow shopper. A law based on the the premise that no one should wear clothes that are aimed at hiding the face in public places could be introduced this autumn banning the burkha as 'an affront to the nation's values'. Vive la différence

Gratuitous "what's below the burka" image...what did you expect?

Occasional offence...

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The first but almost certainly not the last in Europe: the first case of burka rage: "France has first 'burka rage' incident". [Link] An argument started involving a lawyer aided by her daughter as they came to blows with a burkha-clad fellow shopper. A law based on the the premise that no one should wear clothes that are aimed at hiding the face in public places could be introduced this autumn banning the burkha as 'an affront to the nation's values'. Vive la différence

Gratuitous "what's below the burka" image...what did you expect?

Picture credit: cmblake66.

On, Off, Osborne, Orange...

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Missed all the action last week but the early feeling 10 days ago was the correct one as it turned out. Now things get underway and already there are some descisons that really are throwing the cat amongst the pigeons. All yesterday's news or before...still catching up.

On: [DT] the Labour party leadership race. At present it seems to be a two horse race between the Miliband brothers. Road to nowhere if you ask me: NewNuLabour. Dizzy had some advice in an open letter to Labour Party members last week, good advice.I certainly don't think Ed or David will get much union backing. Where is the real 'left'?

Off: [Times] why the hell is the coalition going to create 170 plus NEW peers to fill the House of lords! FFS the idea is to REDUCE numbers. We all know the House of Lords tends to be a good and restraining influence on bad government (had their hands full with New Labour) but surely it is better to reduce the numbers instead of creating a load more to 'balance' the House. Apparently those Lords already created 'cannot be sacked'...hmmm...well CHANGE THE LAW! Get them out of there! If you can't, then demote them and/or create a new level and make only half of them an 'able-to-vote' Lord. Expanding the already inflated egos of another bunch of politicos is bad news; increasing their numbers is worse.

Osborne: [Guardian] IMHO a good strong start: Office for Budget Responsibility established (OBR) also an end to "the 'fictional' forecasts issued by his predecessors"; an emergency budget announced for 22 June and a spending review in the autumn.

Orange: [Play political] Orange-booker Laws and Paxo's orange tie discuss the lack of money (reference to Byrne's note) and the cynical 'waste' of money that New Labour signed off on, often against advice. Very good news that Laws has put a freeze on all spending annouced since January 1st until he personally has signed off on it. More importantly Laws and Osborne, amongst others are getting the debt situation out in the open (yes, I know, but some people STILL don't realise).

P.S. In regard to the 'Osborne' and 'Orange' above I do wish the press would STOP saying (usually in a whinging tone) that xyz "wasn't in your manifesto" or a "two weeks ago you said xyz." Hellooo...there's a coalition, it means there's a bit of both, somethings dropped others taken up!

Only one option: OUT...

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Give the UK a referendum NOW! No, not on PR but on E.U. Membership!! "British taxpayers ordered to bail out euro".[DT]

All 27 EU finance ministers have been summoned to Brussels on Sunday to sign up to a 'European stabilisation mechanism'. Britain will be unable to veto this as it will be put through under the 'qualified majority voting' system.

Alex Deane over at Conservative Home puts the gist of that article in such a way that it is better just to quote it [Link]:(my emphasis)

You might wonder how the article's authors can speak with such certainty about the result before the meeting has taken place. The answer is that all 16 Eurozone members seem to have agreed on this course already, and between them they command a majority in a vote. Invoking Article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty, intended to enable a collective response to natural disasters, they ensure that the decision does not need unanimous agreement.

A disgrace. A brazen stitch-up. A repulsive abuse of power. A vivid demonstration of the costs of membership, and of the nations in whose interests the Union is run. Prompt (and shameless) use of contentious legislation ratified for one purpose, to secure an entirely different end. It's a useful demonstration of how the EU works:

* Their decision.
* Their currency.
* Our money.

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Stable government, Low Tax, Education, Tackling the deficit, Political Reform: Cameron and Clegg are singing from the same hymn-sheet tonight. Done deal?

"Lib Dem MPs Back Clegg's Tory Talks Plan", SKY.

Offering opportunity...

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So, a coalition of sorts?  Will 'winner' David Cameron's offer be accepted?

While that's being sorted here are some interesting facts and figures, not just from this year's election (millions rounded!):

• After the debates and 'Cleggmania' the Lib Dems look like they crashed and burned yet they got one million MORE votes than 2005...and 5 fewer seats (D'oh, anyone looking in from elsewhere will just not understand this).
• In England Labour won 7 million votes and got 191 seats; the Lib Dems won 6 million votes and got only 43 seats.
• In Scotland Labour won 41 seats with only one million votes; the other parties got 1.4 million votes and share 18 seats.
• Below the Severn-Wash line (SE, SW and Eastern England), out of 195 seats Labour won only TEN (excluding London).
• In 2005 Tony Blair got more than one million FEWER votes than David Cameron did yesterday but he had 50 MORE seats.
• Michael Howard losing in 2005 got 100,000 votes more than Labour did yesterday but Labour have 60 more seats than Howard did.
• Tony Blair's 'massive landslide' in 1997 was with less of the popular vote than John Major in 1992 and Margaret Thatcher in 1987.
• Neil Kinnock's 'disaster' in 1992 was with almost a million MORE votes than David Cameron won yesterday.
• In John Major's Conservative 'slaughter' in 1997 he got MORE votes than Tony Blair won in 2005.

I could go on all night but it really does highlight what a shit system it really is. The fact that this year voters were turned away just makes matters worse but will some sort of PR deal be worked out or a referendum on electoral reform be offered? I doubt it. Note that in a poll today "86% of Tory members prefer minority government to coalition." [Link]

P.S. well done to the Greens: your first ever UK MP, Caroline Lucas in Brighton. Overall the Green Party got 285,616 votes; this is 100,000 votes MORE than Sinn Fein or Plaid Cymru BUT these parties got 5 and 3 seats respectively. However, UKIP got nigh-on a million votes (917,832) but no seats and the BNP got 563,743 votes and no seats. Go figure.

Ooops...

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Did UKIP save Ed Balls? [LINK] I'd say they probably did; I hope there aren't too many other 'incidents' like this.

Update Saturday 8th, 9:15AM (BST) Conservative Home have a list of other very close calls. Obviously we can't 'know' that most UKIP would have voted Conservative as many could be other parties or not voted at all...but we can presume, fairly, that UKIP may have cost the Conservatives their outright majority.

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Oops...bit late today but make sure you go and vote (...not so subliminal message...vote Conservative...vote Conservative). Also: "Our army has crossed the ocean to fight for democracy. Cross the street and vote in ours." hat-tip Paul Twinn via Tim Montgomerie.

Quite superb by Tom Harris (we can forgive the fact that he's Labour!) Watch right to the end too. Hat-tip Iain Dale.

More good advice for when you vote: HERE Courtesy of the Guardian's Steve Busfield (see comment 2:14pm HERE)

Update too late! I hope you've all watched THIS!

Oncoming options...

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Click on image to go to Martin Rowson's cartoon in today's Guardian re the UK General Election campaign. I have tea and bits of (Brown) toast over my screen (not for the first time) after laughing caused a simultaneous mouth and nose breakfast discharge. The cartoon dipicts the party leaders with David Cameron ahead, not having had a particularly good campaign...but better than the others. The last man standing? Or the least tired? The cartoon is related to Jonathan Freedland's article in the same paper: "Cameron may be a good campaigner. But he has not had a good campaign"

Equipped with Blair's political touch, the Tory leader was expecting a stately progression to No 10 – not a desperate scramble...

..."Winning an election is not meant to be easy." No, but there was a time when David Cameron believed it would be nowhere near as hard.