Dead

Speaker of The House of Commons

Good luck John Bercow!

The Nasty Party

Good to see that bad taste on the internet isn't restricted to the Tories and strange members of Conservative Future. A chum pointed me in the direction of UKIP's former Director of Communications who stood for parliament for them in 2001 and 2005 so is probably still an active member who saw fit to take the piss out of 228 dead people on the Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

Bill Killed

and in a kinky way!
I guess this scene from Kung Fu seems relevant:

Master Po: Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Young Caine (Carradine): I hear the water, I hear the birds.
Po: Do you hear your own heartbeat?
Young Caine (Carradine): No.

Integrity and MPs

I was talking with some chums over the weekend and inevitably the topic of MPs and their expenses came up. One of the guys mentioned Iain Dale's blog and his "integrity pledge" and whilt first I had just dismissed it as an empty pledge made when a candidate knows they are unlikely to win a seat, it played on my mind a while longer, particularly the point about second jobs.
BAsically, my view on this is that it is silly to ban second jobs since they give MPs vital real world exposure when they are closeted away in Westminster and these people need to get jobs once they leave parliament. Further to that, I believe that if Iain Dale were selected to parliament now, he would find it tricky to stick to his pledge...
Why? I hear you ask.
Well...Iain's blog is nicely monetised and attracts a very healthy number of readers from whom he can make some dollar through advertising, Additionally Iain makes money from blog related TV appearances and from selling books through his website's Amazon links. So on becoming an MP, would Iain shut down his blog?
There are 3 options I guess - shut the blog, keep the blog running as is, keep the blog running and de-monetise it, hence making it non-financially rewarding and hence not a job.
However, by keeping a blog running, Iain would essentially be keeping a business running, waiting until he leaves parliament when he could re-monetise it which is little different from MPs undertaking part time consultancy or legal work to keep their skills fresh. If Iain shut down the blog then his readers wouldn't automatically return to him 5 years later as they would have moved on. It would make sense for Iain to therefore keep the blog running unless he got a safe seat which would keep him secure for life.
If Iain, or any other MP is selected to a marginal constituency then they need to be aware that their job is quite likely to be made redundant after 4 or 5 years and so they need to keep their skills relevant and keep their hand in business for when they leave. My much laboured point is therefore, if Iain were to keep his blog going whilst in parliament, isn't this essentially having a second job?
This blog is looking like a bit of an Iain Dale obsession but the great man is at the heart of the Tory blogosphere and so a lot of interesting angles lead to him!

Geordie Saviour

So Alan Shearer is still the Geordie Messiah, and despite relegation is still the man to turn things around at Newcastle. When will people realise that you can't just hire an ex-player with no decent managerial experience. Mike Ashley showed his confidence in Shearer with the quote

"Bringing Alan Shearer back to Newcastle United was the best decision I have made"

What results is he looking at?
Shearer managed for 8 games, losing 6, drawing one game with Stoke and beating relegation bound Middlesborough. Come on..that is shit. Compare that with his predecessor Joe Kinnear, an experienced manager who played 23, won 5, drew 10 and lost 11. Kinnear drew 1-1 with Chelsea, Shearer lost 2-0 to Chelsea (at St James Park).
Look at other recent player-to-manager movers - Ince (sacked), Keane (sacked), Southgate (relegated), Adams (sacked) - the list goes on. All of the sacked people were replaced with good old fashioned football managers who kept their teams up and rescued them from the mess these players had left them in.
Hey ho, give Shearer a few million and the gravy train goes on.

Eastenders

So the BBC are being all edgy and modern:

Gay Muslim story for EastEnders

Syed's mother has been trying to set him up with women
EastEnders is to tackle a storyline which will feature a Muslim man embarking upon a gay affair.

Newcomer Syed Masood, played by Marc Elliott, will fall for openly gay man Christian Clarke (John Partridge) and the pair will share an on-screen kiss.

The plot is expected to hit TV screens from next month.

"I think EastEnders would be doing the programme a disservice if they didn't give a voice to various communities," Elliot told the BBC Asian Network.

"I think that's really important because I think London is a very ethnically diverse multicultural place, and EastEnders has a job to reflect that in the storylines it gives people and the characters they have on board."

His character, who joined the cast recently, has been trying to make amends with his family.

His mother Zainab Masood, played by Nina Wadia, has also been seen trying to set him up with various women from "good families".

However, the gay storyline has been criticised by Asghar Bokhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee.

"The Muslim community deserves a character that represents them to the wider public because Islamophobia is so great right now," he said.

"There's a lack of understanding of Muslims already and I think EastEnders really lost an opportunity to present a normal friendly Muslim character to the British public."

But the show's executive producer Diedrick Santer said it was important to tackle issues which reflect real life.

"It's really important that on EastEnders we give the Masoods big stories.

"Sometimes there's a danger of being too careful with black or Asian characters that we might go into territories that might offend.

"But it seems to me if we steer away from any controversy, they don't stand a chance of being a great EastEnders family - they'll just be in their kitchen unit making curries for years and years and that's not going to be very interesting."

Yusuf Wehebi from Imaan - an organisation that supports gay Muslims - agreed with him.

"It is high time that the invisible minority became a visible minority," he said.

"It is entirely possible to be Muslim and gay and there's many of us in Britain today.

"It is great that the BBC have had the courage to raise such an important social issue in our society today."

So how will this plotline pan out? An honour killing? Stabbing and burning? Or maybe his family will come to accept his diversity in a modern and pluralistic way...I wonder which one..and which one is actually representative of modern Islam in London.

Money Laundering

It is interesting to compare parliament's current difficulties over expenses with the much maligned un-regulated financial markets. This crisis didn't happen overnight - the chap in charge of the fees office told Michael Martin that there was a problem more than five years ago.
Whilst claiming these expenses isn't money laundering (its more like theft), the general case applies that in banking:

If you assist a money launderer – max 14 years’ imprisonment, a fine, or
Tipping off a money launderer – max 5 years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both;
Failure to Report a money launderer – max 5 years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both

Michael Martin has clearly failed to act upon reports of theft and fraud yet he faces no sanction. So much for bankers taking lessons from politicians.

Homophobic Conservative?

Nice to see that sly homophobic references are alive and well in the Tory blogosphere. Donal Blaney, that cuddly figure from YBF, has posted about MPs expenses and dropped in a not-so-subtle jibe at Alan Duncan's sexuality.
I'm no politically correct prude but why juxtaposition Alan Duncan's name with the phrase 'Uphill Gardener'
He has a track record of this kind of homophobia which isn't a nice thing to see.

Expenses

Its all very simple. If they know claiming all this money is wrong now, then surely they knew it was wrong when they spent ordinary people's taxes doing up, remortgaging and profiting from their second homes whilst literally getting fat at our expense. There should be criminal proceedings.

Hazel Blears is a cunt

Hazel Blears was on the news today trotting out the same line about her claims being in line with the rules of the house. She isn't the worst of them but since she has dared to show her stealing little ginger face, she can get my ire this morning. She redesignated her second home 3 times in a year in order to get money out of the taxpayer. She is a thieving cunt, if not in law, at least in the spirit of decency.
Then look at her own website: Lots of support for homeowners there!

Burning Books

Further to yesterday's post, it seems that Michael Savage is planning to sue Jaqui Smith for banning him. Reading what he is accused of, he doesn't seem to have said too much which marks him out from many thousands of people.
He famously described Autism as:

"a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out"

and called the Koran a "book of hate".
Its nothing that controversial really.
Are we going to ban Denis Leary, the popular comedian and Obama supporter who said

"There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can't compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks... to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don't (care) what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you — your kid is not autistic. He's just stupid. Or lazy. Or both."

I don't particularly agree with him but where do we draw the line?

Nanny State

The BBC report today that a list has been published containing the names of all those people who are banned from entering the UK. On this list is the usual few oddballs and nutters but the language in the report does suggest a worrying trend.

Talk show host Michael Savage - real name Michael Weiner - is also excluded. His views on immigration, Islam, rape and autism have caused great offence in America.

I'm pretty sure there isn't a law here against causing offence. In a free society I don't want my government saying what I can or can't be offended by. This kind of thing does our country no favours.

Education

I posted a week or so ago about Universities and the expected rise in applications to Britain’s ‘New Universities’ caused by that cause-all, "The Credit Crunch". Since then I have been giving some more thought to the state of our education system and it isn’t too good I’m afraid.
This isn’t meant as a party political point but the Labour government has set itself a target of getting 50% of people into University, claiming that in the modern world economy we need an educated workforce. To some extent this is true since every day I study alongside students from China, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Germany, France, Greece, Russia and a whole host of other countries which shows that Brits need to get their smarts up as well. However, the problem lies with how we do this and I believe that we are taking totally the wrong approach.

Sure we need brighter young people but there is no point trying to achieve this by creating more University places since this is way too late. Chinese students doing Maths or Physics at A-Level stage are doing a syllabus which is on a par with our undergrad courses in the same subjects. We are churning out thousands upon thousands of GCSE and A-Level graduates who don’t have the knowledge to compete with their global peers but in the UK we send them to University, give them a degree and tell them that they are the equal of any country’s graduates.

If more money was invested at GCSE and A-Level stage and people were allowed to fail here, then students would have higher expectations and gradually improve rather than the usual cycle of grade inflation we face each year.
Maybe in 10-15 years we will have 50% of young people able to go to University because they have the requisite abilities and possess the logical and reasoning skills to study at this higher level but we are deluding ourselves if we think we have loads of brainy grads just because we farm more people through Universities.

Iain Dale's Downfall

Got bored of revision this afternoon. The subtitling timing isn't perfect as this was my first play with video stuff.

Existentialism

Today Hillary Clinton announced that Pakistan is under attack from 'existential threats'. God help the good people of that far-flung land if Nietzche and Heidegger attack!

Thicko Swarm

I see this morning that all the old polytechnics are celebrating their success at attracting more applicants. This is bad news.
It is bad enough that these silly little further education colleges get the number of students that they normally do but any further rise in applications is going to be made up of a large number of people who are not suited to higher education, should be doing manual or secretarial work and are gonna find themselves doing that in 3 years time with a few fancy letters after their names and £20k in debt.

Good day to bury bad news

So on the day of the shittest budget for 3 generations, the police just happen to announce that all 12 people they arrested in a high profile operation in Greater Manchester are all being released without charge. I guess that won't get much attention then...how lucky..

All hunky-dory then?

The BBC seem eager to paint a rosy picture of today's budget with this puff-piece. What a government briefed, loved up pile of bollocks. According to this, everything is fine as they are hiring some more people to work in the job centre to service all the dole-hounds that this govt is creating every second of every day. Also if you're fired they will help with your mortgage for a couple of months and all will be sunshine and flowers since they're only taxing the 1% of people who have bothered to make some money in this country.

Where's the critical analysis of tax and spend policy? Where is the inciteful criticism of billions of borrowing? Nowhere on the pissing BBC.

Sentencing Policy

Serial sicko John Worboys has been sentenced today and under the terms of this sentence may be eligible for release after just eight years so long as he gives a convincing sob story to the parole board. Whilst it won't make any difference to his victims, might it make sense for the judge to have been a bit innovative and on his release mandated that he should be banned from driving for 10 or 20 years? This would go some fair way to ensuring he won't re-offend as if he is caught driving he can have his parole revoked and sent back to the slammer. Just a thought