debate3.9

oh look they have a black guy to ask a question about immigration. nice touch. his question is about being in touch with people.

brown says he wants to create jobs. wants to see more people in britain getting jobs in britain. cutting the number of people who can come into the country. he has pointed out the most basic point that if the people in the country were trained for work available there would be no need for immigrant labour - well accept for wage undercutting, but no one would do that would they?

cameron says immigration is too high and for too long. proper controls. transitional controls for new european companies. only wants 10s of thousands, he says it would be a better way of integrating people.

clegg we are there to serve the people and to act on their concerns (not that they will bring in the death penalty, but that is another story). clegg wants a regional approach, he wants a boarder force, he wants to deal with the criminal gangs who deal with illegal immigration.

brown knows people who are worried about to getting jobs. protecting jobs. training people up. talking about counting people in and out of the country. one wonders why they ever stopped doing this.
cameron has a pop at clegg for their 'amnesty', says it would make a bad situation worse. clegg points out that only boris is offering a blanket amnesty, he goes on to say it is a problem that does have to be dealt with and can't be ignored. clegg throws out 80% immigration from eu (which means that the government can't do anything about it) (shame that it turns out that the 80% is a made up figure - turns out it is around 40%, clegg hasn't been very good with his figures - he got it wrong when it was the number of pages in educational documents).
clegg does have something important to say about the 'good' illegals. as he says it is dealing with the world as it is.
clegg gets a nice dig in at cameron 'assume when you talk about our policy it is wrong', very nice but ruined by the 80% figure he uses.
brown says they are both wrong. but he would say that wouldn't.

cameron wants just 10s of thousands of immigrants.

debate3.8

manufacuring.
clegg agrees we can't just have offices and shops. banks lending to manufacturing. invest in what we need for the future - housing, green industry, public transport.
brown creation of jobs in green, digital and bio-tech industries will be a big part of the future. banks lending (again. sounds like the solution is to nationalise the banks - won't hear that as a solution).
cameron investing in science base, invest in apprenticeships (sensible). make it easier to employ people. low taxes for businesses.

clegg points out that they are all pretty much in agreement on the basics.
brown points out that labour has increased apprenticeships and the number of people going to university (though we do need to cut down on the media degrees - they are only going to be sob stories on future x-factors).

cameron has a new catch phrase 'confusion between the economy and the government', have to help businesses employ people. government should buy more from small and medium businesses. though how all these new smaller contracts are going to be managed when you have cut all the back room staff isn't addressed.

(the recording that i have made from the tv is going spazzy - freeview box is toss.)

brown points out that cutting investments isn't going to help.
cameron points out that for all the hot air (see what i am doing here) from brown that we are not doing as well as we could be in renewables.
cameron goes on about how he is cutting taxes on businesses.

seems we have hit the half way point. so we get a bit about the snp and plaid cymru. do we care? no not really.

debate3.7

bankers bonuses and fairness.
cameron - it is unacceptable what has happened. bank levy. don't wait for the rest of the world do it now. banks to loan. retail banks not to engage in casino like deals.
clegg - no bonuses for bank directors. no cash bonuses over £2k. no bonuses from banks making losses.
brown - he helped banks in order to save savings and deposits. all about recapitalising the banks. needs a world wide levy.

cameron comes back and says that labour hitched the whole economy to the city. banks to be better regulated.
clegg says both labour and tories much too close to the city. he is right. split up the banks that way banks shouldn't be able to hold a gun to the head of the country.
brown is all about getting the money back from the banks.

only two mentions of obama. one from cameron and one from brown. has the magic of the big o, dwindled.

cameron on about the lib dems joining the euro. cameron is all about staying out of the euro and keep our currency. clegg says he isn't about joining the euro, which is not quite what they had in their manifesto. (paddy ashdown will later say that clegg is saying the same as the manifesto, but in a different way. dancing on the hed of a pin).

the graphic at the back of them is doing my head in.

clegg says there should be a 10% levy on banks profit.
brown says will get the money back - by selling on the shares that the country owns.
cameron talks about corporation tax for small businesses - quite how that equates to banks as small businesses is beyond me they all seem to make lots of money (even if they can only do it because we, the people, have bailed them out).

debate3.6

taxes.
brown - accepts it has been tough. giving out tax credits. bangs on about the tory tax cuts of the very rich.
cameron - taxes more because government spend more. wants to stop the one tax he can: national insurance. tax credits will stay.
clegg - does his thing of getting nice with the questioner. he says we need to change the tax system make it fairer, close loop holes, make the rich pay more and make sure that it is fairer to those at the bottom.

cameron defends the inheritance tax. it should only be paid by the richest. not a top priority.
clegg slags this off. says it is about those who are struggling to pay the bills.
perhaps the answer isn't about tax, perhaps it is about making sure that employers pay decent wages? well we know that isn't going to happen.

have to say i agree with cameron - those over £50k shouldn't be getting tax credits. just as i am feeling some love for cameron he goes on about how it is brown's fault the economy is in the toilet. nothing to do with greedy bankers who have laughed all the way to the ...ahem.. bank,
(oh that is right from cameron's point of view they are wealth creators.)

debate3.5

about to start watching the leadership debate - i am giving up the joy of watching the lovely rochelle on babestation, she is a vote winner.

cameron tells us that we need to change to get the country out of a rut. get people working, tax banks and start making things here. oh and get value for money from public services. he is not joining the euro.

clegg tells us it is about us- you and me. a fairer economy. honest about cuts. rediscover a passion for building things. fair taxes. fairness and prosperity.

brown a quick reference to his faux pas, then a bit about his record, and he says he will protect britain from a potential euro lead recession.

none of them like euro.

here comes the questions. first up spending cuts: be honest and tell us what they are going to be.
clegg says he has done. scrapping biometeric passports, no to the eurofighter, public pay freeze.
brown has set out a 4 year reduction plan. fair tax rises and spending cuts. not allowing front line areas to be cut. savings elsewhere. (of course the question is why have you waited until now for these cuts?)
cameron yup there are going to have to be cuts, but will protect front line staff. there will be difficult things. public sector pay freeze, people will have to retire a year later. get the economy growing.

so far no real cuts there. all about savings. clegg says it is a case of not knowing what the situation is. clegg banging on about politicians putting the country first. hear hear.
brown says there will be cuts in several departments. there will be cuts in capital investment. public sector pay and pension to be hit. brown hits cameron's cuts. support the economy.
cameron says his savings is all about 1 in £100. risk to the recovery isn't waste but the national insurance rise.
brown reiterates that don't cut until the recovery is sorted.
cameron says start with benefits - mmm can you say workhouse. where are the jobs? oh yeah you mean get people working at minimum wages while you cut taxes for the rich. tosser.
clegg. fairness. nice to talk about, we all want it. but how. tell me.

brown winning this one.

debate3.4

just heard a voter say that if she votes for nick clegg then she should get nick clegg. comparing it to her ordering desert in a restaurant. yup that is how democracy works.

the polls have cameron as the winner at the moment. no shock there.
seems the rochdale incident has made no differences.

oh farage is on. he looks as odd as gove. farage could be character from the muppets.
the greens say leave personality out of it and concentrate on the message.
the bnp said something but my tv chose that moment to go into digital spaz attack.

newsnight over so i am checking out 'family guy' not as funny as the leadership debate, once i have had a few chuckles i will get back into the debate. (it is not the best family guy episode.)

i know you want me to.

debate3.3

the journalist from the times - says cameron was good. i wonder why? any bias?
a labour bloke says brown very good on substance.
lib dem lass says brown was dead in the water.

times journalist says it is a time for change election - but is it?

oh ok i take it back - sometimes they are tossers.

they are saying that the debates were great for democracy. were they? or have they just reduced it all down to a personality contest between three talking heads?

debate3.2

they are going on about the worm.
sometimes i think that social media shouldn't be allowed to be involved in this sort of thing. citizen journalism is wank.
after all - look at the shit i am putting out.

apparently it isn't what is said - it is how it is said.
so we might as well let su-bo take control of the economy. cowell can be the chancellor.

i am sure there is science behind it all - but it seems sad that we are going to be lead by sound bites.
oh fuck me there is a word cloud generator.
on and now twitter - fuck me. only 33,000 tweeters. on well. and look they are picking out 'funny' tweets - except that they are not funny.
here we go stuff from facebook. all of them showing why that perhaps it should be about the experts and not people like me.

debate3.1

back home from the hustings.
have eaten and now listening to the analysis of the leadership debate.
just heard ashdown say that this is now a two horse race between clegg and cameron. what is he smoking?
very odd listening to the analysis without knowing what was said.
oh there is michael gove saying cameron winning- he is an odd fish.

paddy ashdown is the more interesting of the political commentators.
gove looks like a puppet. plus he is very rude.
yvette cooper says it is about jobs. she is a bit foxy. though that is me going off message.

gove going on about immigration. he says that there should be a limit on the number of people who can come into the country. though he still says that tens of thousands of people can come in.
ashdown - there is a hidden problem with illegal immigration (gove loves interrupting - mind you it worked because ashdown didn't get to finish his point). oh he is going on about it. he says the lib dems do have a policy: amnesty.

debate3.0

for some inexplicable reason my local council is having a meet the councillors evening at the same time that the leadership debate is on.
smart planning.
so i am off to hear what the locals have to say.
i will record the debate and comment on it later.
i know you were all looking forward to reading me at the same time as hearing brown, cameron and clegg pontificate, but sadly not tonight.
(what do you mean you don’t read it....?)

enjoy

this st george's day.
lovely weather out there - going to take some photos of pretty people in silly clothes. i really don't understand fashion.

debate2.15

polls - mmm two polls have put brown last. i wonder if the fact that both of them are for murdoch papers has nothing to do with those results.
sky doing there bit to kick brown. so much for unbiased coverage. more proof that the bbc is essential.

bring on the third debate.

debate2.14

some of the analysis is painful
bob ainsworth less than secure with his defence of gordon brown.
the bickering between ainsworth, michael gove and chris huhne - the most entertaining of the night. i think if they had the chance they would slap each other.
schoolyard bullies. funny to a point but very pathetic in the end.

earlier there was a moment of incredulity as the bnp spokesperson said that britain could be an islamic republic. the poor lass from the bbc had trouble not dropping her jaw down to the floor.

now sky are doing presentational stuff. perhaps that is the downfall of these debates, as we move further down the american route.

debate2.13

the handshaking at the end was pretty wanky.
now it is the analysis and trying to work out who has won the debate.

oh the bbc have lead this analysis with scotish national party. like we care what they say.

debate2.12

summing up. brown says the buck stops with him. maybe that should be the euro? or the pound. brown is in the position of being able to say that he has done some big choices.
he claims cameron is a risk to the economy. clegg a risk to security.

cameron says brown is sounding desperate. vote tory get something new. oh family values, pretty sure that is old tory. build big society. shame he didn't offer a free pony to everyone.

clegg shape the world. all about acting differently. something exciting happening. coming closest to doing an obama. his summing up more about hope and the future than slagging off the other two.

clegg wins the summing up.

debate2.11

immigration.
clegg - border controls. direct people to areas of the country. amnesty on illegals.
brown - not for an amnesty. labour control and manage via point system, looking to reduce the number of skills we need to get from abroad. can't argue with that.
cameron - we have benefitted from immigration (and strong society). too much recently, need to cap it.

cameron having a pop at clegg over regional immigration. real change says cammeron. still not sure what he is going to do.
clegg asks them not to ignore the issue as it is - that there are illegal who are working for criminals and not for the taxman.

each of them have been able to point to the other two squabbling.

cameron seems to think that it has only been a problem under labour, rose tinted glasses in play there. was an issue under the tories as well.

clegg seems to want to deal with an clear and present issue - while david and gordon seem to skirt that.

debate2.10

should we have a coalition government?
cameron says in some cases yes. doesn't want a hung parliament. not quite the answer the question demanded. cameron is saying no.
clegg thinks there should be some working together on some things. potential for working together - but no coalition.
brown says we also have some of this - but not with the shadow ministers.

so they all skirt the question. all say it would be nice and friendly, but in the end they want to be in power.

they have had to be reminded about the question.

cameron is back on the job tax.

clegg comes closest to answering the question - but he has the most to win in a coalition situation.

brown pays lip service to working together.
in the end it seems cameron and brown can't even think about working together - it brings them both out in hives.

cameron said 'day one' tosser. that phrase should be banned. it doesn't make you hip and trendy.

brown says the priority is making the economy stronger and secure.

not sure any of them really care about the question - they are just bickering and cameron gets a laugh from pointing that out.

debate2.9

state pension.
brown pension to be linked to average earnings. women to get full state pension. dignity in retirement.
cameron says dignity and security in old age - so the state does have something to. men to retire a year later.
clegg points out the other costs that pensioners have to meet. fuel costs - well that is what happens when those companies can earn shit loads without social responsibility, perhaps cameron's big society would do well to start there.

crikey brown has thrown down a gauntlet.
cameron claims it is all scare tactics, and that labour is lying.

clegg about people before politics.

cameron and brown ready to go to handbags. have to give it to cameron, as much as it pains me.

debate2.8

on to the question of does your vote count.
pretty simple answer - yes.

cameron on about expenses. i don't think it is that big a deal. oh he is going on about cutting the size of parliament again. though that goes against his idea of bringing people into politics - reduce the number of people who represent us, it makes it harder for voices to be heard.

clegg - old party politics. again. too late to register now.

brown ashamed of some of the mps. can't help but think that no matter what any of the leaders say about this is all crocodile tears.

cameron says politicians have treated the public as mugs. he goes on about responsibilities as well. we have to change the country. in which case why do we need them? as brown says you can't run the health service as a diy project.

clegg says politics shouldn't be a job for life. he might be right there.

cameron says fairness. brown points out cameron's fairness is for the richest.

clegg really is working that 'old politics'.

debate2.7

correction - murdoch and co are not petty. they are allowing the debate to be shown on bbc news 24.
i take it back. i was wrong. don't sue me.

(thanks to my pal paul for pointing it out to me.)

now watching it on the bbc rather than sky. call me a rebel.

debate2.6

pope in britain. should he be allowed in?
cameron says yes - but not fully in agreement with the catholic church. says faith is good.
clegg - he is not a man of faith, his wife is catholic. welcomes the visit, but hopes there is greater recognition of errors of the church.
brown - has met some of those who were victims. so the church has to deal with the problems. but he welcomes the pope's visit.

so agreement there.

cameron on about tolerance, and as he points out they all seem to agree.

peace on earth has broken out.

debate2.5

cameron says green is all about doing your house up. all part of the big society.

clegg not anti-nuclear, as such, just doesn't think it is worth it. more insulation.
(with every vote this year get some cladding.)

oh brown mentioned young guys and girls. icky.
sort of saves himself by saying it is all about a balanced plan.

cameron goes on about gas supplies. oi poshboy you lot made the gas private, so should the government pay for the storage facilities for the private companies? (mind you labour didn't help by not stopping selling these things off to foreign companies).

clegg says america is important, but not something we should follow without questions.

brown gets a nice soundbite "big society at home, little britain abroad.'

debate2.4

green issues. what have they done in their personal lives to be green.
oh smugness abounds.
gordon has a solar panel and just use trains.
david proper insulation.
fucking hell they are british gas advert.

now cameron is going on about high speed rail. good for him.

nick says he doesn't do enough. i am betting he won a lot of points there from the rest of the country who feel the same.

debate2.3

cameron says an independent nuclear capability is important and necessary.
clegg makes the sensible point that terrorists seem to be the enemies and they are not someone you can target with nuclear bombs.
brown tells clegg to get real.
blimey charlie cameron agrees with him.
scary.

debate2.2

failed states and uk participation. will we go in?
clegg says yes - if it is about keeping us safe (us being the uk, rather than the united states). he goes on to say that has to be done with the right kit and right strategy. which makes sense.
brown - says that afghanistan is necessary as it because of a chain of terror and we have to take it on wherever it is found.
cameron - what will make us safer. bring all policy together in order to make ourselves safer. oh he supports afghanistan, but not doing it right.

clegg argues for a real defence review. don't renew trident. can't argue with him there.
(am already bored with him going on about 'old' style of politics, almost as much as cameron and his 'change'.)
brown pays tribute to forces.
cameron talks about being 'blown away' by the forces in afghanistan - perhaps a poor choice of words. his joke falls flat. (oh get him he has been out running with someone who served in afghanistan.)
(amazing how they have all been over there, shame none of them have served.)

debate2.1

got to the debate late (again) (no shock there).
will be interesting to see whether or not gordon and david agree with nick tonight. i doubt it.
interestingly sky have not let the bbc air the debate on 5live like itv did. who knew murdoch and co. could be so petty.

europe first question up.
looks like david is on his own. no surprises there. will europe be the chink in the tory armour.

have just noticed clegg's chin. crikey that is a big thing.

brown makes the economic point: europe means job.
cameron says there is a real difference between the parties because he will in europe and but not ruled by europe.
crikey clegg has gone about nutters and homophobes, and brown gets a laugh - and then goes on about jobs.

cameron is all about standing up for britain in europe.

lost

i know you will find this hard to believe but there are many things i can’t do. i can’t translate latin into greek, quadratic equations leave me scratching my head, juggling while riding a unicycle is beyond me and as for splitting the atom let’s not go there. among the other things i can’t do is read a map.
yup i can’t read a map. i am the benjamin netanyahu of road maps.
normally it isn’t that much of an issue; i can muddle along and get to where i need to get to. that is occasionally my downfall.
the election is coming up fast. been looking at my local candidates, weighing up the choices. made my decision. oh hold on a minute i don’t think i registered to vote. blinking heck better check on that. ooops nope haven’t done it. no worries have a couple of days to sort it out.
first stop the local idea store to get a voter registration form. don’t have enough time to post it, so i will have to drop it off, not a worry. time to do that. form filled in. easy peasy. will drop it off in the morning. checked the map and it looks like a bit of a trek, but a good way to start the day.
form in bag. sleep.
wake up. check map again. shitaboogey but i got that wrong. it is much further away than i thought. ok check buses. the 15 gets me close, the 115 gets me a little closer, the 135 is no good. make notes as to where i need to get off and then walk to. all going to plan, but plan is going to have to change because i have to be somewhere else, will go in the afternoon.
afternoon now and time to get a move on. will pass on the first bus, too many people. get the next one. blimey timed this wrong, too many school kids going home. why do they let them out so early? why do they let them out at all?
not been this far down the commercial road for months.
check my notes as to where i need to get off. be on the lookout for cotton street. curse myself for not bringing my a-z with me.
there goes all saints dlr station.
getting there.
hold on this is canning town. too far for sure.
get off. look there is a community centre – they should be able to give me directions. they can, but they are as good as mine: “catch the 115”. hold on there is a library next door. find an a-z there. make notes. how stupid have i been? overshot by a fair bit. still just a straight walk back. back along the barking road onto the east india dock road and just try to find nutmeg lane.
what is the time? cripes getting close to 5.30 and they will be closed. pick up the pace. mmm this is an ugly part of town. oh just what i hate a road that doesn’t have a name on it. is it the one i want? no idea. look there is a security guard. he confirms it is nutmeg lane – can get to clover crescent from here. (could also go to saffron avenue, coriander avenue and oregano drive – if i wanted to. who know jamie also did town planning).
get to the town hall. hand in the voter registration just before 5.30pm. receptionist says she will mark it as if it came in at 5pm. i thanked her (didn’t bother pointing out that i have until midnight to get it in – that would have been churlish of me).
job done. relief.
let's go to canary wharf. not been there in a long while. walk? nope. catch the dlr. not been on the dlr for an age, i still love it. mmm lots of nice looking ladies. gotta love office hours. grab a coffee at canary wharf, watch the world go by. go into tesco – fancy some of their very nice pasta. look at the queue. will pass on that. jump onto the dlr that is at the platform. oh piss it is for stratford. get off at west india and wait for a bank train. there it is. homeward bound.
plan carried out. aims achieved. labour vote sorted.
if gordon brown gets in it is down to me.
i am labour and labour 2010 is my idea.

ash

bloody typical.
won't pay us back what they owe.
will send us all their ash.
sodding icelanders. bastards.

debate1.11

the public are talking about the debate.
one of the more annoying criticisms is that they didn't mention the concern that the particular member of the public was most interested in.
someone has complained that clegg had his hands in his pockets.
no one seems to have changed their minds about who they are going to vote for.

someone has mentioned that it was well rehearsed - i suspect that they would have preferred it to be more on the lines of a 'it's a generation game knockout on ice factor' game show, the leaders would have no idea of what game or task they had to do, but while they were doing it (in a large cartoon comedy suit) they would also have to tell us their policy on health and education.

some bod from ukip has described the event as boring. i guess that really does sum up just how important ukip is: not very.
though it does point to brand extension of the debates - the second stringers- ukip, the greens, respect, bnp and the pirate party (yes there is one) can all have their say about the important questions of the day.

bring on the second debate.

debate1.10

clegg has been announced as the 'winner' of the debate by the first yougov poll.
how come they never ask me?

debate1.9

closing statements.
clegg - oh thank you for sticking with us. patronising or what? cleverly he is mentioning all the people who have raised questions. nice touch. reminds us all that he is there and that you don't have a choice between two there is a third way (to quote blair).
give real change a chance - is what clegg said.

brown - picks on one question. highlighting how to get through the crisis. money in the economy. secure the recovery. fair to nhs and schools.

cameron - hope over fear, well that cuts you lot out then doesn't cameron as we all know what you are going to do. values is what he is about. crikey he has moved on from thatcher, he has gone straight to major.

oh mr stewart has given us all his heartfelt thanks for the questions sent in but not used.

it is all over.
i think it was a draw.

tony livesey on 5live said 'did you recognise that? it was history.'

debate1.8

last question - about looking after the elderly.
one thing that has come from the debate is that we all want things and they all cost money, we are less keen to pay for these things.

cameron has provided his idea - put £8k aside at 65 and there will be help for you to ensure that there is no need to sell your house.
clegg - says why don't the politicians all come together, drop their differences and come up with a solution. hell clegg why not do that for all problems and issues.
brown - less airy fairy than the others and more details. perhaps that is his problem, he gives too many details. maybe a few jokes would have helped him. surely there are some oap jokes out there?

clegg banging on about his week off for carers. says none of them have a perfect solution.
cameron also on about a consensus.
there is a danger of a group hug here.

debate1.7

growing old and getting ill.
brown - more home helps. personal guarantees.

cameron - i am never going to believe him and his 'love' of the nhs.

clegg - goes on about wasting money. look at what has been spunked away on the computer system. very true it isn't working, but that is more a sign that private companies can be very shit at doing what they say they will do, but are quite happy to take the cash for their inability to do their job.

clegg and cameron - go on about managers and administrators. like somehow it works itself.

cameron again bangs on about the national insurance - don't increase and then all of a sudden there will be lots of money for cancer drugs.

clegg reminds cameron that he can't do everything with that extra money. cameron tells him that the nhs is an exception.

if i am honest clegg is coming out on top, with cameron coming second.
but brown was never going to do well, as he isn't a natural orator.

debate1.6

armed forces.
not paid enough. not well equipped enough.
none of the leaders will give the sensible answer: we need to look at how we commit the forces and quite what we expect them to do.

pull them out of afghanistan. no longer follow america's lead. we shouldn't try to punch above our weight anymore.
there needs to be a serious re-evaluation as to what we want the armed forces to do and then cut our cloth accordingly.

all three of the leaders have managed to call the forces brave.

debate1.5

protecting economic growth.
cameron - economy moving and growing. save £6bn. stops the tax on jobs (national insurance increase). he has quoted the business leaders who support him, if they had their way they would drop the national minimum wage. funny thing is cameron would agree with them.

clegg - he can save £15bn. he wants to scrap trident replacement. he is right.

brown reminds everyone that it is a global crisis. something that cameron seems to not know (or just lies about, guess which one i think it is).

when it comes to the economy and the recovery i am with brown, with a smidgen of clegg. cameron is a tory and so he is a lying tosspot. simple analysis.

crikey clegg is talking about a unified government to deal with crisis.

cameron says we are all going to have to come together on this to share the pain - that means the poor suffer, while the rich sit back and go 'oh we are the wealth creators love us..'

brown is right the private sector isn't going to make the difference on their own.

cameron asks why do bosses say the national insurance hike is wrong? simple they don't like paying more - which is why your idea of referundums on council tax is stupid. we don't like it when these businesses put their prices up.

clegg also made the point about getting rid of id cards. again simple and sensible idea.

debate1.4

education up next.
oh a student doesn't want to be examined - he just wants to learn for learnings sake.
strangely cameron agrees with him. oh no he mentioned red tape. again. his bugbear. schools to be set free to do what they want. nice.

clegg. sweden has a national ciriculum of 16 pages. not very detailed then is it. he repeated the 4000 pages that cameron has just mentioned. no more micromanaging from a liberal democratic government.

they all talk about higher and improving standards.

cameron - it starts with discipline in the schools. i would agree with him, but really it starts with the parents. schools shouldn't be made to be the parents. find a way to make sure that parents are responsible.

clegg - smaller classes. again simple idea. clever idea. means more money, but money well spent.

cameron wants those who administer schools in whitehall to work in sackcloth and to sit on milk crates.

alastair stewart cuts in every now and then to try to make it look like he is keeping control. he should be allowed to administer electric shocks, especially when cameron does his saving £1 in every £100.

come on gordon you don't have a kid in a state school - the others are telling everyone how their kiddies are in the state sector. they are beating you on that.

debate1.3

cameron - cut the size of parliamnet? what the fuck. no. how can you talk about people power and then go on about cutting down the number of people who represent us. more members of parliament not fewer.

oh gordon has come in with house of lords as to be cut down. much better than cutting than members of parliament.

cameron has done his - which company hasn't had to cut to get more for less? well not virgin trains, not british gas - all they do is put up their prices.
a stupid analogy cameron.

debate1.2

i think they are going to scratch each other's eyes out.
handbags at dawn.

it is speed debating.

(what does it matter what people do when it comes to asking questions?)
(groan mp's expenses have been raised.)

debate1.1

debate between the leaders is on.
i missed the start. immigration. done in a few minutes. perhaps the debates are not going to be all they have been cracked up to be.

law and order now.
cameron - more police on the streets and less paperwork. have to say i have never had any problems with them doing paperwork. i want to know that they are accountable.
all three of them talk about more police on the street.
no shit sherlock.

cameron - is close to saying that drug addicts might as well be chained up and go cold turkey.
clegg - stop youngsters from becoming future criminals. he makes the point that prison is an academy for criminal training. change their behaviour.
brown - oh dear what his dad did!
seems to come down to kids being bored. maybe it is that kids don't have respect for authority or adults anymore. perhaps the answer is less in 'young people' and 'youth mayors' and more in discipline. just a thought.

power

thanks to the new marxist leninist version of the conservatives with their wolfie smith cry of ‘power to the people’ the country knows that we are all in this together.
well when they say we are all in it together and we are all going to share the pain – they really mean that the public sector is going to feel the pain, because private companies are the wealth creators and innovators (these would be the same wealth creators and innovators who have been responsible for some of the very large overspends in government information technology programmes – capitalism at its very best: taking the money and laughing all the way to the bank as you provide a shit service).
it is ok though. just as the conservatives kick the public services they are offering ordinary people the chance to take over their local services and run them the way they want to (the money will, of course, still be coming from the state). see more people power.
even better they are promising to remove bureaucracy and red tape. true they are offering us the chance to have endless referendums about pretty much anything as long as enough people sign a petition. in the era of facebook that is hardly a challenge. expect the first of every month to be referendum day. and look they are going to let us vote on council tax raises – oh well i can tell you how that will play out – no, no, no and no again. (see mr. cameron i have bought into your scheme – and my contribution has saved local councils wodges of cash – no need to have that vote on the council tax i have told you the results for the next 10 years in every council in the land).
(don’t hold your breath for a vote on whether or not the national minimum wage should increase.)
there is something wonderful about the ‘big society’ idea. there is also something impractical about it. in the hands of the conservatives it is just another way to make sure that the state does as little as possible to protect the weak while helping the rich line their pockets.
the cordial invitation that david cameron has issued for us all to join the government is akin to a carnival game – you know it is fixed and rigged but you can’t help yourself you want to give it a go. it sounds a noble project – government of the people, by the people, for the people – can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t sign up for that sort of thing. it is just that under the conservatives you just know what the invitation amounts to is a long letter that basically abdicates responsibility on the part of the conservative leadership.
my rsvp won’t be in the post.

helicopters

i love helicopters. i know nothing about them. i couldn’t tell a chinook from a lynx if your life depended on it. my love of them has nothing to do with knowledge or recognition – it might be the noise they make, it might just be that they have big whirly things on them or it might just be that they look oh so cool.
there isn’t an action movie that hasn’t been improved by the appearance of a helicopter or three. i am pretty sure that even citizen kane would have benefitted from at least one scene with a chopper in it. hell even stockhausen got in on the act with his helicopter string quartet.
helicopters were in the news again today.
during the last prime minister’s questions of the current parliament david cameron used some of his questions to talk about helicopters. or more accurately the lack of helicopters for the british armed forces in iraq and afghanistan. it was a clever ploy that continues cameron’s strategy of sowing doubt over gordon brown’s competency as prime minister and (as an added bonus) as chancellor. fortunately for cameron such attacks are aided by brown’s hubristic weakness of never being able to admit to a previous error. all too often brown has lost ground by not admitting there had been mistakes in the past, but like all governments errors will occur and labour under brown will provide the right solution. do that a couple of times and cameron would have been so wrong footed he would now be chasing the liberal democrats rather than looking like the next prime minister.
another outcome of never saying mea culpa is that you can’t go on the attack and ask: “well what would you do?” so in the case of the helicopters brown couldn’t very easily ask cameron where he planned on magicing up new helicopters from, especially as the prospective tory government is all about cutting spending. (unless the conservatives favourite helicopter maker, westland, still owe them a favour or two? i doubt it very much).
ask that of cameron and i think you have him in a corner. brown couldn’t and didn’t.
yet david cameron has given gordon brown the perfect election present – if he would but take it.
it is a winning strategy; it is a dyed in the wool, solid gold vote winner. much better than giving each soldier their own helicopter and the electorate their own pony.
oh i can hear you cry – what is it pat, just tell us.
it is simple. all gordon brown has to do is announce that he is radically cutting the british presence in afghanistan and he is going to do it on an accelerated schedule. eat your heart out mandelson, pure fucking political genius on my part. just a shame it is not going to happen.
there was a time when the ‘war on terror’ sort of made sense. not sure that holds true anymore. britain entered the war standing shoulder to shoulder with the usa, a show of faith, a show of trust, a show of common beliefs in what was right. it was the ‘special relationship’ writ large. all the relationship seemed to get us was a lot of dead squaddies and a severe financial crisis. in short: we got shafted.
with a change of prime minister and a change of president it was obvious some things would change. it seems that president obama doesn’t like gb – the country or the prime minister. the special relationship isn’t special any more. president obama is off courting other allies. let’s not look at this as a set back, instead let’s look at it as an opportunity. time to get out from under. time to reassess our place in the world and time to stop trying to punch above our weight on the international stage.
start with pulling the troops out from afghanistan. let the new american allies take up the slack, that is what allies do.
the benefit to gordon brown and new labour is that it shows that that can be daring, that they can make the difficult choices. if you are not fighting an unwinnable ‘war’ you are not spending lots of cash – all of which goes towards cutting that deficit. if you are not fighting the war your troops are not getting killed. while putting clear distance between us and the americans brown shows he is different from blair by not shadowing the americans while showing the rest of the world that we are not going to blindly follow the american lead on everything.
it is a vote winner.
best of all: if you don’t get elected as prime minister you have really put a spanner in the works for david cameron. come on gordon that alone has got to be worth it.

(coming soon: pat reforms the united nations and publishes his new diet book: ‘you are fat and it is his fault’.)

50p

did you hear it?
the sound of fury that swept over the city and echoed through the countryside.
did you hear the billowing cry?
the siren song of misery and self pity that shook the nation.
did you hear it?
were you woken by the thunderclap of anger?
yes today was the day when the highest rate of tax was raised to 50p for those earning more than £150,000 a year. crikey how the experts moaned and whined.
hear them cry, hear them sob, hear them whinge. such a commotion you would think that they were being asked to work for minimum wage.
why us they asked? we are the wealth creators they told us. you can’t treat us like this they opine, we are special, we are the wealth creators. love us. if you tax us too much we will leave, we will take our money and wealth creation and go somewhere else.
do you know what my reply is? fuck off then and don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out.
funny thing about most of these globally mobile wealth creators they all seem to be in the financial industry and are ready to up sticks to geneva at the first sign of a tax hike (poor switzerland we give it phil collins, lewis hamilton and now some jumped up greedy accountants – does little to spruce up their already dull image). now correct me if i am wrong but isn’t the reason why the tax has been increased is because there were some shifty dealings going on in the financial industry to start with?
oh it was.
can’t expect them to bear any of the pain. that is for the little chap, the poor chap and the chap who is just doing ok.
seems that if you can claim to be a wealth creator it entitles you to take a big steaming pooh on the heads of everyone (that was just for cliff: politics and shit).
so how many people are affected by the new tax rate of 50p? well not me for a start. i would be doing naked cartwheels down the street if i were in a position to have to pay that much tax (and i promise now that if i am ever in a position where i have to pay the top rate of tax then i will indeed do naked cartwheels in the street for charity – you can take that to the bank). according to the bbc it is 300,000 people who will pay the top rate of tax out of the 29 million tax payers in britain.
oh my heart bleeds for them.
now i may have said this before, and i am sure i will say it again, these so called wealth makers can fuck off if they so wish. they may like to think that they are as rare as unicorns but we all know that really they are not.
in each of the offices that these people are in there is some young studly dudley who thinks that they can do the job cheaper and better. in any other set of jobs these roles would have been outsourced to india or china by now. it is a fallacy to believe that these people are irreplaceable: they are not.
for the time being they will squeal like stuck piggies, claim that their wealth trickles down to the rest of us and argue that raising their tax is disastrous for the rest of us.
still i have a solution.
they are rich, they like to spend their money (after all that is the only way it can trickle down to rest of us), so let’s raise vat on very luxury items. you want a pair of jimmy choo’s? then have a dose of 20% vat dear girl. you want to deck yourself out in something or another from stella mccartney, well pay that 20% vat. you want a tag heuer watch that may are may not have been made with left over parachute material from suez crisis and a bit of chocolate some bloke nibbled on while in colditz, then it is time for you to pay 20% vat. if you are going to sit down in one of gordon ramsey’s fucking restaurants to eat some of his fucking expensive food then you can fucking well pay the 20% vat.
meanwhile the rest of us who are buying our clothes from primark and our food from tesco don’t have to worry about vat being imposed on food or clothes.
not only have i made vat progressive but i have also allowed the rich to shop till they drop knowing that they are helping the rest of us to come out of recession.
they get to stay here (ok that is a downside to it).
they get to spend their money on pointless luxury goods.
they get to tell us all how their wealth trickles down. .
they get to remind us how they are wealth creators.
money comes into the treasury.
we are all happy.

just another simple reason why i should be in charge.

squits

it started with a moment of near disaster.
a small fart that hinted at a follow through, and stopped short of kissing cotton. the smell just shy of hell's sewage, enough to singe eyebrows and choke cows.
it should have set alarm bells ringing.
it didn't.
a good night of sleep. waking up the sun in the sky, and all is well with the world.
oh spoke too soon.
a rumble in the tum.
a small parp.
another rumble.
a clench of cheeks and a 'oh no!'
dash! dash! dash! rush! rush! get to the toilet, don't stop, get to the toilet.
nooooooo - the seat is down. don't panic.
quick. quick.
sit down.
shit down.
gushing out. who knew you could evacuate that much stuff in so little time.
oh wow get a whiff of that, gag me with a spoon as frank zappa once said (well actually it was moon who said it, but frank wrote it).
have to say feel much better now. time to get on with the rest of the day.
oh no.
hold on.
bombs away.
more coming out.
and out.
and out.
and out.
crikey who knew that shitting out half your body weight could be so tiring? after all super-models do it all the time (see i can even make this social commentary).
nose hairs have been burnt away by the stench.

phew glad that is all over.

hold on, there is another rumble.
another trip to the toilet.
splash down.

by the fourth trip there i have developed a ring of fire. mmm that might be what it feels like to have deep heat rubbed into your arse (not that anyone would want that - though it used to be a jolly jape to smear it onto a rugby player's jock strap, another of those things i never really understood about rugby humour).

those of you have gotten this far will be pleased to know that i am back to just defecating at a regular rate and a regular consistency. let me tell you: it is bliss.

quote

there i was leafing through an old issue of wired magazine (i would like to say i had read it when i first bought it, but hey we are all friends here so why should i lie) when i noticed an article about digital comics.
back in the day when i was in gainful employment, before post employment kicked in, one of the ongoing debates i had with a prominent retailer was about the move to digital publication of comics by the main publishers. he said it was inevitable, i didn’t think so. naturally the article piqued my interest (especially now that i have nothing whatsoever to do with comics).
in the end the article was short and didn’t really say much.
buried in it was this lovely quote
“...when content companies don’t give fans what they want in the format they want it, fans make it available themselves.”
“most piracy doesn’t spring from the desire to get free content. it comes from a desire to get it in a specific way.” (mark mcclusky – wired may 2006)
do you know i almost believed him there.
skip forward several pages in the same issue of wired and you find that matthew honan is praising the success of itunes which had just sold its billionth tune in just around three years of business. itunes it could be argued being a perfect example of the content companies giving the fans just what they want, in a form that they want it in. you don’t want to buy the whole album? just a track? well here you go. you want to play it on your mp3 player and home computer – well now you can.
fine and dandy.
except hohan goes on to point out that the billion or so tracks that itunes have sold pales into insignificance against the billion or so tracks that are shared each month via peer to peer sites (or p2p to be hip).
somewhat of an editorial own goal there.
ironically i saw this about the time there is a lot of activity over the digital economy bill. as i understand it part of the digital economy bill is aimed at preventing persistent and heavy downloaders of copyrighted material. one of the potential punishments for being caught is to be disconnected from the internet.
to some activists such a move is an infringement of the individual’s human rights and will impact heavily on their quality of life.
some of the copyfighters have even argued that without the free movement of materials via the internet culture might grind to a halt (hell yeah – how else would i have found out about shakespeare, dickens, van gough, mahler, pynchon, zappa, beefheart, hendrix, lichenstein and many others). (true without the internet i would never have known about ‘he came on my face’ ‘anal debauchery’ ‘lesbian mentors’ (which i think is a workplace human resources movie), ‘monster meat’ (i suspect it is a pro-veggie movie) or ‘ginormous juggs’.)
no one denies that the internet has become an essential and integral tool to the way we live our lives both in terms of leisure and work. it is a phenomenal tool for change and for creativity. at the same time that doesn’t mean that it gets a pass when it comes to illegal practices. dress it up anyway you like but sharing copyrighted material is pretty much theft. i am not getting on a moral high horse here as i have been known to download a track or two. i just don’t dress it up as something it is not.
the open rights group say “the minimum value for a repeat infringer’s activity is thus the value of 50 copyright items. music tracks on emusic now retail at 35p. the retail value of the offences of a repeat infringer could therefore be as little as £18” (of course it could also be £500 if you were to download 50 new dvds – using play.com’s average price for a new dvd. let’s not dwell on that too much though as it makes it look a little more serious).
even sticking with the £18 figure, i am pretty sure that sainsbury’s, tescos or my local newsagent are not going to be too keen on me going in and taking £18 in goods. in fact i would even hazard a guess that if i were to take £18 off the various members of the open rights group they might be a little pissed at me.
where the open rights group is right is that the digital economy bill is something that needs debate and not only from politicians but from the content providers and the internet service providers. as fergal sharkey (yes that fergal ) has pointed out when an isp is advertising their service by the claim that you can download 900 lps a month you know that the they are fully aware of what is going on, but they do not want to be seen as the bad guys in this. the same is true of the content providers who may whinge and moan about sharing (or piracy) but still manage to overprice their goods considerably.
a debate is needed – but like many things that need to be debated it can’t be done when the various sides of the debate are just engaged in hyperbole.
now excuse me i need to look for a copy of ‘milf encounters of a close kind 69’, it is both educational and cultural – honest.

ban

just a quick note to david cameron: it is time you ditched the use of dithering.
you have beaten it to death. no one cares. it just makes you sound like the dull schoolyard bully who doesn't have any clever or funny friends to give you new material.

if it is the best you can come up with after a few years then you really are not fit to lead the country.

oh and forty days and forty nights? get over yourself man.

new conservatives? same old arseholes.

nhs

suddenly there is a lot of surprise that there is a high level of sickness among nhs staff. you don't get such levels in the private sector. oh no in the private sector people are dedicated and only take sick leave when their legs are dropping off and they have sneezed their right lung out.
of course office workers have it really hard dealing with spreadsheets, filing, those constant emails to answer. those poor nhs workers just wiling away their time doing as little possible in-between bouts illnesses.
of course it has nothing to do with the fact that nhs workers are dealing with sick people and come into contact with diseases that are contagious.
just a thought.

ba

i have to confess that i have paid little attention to the british airways strike.
i have guffawed at the posturing of the unite union as they describe the cabin staff as being the vanguard of the workers revolution. the idea of tony woodley storming the barricades is an impressive one. both marx and lenin would be perplexed, not quite the cadre of comrades they had in mind, but hey any port in a storm.
the media has been quick to point out the links between new labour and the unite union. quite why there is a surprise that there is a link between a union and a political party that, ostensibly, promotes itself as a party for the working man (whispered with pride) is beyond me. still when it is considered to be a surprise that there are a few eton boys in the tory party it comes as no shock.
the problem with the strike action is that no matter how it is presented most people just think that the british airway cabin staff are just plane (geddit) greedy. (oh ok i stole that from the plane stupid campaign). from what i can make out the cabin staff have the best pay and conditions in the industry and they are not keen on losing them. (no shit!)
there is an ancillary problem for the cabin staff: the style of the union. pitching themselves somewhere between arthur scargill and bob crow (rail, maritime and transport union leader and oddly born not far from me, that will be my brush with fame them) full of bluster, full of rhetoric and lots of talk of battles, struggles and war. this is compounded with the lack of clarity of their argument. in essence it comes down to “british airways management are just nasty”.
so even when they talk about how the union had proposed approximately £60 million in permanent savings it all just falls on deaf ears.
but just as i get to that point when i am fed with the union telling us all how proud the cabin staff are to be british airways cabin staff, up pops an expert.
along comes the expert and pontificate about the industrial relation crisis that is british airways. one of the things they always say is that the ba cabin staff are the best in the world, they provide the best service. that the strike will hurt the ba brand and that people will go elsewhere to fly, even though the service is not as good. so, continues the expert, ba needs to make cuts, ba has been losing money; it needs to break the union. oh yes the ever-present digby jones while on the one hand praising the ba cabin staff to the mile high club had to point out that they were also guilty spanish practices and that their union was letting them down.
hold on a minute.
think about what those experts have said?
they have said that the ba cabin staff are the best. that they provide the best service. so perhaps the best deserve to be paid the best? not paid the industry standard. or does the reward culture only work if they are bankers or ceo’s of large companies? of course it does. if you happen to be a worker you shouldn’t expect to be paid good money, that would be outrageous. nope you should sweat, bow and scrape and be very happy that sir digby and his ilk smile at you while you count you meets national minimum wage pay pack.
though i am sure if they could do it then the digby’s of this world would also like a tug of the forelock with a bow and curtsey every time a worker came near them.
experts like that are a reminder why unions are important. just a shame that they don’t work on their presentation skills as much as they work on their class war rhetoric.

inflation

there was a time when i could happily sing - here i sit broken hearted, paid the penny and only farted.
couldn't be saying that today.

it was a day of wandering around the city. got to a point where my bladder was ready to pop. in a panic i adjusted my trajectory towards euston station. have not been inside the station for quite awhile. some changes have taken place. look over there a nice new ticket hall. check out that: starbucks has been turned into a pret.

at the least the toilets are still where they used to be.
i waddle as fast to them as i can.
how much?
that is daylight robbery. thirty pence to piss? outrageous. out-fucking-rageous.

no choice. have no option. i can feel the flood approach.
no change given. cunting hell, don't make it easy you thieving whores. fish around in my pockets. there is a 10 pence piece. third of the way there. three 5 pence pieces. oh you total wankers you don’t take 5ps – it is the fucking coin of the realm you sweaty nutsacks, why are you not taking it? shit! shit! shit! ah bless the back pocket there it is a magical lovely twenty pence piece.

come on! come on! get in the slot. i need to pee. no don’t reject the coin you bastarding piece of shit machine, don’t you fucking dare. one coin in, success. second coin in, success.
push on through the barricade.
where are the urinals? where are they, don’t hide them.
panic over.
there they are.
come on! come on! shit fumbled the zip. phew pecker out before the torrent starts. i am an adult.
aaaaaah. bliss. aaaaaaah bliss. aaaaaaaaaaah.
empty. shake. shake.
wash hands. leave. curse the douche bag that made the lav thirty pence. though at the same time i can’t help but think it was the best 30p i have spent today.
get back to the planned journey.
walk by the british library. berate myself for forgetting it was there. i could have pissed for free.

fuckity fuck fuck. that took the shine off the day.

when

i treated myself to a coffee in my favourite coffee shop today. some of you may think i do that every day, but i don't. it just seems i am there all the time.
so there are two young hip trendy types discussing clothes, sorry i mean couture. prada this, dior that, lagerfield the other. my how they prattled. quite how they get so excited about fashion is beyond me, though i suspect they would be less than impressed with my discussions of the relative powers of superman and thor with my pal paul.
no matter how you dress it up (oh i am so funny) (sorry that should have been i am sooooo funny) clothes are clothes, it is all schmutter when it comes right down to it.
at some point in their, loud, conversation one of them exclaimed "it was sooooo good".
when did 'so good' cease to be enough.
at what point is something good enough to warrant moving from so to sooooo? is there ever a time when it moves from being just sooooo good to being sooooo gooooood? when does it become ‘fucking excellent’?
perhaps the answer is obvious to those who shop in abercrombie & fitch, stella mccartney or vivienne westwood, but when you shop at peacocks and the best brand you can afford is george at asda then it is lost in the semiotics of the fashion world.
doesn’t look like i am destined for a job in the rag trade any time soon.

pain

the current financial crisis is one that has several people commenting on how we all have to share the pain. we have to pull together, make sacrifices and in doing so we will come through it.
the confederation of british industry is quick to say that the raising of national insurance rate is a tax on jobs, and will stop employers taking on new workers and so unemployment will not come down. they are keen to see the government provide details of how to reduce the amount that has been borrowed (in order to bail out the banks). don’t worry folks the cbi have a solution to the problem – cut public spending. this they say can be done by efficiencies such as councils combining their back office functions (they are keen to say that none of what they are suggesting will affect frontline services). such efficiencies will get rid of duplication, save money, cut the deficit.
oh and put a lot of people out of work.
yup that helps the unemployment figures.
the tories are singing from a similar hymn sheet. cut public spending, quickly, in order to reduce the deficit. oh hold on george osborne is saying that the 50p top tax rate is something they see as a temporary measure.
mmm perhaps we are not all going to share the pain. just the less well off.
i don’t even know why i am surprised, still at least with the cbi’s plan there will be frontline staff around to help those who get swept away.

papers

on the quiet my pal paul (mpp) is a bit of a genius. every so often he will throw out an idea that not only taps into the cultural zeitgeist but radically moves it on. just the other day he suggested that celebrities get together, co-ordinate their stories/antics and work to keep the election out of the news. if he had suggested the idea to max clifford, rather than me, it would have been in full flowing operation as we speak. (just think what would happen if celebs got together and declared themselves a political party? no chance of a hung parliament there).
titter ye not.
just look at the red tops, see how much news there is on the front covers, and see how much is celebrity gossip.
there i was in my local coffee shop (little surprise there) and i chanced across a copy of the daily mirror, their tagline: real news...real entertainment.
the front page was dominated with ‘news’ about the failure of mark owens marriage (i care so much), a small piece about jermain defoe signing on as a columnist (i care sooo much) finally there is a picture of nadine, a girl aloud, and the question ‘what’s up with nad?’ (i care sooooo much).
ironically inside there is a little news, less than you would expect, and some of it actually has relevance to the current political situation. a piece about a conservative being slapped down for misuse of nhs statistics, a piece about a comment from a conservative mp concerning ‘our way of life’ and a bit about how george osborne is under pressure for his job. in an election run in they are gold. though you would hardly know it from the daily mirror.
give the sun credit it doesn’t stop its attacks on new labour. reading the sun you would be forgiven for thinking that the outbreak of the first world war was due to gordon brown, that herod’s murder of first born was an outcome of gordon brown’s nhs policy.
just recently they had a story demonstrating david cameron’s ‘broken britain’ was all down to gordon brown. lisa lovatt is the example, she is their proof. she is an unmarried mum of 35 who has had 5 children with two men. the sun say she “epitomises the slide into state-funded family chaos under 13 years of labour”. her eldest is 18. lisa says when she was sacked from her job 17 years ago she gave up looking for work and concentrated on having kids.
as described lisa is prime jeremy kyle material, but let’s have a quick look at those dates.
there are many reasons for the ‘broken britain’ that cameron and company go on about. some of the problems are real, some of them are imagined. sadly for the conservatives some of the reasons for the situation were created back when they were last in power.
just using the sun’s one example you can see that ms lovatt had decided her course under the previous conservative government. her first child and beginning of her permanent unemployment both began under the tories.
the ‘feral children’ of tory nightmares are, in the main, children of those that grew up under the conservatives where the seeds of lack of respect, lack of social mores, lack of work aspirations were planted. we are reaping what was sewn then.
this isn’t to absolve new labour for not addressing the issues, it is just a reminder that the tories may promise the moon on a stick, but they don’t mean it for you and i, it is just for the already well off.

democracy2

there is no doubt that the british national party is an odious little political party. the important word here being ‘little’, in political terms the bnp are no more than an irritant. while their electoral chances are slim that isn’t to say that the bnp do not give voice to some nasty views (and it can’t be denied they also air some legitimate concerns).
in recent european and local elections the attitude toward the bnp had been to attempt to deny them a voice while demonising them. all the while allowing that the bnp is a legal political party and as such have a right to campaign, if as far from the public glare as possible.
the political class had neither the courage to openly debate with the british national party nor to outlaw them. preferring a curious halfway house position that gave the bnp an amazing amount of publicity and cast them as victims.
where the politicians feared to tread the equality and human rights commission (ehrc) was happy to yomp. at first the ehrc insisted that the bnp removed the ‘whites only’ membership policy as it contravened race relations law. even with this done robin allen, who was representing the ehrc against the bnp, said that asking potential members to support the "unity and integrity of the indigenous british" was highly suspect and ‘unquestionably racist’ as it would in ethic bar some people from joining. now i confess i am not a lawyer – but surely the clue is in the bnp’s name? it is a nationalist party and all that entails.
now the bnp are just ‘indirectly discriminatory’
given the bnp’s track record you can’t help but wonder, which ethnic minorities are banging at the doors, to be let in. though as a bnp spokesman, gwynn price rowlands, said the bnp has “several jewish members” recalling the classic ‘some of my best friends are…’ line.
it is not that i agree with the bnp, far from it. the way to ‘defeat’ them isn’t to make it impossible to hear them, but to argue against them and prove that their viewpoint is wrong, that their reasoning is flawed. there seems to be a fear of doing this because the questions of immigration, multiculturalism and diversity are now such a minefield that it appears almost impossible to have a rational debate over the issues.
the simple solution seems to be to find ways of banning the bnp. that won’t make the issues go away, it will just lead to further disenfranchisement on the part of certain parts of the electorate.
i remember years ago mick hulme (then of the revolutionary communist party) say that they were against banning the bnp because that was the thin end of the wedge. once it was done what was to stop the banning of far left political parties?
there are no moves to ban to socialist workers party, a party who talk about armed revolution and smashing the state, and i guess the main reason is that sensible heads realise that the swp and the various offshoots, such as respect, are only ever going to be minority interest parties who hold little sway over the electorate. the same is true of the bnp.
legislating the bnp out of existence or banning them is not going to change people’s views. debating the issues and winning the arguments will do.
oddly that is what democracy is all about and it is democracy that is the best tool to defeat the bnp and what it stands for.

democracy

democracy is a funny old thing. we take it for granted.
it has to be said that on any list of least liked people there would be estate agents, richard littlejohn, simon cowell and members of the british parliament.
there are various reasons why people no longer respect members of parliament the most recent, and the most damming; reason has been the expenses scandal.
this has led to a lot of hand wringing and self-flagellation on the part of the political class. this has led to suggestions that politics needs to be cheaper, and one of the ways offered to achieve this has been to cut the number of members of parliament.
unsurprisingly david cameron and the conservative party like this idea, they have even said they would reduce the numbers of mps by 10%. another example of the conservatives desire for a smaller government, and cutting is their default response to anything. (the liberal democrats have also argued that a cut in the number of members of parliament should take place.)
jack straw, the justice secretary, has described this as being undemocratic, and i agree with him. he also claims that the other reason the tories are interested in reducing mps is a cynical attempt to make sure they have more seats in parliament. i don’t know if that is the case, but they are tories so let’s just agree that jack is right.
the outrage over the expenses wasn’t because politics was expensive; it was because people who were earning a decent wage were supplementing it by claiming all kinds of things as legitimate and necessary expenses when really all they were doing was to line their own pockets. it wasn’t the cost of having members of parliament that got people annoyed it was that many of the ones we had were cheating.
if anything there should be more mps. we elect them to represent us. the fewer of them there are, the larger the number of people they have to represent. the larger the number of constituents that they have the less chance there is that they can know the issues that are important to their area.
with more mps they would have to work harder to ensure that they got re-elected as they would be relying on a much smaller number of people, who would be able to see if they were doing a good job at the local level. it would also mean that there would be easier access to your local mp because they were dealing with a smaller catchment area.
we want mps to be accountable to us the people, rather than to be accounted on by bean counters.

why

i have often wondered why eurosceptic members of the european parliament bother to go to brussels.
the most sensible reason would be that they are there to campaign on behalf of the uk, to make sure that those devious johnny foreigners do nothing that might upset blighty.
then there is the slightly less noble reason of being there to kick up a stink, to be a fly in the ointment. maybe like nigel farage the leader of united kingdom independence party’s (ukip) european parliamentarians. recently nigel gave a rabble-rousing speech, oh sorry that should have been: he gave a boorish and deliberately insulting speech.
our nige described the new president the european council herman van rompuy as having "the charisma of a damp rag" and that "nobody in europe had ever heard". unlike mr. farage who we all know very well and would recognize in an instant if we saw him in the street.
the boys at the european parliament haven’t taken kindly to this and they have punished mr. farage.
now mr. farage sees himself as a legitimate ‘voice of opposition’ to eu policies. hurrah to that man. i can’t claim to know how true this is, and i am sure mr. farage works tirelessly for the good cause of removing the united kingdom from the clutches of the eu. i can say that a quick look over his speeches shows that mr. farage hasn’t quite gotten over the cold war and he sees communists everywhere (i am sure he would ban santa for being a big old red) and when he is not complaining about the infiltration of communists he is just insulting people.
but he is aware of the fact that whatever the eu does, somewhere along the lines the british taxpayer is stumping up for it, and he doesn’t like that. another hurrah for that man.

how have johnny foreigner decided to punish the brave mr. farage?
they are fining him ten days allowance – three thousand euros. that is 300 euros a day.
according to the ukip website mr. farage has said, "free speech is an expensive business in the european parliament." it also seems that the allowance for an mep is pretty generous as well. still as mr. farage employs his wife i am sure they will be able to make ends meet.
there are 13 ukip meps, which adds up to a fair chunk of euros. money which will come from the british taxpayer. perhaps ukip could look to help cut the british contribution to european parliament by not being there?

maybe that is the other reason why eurosceptic politicians take their seats in the european parliament: it pays well.

march

new month.
year is flashing by.
still as quick as it is going it is nice to know that some things never change - that we love celebrity news and misery.
as i sat drinking coffee today - the shop had a copy of the sun on the table. the headline was all about how cheryl was scared, how she was terrified of leaving ashley.
i was left thinking whatever happened to grrl power?

still while cheryl wrings her hands - sun readers would be hard pressed to know that there was a natural disaster and chile and that cameron was making a bid to drape the flag over his shoulders in an attempt to rally old school tories to his new school (but very much just like the old school) tory army.

i guess that as fast as the rest of the year goes by - celebrity drivel will be with us all the way.

old

there i was chatting to one of the lovely young ladies who serve coffee at my local coffee place. somehow we got onto the subject of computers and the internet (no this is not going where you think it is going ems, or where you hope it is going shep).
we both agreed that the internet is a serious time killer. go on to check emails and before you know it the night has passed while you look at clips on youtube or photos on facebook.
i mention that i am not overly keen on facebook as it just serves to point out how dull my life is compared with other people's lives.
she smiled sweetly and said 'i am sure that isn't true', i didn't bother to try to persuade her that i am as dull as dishwater.
i followed this with 'to be honest i prefer myspace'.
the look on her face was priceless. i may as well have declared myself from the 1800s.

the look of pity i got.
i am so not with it.

whiners

(this is another of those blogs that you can file under – wrote it a few weeks back, did nothing with it, but now seems to have a bit of relevance again, so while i have a chance i am using it. feel free to ignore.)

no one likes a whiner.
sometimes it is just the grating tone that they affect.
other times it is the self-belief that they are being unfairly picked on, that it isn’t their fault, that life isn’t fair to them and that life owes them.

aside from members of parliament the most recent, and most vocal, whiners have been bankers (and yes i am aware that not all bankers are whiners and that a lot of them are hard working souls who do their jobs for less than stellar money, but who am i to go against the common shorthand of ‘bankers’). the old masters of the universe, as the financial whiz kids were called, have been recast as villains and they don’t like it.
long story short – the bankers fucked up and the state had to bail them out.
ouch not quite how the free market was supposed to work.
bit of a blow to the old ego. no need to worry, as bankers know how to salve the pain of a bruised and battered ego: bonuses. big bonuses.

strangely at a time when the economy is in the toilet and the state is up to its ears with debt (mostly because of having to bail out the financial institutions) the idea that a few bankers could line their pockets and live in hog heaven didn’t sit well with quite a lot of people. mostly those people were the ones who had to get on average salaries or jobs that are advertised as meets national minimum wage.
so perhaps there is an element of the politics of envy involved in the criticism of the bankers bonuses, as many of the bankers supporters have claimed.
but it may be, and perhaps here i am going out on a limb, that people could see that no matter which way you sliced and diced it you could not easily justify big bonuses in companies that were posting large losses or were being propped up by taxpayers money. while the rest of the economy was busy tightening their belts it seemed only right and proper that the people who contributed to the economic clusterfuck also had to do their bit of scrimping and saving.

nope to ask them to do that would be unjust and unfair.

so the government decided that the only way around this was to levy a windfall tax on the bonuses. up went the cry of horror. you can’t do that. what will we live on if our bonuses are taxed heavily? lots of wailing from the city.
the other thing the government has done is to raise income tax to 50% for the highest earners. why? well to get some money back into the government’s coffers to pay back some of the debt they have taken on in order to bail out the banks. crikey the gnashing of teeth and the assertion that you just can’t do that sort of thing, as it will mean the great and the good, the best of the best will leave. (personally i can’t wait to be in that 50% tax bracket.)

based on the outcry from the financial services one would have thought that their first born had been sacrificed and the rest of the family had to go around with armbands with a big £ sign on them so we could all point and go “banker”.

the result of these two measures would be catastrophic said financial commentators. the best in the industry would leave and go elsewhere, this would be the ‘best’ who got them into trouble in the first place? you can’t expect these financial heroes to work for just their basic salary, they need the bonus, they need that incentive to get out there and take risks in order to justify their bonuses. which when it works is fine, when it goes tits up isn’t fine. except when you are a banker when you expect your bonus come what may.
so lots of threats about how all these financial brains would go and work elsewhere.
do you know what? if this were a patocracy there would be a simple solution to this, the policy would be simple: “fuck off cunts”.
sadly such decisive political action is unlikely to take place just yet.

what made the bleating harder to take was that every other commentator couldn’t help but say “these are pointless moves anyway as most banks and individuals know how to avoid paying the windfall or the tax.”
what was unsaid was that the reason why there was so much complaining and whinging from the financial sector wasn’t so much that they were being asked to pay a little extra in the form of a windfall tax or additional income tax, but because they were being asked to pay it.
tax accountants around the country were rubbing their hands with glee as they began to kerching the work that would be coming their way.
bankers on the other hand just had to get out a sob story about how it was unfair that they be asked to pay because they got a bonus – didn’t we all know that they deserved it after the year they had?
it wasn’t the money that mattered – no what seemed to matter was that someone had asked/threatened to take some of their money away from them. they are entitled to it, and no one can stand in the way of it.
poor bankers.

just when it was all dying down and being forgotten the bosses of the banks pretty much all decided to pass on their bonuses for this year, but the bonuses would have to be paid out to all the important staff. it was contractual, so they had to pay. (of course banks have never changed how they do business at the drop of the hat when it comes to their customers – so i guess that is a different type of contract).

currently the royal bank of scotland is reporting a loss of £3.6 billion. pretty bad one would say. not that bad if you work for them because a number of very lucky staff are going to benefit from the £1.3 billion bonus payouts.
the usual reasons were trotted out to justify this large amount of bonus payments – it is all about rewarding and retaining the best staff they all say (they generally being employment consultants who work in the financial sector and who seem to have a vested interest in keeping remuneration packages as high as possible). naturally the definition of ‘best’ seems to be one that is very loose, as ‘best’ implies top notch and top notch doesn’t get you the disaster of the last couple of years where banks have had to go cap in hand to governments around the world to bail them out.
with reference to their lower bonus payouts than other banks stephen hester, chief executive of royal bank of scotland, explained "we've had a small experiment in this respect... some of our best-performing people have been leaving in their thousands…”

there are several points that come out of this. i find it hard to believe that any organization has thousands of best-performing staff, unless you stretch best to mean adequate and doing their job.
secondly, and ironically, royal bank of scotland performed much better than expected this year, and according to mr. hester has done it without ‘thousands of his best’ which proves that his best, wasn’t all that hot and the reserve team has done a much better job.
thirdly if thousands of people have left rbs – they are only doing it for the money, they want to get paid more and get bigger bonuses (and let’s be fair you can’t blame them for that we would all do the same). in effect there is a surplus of staff they have all buggered off from one company and gone looking for work elsewhere. in the real world too many staff fighting for the same amount of jobs means wages are pushed down. doesn’t seem to be the case in the financial world.
fourthly there can only be so many high paying, high-powered jobs – so what happens when all of those are filled? what do the bankers do then?

the crucial argument that gets made all the time when it comes to paying out the bonus is that the bankers deserve it. the economy depends on them (which is why the banks were able to take risks – they knew they would be bailed out) they are doing an important job, that only a select few can do and because there are only a few who can do it then they should reap the rewards.
and if they can’t reap the rewards then they will leave the country and go elsewhere.
need i remind you what would happen in a patocracy? they would be told to “fuck off cunts”.
why?
simply put i don’t think it is that complex a job (not saying i could do it, i can barely make sure i have enough money in my pocket to do the shopping) just that i don’t think it is not beyond the wit of man to train people to do the job. i am sure there are a lot of graduates who would jump at the chance of a decent salary, sure they might want to move on and earn more money elsewhere, but as i say in reality there is only a limited number of those type of jobs out there.

failing all of that the simplest solution is one that the banks have been using for a long time in other parts of their service – outsource their financial trading to india. lots of quality graduates out there let them do it all and let them do it cheaper.
let’s be honest it is a win win situation for the banks. one they get the job done very well and at a much better price than they were paying previously. two with the jobs outsourced they get the sympathy of the public back again.

see it is win win for them.

i should be in charge.

samaritan

every now and then i do a good deed. i know, i know it hardly puts me in the nobel peace prize category. call me parable pat.
there i am in the local newsagent. i am chewing the fat, shooting the shit, setting the world to rights. when my flow is interrupted by a request: “can you show me how to get to x?”
the street name rang a bell, but we couldn’t place it. so we consulted one of the shop’s a-zs (the newsagent being a good egg and generous chap). (a digression here: as i get older i am finding the a-z a more and more mocking publication as it cries out – you need new glasses.)
road found, journey planned, directions written down, explanation given.
it didn’t take a genius to realise that my directions were falling on deaf ears. (yet another digression here – this is something that i find happens a lot when i am explaining things, obviously my english is not as clear as i think it is.)
decision time.
bloke needs to get to a street that isn’t far off my trip to the coffee shop in brick lane so i do the good samaritan bit: “don’t worry mate i am going in that direction, follow me.” well in for a penny in for a pound as they say.
it is an easy route as well: along whitechapel high street, up vallance road, into dunbridge street and just need to turn a corner and he is where he needs to be.
so we walk, we chat. he has come over from uxbridge, visiting his aunt. never been to this part of london before. i tell him i have not been that far west for years. he tells me he came to england in the 90s. we walk down vallance road. he tells me he was robbed on the tube over from uxbridge – his mortgage payment. i am sympathetic. he tells me he was punched in the face the other night. i am still sympathetic. he tells me he hasn’t eaten all day, i begin to think i have stumbled into a misery memoir.
we are closing in on pedley street when his phone rings. he tells them where we are, then hands me the phone so i can tell them where we are. a curious broken conversation ensues – not helped by the poor reception and the poor english at the other end.
upshot is get to bethnal green over ground station.
not a problem.
down dunbridge we go, to get to bethnal green station.
now we just have to wait for the call, he can’t call, as he has no credit.
while there i check the station map. shit we have walked in the wrong direction – didn’t need to come down dunbridge, should have turned left into cheshire street.
have to go back.
can tell he is a little worried about this. try to put him at ease.
he sees a fellow asian. they tell him to go in a different direction. i insist i am leading him right. he still looks worried, but is trusting.
he tells me how no one has been this kind to him before. i shrug it off as hyperbole.
we cross valance road again.
little further on and we find the street he needs to be on.
now just find the street number.
his phone rings.
another awkward conversation as i try to get him to tell them to come to the front door so we can see them (and they can see him), it falls on deaf ears, he hands phone to me, i tell them to come to the front door so he can see where he has to go.
eventually they do.
family reunited.
job done.
he thanks me, he is grateful. we shake hands and about to go our separate ways.
he says something about seeing him tomorrow. i think not.
i wander along cheshire street safe in the knowledge that i have done a good deed. like the samaritan i have been good to my neighbour, like the lion i have done a small kindness.
the coffee tasted better than usual.

but the real moral of the story? check the map first, write better instructions and don’t offer to be a guide.

twat

just listened to the member of parliament for macclesfield, sir nicholas winterton. what a total tosser.
a glowing example of a conservative mp.
(and i never thought i would say this) hats off to stephen nolan for giving him a grilling over his expenses and his upset at being told not to travel first class on the train. sir nicholas came across as a very petty person who doesn't want to mix with the common folk.
a traditional tory - i hope that everyone who sees him on the train doffs their caps to him, he deserves it - nay he demands it.

sir nick - you are the current holder of the 'twat award'.

motivation

winter olympics are on.
curling is featured. it is a big event because in a previous winter olympics team gb won a god. big woop!
sadly it isn’t all going to plan the two gb teams have lost a game (still time for them to get through to the final though).
of course such a loss is a good excuse for the radio to drag out a motivational specialist to give us all tips on how to turn our lives around.

the, oddly, less than confident motivational guru basically said it is all about visualisation. you become what you think you are (in sociology it is called a self-fulfilling prophecy; darn i could have turned that degree into gold).
hypochondriacs are ill because they think about being ill (though it could be argued that they are excellent visualisers).
if you lose it is because you think you will lose.
winners think about winning.
so all that talk about putting a 'game face on', 'being a tiger' or 'eyes on the prize' all serve a purpose.

if you take anything away from this blog it is that you too can be a winner – if you just picture yourself there at the top, clutching gold. you are number 1, don’t just dream the dream live it.

what have i taken from this nugget of wisdom? i now know why people call me a wanker.

inflation

infaltion has gone up.
the governor of the bank of england has to write to the government to explain why it has moved beyond the agreed limits.
so the vat rate has returned to its normal level. check. it was expected. move on no worries here.
mmm price of oil has risen. one of those peaks and trough things. not too much to worry about there. well at least not in the short term - oil maybe running out on the planet - but hey let's not worry as we can be sure that all those oil companies who have been making record profit have been doing their level best to find alternatives. of course they have, haven't they?

hold on what is this?
price of cauliflower has gone up by 60% and has thus impacted on the rate of inflation.

crikey i am just pleased that they haven't included the cost of my regular coffee tipple - if they had then inflation would be in double figures.
coffee shops: the new robber barons.

pointless

we all do pointless things.
currently i am engaged in two pointless things.
the first of them is to work through the 19 days worth of music i have on my ipod and then when i have done that delete it all and start again. i seem to have a lot of laurie anderson on the ipod.

the other pointless thing i am doing is reading a book.
not that reading a book is pointless. i love reading books, i love owning books, i love looking at books, i love holding books, i love the smell of books. oh hell i just love books.
now i don't make any claim to the quality of my reading, mostly it is graphic novels and genre fiction.
there is little that compares to finding a new author, especially one that has a back catalogue.
so years ago i tried a james patterson 'alex cross' novel. i'd enjoyed the alex cross movie i had seen. patterson is incredibly popular. the two things together seemed to indicate that there was a good chance i would like the book.
it was shit.
very shit.
total shit.
so patterson was never going to make it to my list of authors to read.

fast-forward a few years.
i am in sainsbury's checking out their book section. there are times when they have a nice bargain.
there is one of the latest james patterson books. i say latest as patterson has turned his name and fame into a factory operation. several series are co-authored. it means he can have several bestsellers on the go at the time. curiosity got the better of me. so i had a look. it is part of a new series of books featuring a new york detective with ten kids, yes 10 kids: the brady bunch in nypd blue. it is written in a pacey first person style.

so what is the pointless thing i am doing?
i am reading it while it is on the sainsbury’s shelf. the co-author, michael ledwidge, has done nothing to improve the style or quality of the book. even with speed-reading it i think i am wasting too much time in sainsbury’s.

but it is one of life’s little pointless tasks.

metal

happy birthday heavy metal.
40 years ago today black sabbath released their genre defining album and the world was a better place.
40 years of air guitar.
long may it live.
woooooooooooargh.

lottery

the forthcoming euro lottery might be the biggest ever lottery pay out in the uk, and i would be lying if i didn't say i hope it is me (in it to win it).
at camelot there is an advisor who is there to help you decide what you will do with your winnings.
spend it comes to mind.
i can't believe that anyone who does the lottery - hasn't planned what they will do with their winnings.

i remember when my mum did her first lottery. she didn't win. he question was, did she keep hold of that ticket for next week? she was a tad upset to discover she had to buy a new one each week. then there would be the conversations that would start off with: "wouldn't it be nice to win £5000. i wouldn't say no to £10000... £25k would be lovely". as the conversation progressed so would the amount my mum would have liked to win. she never did with that £1 million, £5 million or even that £10 million.

i know what i would do with my winnings, but i will share that with you when i win the big one.

camelot suggest that you go on holiday to mull over your options if you have a big win.
so they are telling you to start spending straight away. good for them.

twat

it always worries me when i agree with the conservative party, though not as much as i am frightened that i will agree with the daily mail. yet here i am thinking that the conservatives have it right with their demand that john healey, labour’s housing minister, apologises for his comment that for some people having their house repossessed "can be the best option".
that he also said it on a day when repossessions hit a 14-year high, either shows callousness on the part of the minister or, worse, demonstrates an idea in government that they can ‘justify’ repossessions. neither is something you want, or expect, from a labour government.
mr. healey is right that repossessions are a fact of life and that when you buy your own place there is always a risk that you may default on the payments. of course one of the problems of the housing market has been the move from the house being a place that people live in to the house becoming part of an investment portfolio.
even so you just don’t expect a labour minister to try to spin such an event into having a silver lining. i guess that when he is in his constituency surgery the level of support and advice he gives is: “smile, it might never happen (and if it did it will probably be the best option)”.

logically it follows that if you can’t keep up with the rent it will be the best option that you are made homeless. mr. healey must be cursing his bad luck not to be alive when the workhouse was still in existence, so he could say that ‘for some the workhouse can be the best option’.
perhaps i am being flippant.

the real problem with mr. healey’s statement is that it reminds you that members of parliament are in a very privileged position, they get paid a lot, they get hefty expenses, and when they lose their seat they also get a generous golden handshake. in short they don’t have the worries of most of us.
if you want a reason why there is a disinterest in parliamentary politics then you don’t have to look much further than the attitude of members of parliament like mr. healey.
if he were to lose his seat at the next election it can only be the best option.

1200

i have done 1200 of these things.
not sure if that is a good thing or not.

oh well many many more to come.