Must be time of the month to oust Gordon!
Via Jess McCabe at The F-Word, those intrepid terriers at The Telegraph delve into the real reasons for rebellion against Gordon Brown and discover that it’s just a cabal led by a bunch of women who are emotional, irrational, and probably having their periods.
Here’s their expert analysis of Siobhain McDonagh:
She sounded like a woman facing an emotional crisis, not a government minister in the midst of knifing the Prime Minister.
Classy. Just in case you hadn’t noticed, conservatives are the new progressives….
Picture perfect
The Times today. Now they’re also split on Stem Cell Research.
New Labour, fascism and silly squabbles
What would the blogosphere be without other blogs to gripe about? Harry’s Place continue this fine tradition with a screamer of a post about an image dreamed up by Derek Wall, leader of the Green Party, posted along with an article at the Socialist Unity blog. When I say a screamer of the post, I mean read the comments section; the post itself is fairly anodyne but Harry’s Place seems to be pulling Hayek-style “socialism equals fascism” wannabes by the dozen.
If you’re at a loss to understand what all the fuss could possibly be about and can’t be bothered visiting either site linked to above, look at the following picture:
We don’t do class struggle well, do we?
Britain – or England, to be more exact – was famously the home of the first great revolution of modern times, in the shape of the Civil War of 1642-1651.
I’m sure the Decent Left of the day found clear grounds on which to oppose it, especially considering the obvious parallels between Oliver Cromwell and Saddam Hussein, both brutal dictators at the head of one party theocracies. Perhaps they called on the American colonies to mount humanitarian intervention.
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What do you mean by ‘anti-Americanism’?
You know times are tough for a global superpower when someone devotes a large amount of time and money producing a blog in solidarity with you.
America in the World is a new project from Conservative Home’s Tim Montgomerie which aims to act as a bulwark against anti-Americanism by dispelling myths, extolling the country’s virtues and arguing that a world without America as a dominant force is not a notion anyone should want to entertain.
If done right, the site serves a decent enough purpose, and the content certainly seems well-researched and attractively designed. But the sticking point was always going to be how they define anti-Americanism, and in this respect they threaten to alienate a significant number of people.
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Johann Hari and the Seven Seals of Dacre
Nick Cohen’s decline from interesting leftie columnist to right-wing hack has been well chronicled over here. One amusing marker of this was Watching how he broken one by one the ‘Seven Seals of Dacre’.
The idea behind the Seals of Dacre are that every time you adopt a bizarre and counterfactual view which is also believed by Melanie Phillips, a seal breaks open, and when all seven are broken, the Vaults open and an army of ghouls rush out and drag you off to write a column in the Daily Mail (or in Nick’s case the Evening Standard).
I haven’t been tracking Johann Hari’s progress in this way until recently, but I reckon he has broken at least two Seals in recent weeks.
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A-Z of right-wing online commenting
A short alphabetical guide for anyone thinking of posting a comment on the Mail/BBC Have Your Say messageboards.
ALCOHOL – benign, harmless substance when consumed by anyone over 45 which is also toxic and dangerous drug when administered to YOUNG PEOPLE or FERAL YOUTH. Should be taxed when drunk by YOUNG PEOPLE but not by others, who are of course responsible and never do anything wrong.
AND GUESS WHO’S PAYING?!??!! – usefull catch-all phrase to describe anything in which the government/state is involved. Should be used at the end of any post as punctuation or a final flourish to a well-argued and wittily brilliant excoriation of NULAB’s injustices and crimes.
ARRESTED – means someone did it.
BBC, THE – Pinko commie bastard scumbags who love liberals and want our children to be gay. Bonus points for saying “I BET YOU WON’T PUBLISH THIS, COMMUNIST BBC!” whenever you submit anything to the HYS messageboard.
BINGE BRITAIN – the sudden liking for alcohol which has happened since 1997. No-one underage ever drank anything before then, but now all of a sudden everyone is drinking, from the age of four upwards, then having a fight afterwards. Anticipated by Hogarth in his famous “Gin Lane under NuLab”.
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Understanding British law, with Melanie Phillips
You’ll all know by now that policies are complicated things. They use Big Words and Complicated Jargon. They come in large PDFs, and not only do you have to read the whole thing, but you’ll need access to other reading materials to make sure you understand context, history and competing points of view.
Phew, that’s enough to work anyone into a sweat – thank God no one actually writes about policy anymore!
Well, one brave woman still does. Ever the wonk, Melanie Phillips has forensically studied the details of the proposed changes in murder law and, for her policy-averse readers, managed to summarise it in just 34 words.
To quote The Knowing One, the proposals:
as far as I can see, will mean that if a woman kills her husband she will get away with it whereas if a man kills his wife he will be convicted of murder.
If Tuesday is Soylent Green Day, is Sunday Hangover Day?
Spirit of 1976 has found a secret video exposing the Gay Agenda to Take Over the World.
Steph Ashley can’t understand why everyone quotes Iain Dale as if his views actually matter. I share her mystification on this.
Alix Mortimer compares Lib Dem and Tory campaign slogans and (surprisingly!) finds the Tory one somewhat wanting.
Dreaming of Simplicity wants to pee on Aaron’s bonfire in linking to this article on Digital Spy about the BBC’s commercial impacts.
Aberavon and Neath Lib Dems examine the Tax Credit train wreck.
And finally, Lady Mark Valladares has been up in my neck of the woods. He (and Ros) will be in Bradford today and I shall, if I can drag myself out of bed, be going to have a cream tea with them. The perils of Lib Demmery…
Let’s have a party for Thatcher
So, a state funeral for Maggie? Why the hell not. Let’s do it.
And whilst we’re at it, let’s have a frantic choir of badly-dressed midgets singing the ding-dong song. Hell, I’m only 5ft tall myself, I’ll lead the chorus. Let’s have a party. Let’s have a gigantic piss-up to see the old girl off, and with her what remained of industrial Britain: its hatred.
Because once the witch is dead, maybe the progressive left can finally move on.
We lost, back in the mid-80s. Well, in fact, I was watching The Poddington Peas and eating a rusk on a sofa in Islington at the time, officer – but, vicariously, I lost too. We all lost. We need to face that, forgive ourselves and move on.
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Drop the word ‘chav’
Ziauddin Sardar, an Equality Commissioner, made a common sense plea in yesterday’s Guardian for a “sensibility for civility” in the way we treat others. It was an attempt to acknowledge how “derogatory words make way for degrading treatment” while seeking to sidestep the flame wars, and backlash, generated by an excessive policing for ‘political correctness’.
Our experience with PC language argues this is not something we can, or should, police. But that does not mean being indifferent and taking no action to promote civility through language that is neither jargon nor the ungainly, unspeakable invention of impersonal committees. What we need is common sense and a commitment to a sensibility that values the dignity of all.
This is well argued and sensible, though it is probably true that, in Britain at least, ‘political correctness’ has largely been a caricature (a “straw person”, as it were), rarely used other than to complain about ‘political correctness gone mad’.
But attempts to promote this approach may still face that kind of backlash.
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About that Obama ‘terrorist’ cover
When the weather gets warm (at least, that’s the rumour) and journalists & bloggers are stuck in a drought. Try as I might, I can’t find the rage required to get worked-up over this:
Seriously, if you can’t mock the mad right’s lunatic & racist portrayals of Obama in the archetypal liberal arts & current affairs magazine, when and where can you do it?
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Eat everything on your plate!
He’s getting beyond parody:
Britons must stop wasting food in an effort to help combat rising living costs, Gordon Brown has said as he travelled to the G8 summit in Japan. The PM said “unnecessary” purchases were contributing to price rises, and urged people to plan meals in advance and store food properly.
Now, I’m embarrassed to point this out, but people don’t need telling this. The more expensive food becomes, the less folk will want to waste it. That’s basic self-interest and GCSE economics.
So, why is Brown saying this? I can think of four possibilities.
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Someone Is Wrong On The Internet
Sorry the netcast is a bit late today, folks. I got caught up in emailing Woman’s Hour and lost track of time. As always, tips to the usual address (although we give no guarantees you’ll be included) and hope you find something of interest in this.
Paul Walter has a handy précis of ConHome’s “How to become a Tory MP” guide. Essentially it involves throwing lots of money at it. *I* thought that was supposed to be the *Labour* way…
Lynne Featherstone calls people who don’t support Harriet Harman’s proposal to allow positive discrimination “Tory Boys”. Thank, Lynne! I assume the penis and blue rosette must have been lost in the post…
Lee Griffin is a Tory Boy like me, then. I particularly like this rabid right-wing point: “If schools want more male teachers then incentives are necessary to increase numbers, not putting a worse teacher in charge of educating our children for the sake of some equality figures.”
Anthony Hook thinks that the age discrimination proposals might be ill-thought-out too. continue reading… »
Reactions to Doctor Who Broke My Brain
I have spent about five hours so far collating reactions to last night’s Who and am still not done yet, so if this is a bit disjointed, blame Russell T Davies. When I’ve finally done I’ll be making Liberal use of this and picturing Rusty in the role of Boss.
Tips to the usual address: all submissions will be considered, although there’s no guarantee of inclusion.
Andrew Hickey has a great post about why the Lib Dems’ current strategy is completely arse-about-face, which neatly encapsulates my own feelings on the matter and chimes with Mike Smithson’s recent post too.
Stuff White People Like dissects Godwin’s Law: “all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.”
Shakesville reports on a fiscal fly in John McCain’s soup.
On my blog there are tips for those who wish to pile the pressure on Heinz like Lynne F. continue reading… »
In the interests of balance: Why we shouldn’t support David Davis
What David Davis did today was not unprecedented, but it was something quite rare. However, I would urge caution on rushing headlong to leap into bed with him and give him our support.
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Tories in trouble? Blame the BBC!
Via the CoffeeHouse come Nadine Dorries’ latest thoughts on what she sees as a Government orchestrated witch-hunt against poor wickle Caroline Spelman perpetrated by Labour’s Secret Police: the BBC.
Apparently.
The frenzied attack against Conservative MPs and MEPs, orchestrated by and emanating from the left wing BBC and press has equalled that of an animal in its death throes. The more terminal the position looks for Labour, the more desperate the BBC and left wing press become.
Right. Remember people: when, say, Wendy Alexander gets done for accepting a donation from a private individual that totals an amount that wouldn’t get you much change from a round at the Bullingdon Bollinger night it is Evidence Of The Sleaze That Is Endemic In This Sleazy ZaNuLabour Party.
[For more on this read Guido's account of his smack-down with Nadine on the issue: quality!]
So, when a Tory personally enriches him/herself at taxpayers’ expense and is then put bang-to-rights, it is Evidence That The BBC Is Staffed By A Bunch Of Pinko Commies.
All clear now? Good.
Forza, Viola
The notion that sport and politics should never mix is a curious, and also deeply political, one. Sport, after all, is just the waging of international politics by other means. Ask the East Germans.
Rarely has the mix been quite as fruity as this weekend’s end to the Italian football season continue reading… »
The Fritzl case and media hypocrisy
This weekend has not been a good one for the dangerous freaks and dissenters among us. I spent it mostly in the garden under a scrap of boiling London sky, contemplating all the things I’m suddenly not allowed to do anymore. That, and reading the papers, most of which have spent the post-Boris comedown wanking grotesquely over the Fritzl case.
In case you’ve spent the past month hiding in a box, this is the big Austrian incest story that made headlines across the world when it emerged that a grandfather in his seventies had imprisoned his daughter in a custom-built dungeon under his house and fathered seven children by her whilst the rest of the family lived upstairs in complete ignorance.
Horrific, utterly, stunningly horrific. And not something you’d ever see on these civilised islands, of course.
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Was it the Standard wot won it?
So, it’s the weekend after the week before, and an alliance of gameshow fans, 4×4 drivers, suburban curtain-twitchers, BNP second-preferences, Labourphobes and the thoroughly fed-up, mostly from places that don’t even count as London, have foisted a Thatcherite mayor on our generally left-leaning city. continue reading… »
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» How bad is the feline obesity crisis?
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civic cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
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