Furry Conservative

Evidence based medicine

2009-03-12T10:36:00.004Z

The Left finds something else to tax. Others will fisk this statist outrage far better than I, but I was struck most by this statement:

Dr David Walker, a GP in Lanarkshire, said many people eat their entire daily calorie requirement in chocolate, on top of their normal meals.

"Many" is meaningless. Is it ten? A thousand? One percent of the population? He wants to impose a nationwide tax because he has a feeling that 'many' people are stuffing their faces with chocolate. Personally, I prefer an independent study with verifiable results. Unusually for the BBC, they allowed a single dissenting voice, though they were at pains to point out her industry connection, twice. When a source is favoured by the BBC, they are simply labelled "an expert".

Anyway, as another commenter said - "there goes the womens vote!".

Gun control works

2009-03-11T10:33:00.002Z

Apparently.

If this was in America, the article would be accompanied by some lobbyist from a fake charity saying lax gun controls were responsible. Germany has very tight gun control laws, hence the perfunctory and almost embarassed report.

Little Brother, endorsed

2009-03-05T11:38:00.002Z

Put aside for a moment your revulsion at the people prosecuted here. Yes, your first impression (and probably further ones, too) is that these are the sort of neighbours you'd move to Somalia to avoid.

Instead, read with horror the remarks of the judge:

Deputy District Judge Alan Fowler said the CCTV cameras, which had been pointed into the couple's back garden by the four neighbours, did invade their privacy but they were entitled to do this by law as they were detecting a crime.

Is behaving "very odd" a crime? Is simulating sex on your own property a crime? Vulgar, of course, but a crime? Every television executive in Britain should be arrested, they broadcast far worse.

But the coup de grace...you can set up CCTV cameras to monitor the private property of your neighbours if you are 'detecting a crime'. Of course, as Labour have introduced about one million new laws, there's a fair bet that you will catch someone doing something.

So, incredibly, it is now legal and permissible to film the private lives of your neighbours. The State is happy as it gets a cadre of willing spies and informants, and it is only a short step from private monitoring to State monitoring.

Communism sidles closer

2009-03-01T12:29:00.004Z

Comrade Harperson pronounces judgement.

This is typically New Labour, in that they always choose an extreme target as a shield for extending their illiberal rule. Godwin is, obviously, a useless greedy failure who is feathering an enormous nest when he should be broke, if the Market was truly allowed to perform. However, he has a contract and the f*cking government approved it, so that is that.

Anyway, how sinister is this line from the Harpy?

The sum was unacceptable in "the court of public opinion"

Is that the one which used to be called Bow Street Magistrates court, I wonder? What, it isn't actually a real court? Funny how you can despise populism one minute, and tearfully wave the tattered populist flag the next. She'll be saying that he is "an enemy of the people" next.

What the Government wants to do is to break a contract unilaterally and steal a legally agreed pension. If they can do that to this c*nt, they can do it to you as well. After all, they need the cash, don't they?

EU recommends more power for the EU

2009-02-25T17:15:00.002Z

BBC reports it as a good idea (i.e. no contrary points of view allowed). Obviously, given the previous track record of the EU, this will be a tremendous success, and it certainly wouldn't be used by the French and Germans to legislate the City out of existence to benefit their own financial centres, of course not.

While the BBC liberally smears scare quotes over any proposal or phrase it is suspicious of, it reports an EU body calling for an EU power grab without even raising an eyebrow. Nor does it point out the truism that the further away a supervisory body is, the less accountable it is.

Still, it's another step on the way to political union, and that's good enough for the BBC.

It is called 'printing money'

2009-02-22T23:29:00.003Z

The BBC manage to publish a government press release without mentioning what it will do, which is merely print money.

Quantitative easing effectively allows the central bank to write cheques to banks in exchange for assets.

The BBC are using the word'effectively' in the sense of "it means the same as" rather than doing something effectively. They key phrase, though, is "in exchange for assets".

What assets are these? My guess is that they will be the tarpaper shack of Mr and Mrs Hillbilly, Esq. of Tenessee, last valued at $740,000 but whose true value is probably around $59.99. Our savvy and bold government will give the banks $1m of loans in exchange for this asset, because they haven't got a fucking clue what they are doing. Oh, and also because it isn't their money.

Brass neck of the year

2009-02-21T14:18:00.003Z

Branson gives his views to his panting, adoring public. No bail-outs, but £1.4bn of subsidy just isn't quite enough for the entrepreneurial genius.

Scottish cash for Scottish dogs

2009-02-03T11:39:00.003Z

A tremendous illustration of the lunacy of single-issue groups. Emotive and ludicrous over-reaction of the year is awarded for this statement:

"It's time the RSPCA stopped stealing food from the mouths of Scotland's defenceless animals."

Those English bastards!

OK, we'll stop "raising awareness" north of the border, but at the same time we'll stop paying subsidies so that Scottish dogs can lounge around all day swigging McEwan's lager and watching daytime tele. OK?

Obligatory snow pic

2009-02-02T17:29:00.002Z

River scene in Verulam Park.

Umm...

2009-01-30T11:04:00.002Z

Congratulations on her one-woman campaign to give environmentalists appoplexy, but this line struck me:

her daughter already has six young children and never expected fertility treatment she had received would result in eight more babies.

Er...if you have six kids already why on earth would you need fertility treatment?

The woman's husband is expected to return to Iraq where he works as a contractor.

"Flee to Iraq" is probably a closer description.

Nuclear humbug

2009-01-30T11:00:00.003Z

The natives are getting restless. Normally the response from Labour would be to shrilly denounce them as racists, but they feel the chill wind of political mortality and thus are trimming their sails. After a decade of mass, uncontrolled immigration to undercut native labour, it takes incredible chutzpah for Hilary Benn to come out with this gem:

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said the angry workers were "entitled to an answer".

An answer to what? Why Labour kept a million natives on the dole while foreigners undercut their wages?

Politicians - does anyone not utterly despise them?

CLICK! Goes the ratchet

2009-01-29T11:07:00.003Z

The health fascists are circling their waggons around the last few people daring enough to drink alcohol in Britain today.

It is legal for parents to give a child over five alcohol in the home and the guidance is not expected to become law.

Yet. This is a typical tactic, announcing 'guidance' which quickly becomes dictat. Of course, the fake charities are delighted:

The easy availability of alcohol at pocket money prices is far more important.

An absurd statement. Alcohol is not available at 'pocket money prices', not unless you are the son of a metropolitan high-earning 'liberal' anyway.

There is serious harm that can come to children if they drink and the main advice is that childhood should be an alcohol-free time. Certainly under the age of 15 there are serious risks.

The French don't seem to have these problems. They give young children watered wine from an early age. Usually the Left is keen to push the virtues of France upon us; curiously they chose not to in this instance.

It is yet another turn of the ratchet from the kill-joy puritans.

Best edercated genurasion in histury

2009-01-29T11:00:00.001Z

Click.

Why anyone should be surprised, after nearly twelve years of Socialism and nearly forty years of comprehensive education is a mystery.

Military procurement

2009-01-29T10:57:00.001Z

Rockets, guns and ammunition don't come cheap these days. Much, if not most, of this money will end up in the hands of Hamas. The UN are happy for Hamas to use their property as launch pads for rocket attacks against Israeli civilians, do you really think they are going to baulk at passing on the cash?

There's never a Blears around when you need one

2009-01-25T11:05:00.002Z

A short while ago, we had the toxic dwarf Hazel Blears bleating about how trust in politicians was declining, and that it was the fault of bloggers who unfairly tarnished its image.

Well, Hazel, still blaming the bloggers? What about this? Or this?

Perhaps it is that ol' victim culture again. You know, the one where favoured minorities commit criminal acts up to and including murder because they are 'oppressed' in some way. Those shadowy and oppressive bloggers are forcing Labour peers to accept bribes! That's it!

Frankenfood, anyone?

2009-01-23T23:38:00.003Z

Wide-eyed innocent that I am, I assumed that if the Left was against genetically modified food then they would be against genetically modified humans as well. Foolish boy.

I made the remark several years ago (in those dark pre-internet days) - the Left only supported stem-cell research because Bush opposed it. Prior to this you couldn't move without a Guardian journalist warning about 'super-humans' abolishing trade union rights, or something. But George Junior comes out and opposes stem cell research for ludicrous reasons of principle (religion, or something), and suddenly we are no longer at war with Eastasia, but with Eurasia.

One wonders - if Bush had expressed his loathing for a genetically modified spud, would we have cured hunger in Africa by now? If Georgie had laid a friendly arm around the shoulder of Osama B-L, would the New York Times now be calling for even tougher bombing of Tora Bora?

The Left has for decades defined itself by who it opposes, not by what it believes. Stem cell research is just another marker on that long trail.

Why bother to vote?

2009-01-23T17:23:00.002Z

Call me Dave wants the Conservatives to be indistinguishable from the other set of tossers currently ruining the country.

Despite the economic downturn, it should focus on promoting fairness, protecting the environment and maintaining public safety, he added.

It is incredible that with the economy already contracting by 1.5% this year, and likely to reach 4% by the end, our political class is still intent on hobbling it even further with the consequences of ludicrous and unilateral environmental policies. Of course, Call me Dave was talking to Demos, the quintissential political class group. The public can just fuck right off.

Mr Cameron also warned against too much state interference.

You can have more progressive liberalism, Dave, or you can have less state interference. The absolute essence of progressive liberalism IS state interference - they believe they know how to run your life better than you do, and they use the power of the state to impose their whim. If you really believe you can have both, you either don't understand progressive liberalism, or you are mad.

The economic crisis should bring people together not divide them, he said.

Perhaps we could all sing a song. Really, what is he going on about here?

This recession doesn't vindicate big government; it hammers the final nail in its coffin.

That's why you want more of it - more imposition of 'fairness'; more environmental controls; no doubt more state fascist nannying of drinking and smoking.

Until Call me Dave comes clean and chooses one or the other, I will simply see him as Gordon Brown without the winning personality. Good luck getting the Guardianistas to vote for you, Dave.

Liberalism, defined

2009-01-23T17:18:00.002Z

The sort of mindset which shies away from making any moral judgements on ideological grounds will inevitably come up with an abomination such as this. Terrorists treated in precisely the same way as their innocent victims. Still, I'm amazed it is that even handed - I would have expected the killers to get a premium.

Obesity in childhood

2009-01-17T12:03:00.004Z

No, don't panic, I haven't gone all Guardian and started wringing my hands about the fact that apparently 99% of all British children are now morbidly obese. No, I was struck by this entry over at Julia's blog.

Of course it is an outrage, but one point I wanted to add - doesn't this absolutely epitomise how the Western state infantilises people to the point where adults are incapable of realising that their behaviour is going to kill them, and have to be induced instead with extra pocket money? Childhood now lasts from birth until (early) death.

One small, cynical part of me believes that nearly all public spending is deliberately designed to piss off taxpayers, a sort of abuse of power by the state. Stories like this tend to reinforce that idea. The idea that in the beginnings of this century's own Great Depression the state is taxing people already in financial trouble to get other fat greedy bastards to stop cramming their face is enough to make your average tax payer drop dead from apoplexy.

It's not all bad news

2009-01-17T11:07:00.001Z

Here. Hopefully it will result in a few less Saudi-funded 'think tanks' in the West, acting as 'culture launderers' for extremist Islam.

The State cracks down

2009-01-16T23:00:00.002Z

Soft target.
Hard target.

(HT to Laban).

Boilerplate leftist surrenderism

2009-01-15T11:21:00.003Z

No surprises that this was originally written in the Guardian, or that the BBC welcomes it enthusiastically.

He said the right response to the threat was to champion law and human rights - not subordinate it.

That's why you want to hold us without charge for 42 days, invade our private property on even more flimsy pretexts, and use anti-terror legislation to persecute Enemies of the People, such as parents who want a good education for their children.

The BBC, after a post-Christmas famine of scare quotes and qualification, vomits up a pile of them in this next quote:

US President George Bush's administration, which has led the so-called "war on terror".

"So-called" and scare quotes! You can feel the Leftist, patrician derision from a thousand miles away. Shame the BBC didn't follow its guidlines and use qualification in stories such as this or this, the Dear Leader's plan to "create 100,000 jobs" (see, it's easy, anyone can do it).

Anyway, back to Milliband's articles of surrender:

Calling for groups to be treated as separate entities with differing motivations, he wrote that it was not a "simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil" and treating them as such was a mistake.

Milliband doesn't think that we are moderates and the Taleban, al-Qaeda etc are extremists. Let's just check the score here. Milliband thinks that people who do this, or this, or this, or this...we could be here for the rest of the day and the flow wouldn't stop. If Milliband thinks that these are not extremists, and that we are not moderates, then he is mentally ill. Obviously he gets all of his information about the world from the BBC, so it is likely that he is utterly ignorant of what is actually happening in Islam. He might think that he is practising nuanced and serious thinking, as against cowboy simplisme, but if it quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, no amount of nuanced thinking is going to make it anything other than a duck. Nuanced thinking in the context of terrorism is simply the process of denying reality in more and more sophisticated ways. It goes down well in Paris and Hampstead but, sadly, it is suicidal.

the stance he now promoted was international "co-operation"

Co-operation with whom? Who are we not co-operating with that we should be? Is he referring to terrorist groups which he doesn't consider to be extreme?

BBC worried

2009-01-14T10:08:00.000Z

A plaintive cry. Obviously, if we are eating more cheap pasties from Greggs, things can't be THAT bad on the economic front.

Come on, people, pull yourself together! Gordon is on the case, he will save us (from something which isn't a problem anyway). etc.

The carbon footprint of handwringing

2009-01-12T10:07:00.002Z

The BBC promotes some obscure academic to turn the ratchet of global warming induced hysteria one further notch.

This article has 'dodgy' written all over it, I just know it instinctively. One of the lines which suggest this is this one:

Mr Wissner-Gross's study found a typical Google search on a desktop computer produces about 7g (0.25oz) of carbon dioxide.
If you enter another request you obviously end up with double that amount.

Why 'obviously'? When people use the word 'obviously', and it is not completely and demonstrably obvious, and they aren't experts in their field I start to think 'agenda' or 'laziness'. Do Google cache search results? A cached result will return far quicker, and use less energy, than the original. 'Obvious'? Hardly.

This is quibbling while our culture burns, however. A culture and society which obsesses and agonises to this level of detail about perfectly normal things being done by billions of other people around the planet is a doomed one. What's next - the carbon footprint of breathing?

I'd like to see a study done on the energy produced through liberal handwringing. We could line 'em up in rows, attach them to generators and show them statistics about education, or photos from Africa or something. At times of peak demand we can bus in a load of Church of England bishops. It's win-win - energy crisis solved and liberals, at last, doing something useful.

The oldest hatred

2009-01-11T11:48:00.002Z

Steyn, as always, hits the nail on the head:

Once upon a time on the Continent, Jews were hated as rootless cosmopolitan figures who owed no national allegiance. So they became a conventional nation state, and now they're hated for that. And, if Hamas get their way and destroy the Jewish state, the few who survive will be hated for something else.

Antisemitism is now rampant on the Left, and is seeping into the mainstream. I'm not sure about the claims that Israel is the only country in the world which isn't allowed to defend itself - the Left and much of our establishment would be calling for our surrender if Hamas was lobbing rockets into Kensington.

Note also the catalogue of anti-semitic attacks throughout Europe, and note the almost total absence of reporting of it by the BBC, especially the most important part - WHO did it and WHY. Someone only has to light a fag within 100 yards of a Mosque for the BBC to yell racist attack, but try and burn down a Synagogue and suddenly they get all coy, labelling them as 'youths' in a hamfisted attempt to distract attention from the real culprits.

What has happened to The Times?

2009-01-08T13:01:00.004Z

You read insanity like this and wonder. He claims to be a "non-socialist economist". I'd hate to see what a socialist economist comes up with that is worse that state confiscation of private individual savings. Kaletsky has been wobbling for quite some time and has finally wobbled Left into a deep hole.

The comments to the article sum it up nicely. People like Kaletsky are the reason why I despise people who blindly trust 'experts' to solve all their problems.

Two things, thankfully, which will work against any efforts by the state to do this:

One, the power of the elderly voting block. These people rely on savings to supplement the pensions that Brown destroyed in 1997. Labour would be massacred by the grey vote at a general election if they tried this.

Two, I and everyone else who isn't a cretin will be straight down to the bank if even a whif of this comes out of the Treasury. I will draw out my money with everyone else and f*ck the banking system.

Update:

One further comment - as far as I know, the British government didn't confiscate private savings even in 1940, when we faced the greatest crisis in our history. Yet Anatole "I'm a non-socialist economist" Kaletsky wants our very own lite version of War Communism applied because Woolworths and sundry other over-extended retailers have gone bust.

That little pop you heard was the last, tiny remnants of this man's credibility disappearing. He's only there for giggles now.

Prudence is futile

2009-01-08T10:55:00.003Z

Laban on Labour's Weimar impression. Labour specialised in the sleight-of-hand of saying one thing while practising the complete opposite, e.g.

"Tough on crime" while being ludicrously lenient
"Tough on immigration" while having an open borders policy
"Education, education, education" while presiding over a system which became designed to do anything but educate.

This time, it is the untruth that prudence is a virtue. Of course, in the real, sane and just world prudence is not only a virtue but is essential. An economy which consumes on credit and doesn't save is one destined for disaster. For years Labour have lied blithely about how they are prudent, and on the side of prudent people, while engineering the biggest credit splurge in history.

So, what happens when you combine a large enough demographic who have effectively bankrupted themselves with their reckless financial incontinence, a democracy and the most venal group of politicians in this country's history? You get a government which tailors policy to suit the reckless, because there are more votes in it, and f*ck the prudent. They can easily be rebranded as wealthy 'kulaks' and demonised.

Laban's example of the pensioner who saved for his retirement is absolutely typical. To assume that this man gets a rate of return of 10% NET (not even gross!) of his savings is insane. To have got a return like that you would have had to invest in DodgyBank Inc. registered on an island somewhere in the Atlantic. You would have lost your money and cheerily been branded reckless by the same government which is clawing back the money you are entitled to (of course, if you were a public sector institution things would be different, but that is another story).

This is one of the one million disincentives against saving for your retirement or 'a rainy day'. The improvident get rewarded; the prudent get nothing. Some of these disincentives are explicit, like this one, others are 'signals' like the government plundering private pensions to pay Trotskyites in the public sector, or printing more money to reward the reckless. The only way this pensioner can get the money he spent 40, 50 years paying taxes to get is to blow his savings.

I have often wondered how people could have lived through the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s without saving a penny, even though that period saw the greatest prosperity this country has ever enjoyed. But the reality is, every signal from the government told them loudly and clearly that they would be a fool to do so.

Islam - trendsetter in convenience

2009-01-07T12:29:00.002Z

While many parts of Islam are straining every sinew to return us to the 7th century, other parts are eagerly embracing the modern world. Divorce is often a tedious and exhausting process, so the innovation of being able to send an SMS saying "I divorce you" three times was a welcome and bold innovation.

However, even that was deemed to be too onerous for some. Now, you don't even have to send it! All you have to do is enter it into your phone, and Bingo! Allah takes care of the rest. That irritating chattel you were tied to is gone and a new, exciting and quite possibly above the age of consent chattel is yours.

I'm sure this convenience is open to women as well, of course...what's that? It isn't? WHAT!!! The International Sisterhood will be all over this, any minute now...tumbleweeds...

On a related note, more work for Feminism from Afghanistan. Western feminists might have a stroke over 'Trophy wives', but these are real, actual trophy wives, chattels stolen from their families and wedded to murderous maniacs. What a shame that the International Sisterhood doesn't give a shit about them, and in fact campaigns to get us out of Afghanistan. You see, the Taleban are no different from us really.

Pressure group press release

2009-01-04T22:22:00.002Z

The BBC fearlessly reports the news, as always. Well, actually, no...the BBC are publishing a press release from one of their favourite pressure groups. The Beeb just can't get enough of illiberal, authoritarian pronouncements on alcohol (and smoking, previously) at the moment.

BTW, the BBC labels them as an alcohol charity. However, if you examine their 2007 report, and look on page 22, you can see that over half of their money came from...the Department of Health. This is a classic case of the State sponsoring arm's length organisations to report back with demands for stuff the State wanted to do anyway, only this way they can claim that independent charities are calling for it, and who but a complete bastard would disagree with a charitee?

As with smokers, so it will be with those who drink. You have been warned, many, many times.

Wot no scare quotes?

2009-01-04T00:12:00.000Z

The BBC discard even the pretence of impartiality. This is a government press release, no more, no less, together with hilarious Private Eye type picture of the Dear Leader.

If the Conservatives, sorry Tories, had proposed this, then "create 100,000 jobs" would have been in scare quotes a mile high. The BBC report his claim as fact. Let's make a prediction here - he won't create 100,000 jobs, and the jobs he creates will be hideously, massively subsidised by the taxpayer. And they will all, mysteriously, be in Labour marginals.

Still, that's all good news for the BBC. Gordon must be Saved.

The BBC and Israel

2009-01-03T10:25:00.002Z

Some snippets from their blanket anti-jewish coverage:

A vegan chef from Totnes is important enough to get an article on the BBC international website. Who'd have thought it? I'm sure that the fact she has stridently anti-Israeli views and is a member of an organisation dedicated to Israel's destruction is irrelevant. The BBC are currently interviewing non-entities from the West Country and writing long articles about them. Who knows, it might be a Jewish solicitor from Blandford tomorrow.

Where's the screaming racist murder attempt headline? Usually the BBC are pretty good at this when an ethnic minority is targeted. Of course, this only works if the target and source groups are correct - sadly, in this case, the target were Jews and the source a palestinian, so he could have chopped up their kids in plain view, screaming "death to the Jews", and the BBC would still report it as a legitimate political act.

Police said they were unsure what the motive was, but Danish media have speculated it may have been a protest against Israeli air raids in Gaza.

Hmm, yes, what could the motive possibly be?

Sieze them! Burn them!

2008-12-22T11:09:00.002Z

Our elected representatives (alright, Scotland's elected representatives) are targeting their time on the issues that matter most in a country already ravaged by the effects of the recession: yes, the Hokey Cokey. The same political establishment which welcomes with open arms IRA commanders elected to Parliament wants to ban a song which lightly mocks the latin mass.

It is difficult to say what this illustrates most: the petty, insane obsessions of modern progressive liberalism or the overbearing dominance of the modern state. Still, it's all lucrative work for the MPs, MSPs and all their hangers on, so it can't be that bad. Idle hands, and all that.

And so it begins, again

2008-12-21T11:11:00.003Z

The BBC, suffering as it does from Institutional Stockholm Syndrome, is already beginning the long and sly process of shifting blame for the Mumbai atrocities away from the people who actually carried it out, the terrorists (sorry millitants, sorry activists) and onto the authorities, the police.

They have done it so successfully in Britain that now the Menezes case is more widely known and reported than the terrorist, sorry, activist attacks of two weeks previously.

Note that by enclosing 'error' in scare quotes how they slyly insinuate that it may not been an error at all! Perhaps the police deliberately lured the guests to a point where the terrorists, sorry activists would have no choice but for their guns to accidentally go off on their own accord and accidentally shoot them.

Three things characterise each and every terrorist atrocity the BBC 'covers':

The word 'terrorist'

They never use the word terrorist, unless it is in a quote from a lunatic describing the actions of western governments. The BBC believes that using the 'T' word is not helpful in accurately describing the events. Even at Beslan, where the terrorists shot terrified children in the back of the head, they were described as militants, or on one notorious and appalling occasion, activists. Activists go round pushing political literature through letter boxes at election time, they don't shoot children. The BBC, however, thinks it is clearer to label both groups of people with exactly the same word.

The 'M' or 'I' words

The BBC would rather die in a ditch with only a copy of the Daily Mail for company than mention the facts that everyone knows, that the terrorists who carried out the Mumbai attacks were Muslims, and that they did it in the name of Islam. Finding the words 'Muslim' or 'Islam' in BBC articles reporting terrorist, sorry activist attacks is like winning the Lottery. Even the f*cking Guardian mentions it. The BBC, when it is forced to identify them, prefers the word 'Asians', which libels another approximately two billion Chinese, Indians, Japanese and other sundry nations in a casually racist slur, rather than point out the completely fucking obvious.

We are always to blame

The BBC will find someone, usually within the first two or three paragraphs, to blame us, Israel, the First Crusade, the Battle of Actium, whatever, instead of the people who are actually responsible. The BBC and the rest of the Left will laugh themselves into a hernia whenever someone supporting the right to bear arms says that "guns don't kill, people do", but mysteriously when the people holding the guns are Islamic terrorists, suddenly it becomes true. People aren't murdered by the terrorists, they 'die' during the attacks, as if they suffered a heart attack or something. This is particularly prevalent in the BBC's appalling coverage of Israel vs Hamas and sundry Islamists. Israel kills Palestinians; Israelis happen to die during Palestinian attacks.

Incredibly, the BBC is still considered a trusted news source by the bovine herd which characterises the British population. This is partly down to the cunning and skill with which the BBC presents their bias, but mostly it is down to the fact that the average Briton doesn't have a clue what is going on in the world and doesn't realise he/she is being spoonfed poison every day of their lives.

How caring government works

2008-12-21T11:05:00.002Z

buy an enormous home you cannot afford, and you'll get a two year loan backed by the state at your current mortage rate.

Get into difficulties through no fault of your own, and you can get a loan from the state at an easy to afford interest rate of between 12.68% and 26.8%.

See, Labour cares about the poor. It's the evil Toreees who don't. Spin this one, Polly, you hypocrite.

Police crack down on dangerous criminal

2008-12-20T23:32:00.002Z

Thank God for South Wales Police. Who knows how this could have escalated if they had not descended upon this dangerous man and stamped out his dangerous behaviour?

People reading this article might think that Port Talbot is a quiet place, so lacking in crime that three bored policemen are so desperate to crack a crime that they jump into a riot van and hotfoot it to the scene of the despicable crime. Well, actually Port Talbot isn't a particularly crime-free area. In fact, it is infested with the usual low-level anti-social behaviour common to all South Wales towns (and all the other towns in the United Kingdom). Clearly there is much for the police to do in Port Talbot, they just can't be fucking bothered. Far, far easier to react to a trumped up complaint from one of the now legion of perpetually offended wankers and jump in two-footed at a suspected 'hate crime'.

Here's a wild assumption - had the shop owner called in a robbery, the police might have turned up about seven hours later. Put a fat bird gag in the shop window and you get the South Wales version of the CRS kicking the door in. Such is the state of policing in even what once was a refreshingly un-PC area of the country.

What is wrong with these people?

2008-12-20T16:42:00.003Z

Would they rather the plane crashed with them on board?

parents were shouting and screaming and there were women and children crying.

Apparently, there were adults present but this makes you think there weren't. Again, were they demanding the plane flew regardless of how dangerous the weather conditions were?

These people are lunatics. Get a grip.

I wake up and it is 1973 again

2008-12-20T11:55:00.002Z

You will shortly be subsidising the cost of that Jaguar that rich fella in your local is thinking of buying. If you are Labour, it's a no-brainer - you get to buy votes in marginal constituencies, the unions are happy, the Tories have to pick up the tab of EVEN MORE borrowing when they win the election.

As for the car industry - thousands of jobs. Well yes, but tens of thousands of jobs have gone in the finance sector already - I don't see the BBC weeping over them. Clearly, some jobs are more worthy than others, and as everyone who works in the City is apparently an evil fat cat, even the secretaries, there is much rejoicing on the Left over their demise.

So, after the car industry, whose next? Which industries are sited in marginal constituencies? I could do a survey, but I can't be arsed.

Who will rid us of this meddlesome druid?

2008-12-19T12:12:00.003Z

Rowan the Happy Druid is at it again. Its a mystery how a socialist got on to the Today programme to talk about how we are all consumed by greed, but that's by the by. This is another example of recession porn, liberals and leftists getting their rocks off by welcoming what is going to be a Depression. For them, it is a triumphant vindication of their beliefs, and there's no-one more smugly triumphant than a progressive liberal.

Williams talks of the depression as a "welcome reality-check". Personally, I'd trust his opinion on reality as much as I'd trust a cat's opinion on Bach. His past pronouncements have not exactly screwed his reputation to the sticking-plate of reality. This is the man, after all, who thought (thinks) Sharia Law is inevitable in the UK.

Still, back to the "welcome reality check". It is a welcome reality check to all the progressive liberals who have become rich on the system they so profess to despise, and who are so completely insulated from the hurricane which will shortly flatten our economy that they can afford to indulge in most public and unseemly gloating. If you live in an enormous palace on the banks of the Thames, enjoy a very, very comfortable salary and have servants to assist your every want, why it is easy to enjoy the "reality check" from your lofty seat.

For the poor bugger who has lost his job, or is living in fear that he will lose his job, "reality" is not so welcome. In fact, the "reality" of "unsustainable greed" which the Archdruid alludes to is not a reality at all, but a progressive liberal fantasy. The average Joe in Britain is so crushed by taxes (truly the unsustainable greed!) and the cost of living that he can barely provide for his family, let alone indulge in the Archdruid's fantasy of hedonistic consumption. If Williams stepped out of his socialist fantasy for fifteen seconds he would see the truth of this, but there is no room at the Inn for unwelcome truths.

The meme is entrenched, the progressives dominate the establishment and the media, and an awful lot of people are going to hurt a great deal as the libs sate their pious lust to blame anyone except themselves. I loathe each and every one of them.

Beyond parody

2008-12-18T13:05:00.000Z

You've gotta larf. (HT Julia)

Heads explode in hypocrisy and lies overload

2008-12-18T11:42:00.004Z

Freedom is slavery. Black is white. Less is more. Etc.

Plans to directly elect some members of police authorities have been scrapped following opposition from senior officers and Labour council chiefs.

She told The Guardian she feared the police would become politicised.

She left out the words "even more" before 'politicised'. The hypocrisy, humbug, lies and sheer lunacy from the Left in this article is astonishing. So, top coppers don't want to go through the tedious business of being elected? No surprise there. Councillors don't want their power and influence reduced? Again, my jaw didn't touch the floor. That Labour are in retreat over the completely obvious opposition of vested interests is proof that this was one of their "dog whistle" policies, presented simply to trawl for votes with no intention whatsoever of actually putting it into practice.

The Order of the Tinfoil Hat, however, goes to Keith "chubby" Vaz:

They were also attacked by the chairman of the influential home affairs select committee, Keith Vaz, who ...raised fears police authorities could be "captured" by far right groups.

You WHAT? Some sort of military putsch in Northampton, you mean? A March on Devizes seizing control of the Traffic Regulations Enforcement Committee of the local council? What is this nutter on? Assuming by "far right" he means fascists and not just anyone to the right of Chris Huhne, their influence in the UK is pathetically small, though Labour are doing their damndest to stoke up their support by, for example, making it legal to discriminate against white males in employment. Still, the chances of a police authority being "captured by the far right" are laughably remote. The chances of all police authorities remaining in control of New Labour apparatchiks, however, now remain extremely high, at least until the Conservatives win the next election.

Sir Jeremy Beecham, chairman of the Labour group on the Local Government Association, told the committee the proposals could "fragment" the relationship between police and councils.

The point, surely?

The home secretary defended the plan as recently as last month, telling a meeting: "People with bizarre views can be elected and that is a challenge for us as a democracy but I have faith in the public who I think will elect the person who is going to represent them best."

This points to the fundamental opinion New Labour and the rest of the political class have of the public - that we are not sensible in our choices, and that if you give us democracy we will all just vote for nutters, lunatics, fringe candidates. Like New Labour, for example. Still, when "Tits" Jacqui talks of "people with bizarre views", I don't think she means Lord Loon wearing a duck on his head and calling for Ovaltine to me made a class B drug. No, the "bizarre views" will be mad stuff like, oh, reducing crime, listening to local people, doing what they want, not what liberal pressure groups
want. This cannot be allowed.

Looking at what has happened over the past two months, there has been a fundamental shift in the way people think about the politicisation of the police.

I put that down to the London mayor's intervention in the resignation of Sir Ian Blair and the events surrounding the Damian Green affair.

Chutzpah of the Year award to Tits. You arrest an opposition spokesman on trumped up political charges, and then claim this as an excuse to back pedal on this fundamental reform! The hypocrisy and greasy politics are vile, truly vile.

And finally, the comfortable elite themselves, the police:

It is right to resist the potential for extremists or single issue groups to excerpt control of local policing, which must remain free of party-political influence.

Total bollocks. Policing in the UK was captured by political pressure groups years, if not decades ago. Coppers can't fart without the approval of leftist and liberal pressure groups.

That clang you heard was the sound of the liberal Establishment slamming the door shut. You peasants can shiver outside in the cold for a few more years, this isn't for the likes of you.

The new plumbers

2008-12-16T12:58:00.002Z

Plumbers are out; "NHS Doctors" are in - the latest must-have euphemism for avoiding at all costs the phrase "Muslim terrorist". In fact, the BBC does its usual trick of not mentioning the I or the M words AT ALL in the article.

Still, they did manage to get in the usual Lefty equivalence about "we are as bad as the terrorists", except of course they avoid using the word "terrorist" as well, in case it might offend. They only use it when an unimpeachable source (e.g. a terrorist) says it, and then they quote. The left-wing media in the court (i.e. most of it) must have creamed in their pants when the terrorist said:

he believed the British government and Army could equally be accused of terrorism for their actions in Iraq.

A dream quote for them; they so want to believe. Islamic terrorists know that all they have to do to get the Left onside (and it doesn't take much effort, believe me) is to say the correct slogans about Bush and Iraq. Never mind that their attacks are planned years in advance, often beginning before the events they 'blame' have ever took place. No, all it takes is for the slogan to be said, and it becomes real.

It's the little things that tell the story

2008-12-16T11:13:00.002Z

Ah, Christmas. Maybe I am wearing rose-tinted spectacles here, but I don't recall campaigns to crack down on gun and knife crime at Christmas "when I were a lad". When swimming against the tide of official lies about how crime is constantly falling, it is small stories like this which strike a discordant note and tell you what is really going on.

When is a Fat Cat not a Fat Cat?

2008-12-15T11:33:00.003Z

When it is capable of having kittens, I guess. City financiers aren't usually given gushing titles such as "superwoman" by the BBC. I suppose if the gender fits, it's all change on the Ideology Express.

Looking on the bright side

2008-12-14T12:04:00.005Z

Today's Spin Award goes to this article. 75% of terrorism plots in Britain involve Pakistan. Many people, no doubt, will be shocked by this. I was; I thought the percentage would be at least 90%. Still, just look how Brown spins this catastrophe:

Mr Brown said a £6m partnership with Pakistan would be "the most comprehensive anti-terrorist programme" between the UK and another country.

Right...great. Ever wondered that if Pakistani Muslims weren't at the epicentre of world terrorism, we wouldn't have a problem which required a "comprehensive anti-terrorist programme"?

Breathtaking

2008-12-14T12:01:00.002Z

The BBC manage to pen an entire article about the Mumbai Jewish community's vulnerability without ONCE saying who is targeting them. OK, it's the BBC so covering up for Islamic terrorism is hardly news, but you would think it would be difficult to write an article and avoid the CENTRAL point.

But no, this one goes one step further:

The Jewish community here is close to Muslims

They are bosom buddies! OK, they want to kill all the Jews, and they think they are descended from pigs and apes, but hey - that's just banter.

A druid speaks

2008-12-14T11:50:00.002Z

I normally have little time for the views of bearded progressive liberals, and for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the prima inter pares among them, I have almost no time at all. Still, his remarks yesterday bear some examination.

Britain...does not seem to like itself very much

Thanks, tell us something we didn't know. Perhaps an admission that thirty years of extreme liberalism and multiculturalism has fractured our culture and society? That people who are deliberately raised with no respect for themselves and their country, their culture, certainly aren't going to have respect for anyone else? A country whose first instinct is to reward the recklessly feckless, even though the consequences are even more fecklessness?

Nope, none of that. I enjoyed this, taking about what the average Briton says:

I'm worried about what will happen to me tomorrow because I've got nothing really in the bank.

Yes Rowan, it's called earning a living and paying your way. Archbishops don't have to worry about that, but ordinary people do. It isn't a sign of a broken society but a normal one. The only broken bit is that despite the longest economic boom in British history (certainly within the last century), the average Briton has no savings and is in hock to thousands. What better illustration of the liberal commandment of "Do what thou wouldst" could you want?

Still, I'm not convinced that Williams is the man to solve our problems. This is the man, remember, who is hot for Sharia.

I have always admired the Germans

2008-12-10T23:18:00.003Z

No, I really have. It was a desperate shame that we fought two world wars against them; in terms of national character we are almost brothers. Germans are sensible, hard working and clever. Oh, alright, maybe we aren't brothers...we have lost at least two of those virtues.

Anyway, the reason for this post is this. The BBC try to slander him with the charge of "unusual breach of standard diplomacy", but their real problem is the attack on their hero, 'Flash' Gordon. Unfortunately for them, what he says is exactly right and they haven't a leg to stand on. I think he is being optimistic, though, when he says

this will...raise Britain's debt to a level that will take a whole generation to work off

We were way past that level several years ago. We are now spending out grandchildren's inheritance. How about Herr Steinbruck for Prime Minister?

Flash! Ah-hah, saviour of the...oh

2008-12-10T23:14:00.002Z

He's mad, isn't he? I mean, it was bad enough that he smoothly shifted blame for his calamitous spending splurge onto the USA, but claiming to save the world? Even the BBC won't swallow that...yet.

All that talk of control-freakery, colossal temper tantrums...do we have a mentalist in charge of the nuclear button?

Addicts and Fixes?

2008-12-08T23:50:00.000Z

Here. What happens when the 7-day high wears off? Another fix?

It Certainly Could (giggle)

2008-12-05T14:11:00.007Z

Climate Bill 'Could lead world':

Here.

Yes, it certainly would, but not in the way the greens and other assorted extreme leftists imagine. This is from the same source which gave us unilateral disarmament for the UK - the idea that rational actors abroad will set aside their own interests and hurt themselves just because they see some pious idiots on the other side of the world doing it. For me, to continue to think this way betrays signs of a disturbing mental illness. The mixture of a messianic complex and extreme naiveity is remarkable.

Anyway, back to the original point. Such a bill would, indeed, lead the world. Scotland would become the first industrialised country EVER to beggar itself into a pastoral, starving existence for no other reason than cultural suicide. One could say that Scotland is on its way to beggaring itself anyway, but us south of the Tweed cannot feel so smug about that these days as our own Clan is desperately doing the same to us. The real irony, though, is whatever carbon savings Scotland makes to offset against their economic and cultural collapse would be wiped out by an over-exuberant celebration of the Chinese New Year in a couple of suburbs of Shanghai.

In short, it is pointless and tremendously dangerous. Only the mad or very small children think like this.

UPDATE: One has to admire the impartial way the BBC wrote this article. There is no opposition to this proposal, not a single word of criticism. It is a press release for environmentalists, no more, no less.

The story that just keeps on giving

2008-12-03T23:51:00.006Z

I have blogged previously about this trial. It just gets better and better. Today's headline was almost as good as the "I'm a patriot, really" one from a few weeks ago.

One thing gets me though - does this show that British justice is good and impartial, or is it just taking the piss?

They didn't even have to have a warrant

2008-12-03T23:35:00.004Z

Gorbals Mick, the worst speaker in British history, couldn't even be arsed to find out if the terror police who ransacked Damien Green's parliamentary office even had a fucking warrant. Well, he's a Tory, isn't he? Who cares about the sovereignty of Parliament, the causes of the Civil War, hundreds of years of history and precendent? When you haven't got a fucking clue what you are doing, who cares?

When Harriet "Harpy" Harperson sticks the knife in, you know it's all over. How did he ever become Speaker? Some sort of diversity initiative?

Scientist calls for huge sums of money to be pissed away

2008-12-02T21:01:00.005Z

Here. Great timing, mate. As the world plunges into recession, or even depression, he wants enormous sums of money spent countering a threat whose risk is infinitessimal and which probably couldn't be stopped anyway. These things travel at colossal speed, by the time we know it is heading for earth it will probably be too late anyway. Asteroid strikes make global warming look like a cast-iron certainty.

Still, it isn't exactly odd for the UN to want to grab even more cash to spend on 'global' action on spurious 'global crises'.

Who says the State is running out of ideas in the fight against crime?

2008-12-01T10:54:00.004Z

If you tried to make stuff like this up, people would laugh at you. This is how violence and drunkenness are policed in Britain today. I'm not surprised by it though; personal experiences can often reinforce a nagging feeling that things have gone terribly wrong.

For me, it was the time at a cricket match at Lord's a year or so ago. As I was walking past the Nursery end to leave by the North Gate, a vile drunk yob stuck his face to within three inches of a female steward and screamed "We fucking did you!". There were two police officers three yards away and they...smiled indulgently. I thought about remonstrating politely with them but realised this is the Met, they'd think twice about arresting a violent yob for assault but would nick me without thinking.

So, when I see stories like the above, it is all part of the same indulgent attitude. It is strange that on the one hand we have parts of the State making ominous noises about alcohol, while other parts of the State let the worst excesses of alcohol pass without notice. If I were paranoid I'd think that they wanted to let things get so bad that, after a few years of friendly media coverage, they'd be able to crack down seriously on anyone who dares to drink. I'm sure that's their fantasy scenario, but I imagine the reality is more prosaic - like all huge and powerful organisations, it is not a single identity with a common cause but a sack full of competing and contradictory interests, much like the Nazi party was.

On the one hand, you have the Department of Health, now vying with the Home Office as the most sinister department of government. These people have moved well beyond the old position of advising about health but letting people take the consequences of their own behaviour; their aim is now coercion, bending the public to THEIR will and their ideas of how people should live. Their excuse is cost, but never believe any public organisation which professes to be worried about costs - they are lying. This is about power.

On the other, you have the Police. The public 'services' in Britain have never been known for their German-like efficiency and devotion to duty, and the police are no different. Still, in the old days they knew what the law was and they enforced it. A generation of university educated (brainwashed) senior officers later, and now it is an organisation which believes that criminals are all victims and not responsible for their behaviour.

It is simple - if you want to cut down on drunken violence, spend a year arresting people for being drunk and violent, and publicise it widely. If, by some miracle, arresting people is permitted by the Human Rights Act, by the end of the year I think drunken violence would have declined somewhat. It's a new and exciting policy, but it might work.

Looks strangely familiar...

2008-11-30T11:50:00.000Z

Here. Change the picture and the name, and what's different to Brown? Politburo warning...state media...huge cut in interest rates. OK, China is only going to grow at 7% instead of contracting by 1-2%, but still. Spooky.

It's the Iraq War, stupid!

2008-11-28T17:57:00.004Z

No doubt the Left will be along any moment now to blame this on the Iraq war, or Israel's 'occupation' of Palestine. You see, if we hadn't invaded Iraq, these people wouldn't have been forced to become terrorists (sorry, radicals) and lay waste to various parts of Bombay.

There's logic in there somewhere.

I remember when that was all fields as well...

2008-11-27T23:48:00.002Z

Eeh, remember that time when the Metropolitan Left would despise anyone who stood up for tradional British standards of morality? Back in the old days, that is. Now, the Left has done one of their periodic 30-year flips and have now come out against liberal ideas about sex'n'stuff. Of course, the scent was in the air after Harpy Harperson's earlier attack on men, and 'Tits' Smith's attack on men, but now they are getting serious.

Ten years ago the Left would have huffed themselves into a double hernia at the thought of lapdancing clubs being regulated. Now, there's no stopping them. You can't smoke any more; drinking is verboten, if not actually banned yet; how long before admiring a picture of Liz Hurley in the Daily Hellograph is a capital offence?

The Left undergoes this magnetic shift of opinion every other generation or so - in the 1930s it was Prohibition in every sphere, while in the 1960s liberalism ruled. Now, in the first decade of what I confidently predict will be mankind's most unpleasant century, authoritarianism is back on the agenda. I know these people are ruled by dogma and hard-wired hatreds, but can't any of them read?

I remember when this was all fields...

2008-11-27T23:16:00.002Z

Ah, I remember the good old days, when the BBC and the rest of the Left would dilligently report government leaks as public interest stories.

Oh dear, times have changed. Gee, I remember when if there was a Tory government, the BBC would report leaks as if they were gospel truth. The source was sacrosanct; the leaker a public hero. Who would have thought that with a Labour government in power the BBC would reverse their deeply held belief in the sanctity of leaks?

For the BBC, there's no Clive Ponting any more. Those days are long gone. No, these days there are Enemies of the People, and Damien Green is one of them. I pity the poor bastard who leaked these stories to him, he has the government and the BBC after him.

Toxic dwarf attacks fascists

2008-11-22T11:31:00.004Z

Blears has been giving us her wisdom again. Much of it is boilerplate unease over metropolitan middle-class Labour's abandonment of their core vote and the subsequent attempts by the BNP to fill the vacuum left over. There were some points I'd like to point out, though.

Ms Blears accuses the BNP of playing on people's apprehensions and peddling "pernicious but plausible lies".

Well, they are twice as good as you then if their lies are plausible. Your lot can only manage pernicious.

It had employed a "cunning strategy" of "detoxification"

Er, like New Labour then...

but warns that shouting "Nazi" at BNP activists is not the answer.

Good luck with that, love. The Left knows of no other tactic but moronic chanting of slogans and abuse. Anything else would require having to reason with their enemies, and their death-grip on our culture has ensured that they haven't had to do that for a long while.

She also writes that the leaked list published earlier this week, containing the names, home addresses, phone numbers and professions of some 10,000 members, revealed support for the BNP was "tiny".

Hmm. Of course their influence is tiny, but this is a bit of a tactical blunder from Blears. The Left's attempt to deflect attention away from their allies in extremist Islam relies upon 'bigging up' the Far Right in Britain as a threat equal to, or greater than Islamism. Blears is doing the cause no good at all by pointing out that the BNP are a small bunch of clowns.

"And unlike during the 30s, modern British fascism does not enjoy any sympathy in the civil service, chattering classes or the media," she writes.

Not the BNP's fascism, no. Your fascism, of ID cards, massive state expansion and interference in citizens' lives, arbitrary detention for a month, the use of extreme laws to persecute citizens on minor issues (e.g. Terrorism Act over dog-fouling) seems to have an awful lot of support in all three groups.

More Bollocks from the trial

2008-11-21T14:11:00.003Z

This trial is coming out with some whoppers, fair play. Last week we had the one about how the defendant (another one) was a British patriot, who loved Britain so much he wanted to bomb Weegieland into small pieces. Now, apparently, another one of them is a pacifist. It's Taqqiya galore in Woolwich at the moment.

Now, I am by nature a cynic. However, you would have to be as credulous as a Guardian leader writer to believe his claim.

1979

2008-11-20T23:08:00.001Z

A good year in many respects, not merely because it gives us a reminder that the current ruling Socialist caste can be turfed out on their arse. No, it was a good year for music as well.

Strictly Come Blathering

2008-11-20T22:56:00.003Z

The insane hysteria over "Strictly" (spit) gathers apace. Obviously HMG's ministers are snowed under at the moment with the recession an'all, only the Scottish Secretary was available to pronounce from on high on this national emergency.

This story has been bubbling amongst the top three headlines on the BBC World News (!!) page for days now. Could it be something to do with John Sergeant being an ex-employee? Surely not! I thought the cappuchinatti's world view ended at the M25; clearly it doesn't get much beyond Shepherd's Bush.

Does the BBC know what the Opposition is for?

2008-11-15T16:43:00.002Z

Just rank pro-Labour bias here. Number two story on the world front page, just what is the story here? The Opposition point out that Mugabe Brown's actions in the past and in the future are/will be a fucking economic nightmare, and the BBC spin it as being 'unpatriotic'. Honestly, from anyone else it would be implausible, from the BBC it is fucking ridiculous. The currency markets don't devalue currencies because George Osborne points out economic reality. They do so because they know Brown has splurged the cash and will splurge even more in the future.

Get your toungue out of Brown's behind and REPORT THE FACTS, not rehash Number 10 press releases for their benefit.

Sales of Onions rise in SE London

2008-11-11T22:08:00.003Z

Ahahahaha! Loved it so much he wanted to blow it up (even though he confusingly targeted an airport in Scotland). This is, I think, what is called taqiyya. Most of the population of Britain would once have thought this some sort of Mexican burrito type dish, and most probably still would. It is, however, the practice of a Muslim lying his arse off to promote the Islamic faith.

Our media class haven't got past the "Muslims cannot lie because of their religion" bit, so the concept of taqiyya is advanced for them. His 'evidence' also pushes all the right buttons at the BBC, in that he blames the war in Iraq and America. Nowhere does the BBC see fit to point out that Saddam was able to sell oil to pay for medical supplies, but instead spent the cash on himself and let the kids die. For this maniac, the BBC and the rest of the deranged Left, this is America's fault.

We are at war with Eastasia

2008-11-10T23:17:00.002Z

And, of course, we have always been at war with Eastasia. Strange though, I have this nagging feeling about BBC articles quoting Labour spin doctors about how the "Tory tax cuts" were going to bankrupt the economy. Tax cuts funded by spending cuts, mind you.

However, it seems that tax cuts funded by borrowing are hunky dory at the Beeb. Move along, nothing to see, and anything you thought you might have seen disappeared down the memory hole a long time ago.

Like shooting fish in a barrel

2008-11-08T11:06:00.003Z

The Chief of the UK Entitlement industry has his usual page one spot on the BBC. Two points I'd like to make:

He whinges about 'change', and how the UK system is biased against 'change'. I don't know about you, but the UK seems to have changed an awful lot in the past thirty years, only some of it for the better.

I liked this quote:

Mr Phillips later told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme it would be very hard for people who were not the right gender, class or race to reach the very top because of the current political system in place.

Lest we forget, as Phillips clearly has. 1979 was clearly so traumatic for him that he must have blocked it from his memory.

Hmm (again)

2008-11-06T23:51:00.002Z

Here. Amongst the sound of BBC violins, this jarring note:

Al Megrahi's liberty had been restricted for more than 17 years.

OK. The very next paragraph...

The court heard Al Megrahi was married and had five children aged between 10 and 25 and two grandchildren.

Note: five children aged between 10 and 25. His liberty has apparently been restricted for more than 17 years. As our American cousins say, do the Math.

It's now a BBC campaign

2008-11-03T14:35:00.003Z

The BBC are really pushing the 'out of control' Menezes officers thing. Under the cover of reporting from the inquest, they are in fact hyping up a partisan campaign. They are also continuing to push the 'police gave no warning' theme, even though it is COMPLETELY OBVIOUS that the police DO NOT shout a warning to a suicide bomber because he will then DETONATE HIS EXPLOSIVES.

I don't like to shout but sometimes you just have to, I cannot believe the BBC, who in their conceit pride themselves on being so worldly-wise, are unaware of this. The only conclusion possible is that the BBC are perfectly aware of this, but chose to lie.

Anyway, back to the inquest. Some imbecile has been giving evidence:

Anna Dunwoodie said she believed officers were "out of control" and gave off a "sense of panic" before shooting.

Hmm. This doesn't quite match the BBC's 'they cooly murdered an innocent man' meme but it is close enough. Who would have thought, two weeks of grinding tension after four (yes, FOUR!) successful suicide bomb attacks in London that the police might be visibly nervous boarding a tube train to kill a suspected fifth? Why, no-one in advertising behaves like this! Surely the police should not also?

She said she did not hear officers shout any warning at the electrician.

For the fucking obvious reason outlined above. Honestly, how stupid have the British become?

Discussing the moments before Mr Menezes' death, Ms Dunwoodie said he had closed his eyes and looked "almost calm".

Like, perhaps, a crazed Islamist might do as he contemplates his very imminent martyrdom?

The shooting of this man was a terrible error committed by people who had spent two weeks on the edge of the edge, their nerves ground down. These people put their lives on the line to protect the public. Fifty-two innocent people (note that in this article the BBC refers to Menezes as 'innocent', but I have NEVER seen them refer to the 52 murdered as 'innocent') were murdered by Islamists on July 7th, but the BBC aren't interested in them.

Oh, really?

2008-11-03T10:36:00.002Z

The BBC breathlessly promotes, sorry reports, a publication on 'social mobility':

Labour's policies may be improving social mobility

Hmm...

according to a study published by the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit.

Ah! An unimpeachable source! No bias there!

The tedious Left

2008-11-02T11:53:00.002Z

Zzzzzz. How many times does this have to be done before the Left stops thinking it is transgressive?

Selling your grandmother to the Arabs

2008-11-02T11:48:00.003Z

I wonder what concessions Brown has had to make during his grovelling to the Saudis. At the very least it doesn't exactly fill you with confidence for future economic prosperity when you have to go cap in hand to the hand-choppers. Brown's actions here have made me actually worried about the future for the first time.

The Saudis aren't the sort of people who do you favours for free. They are already engaged in undermining Western civilisation through their Wahabbist infiltration of Islam in western countries. What is the price we will have to pay for cash? Fewer or no restrictions on the import of extremist Saudi clerics? New Saudi-funded mosques approved with a rubber stamp, over the objections of the British? Brown's deal with the DUP shows he isn't above making sordid political deals when his arse is on the line, so expect something unpleasant as a result of this.

The Left: stupid or mendacious?

2008-10-30T16:39:00.003Z

With such a title we could be here all day, but I have a specific point: this article. The main thrust of it is criticism of the police for not shouting a warning to the suspect before shooting him.

The huge, glaring omission from this article is that shouting a warning would have allowed the suicide bomber (and the whole point of the incident was that the police, under pressure, thought he was a suicide bomber) to detonate his bomb vest. That's why they shoot them several times in the head, to stop even a reflex detonation of the device.

My best guess is that this article deliberately left out this vital fact to piss on the police and hamper their efforts to combat Islamic terrorism (sorry, make that 'Asian' terrorism, as the BBC is so fond of libelling an entire continent to cover up the actual culprits).

The BBC - telling you half the story.

BBC propaganda, not news

2008-10-30T10:34:00.003Z

Labour's Pravda is trumpeting another useless splurge of cash by the chancellor. Obviously, pressures of space in the article meant they were unable to mention the other ways Labour has 'helped' small businesses, such as this and this.

Comrades, the chocolate ration will increase to 25 grammes this week! Rejoice!

A great headline

2008-10-29T23:37:00.002Z

Here. The maths are beyond me, but I expect they are beyond the people who thought up the 80% cut. I blogged on this earlier - we can beggar our economies to reach this impossible millstone (no mispelling), only to see the carbon savings we made wiped out by more people than expected tuning in to watch the Chinese Cup Final in 2038.

The Latest News from Diversityland

2008-10-29T16:16:00.004Z

David Davis, MP for the fine town of Monmouth, dissed the brothers yesterday. You would think that pointing out that a policy which excluded people on the basis of their skin colour was racist was completely obvious, but alas not in the Vibrant Land of Diversity we now inhabit. Note also the classic whinge that by telling them the truth he "disrespected" them. Will Davis soon be the victim of a drive-by shooting from a Panda car, one wonders?

Anyway, back to the article. The BBC is clearly sympathetic to the grievance mongers in their use of headline: "MP defends police race criticism". This is a classic BBC dodge - it suggests very strongly that Davis was wrong and has been forced to defend his actions, whereas in fact he spoke the completely bloody obvious to a bunch of cossetted single-issue fanatics. The average man on the Clapham Omnibus can see this, but the extremists in the BPA and the BBC cannot, or will not, so the whole sorry saga continues.

Location, Location, Location

2008-10-28T17:44:00.000Z

Not the best place for a Nazi gag...

Moving to Authoritarianism

2008-10-27T13:35:00.002Z

A good piece here on how countries slide unthinkingly into authoritarianism and totalitarianism. I have long thought that governments fall into one of four categories:

Benevolent and weak
Malevolent and weak
Benevolent and powerful
Malevolent and powerful

'Weak' and 'powerful' here relate to their power over citizens of that state.

The best, obviously, is the former - a state which has no malign intent towards its citizens and which has limited powers against them. Power is distributed amongst citizen groups, e.g. localised police forces, independent schools and hospitals, a free market in goods and services. Even with malign intent, the scope of State power is limited. Some obvious examples are the Anglo-Saxon democracies of about 30, 40 years ago.

The second, 'malevolent and weak' is a difficult one, simply because a malevolent state will quicky acquire whatever power it needs. A malevolent state will seek to centralise power, taking it from the hands of empowered citizen groups and exercising it itself.

The third, 'benevolent and powerful', is probably what our political class imagines itself, or wishes itself to be at this moment. You can easily question the 'benevolent' part, but it is not openly malevolent in the way that Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union was.

The main problem is that, once the State has acquired huge power over individual citizens, it is not particularly difficult for the State to turn malevolent. When the State controls whether you receive hospital treatment, or your children's education, you are sitting ducks. When Nanny sees the kids aren't doing what they are told, a quick smack around the ear results.

We are somewhere between three and four at the moment. The State has acquired great powers over us, and is greedily seeking more. Their benevolent attitude is becoming more belligerent by the day. These are troubling times ahead, unless you are a socialist.

The dinosaur Left

2008-10-27T10:16:00.002Z

This article is ludicrous enough, the sort of socialist nonsense which the fifty-year old Guardianistas will lap up in a nostalgic remembrance of the 1980s. The most laughable stuff is in the comments though.

This one from "mrbuttons" is a joy:

Capitalism is clearly collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. Now we need the ownership of the means, distribution and exchange of production in the hands of the proletariat. This means a complete state run economy adopted by every country, headed by socialist governments committed to internationalism. This will mean that we can achieve a society where a surgeon or engineer is paid the same amount as a binman or cleaner.

If you pay a surgeon the same amount as a binman or a cleaner, you will end up with a binman as a surgeon. Don't get ill, mrbuttons.

Though I assume that given the many, many references to 'proletariat' and 'workers' in your post you are a middle-class student, so under any socialist system you will neatly side-step the misery of standard state (non)provision of healthcare and instead will enjoy the service provided to the Nomenklatura.

The recession will also hasten the decline in the family as divorce and separation increase – this will break the stranglehold the family has had on revolutionary politics. The Tories scum may bang on about the family to keep the workers down and fuel their self interests but with family breakdown comes a chance for the urban street kids to get involved in building a new society.

That just seals it - bourgeois Leftie pus seeping from every pore. What a fucking nutter.

How the left debates, part 112

2008-10-25T11:15:00.002+01:00

Usual behavour from the usual suspects, here. There is a certain schadenfreude at a socialist minister getting a taste of his own medicine, but this post is about the extremist(s) who assaulted him. Some prize quotes:

We threw the pie because we didn't want to engage in debate

Evidently. When did the Left ever engage in rational debate with its enemies? Instead, far better to chant mindless slogans and physically attack your opponents. Actual debate, and reason, exposes you to contrary viewpoints, which cannot, ever, be tolerated.

What he was spouting were right wing anti-immigration policies. The danger is that people like him are making such views mainstream.

What planet is this loony on? Does he/she/it really believe that a cap on immigration is not a mainstream political opinion? I know they are extreme leftist students, but do they actually interact with people in the real world? Oh, I think I answered my own question there.

More from our fascist overlords

2008-10-24T16:12:00.004+01:00

A hat tip to Devil's Kitchen for this one:

Shoppers buying alcohol at the supermarket face a 'walk of shame' to a dedicated checkout counter. The plan is being drawn up by ministers to extend their control over people's lives still furter.

Actually, I edited the second sentence, but as the Left would say in other circumstances, it is "fake but true".

Personally, I don't think these proposals go far enough. Here are some more exciting proposals, well in keeping with the 'Progressive Liberal' cultural march:

People who want to buy a bottle of wine at the supermarket should have the word 'paedo' tattooed on their forehead.
People who want to buy a couple of bottles of Old Arsewipe to enjoy on the patio on a warm summer's evening should be pelted with manure by specially trained wankers employed by the state.
Cider should be permitted for sale in only one supermarket in the UK, one specially built at the north end of North Uist (residents of Scotland will only be permitted to travel here via Basingstoke).
Alcohol consumption should be further encouraged in bars in the Houses of Parliament by more enormous public subsidy (How did this one get in, shurely shome mishtake?)

Then, only then, will this country become what it truly can be - a joyless, socialist state full of people spying on each other. Oh yes.

Bring it on!

2008-10-24T11:01:00.001+01:00

Maybe my utterly unreasonable dream of owning a small house of my own to live in (note: NOT an investment, a HOME) isn't quite so bonkers after all...

Well, at least it wasn't Barbados

2008-10-24T10:52:00.002+01:00

A striking indication of the contempt public 'servants' have for the captive mich-cows who feed them. Not quite the "fact-finding trip to Barbados" so loved by Private Eye and Yes, Minister but not far off. No doubt any day now they will be complaining once again about how short of resources they are.

I blogged earlier about how astonished I was at UK councils not just losing a colossal amount of money in dodgy Icelandic banks, but how they had such huge amounts of spare cash in the first place. Hertfordshire council lost £28m in the debacle, but the really astonishing fact is that the local council has £300m invested, on average, in a number of UK and foreign banks. £300fuckingmillion!

Honestly, why bother working?

2008-10-21T15:26:00.002+01:00

Free computers. Not just free PCs, but free internet (presumably broadband) access, free software and free technical support for three years. If you are on welfare, why on earth should you bother getting a job and lose all of that, along with everything else?

Five plumbers arrested

2008-10-21T15:23:00.002+01:00

In Birmingham. When the BBC are so coy about the details, there is a definite odour of rat in the air. As usual though, there are one or two fragments which give the game away:

Meanwhile, specially trained officers have been supporting the men's families and have been speaking to community leaders.

Take a wild guess which 'community' they are talking to.

The fact checkers must have been away on diversity training

2008-10-21T13:40:00.002+01:00

This article on the Islamic Broadcasting Corporation (though 'article' is a bit generous; hatchet job would be closer). Much of it is the standard BBC line on Islam - evasion of reality coupled with attacks on its critics. One line stands out though, defending Mohammed's marriage to this young girl:

I lost count of the references to "child bride". Even till relatively modern times, marriage for women in their early teens was completely natural and common in parts of the world, including Europe.

This is outstandingly mendacious. His bride was not "in her early teens", she was nine years old. This is not some weird fact which had to be dug up - it is freely available information. I knew it, but checked it anyway, an act which took approximately two minutes.

Let's leave to one side the lie itself. We can understand her motives, they are fairly clear. But what are the motives of the BBC in allowing this to pass them by? Does 'impartiality' mean not pointing out blatant lies in articles on their website?

An outrageous lie?

2008-10-19T21:13:00.001+01:00

Darling claims here that they can afford to splurge on public works because

The government says it can afford extra borrowing because it has reduced debt over the past 10 years.

Isn't government debt now at a record high?

Groan

2008-10-19T00:50:00.003+01:00

Letters From a Tory is the inaugural winner of Pun of the Week, a new, regular...OK, we'll skip that.

Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches.

I admitted to not knowing what a 'hopolophobe' was (to be honest, as phobias go, it isn't the most talked about phobia in today's media). I am now doubting that the above is even a pun. Is it even ironic? After the furore over Alanis Morrisette's 'Ironic' song, where at least 90% of the instances she cites weren't, in fact, ironic, am I falling into the same trap?

I am also concerned about a possible over-use of commas and apostrophes.

UPDATE: I have just realised there is no such bank as 'Bonsai Bank'. I blame the beer and the late hour, not any innate racist assumptions about what the Nips might call their banks. Sorry, I meant Japanese. Sorry.

East Anglia Night is now over

2008-10-19T00:23:00.000+01:00

I hope you enjoyed it. Aha!

East Anglia Night

2008-10-18T23:49:00.002+01:00

It is East Anglia Night on Furry Conservative, a new, regular part of the show. Here's one of that region's favourite adopted sons in a couple of amusing clips:

World Cup Countdown

Tour de France

And, of course, the ultimate:

A Partridge in Paris

East Anglia

2008-10-18T23:36:00.006+01:00

As someone who grew up in a fairly hilly area, the landscape of East Anglia is quite a contrast, as are the emotions I experience dependent upon my means of travelling through it. Today, while passing through it on a train, I was in a pleasant reverie gazing at its endless, flat vista, despite the efforts of the fat Spanish couple next to me trying to spoil it by CONSTANTLY eating NOISILY and rustling crisp packets.

It is only now that I remember the last time I travelled through it, that time on a bike. After a few hours of fairly vigorous cycling I turned to do the thirty miles or so back to my car. Into a wind I estimated at about 25mph. There is nowhere to hide from the wind in Cambs; after an hour of crawling, exhausting progress at 13mph I was near tears; after another hour I had passed through wild abuse and into the mad, staring abyss of an approaching defaillance, my end to be witnessed only by some sad looking cows and whatever ducks were flying overhead. The final 30 minutes were mercifully blanked from my memory and will only be revealed in the final moments of my life, when I lie gasping on my deathbed and wondering where it all went.

So, East Anglia. No place for the weak.

Worst excuse evah

2008-10-18T23:19:00.004+01:00

Even the BBC didn't stoop so low as to include it in this report, but Keith Vaz (that most trusted and saintly member of our much respected political class) was interviewed by the BBC about the government's latest attempt to grab cheap votes, and his interview was broadcast every 30 minutes on Radio Bloke (Five). I cannot remember the verbatim quote, but it went something like this:

How are the Government going to keep the population below 70m? Are they going to apply chastity belts to everyone?

Well Keith, you win Disingenuous Rat of the Week, a new, regular part of the show. Who knows, given the government's increasingly disturbing (and insane) efforts on smoking, eating, drinking and, er, lots of other things, perhaps there is indeed a working party beavering away on this?

Perhaps not. No, the disingenuous bit is because Keith, like everyone else with their eyes open and an IQ over 90, knows that a high birth rate isn't the cause of Britain's unsustainable population growth. In fact, our birth rate, while above that of the death-spiral countries like Russia or Italy, isn't high enough to even replace the number of people who, for various unfortunate reasons, shuffle off to a better place (and we won't even go into our abortion rate).

Unless something remarkable happens over the next decade (e.g. free Barry White albums given to the Middle Classes), the birth rate isn't going to affect the UK's population. Our absurd property prices and tax rates ensure that those who should be breeding cannot. No Keith - you, I and the cocker spaniel next door know that the only factor affecting population growth in the UK is immigration. So, why does the BBC not challenge him, and why does it repeat his lies all evening till it gets to the point when I am yelling at my car radio?

Painting each other's nails for a living

2008-10-17T10:57:00.000+01:00

Laban has a post on the decline of Britain's economic power. He quotes some interesting passages:

The loss of manufacturing expertise will compromise our military strength. History repeatedly shows the correlation between a nation's wealth and its diplomatic and military powers.

A valid point, though perhaps an old-fashioned one. Not to say that it doesn't apply now, of course it does, but the main reason for Britain's decline is not economic decline but the collapse (no other word for it) in the will of our political class to defend Britain's national interests above all else. You can have twenty carrier groups, but if your collective mind is obsessed with internationalism and 'soft power', you will never use them, and your threats to use them have no credibility.

we now produce only 3,000 physics graduates a year. Compare that to an astonishing 15,000 psychologists

Every now again some harmless looking statement just jumps out of the internet and punches you flat. Does the work of a psychologist increase GDP? It's arguable either way, I would say it doesn't. And when the economy is growing due to the efforts of others, the effect is obscured. When we nosedive into recession, as we are now, what then?

At it again

2008-10-17T10:48:00.000+01:00

Those lying Labour bastards are at it again.

On Wednesday Ms Smith attempted to reassure people that the content of their e-mails and phone conversations would not be stored and local authorities would not be able to trawl through looking for "lower level criminality".

You'd get Great Big Dirty Lie of the Week for that, love, if I rashly hadn't already awarded it to Mark Thompson for his whopper about Islam and 'TV quality standards' (still giggling, by the way).

The civil liberties side of it is a clinching argument anyway, but let's consider the financial cost, just because we still can. This will cost a phenomenal amount of money, it always does. This phenomenal amount of money must be added to the phenomenal cost of ID cards, the phenomenal cost of Labour's totally botched NHS master computer system, the phenomenal cost of rescuing Northern Crock and the other banks, the phenomenal cost of the Olympics, of PFI...are they trying to bankrupt the country so that the Tories are fucked when they get in, get all the blame and Labour are back in the shortest possible time?

CiF - the slowest site in the World?

2008-10-17T10:44:00.000+01:00

The Guardian online presence, Comment is Free, must be the most irritatingly slow website in the free world. When you load the page, it locks up every Firefox browser open on your machine for up to a minute. What the fuck is it doing?

Who'd have thought it? The most state-worshipping newspaper in the UK turns out to be extremely slow and unreliable, and you are invariably disappointed by the quality of the product when it arrives.

Milliband ups the ante in mythical promises

2008-10-16T15:32:00.001+01:00

It is a rule in modern politics that if you want to bury a story or cover up how useless you are at something, commit to an even more grandiose scheme to be done far in the future, like this one. The media class isn't interested in what you have (or haven't) done about something, but they lap stuff like this up.

In a letter to Mr Miliband, Lord Turner said the tougher target would be "challenging but feasible", and could be achieved at a cost of 1% to 2% of GDP in 2050.

Not challenging for Lord Turner and the rest of the extremely comfortable political class, of course.

Anyway, the bit about 1% to 2% in 2050 is extremely misleading - the implication is that it will cost 1 or 2% of GDP only in 2050. Of course, this is rubbish - it will cost 1% to 2% of GDP every year until 2050. Doesn't sound much? Well, average growth of the UK economy is about 2.5% per year, on average. To meet this ludicrous target, however, 1% to 2% will be lost per year, in other words a 1-2% contraction in the economy. That means little or no overall growth for the next forty years. Government projections of spending (on health, welfare, etc) rely on the economy expanding, not contracting or stagnating. You can have a welfare state or a green utopia (which it won't be, of course), but not both. Meanwhile, India and China laugh at our suicidal politics and plough on regardless industrialising their billion or two billion population economies. The irony is that we will beggar our economies, while the pittance in CO2 we save over forty years will be wiped out by about nine months of Sino-Indian economic growth.

Oh, and this forecast of 1% or 2% is by the same people who brought you the estimates for the Olympic games, i.e. born liars. Expect the true cost to be 4% or more, or a fucking economic disaster, in other words.

Great Big Dirty Lie of the Week

2008-10-16T11:37:00.000+01:00

Mark Thompson, BBC Director General, wins the first of a new, regular feature of the show, Great Big Dirty Lie of the Week, for this effort (HT: Biased-BBC). This is the winning quote:

Mr Thompson, who spoke at a lecture for think-tank Theos, said shows critical of Islam would be shown if they were of high quality.

Ahahahahaha! Am I cynical in thinking that the quality threshold for that genre will always be tantalisingly out of reach? Could that quality threshold be applied to the rest of their pisspoor output please? Contrast Thompson's mysterious and sudden commitment to 'quality' programming over Islam with the execrable piece of crap Bonekickers, which clearly had no quality threshold applied at all.

The Guards caught with their trousers down

2008-10-16T10:58:00.000+01:00

This has me wondering if there is a single public sector organisation which hasn't deposited a huge sum in a failed Icelandic bank. Aside from the obvious question of where 'cash-strapped' public sector organisations have got approx £1bn of our money from to invest, others are wondering why there is a preponderance of public sector failures here, why they chose to invest, and continue to invest, in a banking system described last year as the most highly leveraged in the world.

The answer, to my mind, is obvious - it wasn't their money, so they didn't give a shit. I'm sure that they believe that the taxpayer will always be called on to bail them out, so what's the problem if a billion is lost here or there?

This quote made me laugh:

The commission said the deposits were in "full compliance" with their guidelines "on prudent investment".

They put £5m into the bank in July this year. Burning Our Money has been keeping an eye on it, with good articles here and here. The information was there, it didn't take a genius to see it, just an interest in protecting the taxpayer's interests. I imagine their guidelines on "prudent investment" are about as rock-solid as Gordon Brown's.

So, this underlying economy...

2008-10-15T13:48:00.001+01:00

Brown keeps going on about, and it's "fundamental strength" compared to the banking sector. Hmm, what about this and this? Inflation and unemployment at their highest level for sixteen/seventeen years? Predictions that unemployment could hit 3m by next Christmas?

I'd like to know what Brown's idea of "fundamental strength" is.

M'aidez! M'aidez!

2008-10-15T13:37:00.000+01:00

Continuing the French theme on bubble and crashes, this news item. As well as the good news about prices continuing to fall, we have this additional, unexpected nugget:

Estate agents sold on average under one property per week each in September.

Sounds like quite a few of the snakes will be going out of business as well. I wouldn't normally cheer unemployment for anyone, but I'll make an exception for estate agents, lawyers, journalists, MPs, anyone who works for the council, anyone involved in enforcing the smoking ban...I'll get back to you on the rest of the list.

Enrichissez-vous!

2008-10-14T11:28:00.002+01:00

Laban is wondering why the reaction to the current crisis is to prop up the bubble for a few more years, not to fix it:

As far as I can see he wants to solve the crisis by restoring the property overvaluation - in which case we may get another collapse in a few more years.

The problem is, all of the people who matter - the political class, the media, those who run the great finance houses - benefit from this bubble. Either they rely upon the votes of homeowners, or they own extensive property which they do not want to see devalued, or their incomes rely directly on a soaring stockmarket. They want to hang on for a few years more to make their packet and get out.

As we approach the election, if house prices are still dropping sharply I expect this venal corrupt swarm to propose that the state protects 'homeowners' and boosts the housing market (i.e. raise prices again). They will use taxpayers money to do it. After all, there will be votes in that, and we are in a Democracy, aren't we?