Well, it's been quite a baptism for the "new government", but clearly Gordon is not going to be up to it in the long run. He and his woefully talent-free team are almost certain to hit a few skiers within the first few months - possibly the collapse of the credit economy that he did so much to encourage, or yet more uneasy revelations about immigration and political gerrymandering. And the cash for gongs affair is still far from out of the way.
The only question is if David Cameron is going to drop the catch. Too bad the country remains so polarised where William Hague, the safest pair of debating hands on the opposition benches, and the best political talent left standing, is concerned.
The awful truth is that the public would probably vote for Chantelle Houghton in an effort to relieve the boredom that seems inevitable.
But watch this space. Whilst Tony was a subtle Scot, Gordon is the full blown wode-wearing, sporran swinging, claymore swishing thoroughly Caledonian thing. Remember readers, he occupies No 10 as the result of the thoroughly gerrymandered Scottish vote - not the English vote. Moreover, the Scots have their own regime, embarrassingly headed up by the next best political talent to Hague in the UK, the redoubtable Alex Salmond. It could well suit Alex to see Gordon trip up and land sporran-first in the thistle patch.
As interest rates continue to climb and our faux economy falters, the very Scottish and very dour Alistair Darling will be ruffling English feathers aplenty. Things are warming up.
Friday, July 06, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Feral reporting and unreliable evidence
The irony of Tony Blair bleating about the effects of a media that has been spun out of control has not been lost; but it is indeed far too easy for false information of all sorts to be posted and propagated without any consequences for those who post untrue and unverified information on social networks, discussion groups, and even the Wikipedia.
Such are the economic and time pressures of modern online media that even once-responsible publications have become lazy and increasingly fall for the simple option of repeating defamation found on the Internet: journalists even admit to writing features based on unverified Google results, and attempt to excuse themselves with the view that "well, everyone does it, don't they?"
Listen to this BBC Radio programme and you will quickly understand that this situation is spiralling out of control, as the range of false information extends from harmless fun, through satire, past clumsy invective and on to carefully orchestrated efforts at commercial espionage and detailed malicious character assassination.
"Trial by Google" has become one of the most dangerous aspects of Internet libertarianism, because phrases such as "there's no smoke without fire" still sum up the reaction from the vast majority of researchers who uncover something - anything - that a victim - corporate or private - would apparently not have wished to see posted in public. Google searches are now very widely used by police, tax authorities, employers and a whole range of people and organisations for whom the line of least resistance will always form a crucial part of any character judgement.
Any attempt by those defamed to complain and demand retraction are generally met with a reaction of "Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?"
So a wholly baseless and slanderous accusation can be posted for free with a cloak of anonymity in a web cafe, but any legal redress involves considerable cost in time and money from the outset in order to prove to the various ISPs involved that you are serious.
And even if you are able to pay £10k to a lawyer to start a response, let alone the full cost of a libel action which can run to £50k or more, the process can take a long time and spread across multiple international jurisdictions; so there is frequently absolutely nothing most people who are fraudulently defamed online can do, but grind their teeth. Even those who bring successful libel actions find that they are still the losers as such cases generally go unreported and, more often than not, the defamatory material which was the subject of the libel action remains on search engines. This site aims to set out a sane alternative where those who have been victims of false and vexatious cyberdefamation can state their case and begin to undo some of the harm done.
If you have been unfairly defamed online, doing nothing is not an option.
TMP is contemplating providing a web site to enable those for for whom an 8 point retraction hidden on page 54 does not quite make up for the consequences of 120 point page 3 defamation.
Such are the economic and time pressures of modern online media that even once-responsible publications have become lazy and increasingly fall for the simple option of repeating defamation found on the Internet: journalists even admit to writing features based on unverified Google results, and attempt to excuse themselves with the view that "well, everyone does it, don't they?"
Listen to this BBC Radio programme and you will quickly understand that this situation is spiralling out of control, as the range of false information extends from harmless fun, through satire, past clumsy invective and on to carefully orchestrated efforts at commercial espionage and detailed malicious character assassination.
"Trial by Google" has become one of the most dangerous aspects of Internet libertarianism, because phrases such as "there's no smoke without fire" still sum up the reaction from the vast majority of researchers who uncover something - anything - that a victim - corporate or private - would apparently not have wished to see posted in public. Google searches are now very widely used by police, tax authorities, employers and a whole range of people and organisations for whom the line of least resistance will always form a crucial part of any character judgement.
Any attempt by those defamed to complain and demand retraction are generally met with a reaction of "Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?"
So a wholly baseless and slanderous accusation can be posted for free with a cloak of anonymity in a web cafe, but any legal redress involves considerable cost in time and money from the outset in order to prove to the various ISPs involved that you are serious.
And even if you are able to pay £10k to a lawyer to start a response, let alone the full cost of a libel action which can run to £50k or more, the process can take a long time and spread across multiple international jurisdictions; so there is frequently absolutely nothing most people who are fraudulently defamed online can do, but grind their teeth. Even those who bring successful libel actions find that they are still the losers as such cases generally go unreported and, more often than not, the defamatory material which was the subject of the libel action remains on search engines. This site aims to set out a sane alternative where those who have been victims of false and vexatious cyberdefamation can state their case and begin to undo some of the harm done.
If you have been unfairly defamed online, doing nothing is not an option.
TMP is contemplating providing a web site to enable those for for whom an 8 point retraction hidden on page 54 does not quite make up for the consequences of 120 point page 3 defamation.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The EU: millstones for all
Whilst TMP is happy with the idea of a free trade zone, TMP is increasingly convinced that EU social engineering is a thoroughly bad thing, because as the recent Eurovision song contest proved yet again, the notion of any sort of European social unity is a dangerous farce amongst the tribal fiefdoms of the new Eastern states.
These Baltic and Balkan states will understandably extract the bits that suit them, and ignore the rest - like any sensible self-interested nation would. In fact, pretty much like all EU states but the naive UK have managed to do over the years.
The EU appears to be a completely outdated idea that was cooked up by the French and Germans to force their trading partners to suffer the same social costs as themselves, and thus reduce the competitiveness of all member nations. The motto might well have been "let my millstone be your millstone"
A level playing field for the "advanced nations of the West" to gang up on the USA might have made some sort of sense in the 60s when Europe and the US was some 10 years ahead of the rest of the world in most economic respects, and 20 years ahead of China and India, but the rest of the world now laughs at EU employment law and Health and Safety impositions, while piling up foreign currency reserves that could topple any economy of their choosing overnight.
These Baltic and Balkan states will understandably extract the bits that suit them, and ignore the rest - like any sensible self-interested nation would. In fact, pretty much like all EU states but the naive UK have managed to do over the years.
The EU appears to be a completely outdated idea that was cooked up by the French and Germans to force their trading partners to suffer the same social costs as themselves, and thus reduce the competitiveness of all member nations. The motto might well have been "let my millstone be your millstone"
A level playing field for the "advanced nations of the West" to gang up on the USA might have made some sort of sense in the 60s when Europe and the US was some 10 years ahead of the rest of the world in most economic respects, and 20 years ahead of China and India, but the rest of the world now laughs at EU employment law and Health and Safety impositions, while piling up foreign currency reserves that could topple any economy of their choosing overnight.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Global Warming (contd)
TMP is getting told off by the fluffy fringe who have swallowed all the scaremongering about global warming from politicians who are too embarrassed to admit the truth about the politics of energy.
Before we repent and buy into the propaganda, can someone please explain why there have been various ice ages in the past 100,000 years; and why parts of the British Isles enjoyed a Mediterranean climate at various times in the past 2000 years..? I don't believe Julius Caesar's legions drove around in Hummers, or that vast shoals of woolly mammoths taking a dip off Newfoundland managed to stall the gulf stream, did they?
Before we repent and buy into the propaganda, can someone please explain why there have been various ice ages in the past 100,000 years; and why parts of the British Isles enjoyed a Mediterranean climate at various times in the past 2000 years..? I don't believe Julius Caesar's legions drove around in Hummers, or that vast shoals of woolly mammoths taking a dip off Newfoundland managed to stall the gulf stream, did they?
Charity begins at home
TMP believes that many problems that have become intractable in the hands of traditional party politics have very simple common sense solutions for those who are prepared to dump the dogma and allow the people to decide how to spend their own money.
Perhaps the biggest "stealth challenge" now facing the UK is how to fix Gordon Brown's witless destruction of the pensions system without consideration of the consequences, and deal with the allied challenges of the growing need for social care solutions for the elderly. And the fact that social care is a function of local council budgets (now almost entirely Conservative controlled) should bother anyone that has observed the way the Labour government has been far too willing to gerrymander with the public purse across the country with regard to its own political interests.
The debate about the fairness of inheritance tax (IHT) tends to quickly align with the old class war arguments about the rich "getting away with it", whereas precious few estates where a freehold property is involved escape the £285k threshold. However, this has now become a major stealth tax during Gordon Brown's fiscal control, and we all know how keen politicians of any hue are when it comes to repealing any sort of tax, if they believe their opponents have already taken the PR hit.
Moreover, an enormous amount of skilled effort and energy goes into estate planning to try and mitigate this unseemly process of what we can only describe as state-sanctioned grave robbery.
So the TMP's simple solution is that any amount of an estate can be passed to the children and grandchildren of the deceased in the form of a pension and care fund for those children payable from age 55. This has several consequences apart from the obvious one of creating a massive care fund administered by the people who really care, it means that the money will generally be intelligently invested in a born-again pensions industry for the greater good.
God willing, that money will also remain out of political reach for all time. In fact, the rules of the scheme should make it plain that no party of any hue would ever be able to access the fund under any circumstances whatever. Not even to fund the gap in the 2012 Olympics budget.
With the NHS spending £80bn a year (it was £30bn in 1997), Defence running at £30bn a year, Education £60bn (yes, we are always shocked when we consider the value for money that figure represents) is there a sentient being left out there that could seriously argue the fundamental principle that we simply cannot trust politicians to spend our money wisely?
Perhaps the biggest "stealth challenge" now facing the UK is how to fix Gordon Brown's witless destruction of the pensions system without consideration of the consequences, and deal with the allied challenges of the growing need for social care solutions for the elderly. And the fact that social care is a function of local council budgets (now almost entirely Conservative controlled) should bother anyone that has observed the way the Labour government has been far too willing to gerrymander with the public purse across the country with regard to its own political interests.
The debate about the fairness of inheritance tax (IHT) tends to quickly align with the old class war arguments about the rich "getting away with it", whereas precious few estates where a freehold property is involved escape the £285k threshold. However, this has now become a major stealth tax during Gordon Brown's fiscal control, and we all know how keen politicians of any hue are when it comes to repealing any sort of tax, if they believe their opponents have already taken the PR hit.
Moreover, an enormous amount of skilled effort and energy goes into estate planning to try and mitigate this unseemly process of what we can only describe as state-sanctioned grave robbery.
So the TMP's simple solution is that any amount of an estate can be passed to the children and grandchildren of the deceased in the form of a pension and care fund for those children payable from age 55. This has several consequences apart from the obvious one of creating a massive care fund administered by the people who really care, it means that the money will generally be intelligently invested in a born-again pensions industry for the greater good.
God willing, that money will also remain out of political reach for all time. In fact, the rules of the scheme should make it plain that no party of any hue would ever be able to access the fund under any circumstances whatever. Not even to fund the gap in the 2012 Olympics budget.
With the NHS spending £80bn a year (it was £30bn in 1997), Defence running at £30bn a year, Education £60bn (yes, we are always shocked when we consider the value for money that figure represents) is there a sentient being left out there that could seriously argue the fundamental principle that we simply cannot trust politicians to spend our money wisely?
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