Vince Cable's modification of his assessment of Gordon Brown from Mr Bean to Mr Has Bean was typically insightful.
However, the problem that GB is quite so obviously now such a painfully "sub-prime minister" is very much the nation's problem, not just the Labour Party's. We have almost certainly reached that critical point where anything is better than the present encumbant, and most people are starting to suspect that it could be no worse with the PG Tips chimp in charge.
Although there is no real evidence to support the notion (yet) TMP has a sneaking suspicion that the boy Cameron might just turn out to be seriously good contender at a time when we need something well above the average to cope with the shambolic state of just about everything in this once great nation. There is nothing at all amongst the shambolic collection of politicos on the other side that even begins to look like a leader.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Don't have your say... we're the BBC
The BBC's "have you say" bulletin board that discusses topical news and events is watched over by Auntie as thoroughly as you might expect, with every "debate" getting a fair number of rejected comments.
Despite the best efforts of the BBCs censors, the generally unsympathetic tone of the silent majority venting its spleen on the serial stupidity and foolishness of the PC left, manages to prevail; much to the chagrin, no doubt, of the Guardianistas that otherwise rule the output the BBC to try and ensure that it avoids populism as far as possible. But let's be honest, with a process of sanitisation like this, the only comments we're really interested in reading are the rejected ones, such as this that was sent to TMP the other day by a bemused poster who wondered just what rule had been broken:
"I was going to suggest that we should put Robert Mugabe in charge of the 2012 Olympic judging, then there's a chance we might win everything, and have a thoroughly entertaining time. But now it seems that even that old rogue can't fiddle the books for ever. Maybe instead we can introduce "postal judging", with the submissions opened in Birmingham?"
TMP is considering putting up a BBS system where BBC rejects can be guaranteed a place to post their messages...
Despite the best efforts of the BBCs censors, the generally unsympathetic tone of the silent majority venting its spleen on the serial stupidity and foolishness of the PC left, manages to prevail; much to the chagrin, no doubt, of the Guardianistas that otherwise rule the output the BBC to try and ensure that it avoids populism as far as possible. But let's be honest, with a process of sanitisation like this, the only comments we're really interested in reading are the rejected ones, such as this that was sent to TMP the other day by a bemused poster who wondered just what rule had been broken:
"I was going to suggest that we should put Robert Mugabe in charge of the 2012 Olympic judging, then there's a chance we might win everything, and have a thoroughly entertaining time. But now it seems that even that old rogue can't fiddle the books for ever. Maybe instead we can introduce "postal judging", with the submissions opened in Birmingham?"
TMP is considering putting up a BBS system where BBC rejects can be guaranteed a place to post their messages...
We so told you so (contd)
Once again TMP's prescience in warning of the scope of this extraordinarily mismanaged government's sinister intentions is proven. News that a local council has used the draconian RIP anti-terror laws to spy on an innocent couple over the matter of schools placement, highlights several of the points we have been making....
1) Local Councils employ far too many people with nothing better to do
2) The education system in Labour's Britain is now so hopeless and broken, that local councils assume that people will be will to break the law in order to try and obtain the best option for their children, and avoid the many "sink schools" that now exist.
3) The powers of local councils and many other petty officials to spy and engage in covert surveillance on members of the public have got completely out of control.
The conclusion we should all draw is that Islamic terrorists have won; they have clearly destroyed the traditional way of life in this country by scaring us all into allowing a largely unaccountable government to enact a series of measures - inspired by minorities - that would impress the Nazis.
Seig Heil! Gordon...
1) Local Councils employ far too many people with nothing better to do
2) The education system in Labour's Britain is now so hopeless and broken, that local councils assume that people will be will to break the law in order to try and obtain the best option for their children, and avoid the many "sink schools" that now exist.
3) The powers of local councils and many other petty officials to spy and engage in covert surveillance on members of the public have got completely out of control.
The conclusion we should all draw is that Islamic terrorists have won; they have clearly destroyed the traditional way of life in this country by scaring us all into allowing a largely unaccountable government to enact a series of measures - inspired by minorities - that would impress the Nazis.
Seig Heil! Gordon...
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Enough of the people, enough of the time
Politics relies heavily on the manipulation of human psychology, and stops just short of the tricks of the religious faith trade. However, politics and religion share the tactic that if the lie is big enough and restated frequently with sufficient conviction, some people will believe it.
This was of course neatly summed up in Abraham Lincoln's observation: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Honest Abe might also have added the thought "...and if you can fool enough of the people enough of the time, you will get elected".
And that, TMP suspects, is the sole motivation for politicians scrambling up greasy poles in the broken and discredited UK electoral system, and why an unelected House Of Lords remains a vital part of the nation's ability to question the type of inept elected government such that we currently possess.
Virtually assuring the end of the Lords, some of the people who could not be fooled all the time in the shape of it's weighty Economic Affairs Committee (whose members include two ex-chancellors and other Cabinet members) took eight months to consider government immigration policies, and declared them to be based on bogus assumptions.
Their Lordships made short work of the alleged "overall benefit" arguments, and stopped just short of accusing the government of the ultimate act of gerrymandering, by shipping in voters that are traditionally expected to favour the Labour Party, ever since the politics of bogeymen built on the myths of Enoch Powell that were drawn along party lines.
Their Lordships' remarks were most likely tempered by the expectation that the usual accusations of racism and intolerance would be levelled at anyone daring to question the sacred dogma of Labour's unfettered approach to multiculturalism - but the best estimate of the numbers involved in the random immigration shambles roughly equate to the apparent housing shortage. However, any focus on house prices needs to bear in mind that house prices are substantially fixed by land prices, which are in turn "fixed" by the rationing effect of inept local authority planning policies - and the policies of central government that seem perennially incapable of spreading the action in the economy beyond the South East corner.
The government's initial response came from one of Brown's B Team, Immigration Minister Liam Byrne, who said the report confirmed the government's assessment that migration had added £6bn to the economy in 2006. "That's important in any one's book".
That's about the amount that Gordon Brown wasted in the stroke of a pen when selling the country's gold reserves at the bottom of the market, plus annual parking fines; and a mere drop in the ocean of embarrassment that engulfed King and Darling in the Northern Rock fiasco. In the Great Scheme of Things, £6bn is bugger all when set against the problems we have now stored up for a nation that appears to be sailing into recession.
Immigration (however many there really are) over many years has changed the way of British life in many areas of the country where the settlers have chosen to "consolidate their communities" as a bolster against the need to become integrated with the rest of British society. A trip around Golders Green will remind us that has been going on for many years, and can be managed in a way that can provide delightful choices of ethnic cuisine and economic self sufficiency, but does not involve attempts to blow up London landmarks or murder British citizens. However, it is the unfettered immigration of Labour's past ten years that has enabled and encouraged fanatics who openly seek to destroy British society in course of a misplaced religious fervour that requires them to try and impose their own belief system - a whatever personal cost. And using our social fund cash in the process..!
Yet the mistreatment of the loyal Ghurkhas (and their handful of votes) who have served the country continues to produce examples of meanness of spirit that perfectly illustrates the curious autism being displayed by the social misfits now at the top of government.
Surely this discredited and inept administration cannot survive much longer? Can it...?
This was of course neatly summed up in Abraham Lincoln's observation: "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Honest Abe might also have added the thought "...and if you can fool enough of the people enough of the time, you will get elected".
And that, TMP suspects, is the sole motivation for politicians scrambling up greasy poles in the broken and discredited UK electoral system, and why an unelected House Of Lords remains a vital part of the nation's ability to question the type of inept elected government such that we currently possess.
Virtually assuring the end of the Lords, some of the people who could not be fooled all the time in the shape of it's weighty Economic Affairs Committee (whose members include two ex-chancellors and other Cabinet members) took eight months to consider government immigration policies, and declared them to be based on bogus assumptions.
Their Lordships made short work of the alleged "overall benefit" arguments, and stopped just short of accusing the government of the ultimate act of gerrymandering, by shipping in voters that are traditionally expected to favour the Labour Party, ever since the politics of bogeymen built on the myths of Enoch Powell that were drawn along party lines.
Their Lordships' remarks were most likely tempered by the expectation that the usual accusations of racism and intolerance would be levelled at anyone daring to question the sacred dogma of Labour's unfettered approach to multiculturalism - but the best estimate of the numbers involved in the random immigration shambles roughly equate to the apparent housing shortage. However, any focus on house prices needs to bear in mind that house prices are substantially fixed by land prices, which are in turn "fixed" by the rationing effect of inept local authority planning policies - and the policies of central government that seem perennially incapable of spreading the action in the economy beyond the South East corner.
The government's initial response came from one of Brown's B Team, Immigration Minister Liam Byrne, who said the report confirmed the government's assessment that migration had added £6bn to the economy in 2006. "That's important in any one's book".
That's about the amount that Gordon Brown wasted in the stroke of a pen when selling the country's gold reserves at the bottom of the market, plus annual parking fines; and a mere drop in the ocean of embarrassment that engulfed King and Darling in the Northern Rock fiasco. In the Great Scheme of Things, £6bn is bugger all when set against the problems we have now stored up for a nation that appears to be sailing into recession.
Immigration (however many there really are) over many years has changed the way of British life in many areas of the country where the settlers have chosen to "consolidate their communities" as a bolster against the need to become integrated with the rest of British society. A trip around Golders Green will remind us that has been going on for many years, and can be managed in a way that can provide delightful choices of ethnic cuisine and economic self sufficiency, but does not involve attempts to blow up London landmarks or murder British citizens. However, it is the unfettered immigration of Labour's past ten years that has enabled and encouraged fanatics who openly seek to destroy British society in course of a misplaced religious fervour that requires them to try and impose their own belief system - a whatever personal cost. And using our social fund cash in the process..!
Yet the mistreatment of the loyal Ghurkhas (and their handful of votes) who have served the country continues to produce examples of meanness of spirit that perfectly illustrates the curious autism being displayed by the social misfits now at the top of government.
Surely this discredited and inept administration cannot survive much longer? Can it...?
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Why Majorities Matter
The more traditional politicians talk about democracy, the less this moribund talent-free zone appears to understand the meaning of the term. Some probably think it means "one person (ie electoral unit) one vote", but nearly all are agreed that they don't want the will of the majority to prevail above their personal partisan judgement. Populism has become a dirty word in Westminster and Brussels, and is used by (delegated) politicians of all ilks as a term of exasperation when asked why they persistently refuse to do the obvious, when it is demonstrably the will of the majority.
Not surprisingly, a recent big issue decided by the usual EU cabal was the latest extension of treaty powers and impositions. Did you or I ever expect that the Common Market - sold originally to us an extension of a free trade area - was going to result in the imposition of a Eurostate and its many impositions on our personal freedoms and choices that we now have today?
Let's take the opportunity to update a classic Monty Python line: "We didn't expect the Spanish... French, German, Italian, Belgian, Irish, Greek, Portuguese etc. Inquisition..."
The manipulation of the majority by a conniving collective of minorities has been the outstanding feature of late 20th century politics. One thing that this motley gang of fellow travellers can easily agree upon is that a policy of "divide and rule" has delivered each faction a power and influence that is wholly unrepresentative of its absolute position in the popular vote. They even managed to con a gullible world into demonising all who question their sacred mantra of "inclusiveness" - despite inclusiveness being the antithesis of the will of the majority!
One signal consequence of this form of minority rule is the way that the West has allowed the actions of a few extremists dictate the policy that now goes under the guise of "anti terror" legislation. In order to address a "tiny minority" of disruptive terrorists, everyone is treated with equal suspicion and equally inconvenienced. Ironically, the line-ups for x-ray machines at ports may be the last vestige of democracy where we (nearly) all get the same treatment.
Is it too much to hope for a political party that offers to listen to the majority of the people, and then actually do what the majority asks - regardless of baggage, dogma and distraction? We certainly seem to have the technology to conduct rolling popular votes on just about anything.
Do you trust your fellow subjects to take the opportunity seriously and not be daft? It would certainly put politicians on their mettle to continuously present the arguments for consideration - they might even earn their salaries, expenses and pensions at last.
Not surprisingly, a recent big issue decided by the usual EU cabal was the latest extension of treaty powers and impositions. Did you or I ever expect that the Common Market - sold originally to us an extension of a free trade area - was going to result in the imposition of a Eurostate and its many impositions on our personal freedoms and choices that we now have today?
Let's take the opportunity to update a classic Monty Python line: "We didn't expect the Spanish... French, German, Italian, Belgian, Irish, Greek, Portuguese etc. Inquisition..."
The manipulation of the majority by a conniving collective of minorities has been the outstanding feature of late 20th century politics. One thing that this motley gang of fellow travellers can easily agree upon is that a policy of "divide and rule" has delivered each faction a power and influence that is wholly unrepresentative of its absolute position in the popular vote. They even managed to con a gullible world into demonising all who question their sacred mantra of "inclusiveness" - despite inclusiveness being the antithesis of the will of the majority!
One signal consequence of this form of minority rule is the way that the West has allowed the actions of a few extremists dictate the policy that now goes under the guise of "anti terror" legislation. In order to address a "tiny minority" of disruptive terrorists, everyone is treated with equal suspicion and equally inconvenienced. Ironically, the line-ups for x-ray machines at ports may be the last vestige of democracy where we (nearly) all get the same treatment.
Is it too much to hope for a political party that offers to listen to the majority of the people, and then actually do what the majority asks - regardless of baggage, dogma and distraction? We certainly seem to have the technology to conduct rolling popular votes on just about anything.
Do you trust your fellow subjects to take the opportunity seriously and not be daft? It would certainly put politicians on their mettle to continuously present the arguments for consideration - they might even earn their salaries, expenses and pensions at last.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)