There comes a point in every news story where it crosses over into the surreal. A point where no matter what you could dream up, reality becomes both funnier and more bizarre than any satire you could invent. Strangely enough, and I have never worked out why - it must be some immutable law of the universe known only unto Stephen Hawking - this apogee in the news trajectory usually involves ducks.
Why ducks? I must confess, I have absolutely no idea. I just know that, for every slam-dunk, knock em dead press release I have ever written over the last twenty years, there have only been two things we have feared, two things that would sink the little barque of our press release in the deep stormy news seas, lost with all hands: the death of a member of the Royal Family, and/or a skateboarding duck.
A skateboarding duck is such a slam-dunk for the "and finally" spot, that you can bet your sweet palookah that if you come up against one, your press release is bound for the cutting room floor. The death of a senior Royal speaks for itself. And of course, if by any chance the skateboarding duck actually contributes to the death of the senior Royal (eg by frightening the Queen's horse at the Trooping of the Colour) well, that's it, you might as well give up and open a whelk stall.
Similar thoughts must have been crossing the mind of the competitors to the Daily Telegraph this week when the MPs' expenses story finally crossed the duck event horizon, with the news that an MP paid £1645 for a "floating duck house".
Judging from the picture, I couldn't actually see £1645 worth of work in it, but in any case, as a duck-related story of public expenditure excess, it pales into insignificance alongside the news that Defra has spent nearly £300,000 on a study that shows that ducks prefer standing out in the rain to floating on ponds. If they'd asked me, I could have told them that for as little as , oooh, £150,000.
It's not been the only duck-related story in the news this week: a banker in Spokane, WA, USA, got up at the crack of dawn to stand underneath a ducklings' nest on some inacessible ledge (maybe he was planning to jump off it later) and catch the ducklings as, one by one, they fell out of it and headed to what would otherwise be a swift demise as duck and pavement met at terminal velocity. He caught and saved every one of them, then shepherded them across a busy road to a nearby lake. Shame there wasn't a shower handy, but at least it proves that not all bankers are bastards. There is one, in Spokane WA, who isn't.
Anyway, once it crosses the duck threshold, even more surreal things start to happen to the story: a Tory MP claims they are all on the verge of suicide (tough shit, you should have thought of that before bleeding the system white) and someone called Anthony Steen says that all this is motivated by envy of him and his big house!
Just for the record, Mr Steen, I don't covet your lifestyle, or your house. I thnk it would be a lot better for you and for us if you were forced to do a fortnight in a tower block in Walsall. I certainly don't want to be you - who would? I envy you the fact that you can use your position to screen you from the realities of life and to be honest I wish I was able to.
But I can't understand why you just don't admit that it's a fair cop.
Meanwhile, I hope that the ducks are OK
Friday, 22 May 2009
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Motes and Beams
Like everyone else, I guess, I have been gobsmacked by the way members of Parliament of all persuasions seem to have been taking the piss with their expenses, going back not weeks, not months, but years with their claims for faux-Tudor beams, foaming moat cleaner, spare tyres for their cat's butler's granny's Aston-Martin, etc etc contd p.94.
Yet, on reflection, I suppose, I have always known - we have always known - that the political class have a featherbedded lifestyle, cushioned from the harsh realities of life, so it shouldn't really come as a huge surprise that, coupled with extremely lax standards of accountability, a certain amount of abuse must have taken place.
But what is staggering is the scale of the problem. As I have said before, I generally deplore chequebook journalism, but you have to say here that, in this instance, the Barclay Brothers’ chequebook has, at least for once in its life, and no doubt to the surprise of any resident moths, been deployed in the public interest. The fact that the owners of the Daily Telegraph, and people such as Rupert Murdoch, probably avoid far larger amounts in tax than the MPs have jizzed out of the taxpayer, is sort of beside the point, for once. As is the assertion that journalists also fiddle their expenses. Yes, we know. But that argument descends quickly to the level of “whataboutery”. So what? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Anyway, as I was saying – the sheer scale of it. We all know about David Cameron’s mortgage and Jacquie Smith’s bath plugs, for instance, but this current scandal is like putting your hand through a small hole in a wall somewhere in the dark and feeling what you thought was a small tassel on the end of a leathery bell-pull, and then discovering to your horror that you are actually holding an elephant by the tail. You sort of think on the one hand it might be prudent to bow out now and let it go, but on the other hand the sheer impressive bulk of the pachyderm deserves a grudging respect.
Elephants, of course, have their uses. While alive, they can haul timber, or carry Nabobs and Mahouts around the Indian jungle, thus saving the rest of us the trouble. Translated to the elephants’ graveyard, they provide useful umbrella stands and excellent piano keys. I’m not sure if anyone is currently working on a publication called “101 Uses For A Dead MP” but if they are, it’s likely to be a slim volume, up there with the Taliban Joke Book and the Spanish Guide to Donkey Welfare.
Because they are going to get slaughtered. Not literally, of course, this isn’t France, where if a similar scandal came to light, their equivalent of Parliament Square would be crammed with burning lorries, rioting students and CS gas, in roughly equal proportions. No, this is England, where we shrug our shoulders and say “mustn’t grumble”! But slaughtered they will be, electorally speaking. This is the problem with repressed anger, of the sort that is seething below the surface of (it seems) the entire voting population right now. It sometimes manifests itself in strange, perverse, unexpected and frankly, sometimes unjust ways. So, all over the UK, come the local elections, hard –working councillors, who conscientiously go to meetings, actually try and help the people who elected them, juggle a workload that would stun an ox, and claim little or nothing in the way of expenses, will get voted down because of the loons at Westminster, because people want to vent their anger and protest, and that process will of course inevitably benefit the demagogues.
In fact, this is probably what makes me angriest about the whole thing. Instead of saying “sorry” about the money – or at least as well as – and coming out with their cockanamie lame excuses about mistakes, oversights and accountancy not being their strong suit, they should also be apologising for undermining the very fabric of democracy and handing victory to the fascists on a plate. Because undoubtedly the beneficiaries of this fiasco will be the BNP and UKIP. It is very easy for the likes of the BNP to do now, in the UK, what the Nazis did in 1930s Germany. Denounce the existing administration as incompetent and corrupt (check); promise to make things better (check) promise to put British workers first (check – they mean white British workers, of course); promise to make the trains run on time (check – well, the only opposition was Lord Adonis, so that was a slam-dunk); and blame scapegoats (in Hitler’s case it was the Jews, in the BNP’s, it’s the Muslims and immigrants). What fascists never tell you, of course, is that once they’ve made the trains run on time, the terminus is always the death camps.
So what are we going to do with these MPs, eh? Those public-spirited stalwarts, who all agree now, in the celebrated quip by Andy Hamilton, that the system was so rotten and so abhorrent they could scarcely bring themselves to milk it dry? Is it enough just to apologise and pay it back, even in those cases where amnesia seems to have shaded over into actual fraud? [On the subject of paying it back, by the way, I don’t really see the sense of this. The Government will only go and blow it on something frivolous like an extra Eurofighter or Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension. I’d rather they gave the equivalent of the overclaims on second homes back as a donation to Shelter].
Is it enough that, in the most widely telegraphed downfall since King Kong brandished a screaming Fay Wray at the passing Curtis Jennys from the top of the Empire State Building, a charmless and unpopular speaker of the House has been sacrificed in the hope that it will throw us off the scent? No. It isn’t.
In real life, of course, it’s no defence to say I’m sorry, I forgot. But we’ve already established that these people inhabit a different reality to the rest of us. If you forget to tell the DSS about a change in your benefit circumstances for instance, you are likely to find yourself being interviewed under caution, forced to pay it all back, and probably fined and or prosecuted to boot. But MPs live in a different world, and I am not holding my breath for any prosecutions. I am, however, and I remain, incandescent over the double standard. Not so much moats and beams, as motes and beams.
Much has been made of the argument that MPs were given tacit signals that it was OK to fill your boots on this tax-free gravy train of a system, because this in some way compensated for a supposed shortfall between an MP’s “basic” pay and that of the grades of equivalent public servants such as head teachers, civil servants, brain surgeons, etc. If that is the root of the problem, then maybe the solution is as simple as – give them a basic pay rise, but take away their expenses. Apart from legitimate business ones. I’ve no objection to them buying a folder from Rymans, but having your moat treated is taking the piss. Seriously.
In addition, I’d also take away their right to vote on their own pay increases, and give it to an outside body instead, perhaps composed of CIPFA, the Office of National Statistics, and maybe even citizen representatives from say a dozen randomly-typical constituencies throughout the land, on the proviso that these people are not members of any recognised political party.
Furthermore, if they do put in an expense which is disallowed, subsequently, then that should be retrospectively taxed as a benefit in kind. Their claims should also be published, in full, in the public domain, at least annually. Finally, to this I would add (to which I return yet again, like the dog that returneth to its vomit) a residence qualification. If you want to represent the good people of Lower Snodbury in Parliament then you should damn well buy or rent a house in Lower Snodbury and go and live there, and have lived there for a number of years before you are even allowed to stand.
The people who point out this disparity – supposed disparity, I should say – also often use this as a plank to support the argument that unless we pay MPs “what they are worth” you will only get rich people being able to afford to run for Parliament, and those of modest means will be excluded. Well, I would just like to say, here and now, that I think £64,000 is a massive sum of money. It’s three times what I earned last year before tax, and I would jump at the chance of being Ancient Geek, MP. There’s only one thing stopping me standing, which is the £1000 deposit. Get rid of that, or reduce it to a nominal amount, then you might get some people who actually want to make a difference standing for Parliament. People who aren’t just in it for the money. True, by-elections and indeed general elections would suddenly sprout whole lunatic fringes of monster raving loony candidates and people like Wing Commander Boakes, of recent memory, who used to campaign by sitting in a deck chair in the fast lane of the A40!
But to me, you see, that is all part of the rich tapestry of democracy. It keeps the big parties on their toes, and it gives the protest vote somewhere else to go, other than straight into the arms of the fascists!
And, it would send a very loud, very clear message to those present incumbents at Westminster, whose idiocy might even now just have let the Hitler Youth into the Reichstag by the back door, that there is more to the governance of this great little country of ours than just turning up every so often and signing for your expenses.
Yet, on reflection, I suppose, I have always known - we have always known - that the political class have a featherbedded lifestyle, cushioned from the harsh realities of life, so it shouldn't really come as a huge surprise that, coupled with extremely lax standards of accountability, a certain amount of abuse must have taken place.
But what is staggering is the scale of the problem. As I have said before, I generally deplore chequebook journalism, but you have to say here that, in this instance, the Barclay Brothers’ chequebook has, at least for once in its life, and no doubt to the surprise of any resident moths, been deployed in the public interest. The fact that the owners of the Daily Telegraph, and people such as Rupert Murdoch, probably avoid far larger amounts in tax than the MPs have jizzed out of the taxpayer, is sort of beside the point, for once. As is the assertion that journalists also fiddle their expenses. Yes, we know. But that argument descends quickly to the level of “whataboutery”. So what? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Anyway, as I was saying – the sheer scale of it. We all know about David Cameron’s mortgage and Jacquie Smith’s bath plugs, for instance, but this current scandal is like putting your hand through a small hole in a wall somewhere in the dark and feeling what you thought was a small tassel on the end of a leathery bell-pull, and then discovering to your horror that you are actually holding an elephant by the tail. You sort of think on the one hand it might be prudent to bow out now and let it go, but on the other hand the sheer impressive bulk of the pachyderm deserves a grudging respect.
Elephants, of course, have their uses. While alive, they can haul timber, or carry Nabobs and Mahouts around the Indian jungle, thus saving the rest of us the trouble. Translated to the elephants’ graveyard, they provide useful umbrella stands and excellent piano keys. I’m not sure if anyone is currently working on a publication called “101 Uses For A Dead MP” but if they are, it’s likely to be a slim volume, up there with the Taliban Joke Book and the Spanish Guide to Donkey Welfare.
Because they are going to get slaughtered. Not literally, of course, this isn’t France, where if a similar scandal came to light, their equivalent of Parliament Square would be crammed with burning lorries, rioting students and CS gas, in roughly equal proportions. No, this is England, where we shrug our shoulders and say “mustn’t grumble”! But slaughtered they will be, electorally speaking. This is the problem with repressed anger, of the sort that is seething below the surface of (it seems) the entire voting population right now. It sometimes manifests itself in strange, perverse, unexpected and frankly, sometimes unjust ways. So, all over the UK, come the local elections, hard –working councillors, who conscientiously go to meetings, actually try and help the people who elected them, juggle a workload that would stun an ox, and claim little or nothing in the way of expenses, will get voted down because of the loons at Westminster, because people want to vent their anger and protest, and that process will of course inevitably benefit the demagogues.
In fact, this is probably what makes me angriest about the whole thing. Instead of saying “sorry” about the money – or at least as well as – and coming out with their cockanamie lame excuses about mistakes, oversights and accountancy not being their strong suit, they should also be apologising for undermining the very fabric of democracy and handing victory to the fascists on a plate. Because undoubtedly the beneficiaries of this fiasco will be the BNP and UKIP. It is very easy for the likes of the BNP to do now, in the UK, what the Nazis did in 1930s Germany. Denounce the existing administration as incompetent and corrupt (check); promise to make things better (check) promise to put British workers first (check – they mean white British workers, of course); promise to make the trains run on time (check – well, the only opposition was Lord Adonis, so that was a slam-dunk); and blame scapegoats (in Hitler’s case it was the Jews, in the BNP’s, it’s the Muslims and immigrants). What fascists never tell you, of course, is that once they’ve made the trains run on time, the terminus is always the death camps.
So what are we going to do with these MPs, eh? Those public-spirited stalwarts, who all agree now, in the celebrated quip by Andy Hamilton, that the system was so rotten and so abhorrent they could scarcely bring themselves to milk it dry? Is it enough just to apologise and pay it back, even in those cases where amnesia seems to have shaded over into actual fraud? [On the subject of paying it back, by the way, I don’t really see the sense of this. The Government will only go and blow it on something frivolous like an extra Eurofighter or Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension. I’d rather they gave the equivalent of the overclaims on second homes back as a donation to Shelter].
Is it enough that, in the most widely telegraphed downfall since King Kong brandished a screaming Fay Wray at the passing Curtis Jennys from the top of the Empire State Building, a charmless and unpopular speaker of the House has been sacrificed in the hope that it will throw us off the scent? No. It isn’t.
In real life, of course, it’s no defence to say I’m sorry, I forgot. But we’ve already established that these people inhabit a different reality to the rest of us. If you forget to tell the DSS about a change in your benefit circumstances for instance, you are likely to find yourself being interviewed under caution, forced to pay it all back, and probably fined and or prosecuted to boot. But MPs live in a different world, and I am not holding my breath for any prosecutions. I am, however, and I remain, incandescent over the double standard. Not so much moats and beams, as motes and beams.
Much has been made of the argument that MPs were given tacit signals that it was OK to fill your boots on this tax-free gravy train of a system, because this in some way compensated for a supposed shortfall between an MP’s “basic” pay and that of the grades of equivalent public servants such as head teachers, civil servants, brain surgeons, etc. If that is the root of the problem, then maybe the solution is as simple as – give them a basic pay rise, but take away their expenses. Apart from legitimate business ones. I’ve no objection to them buying a folder from Rymans, but having your moat treated is taking the piss. Seriously.
In addition, I’d also take away their right to vote on their own pay increases, and give it to an outside body instead, perhaps composed of CIPFA, the Office of National Statistics, and maybe even citizen representatives from say a dozen randomly-typical constituencies throughout the land, on the proviso that these people are not members of any recognised political party.
Furthermore, if they do put in an expense which is disallowed, subsequently, then that should be retrospectively taxed as a benefit in kind. Their claims should also be published, in full, in the public domain, at least annually. Finally, to this I would add (to which I return yet again, like the dog that returneth to its vomit) a residence qualification. If you want to represent the good people of Lower Snodbury in Parliament then you should damn well buy or rent a house in Lower Snodbury and go and live there, and have lived there for a number of years before you are even allowed to stand.
The people who point out this disparity – supposed disparity, I should say – also often use this as a plank to support the argument that unless we pay MPs “what they are worth” you will only get rich people being able to afford to run for Parliament, and those of modest means will be excluded. Well, I would just like to say, here and now, that I think £64,000 is a massive sum of money. It’s three times what I earned last year before tax, and I would jump at the chance of being Ancient Geek, MP. There’s only one thing stopping me standing, which is the £1000 deposit. Get rid of that, or reduce it to a nominal amount, then you might get some people who actually want to make a difference standing for Parliament. People who aren’t just in it for the money. True, by-elections and indeed general elections would suddenly sprout whole lunatic fringes of monster raving loony candidates and people like Wing Commander Boakes, of recent memory, who used to campaign by sitting in a deck chair in the fast lane of the A40!
But to me, you see, that is all part of the rich tapestry of democracy. It keeps the big parties on their toes, and it gives the protest vote somewhere else to go, other than straight into the arms of the fascists!
And, it would send a very loud, very clear message to those present incumbents at Westminster, whose idiocy might even now just have let the Hitler Youth into the Reichstag by the back door, that there is more to the governance of this great little country of ours than just turning up every so often and signing for your expenses.
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Absolutely Fabulous!
Oh deary me, it looks like the Court of Public Opinion is in session once again, and this time it was invoked by the lawyer for the continuing campaign for the right of former members of the Royal Regiment of Gurkhas and their dependents to reside in the UK.
Whatever you think of the rights and wrongs of their case, and personally I have a great deal of sympathy for it (though this is rapidly being eroded by the increasingly manic and shrill ravings of Joanna Lumley) there is no doubt that once again, the Government has handled this appallingly badly and now has a PR disaster on its hands.
I’m not sure whether it’s the Prime Minister’s advisers being just not up to the job (spending too much time composing schoolboy emails about George Osborne and his wife?) or whether it’s Broon himself, the clunking fist, blundering on with his usual world-war-one style detrermination, on, into the valley of death. Or maybe it’s a heady mxture of both. But oh, deary, deary me.
The resistance of the Government is fundamentally cost-based at the end of the day. They are wary of opening up yet another door to let yet another class of people and writing a potentially open cheque to them and their dependents, for ever and ever, amen. They are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Our mistaken adherence to the one sided terms of the European Political Union project, which, in immigration as in so many other areas, hands the UK the shitty end of the stick, means that we are forced to take in every Eastern European Mafioso and Romanian rapist, while the Gurkhas, who – after all is said and done – have demonstrated a willingness to fight, if not actually die for the UK, have at best an indeterminate status and an uncertain future, notwithstanding Joanna Lumley’s efforts.
This situation presents people like Ms Lumley with an open goal. One which they have never tired of netting over and over again in recent days.
What I find surprising, is that no one from the Government has made any effort to respond by pointing out to people that this dilemma exists. The British people aren’t completely unreasonable or stupid. True, potentially rubbishing the EU three weeks before a Euro-election isn’t that good a move, but the Government is going to get decimated by UKIP anyway, even before all this blew up.
If the Government turned round and said “Look, we feel your pain, we share your frustration, we’d like to help the Gurkhas but we’re strapped for cash right now, and we can’t do anything about this Eastern Europe situation because – however much we might agree on principle – we are part of Europe and all that that implies, in terms of jobs, investment and trade” – Well, that at least would be a start.
The only person I have seen even groping towards this type of empathy has been the unfortunate Phil Woolas, who was being sandbagged by Joanna Lumley at the time. He’s not had a good week, what with the duffing up she gave him. I’m not surprised if it turns out to be true that, at least on the alleged evidence of the reporting of his expenses in The Daily Telegraph, he seeks consolation in nappies, tampons, and items of women’s clothing.
Which brings me neatly back to MP’s expenses. Generally, I am not an advocate of “chequebook journalism”, preferring to believe that the truth should emerge in the end simply because it is the truth. But in this case, the Government has been stonewalling over this for six months, spending yet more taxpayers’ money on a rearguard action through the courts to stop us knowing the details of how public money has been spent, and to be honest it serves them right that this has now blown up in their faces, for trying to delay publication until after July, when the house would have risen for the summer, and even if the media had picked up on it rather than the usual fare of Loch Ness Monster stories at that time of year, anyone who might have been held to account would have been on holiday in Tuscany.
Predictably, MPs have reacted to the revelations that we have paid – for instance – to have John Prescott’s loo seat fixed twice (one of the more understandable claims, in my view) with howls of anguish that their data has been infringed and their human rights traduced. Mixed with pious observations that “we did nothing wrong” and “the system is a bad system and must be changed” (to the latter of which statements I always feel the need to add the unspoken words “now that we have been found out”.)
Well, tough.
You are lucky even to have a second home, in a country where people are homeless, let alone one which is paid for and maintained by the taxpayer. If I had my way, I would give you a sleeping bag and a sheet of cardboard and tell you to doss in Parliament Square, until there was not one homeless person left in the UK.
Now stop whining and lining your own pockets, and get on with running the country, which is what we pay you handsomely for.
Whatever you think of the rights and wrongs of their case, and personally I have a great deal of sympathy for it (though this is rapidly being eroded by the increasingly manic and shrill ravings of Joanna Lumley) there is no doubt that once again, the Government has handled this appallingly badly and now has a PR disaster on its hands.
I’m not sure whether it’s the Prime Minister’s advisers being just not up to the job (spending too much time composing schoolboy emails about George Osborne and his wife?) or whether it’s Broon himself, the clunking fist, blundering on with his usual world-war-one style detrermination, on, into the valley of death. Or maybe it’s a heady mxture of both. But oh, deary, deary me.
The resistance of the Government is fundamentally cost-based at the end of the day. They are wary of opening up yet another door to let yet another class of people and writing a potentially open cheque to them and their dependents, for ever and ever, amen. They are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Our mistaken adherence to the one sided terms of the European Political Union project, which, in immigration as in so many other areas, hands the UK the shitty end of the stick, means that we are forced to take in every Eastern European Mafioso and Romanian rapist, while the Gurkhas, who – after all is said and done – have demonstrated a willingness to fight, if not actually die for the UK, have at best an indeterminate status and an uncertain future, notwithstanding Joanna Lumley’s efforts.
This situation presents people like Ms Lumley with an open goal. One which they have never tired of netting over and over again in recent days.
What I find surprising, is that no one from the Government has made any effort to respond by pointing out to people that this dilemma exists. The British people aren’t completely unreasonable or stupid. True, potentially rubbishing the EU three weeks before a Euro-election isn’t that good a move, but the Government is going to get decimated by UKIP anyway, even before all this blew up.
If the Government turned round and said “Look, we feel your pain, we share your frustration, we’d like to help the Gurkhas but we’re strapped for cash right now, and we can’t do anything about this Eastern Europe situation because – however much we might agree on principle – we are part of Europe and all that that implies, in terms of jobs, investment and trade” – Well, that at least would be a start.
The only person I have seen even groping towards this type of empathy has been the unfortunate Phil Woolas, who was being sandbagged by Joanna Lumley at the time. He’s not had a good week, what with the duffing up she gave him. I’m not surprised if it turns out to be true that, at least on the alleged evidence of the reporting of his expenses in The Daily Telegraph, he seeks consolation in nappies, tampons, and items of women’s clothing.
Which brings me neatly back to MP’s expenses. Generally, I am not an advocate of “chequebook journalism”, preferring to believe that the truth should emerge in the end simply because it is the truth. But in this case, the Government has been stonewalling over this for six months, spending yet more taxpayers’ money on a rearguard action through the courts to stop us knowing the details of how public money has been spent, and to be honest it serves them right that this has now blown up in their faces, for trying to delay publication until after July, when the house would have risen for the summer, and even if the media had picked up on it rather than the usual fare of Loch Ness Monster stories at that time of year, anyone who might have been held to account would have been on holiday in Tuscany.
Predictably, MPs have reacted to the revelations that we have paid – for instance – to have John Prescott’s loo seat fixed twice (one of the more understandable claims, in my view) with howls of anguish that their data has been infringed and their human rights traduced. Mixed with pious observations that “we did nothing wrong” and “the system is a bad system and must be changed” (to the latter of which statements I always feel the need to add the unspoken words “now that we have been found out”.)
Well, tough.
You are lucky even to have a second home, in a country where people are homeless, let alone one which is paid for and maintained by the taxpayer. If I had my way, I would give you a sleeping bag and a sheet of cardboard and tell you to doss in Parliament Square, until there was not one homeless person left in the UK.
Now stop whining and lining your own pockets, and get on with running the country, which is what we pay you handsomely for.
UN - believable!
The Israeli Defence Force has reacted to the report issued by the UN, which blames them for the deaths of some civilians at UN sites within Palestine during the most recent Israeli incursion. The IDF says the report is “biased”.
Biased? I should bloody well cocoa! What did the IDF expect? If someone invaded my territory and killed innocent people by wanging off tank rounds left right and centre, I’d be a teensy bit biased, wouldn’t you? What did they expect? Probably something like:-
“Well, a few of our people got killed indiscriminately by Israeli tanks but hey, shit happens you know, and those Israeli soldiers, well, they probably had a rough childhood, so we shouldn’t rush to judgement, and then there’s always The Holocaust”
There you go, Israel, I’ve written it for you. Better now?
I’m sorry, but I don’t see why we should make allowances for war criminals. I would love to know how these people sleep at night. Not only content with getting away, literally , with murder, they are allowed on top of that to rubbish the findings of a UN report.
Well, Israel, why don’t you just resign from the UN if it’s that biased. After all, you already ignore most of its resolutions.
Biased? I should bloody well cocoa! What did the IDF expect? If someone invaded my territory and killed innocent people by wanging off tank rounds left right and centre, I’d be a teensy bit biased, wouldn’t you? What did they expect? Probably something like:-
“Well, a few of our people got killed indiscriminately by Israeli tanks but hey, shit happens you know, and those Israeli soldiers, well, they probably had a rough childhood, so we shouldn’t rush to judgement, and then there’s always The Holocaust”
There you go, Israel, I’ve written it for you. Better now?
I’m sorry, but I don’t see why we should make allowances for war criminals. I would love to know how these people sleep at night. Not only content with getting away, literally , with murder, they are allowed on top of that to rubbish the findings of a UN report.
Well, Israel, why don’t you just resign from the UN if it’s that biased. After all, you already ignore most of its resolutions.
Best of Three
One aspect of the continuing furore over MPs’ expenses is that Ian Tomlinson has been quietly forgotten by the media. The last we heard was that there had been an initial post mortem (heart attack) then a second post mortem (internal bleeding) and a third PM was planned by the Met. (in some kind of bizarre “best of three” attempt to ping-pong the blame back and forth. )
In the meantime, other stories of supposed police brutailty at the G20 have emerged, with video clips of people being smashed in the face by riot shields. As I have said before, these clips are just that – isolated snapshots of a much larger and more complicated story. What happened before and after the flashpoint?
You can argue (and I’d probably agree with you) that it is never right for a big burly copper to smash a young girl in the face with a riot shield. Deep down, though, I know that there are situations in life where I might feel angry enough to lose control and do something violent, however much I regretted it later. It’s there in all of us. Everyone has a flashpoint, somewhere – all that varies is how deeply it’s hidden, and where the trigger is located.
The thing about the G20, not that it excuses their behaviour in any way, though it might help to make it more understandable, is that the police were on an adrenaline high that day. They knew there was going to be trouble, because the media had been telling them so for days. They, in turn, had been posting on their blogs, and on Facebook, about how they were going to duff over a few hippies and give them a good kicking. Which, in turn, was probably read by the more loony fringes of the hippy world as being some sort of gauntlet being thrown down.
Add a further dash of spince to the mix, in the form of agents provocateur planted by the security services to foment trouble and discredit the activists (and anyone who thinks this is fanciful and paranoid obviously hasn’t read the story of the young woman activist approached by police intelligence – an oxymoron if ever there was one – to act as a “mole”). Bake in a warm street somewhere in the City of London, kettle it until it simmers and then boils over, et voila! The perfect recipe for civil unrest.
The police should remember though, that the ineptitude of the operation is no excuse. And those who formulate their tactics should remember that policing in this country is by consent, and every time something like the Ian Tomlinson case happens, it hastens the day when we are forced to either endure anarchy, or live under a police state.
In the meantime, other stories of supposed police brutailty at the G20 have emerged, with video clips of people being smashed in the face by riot shields. As I have said before, these clips are just that – isolated snapshots of a much larger and more complicated story. What happened before and after the flashpoint?
You can argue (and I’d probably agree with you) that it is never right for a big burly copper to smash a young girl in the face with a riot shield. Deep down, though, I know that there are situations in life where I might feel angry enough to lose control and do something violent, however much I regretted it later. It’s there in all of us. Everyone has a flashpoint, somewhere – all that varies is how deeply it’s hidden, and where the trigger is located.
The thing about the G20, not that it excuses their behaviour in any way, though it might help to make it more understandable, is that the police were on an adrenaline high that day. They knew there was going to be trouble, because the media had been telling them so for days. They, in turn, had been posting on their blogs, and on Facebook, about how they were going to duff over a few hippies and give them a good kicking. Which, in turn, was probably read by the more loony fringes of the hippy world as being some sort of gauntlet being thrown down.
Add a further dash of spince to the mix, in the form of agents provocateur planted by the security services to foment trouble and discredit the activists (and anyone who thinks this is fanciful and paranoid obviously hasn’t read the story of the young woman activist approached by police intelligence – an oxymoron if ever there was one – to act as a “mole”). Bake in a warm street somewhere in the City of London, kettle it until it simmers and then boils over, et voila! The perfect recipe for civil unrest.
The police should remember though, that the ineptitude of the operation is no excuse. And those who formulate their tactics should remember that policing in this country is by consent, and every time something like the Ian Tomlinson case happens, it hastens the day when we are forced to either endure anarchy, or live under a police state.
The Resounding Clang of the Stable Door
The further revelations and developments in the case of poor Baby P have been held up in some sections of the media as further proof of the laxity and negligence of Haringey Social Services. Personally, I think that, if anything, the whole sorry mess only serves to illustrate further the dilemma that they must have found themselves in.
It is easy to be wise after the event in cases like this, and sack two or three people in a macho purge to disguise the futile hope that a line will be drawn and the faults in the system will somehow be mended by your actions. And it plays well with the press.
But, as I have said before (so many times, that I am in danger of sounding like a broken record) this is only tinkering around the edges, treating the symptoms, not the disease.
As a society, we have created a world where bad parenting and social and economic pressures and a lack of communal respect and responsibility, have all conspired to put vulnerable children at risk. While we work on solving these long-term problems, we must have an efficient and effective safety net in the form of social workers or similar, to police and protect those children in precarious situations. Yet, as I have said before (that cracked record again) whenever something goes wrong, the social workers are the first to get pilloried in the media. It seems to be one of those jobs like being a teacher, where everybody thinks that they can do it better than you.
This kind of thinking has now been officially endorsed by Lord Laming, with the proposal that social workers should be subject to the scrutiny of lay observers on their panels, with the unspoken suggestion that social workers need “real” people to teach them common sense and keep them on the straight and narrow.
When in fact, many of their seemingly bizarre decisions are only partially reported and are done because of statutory or legal constraints to which they are subject, and which “real” people would soon bleat about the lack of, if they weren’t there.
It’s no wonder then, that in the wake of the Baby P fiasco, the numbers of people wanting to be social workers has fallen faster than a hooker’s knickers, and dried up to the extent that the Government has now to consider pumping £60million that we can ill afford into a recruitment drive, to stop the system grinding to a halt. What an expensive mistake that Gaderene rush to judgement to appease the likes of The Daily Mail has proved to be!
I am not saying – and never have said – that Haringey Social Services were totally blameless in the Baby P affair. Clearly there seem to have been shortcomings. But we also have to acknowledge the root cause of these was systemic, rather than individual. This was obviously a very complicated case, we now learn, involving two overlapping instances of abuse, investigations about the mistreatment of not one but two children, an investigation that it seems got inevitably tangled up in itself and may even have hindered itself, owing to lack of communication and co-ordination between the various bodies involved.
I don’t know who it was, off the top, who said that "the truth is never pure and rarely ever simple", but it is a maxim we should do well to keep in mind whenever we ponder the sad fate of Baby P.
It is easy to be wise after the event in cases like this, and sack two or three people in a macho purge to disguise the futile hope that a line will be drawn and the faults in the system will somehow be mended by your actions. And it plays well with the press.
But, as I have said before (so many times, that I am in danger of sounding like a broken record) this is only tinkering around the edges, treating the symptoms, not the disease.
As a society, we have created a world where bad parenting and social and economic pressures and a lack of communal respect and responsibility, have all conspired to put vulnerable children at risk. While we work on solving these long-term problems, we must have an efficient and effective safety net in the form of social workers or similar, to police and protect those children in precarious situations. Yet, as I have said before (that cracked record again) whenever something goes wrong, the social workers are the first to get pilloried in the media. It seems to be one of those jobs like being a teacher, where everybody thinks that they can do it better than you.
This kind of thinking has now been officially endorsed by Lord Laming, with the proposal that social workers should be subject to the scrutiny of lay observers on their panels, with the unspoken suggestion that social workers need “real” people to teach them common sense and keep them on the straight and narrow.
When in fact, many of their seemingly bizarre decisions are only partially reported and are done because of statutory or legal constraints to which they are subject, and which “real” people would soon bleat about the lack of, if they weren’t there.
It’s no wonder then, that in the wake of the Baby P fiasco, the numbers of people wanting to be social workers has fallen faster than a hooker’s knickers, and dried up to the extent that the Government has now to consider pumping £60million that we can ill afford into a recruitment drive, to stop the system grinding to a halt. What an expensive mistake that Gaderene rush to judgement to appease the likes of The Daily Mail has proved to be!
I am not saying – and never have said – that Haringey Social Services were totally blameless in the Baby P affair. Clearly there seem to have been shortcomings. But we also have to acknowledge the root cause of these was systemic, rather than individual. This was obviously a very complicated case, we now learn, involving two overlapping instances of abuse, investigations about the mistreatment of not one but two children, an investigation that it seems got inevitably tangled up in itself and may even have hindered itself, owing to lack of communication and co-ordination between the various bodies involved.
I don’t know who it was, off the top, who said that "the truth is never pure and rarely ever simple", but it is a maxim we should do well to keep in mind whenever we ponder the sad fate of Baby P.
Sunday, 3 May 2009
Pig Sick
I can't believe how stupid the Egyptians are.
I mean, the clues have been there all along. They invented a language that was only ever going to be any use if you wanted to write about dogs with the heads of birds walking sideways and winged disks and shit like that, but even so...
Stupid doesn't even begin to describe it. They have elevated "stupid" to an art form. They are slaughtering every pig in the country because of the world-wide "pandemic" of Swine Flu. This despite the fact that the transmissions among the 100 or so people who have got it, a handful of whom have died, worldwide, have all been people-to-people, and even in Mexico, the original cases might have been from people who bathed daily in lagoons of pigshit, which is still one step removed from the actual pig.
Unless pigs have suddenly developed the ability to fly, as in the old saying, they are not responsible, and in any case, "pandemic" is a geographical distribution term, not a measure of strength or virulence.
Meanwhile, our own wonderful media have been falling over themselves to hype up Swine Flu like there's no tomorrow. In fact, the premise that there is no tomorrow has been the key one behind much of the coverage, as they hastily dug out their old bird flu powerpoint slides and set to work with the search and replace facility (find feathers, replace with trotters, replace all, exit).
Gordon Broon, of course, has grabbed at the opportunity presented by Swine Flu with all the grateful eagerness of a drowning man who, about to go under for the third time, sees a gaily coloured lifebelt tied helpfully to a sturdy rope, bobbing on the tide towards him. What better distraction could there be from his other daily woes; MP's pay and expenses; the Gurkha fiasco; the collapse of LDV and the awkward questions it raises about "real help now"; the credit crunch and its non-effect on pension-drawing bankers, and the fact that everyone from Chalres Clarke to Hazel Blears is queueing up to wield the "ceremonial paper knife of oriental design" so beloved of Agatha Christie and so often found by M. Poirot embedded in the necks of her victims.
This is politics for dummies, page 1 chapter 1, para 1. So we have Cobra being summoned (Smersh must be quaking in their boots) leaflets being sent out to all households in the UK, TV adverts telling us that Charlie says always sneeze into a tissue. Broon (even Broon) can't lose on this one. If it happens, he'll be able to turn it into another Foot and Mouth (though hopefully without the pyres of burning pensioners) and if it doesn't happen, why, his prompt action saved the nation! They might even be able to keep it going for long enough to hide the fact that Labour is going to go down in the forthcoming Euro and Local Elections in a similar manner, and in similar numbers, to the Light Brigade at Balaclava.
The only way it could possibly go wrong for him is if somehow the flu does turn out to be deadly, and somehow it gets out of control despite the 61 million leaflets. Which, given Broon's reverse midas touch of late, could always happen. Better stock up on Lem-Sip, just in case.
I mean, the clues have been there all along. They invented a language that was only ever going to be any use if you wanted to write about dogs with the heads of birds walking sideways and winged disks and shit like that, but even so...
Stupid doesn't even begin to describe it. They have elevated "stupid" to an art form. They are slaughtering every pig in the country because of the world-wide "pandemic" of Swine Flu. This despite the fact that the transmissions among the 100 or so people who have got it, a handful of whom have died, worldwide, have all been people-to-people, and even in Mexico, the original cases might have been from people who bathed daily in lagoons of pigshit, which is still one step removed from the actual pig.
Unless pigs have suddenly developed the ability to fly, as in the old saying, they are not responsible, and in any case, "pandemic" is a geographical distribution term, not a measure of strength or virulence.
Meanwhile, our own wonderful media have been falling over themselves to hype up Swine Flu like there's no tomorrow. In fact, the premise that there is no tomorrow has been the key one behind much of the coverage, as they hastily dug out their old bird flu powerpoint slides and set to work with the search and replace facility (find feathers, replace with trotters, replace all, exit).
Gordon Broon, of course, has grabbed at the opportunity presented by Swine Flu with all the grateful eagerness of a drowning man who, about to go under for the third time, sees a gaily coloured lifebelt tied helpfully to a sturdy rope, bobbing on the tide towards him. What better distraction could there be from his other daily woes; MP's pay and expenses; the Gurkha fiasco; the collapse of LDV and the awkward questions it raises about "real help now"; the credit crunch and its non-effect on pension-drawing bankers, and the fact that everyone from Chalres Clarke to Hazel Blears is queueing up to wield the "ceremonial paper knife of oriental design" so beloved of Agatha Christie and so often found by M. Poirot embedded in the necks of her victims.
This is politics for dummies, page 1 chapter 1, para 1. So we have Cobra being summoned (Smersh must be quaking in their boots) leaflets being sent out to all households in the UK, TV adverts telling us that Charlie says always sneeze into a tissue. Broon (even Broon) can't lose on this one. If it happens, he'll be able to turn it into another Foot and Mouth (though hopefully without the pyres of burning pensioners) and if it doesn't happen, why, his prompt action saved the nation! They might even be able to keep it going for long enough to hide the fact that Labour is going to go down in the forthcoming Euro and Local Elections in a similar manner, and in similar numbers, to the Light Brigade at Balaclava.
The only way it could possibly go wrong for him is if somehow the flu does turn out to be deadly, and somehow it gets out of control despite the 61 million leaflets. Which, given Broon's reverse midas touch of late, could always happen. Better stock up on Lem-Sip, just in case.
Will the real Home Secretary please stand up
Could the aliens please give us back the real Jacquie Smith and David Blunkett? The fact that the real Smith and Blunkett have been abducted by little green men from Alpha Proximi and the planet Quargon (and are, presumably, being rectally probed even as I type, so it's not all bad news) is the only explanation I can think of for the astonishing voltes face over the recording of all our emails and phone calls one one mahoosive database (coming soon via data stick to a pub car park near you) and ID cards.
Still, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, etc.
Other evidence that we have fallen through the earth's crust into some strange fourth dimensional parallel universe came in the form of Sir Al Aynsley-Green (crazy name, crazy guy) and his condemnation of the use of the Yarl's Wood Detention Centre by the UK Borders Agency to hold children who are being deported. My only problem with this is his timing. It's a pity he didn't pop up saying this before Assia Souhalia and her husband Athmane, who have been in the UK since 2002. and their 2 year old daughter Nouha, who was born in Brighton in 2006 and had lived here all her life, were grabbed from their beds at 6.30 one morning recently and deported.
Still, better late than never, eh, Sir Al.
You can be my body guard, I can be your long-lost pal.
Still, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, etc.
Other evidence that we have fallen through the earth's crust into some strange fourth dimensional parallel universe came in the form of Sir Al Aynsley-Green (crazy name, crazy guy) and his condemnation of the use of the Yarl's Wood Detention Centre by the UK Borders Agency to hold children who are being deported. My only problem with this is his timing. It's a pity he didn't pop up saying this before Assia Souhalia and her husband Athmane, who have been in the UK since 2002. and their 2 year old daughter Nouha, who was born in Brighton in 2006 and had lived here all her life, were grabbed from their beds at 6.30 one morning recently and deported.
Still, better late than never, eh, Sir Al.
You can be my body guard, I can be your long-lost pal.
Whistle Stop
Since my previous post about Bob Quick, another set of important government documents has unexpectedly turned up in the public domain. Culture Secretary Andy Burnham apparently left a set of files on a train, and they were eventually handed in by a public spirited citizen in Glasgow. Mr Burnham has apologised unreservedly, and there the matter rests.
Last year, Richard Jackson, a civil servant working in the Cabinet Office, left some papers on a train, which were a secret government assessment of the threat from Al Qaida, and they were also recovered and handed in. He was fined £2000 and demoted three pay grades.
So far, Andy Burnham has not resigned, in the same way that Caroline Flint and Hazel Blears have not resigned for swanning about in Downing Street carrying confidential documents in view of cameras. For which same misdemeanour, Bob Quick resigned.
Ironically, of course, as predicted, those arrested in the dramatically named operation which Bob Quick allegedly partially “blew” have been quietly released without charge, though they are expected to be deported. This of course raises a few (unanswered, nay, even unasked as yet, by any media that I have seen) questions about just how important this operation was in the first place, that Bob Quick paid with his job for having “compromised”.
Other whistleblowers have also come to recent grief. Margaret Haywood, aged 58, a nurse for over 20 years, was struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council for allowing secret filming to be done by BBC’s Panorama, in an attempt to expose what she thought were serious shortcomings in the care of elderly patients. Haywood told a hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council in central London: "I was convinced that it was the right thing to do. I had reported the issues and nothing had been done. I felt I owed it to the people on the ward."
Similarly, the civil servant Christopher Galley, who was the “mole” who was “groomed” (I use the word advisedly) by Shadow Home Secretary Damian Green in the Home Office to pass potentially embarrassing details to the Tories, has been sacked. Damian Green is still the Shadow Home Secretary.
So, what are we to make of it, this whistleblowing? It’s a dodgy business, obviously. If you leak something that didn’t oughter be leaked, especially something that embarrasses the great and the good, and you are in paid employment – watch out! You’re likely to lose your job, even if you are Bob Quick. On the other hand, if you are a member of the political classes, be it the government or Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, then it’s business as usual. You can flash confidential files in public, leave them on a train, and groom as many moles as you can dig up, without any fear of censure.
Just another indication, if one were needed, of the way these people think they are immune and simply not subject to the same strictures as the rest of us.
Last year, Richard Jackson, a civil servant working in the Cabinet Office, left some papers on a train, which were a secret government assessment of the threat from Al Qaida, and they were also recovered and handed in. He was fined £2000 and demoted three pay grades.
So far, Andy Burnham has not resigned, in the same way that Caroline Flint and Hazel Blears have not resigned for swanning about in Downing Street carrying confidential documents in view of cameras. For which same misdemeanour, Bob Quick resigned.
Ironically, of course, as predicted, those arrested in the dramatically named operation which Bob Quick allegedly partially “blew” have been quietly released without charge, though they are expected to be deported. This of course raises a few (unanswered, nay, even unasked as yet, by any media that I have seen) questions about just how important this operation was in the first place, that Bob Quick paid with his job for having “compromised”.
Other whistleblowers have also come to recent grief. Margaret Haywood, aged 58, a nurse for over 20 years, was struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council for allowing secret filming to be done by BBC’s Panorama, in an attempt to expose what she thought were serious shortcomings in the care of elderly patients. Haywood told a hearing of the Nursing and Midwifery Council in central London: "I was convinced that it was the right thing to do. I had reported the issues and nothing had been done. I felt I owed it to the people on the ward."
Similarly, the civil servant Christopher Galley, who was the “mole” who was “groomed” (I use the word advisedly) by Shadow Home Secretary Damian Green in the Home Office to pass potentially embarrassing details to the Tories, has been sacked. Damian Green is still the Shadow Home Secretary.
So, what are we to make of it, this whistleblowing? It’s a dodgy business, obviously. If you leak something that didn’t oughter be leaked, especially something that embarrasses the great and the good, and you are in paid employment – watch out! You’re likely to lose your job, even if you are Bob Quick. On the other hand, if you are a member of the political classes, be it the government or Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, then it’s business as usual. You can flash confidential files in public, leave them on a train, and groom as many moles as you can dig up, without any fear of censure.
Just another indication, if one were needed, of the way these people think they are immune and simply not subject to the same strictures as the rest of us.
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