And God looked upon the Earth and saw mankind saying they could change the climate He had made and He laughed. He watched a chosen few of several thousand gather at Copenhagen. He saw they were followed by hippies shouting that mankind had taken the power from God to make the climate warmer. They enjoyed each others company and feasted well together. And God felt excluded. To make the point that he still holds the climate in his own hands and messes with it at his own will, often just for fun, he dropped 8 inches of snow on Britain causing travel mayhem. He said, “you want cold, try this”, but mankind took no notice. Still they talked of man's power over the climate so he sent a great chill across Europe, sent wind that stopped the cross channel ferries and turned off the power to trains in the Channel Tunnel. And God said unto the peoples of the Earth, now do you get it?
And Lo, the peoples of they Earth began scattering until only a few were left. And those few set about trying to inflict unilateral economic disarmament on the parts of the world that could still afford to see their children fed by having them send all the money that was left after the Great Post Millennial Recession to the parts of the world where they had no way of paying that money back other that to give their own children, their own flesh and blood, into slavery.
Now displeased, God sent plagues of pestilence and famine that the people blamed on each other instead of praying for forgiveness. God watched as that led to war and degradation of the environment he had made for man to live in.
And he sat with his head in his hands and said, “They just don’t get it, do they?”
Saturday 19 December 2009
Saturday 12 December 2009
How to have a landslide win - or loss.
Labour talked back in 1997 that we could import everything we needed using the money from the City of London so we no longer need farming or manufacturing. The war against farming was done in relative openness but the war against manufacturing and any other industry was kept in the dark.
Company profits have been squeezed for such a long time now that employers no longer do training. Prospective workers have to get college qualifications or degrees at their own expense, thus excluding the poor from bettering themselves and exacerbating the divide between the have and the have nots. Hence large swathes of the electorate are shut out of the job market and are sick of hearing Brown say he is doing all he can to get people back to work, thus shutting out all who have never been in work. That would be around 20 million voters with no experience to put on their CV and no chance of getting to interview stages in any job application.
So why would his saying he is redirecting overseas aid to combating climate change strike any chords with that 20 million? I mean, whose money is he throwing away now? There is no reason those who have never had the chance to pay tax should care about his spending and it is therefore irrelevant as an election issue.
There are jobs, we see people working. But the young British born and educated male cannot get into those positions and be part of a community. We need to see how those who are in work got the jobs offers, how they found out about openings and got invited to take up work there. Obviously the notice boards in the Polish community places, like churches, are written in Polish and so exclude all who did not learn that language in school or at home. Likewise Gujerati, Urdu, Ukrainian, Russian – we do not teach those languages in school here in the UK. Modern language departments in state comprehensives are in decline now that foreign languages are no longer compulsory and are thought to be hard, and tend not to teach languages other than French and German, or Spanish, for lack of teachers and exam markers. Nepotism is the norm in most cultures, looking after one’s own is a normal human thing to do. But it excludes outsiders, in this case culturally British people. This is what the BNP are seeing and working on to make progress in the polls.
The workless do not see the mass exodus of the manufacturing wealth creation base of Britain as the fault of government because nobody has told them, or shown them that is what happened. But shown that foreigners are taking jobs here is easy to understand. Unless Labour comes clean about what they have done they will lose voters to the BNP, as will other parties.
The Conservative Party needs to find a way of telling these truths in the language of the target audience, the words they use, in ways that chime in with the world they live in and experiences they recognise. That is the language of the state comprehensive, of the streets and of the X Factor – the language that might not be learned at Eton though it seems to have been taught in the scholarship funded selective public school our Glaswegian Prime Minister attended.
Labour got their message across in the late 1990’s. Now the Conservative Party must do the same only better. But to whom are the target audience listening. We must assume that a third of them have left school unable to be reading it.
Company profits have been squeezed for such a long time now that employers no longer do training. Prospective workers have to get college qualifications or degrees at their own expense, thus excluding the poor from bettering themselves and exacerbating the divide between the have and the have nots. Hence large swathes of the electorate are shut out of the job market and are sick of hearing Brown say he is doing all he can to get people back to work, thus shutting out all who have never been in work. That would be around 20 million voters with no experience to put on their CV and no chance of getting to interview stages in any job application.
So why would his saying he is redirecting overseas aid to combating climate change strike any chords with that 20 million? I mean, whose money is he throwing away now? There is no reason those who have never had the chance to pay tax should care about his spending and it is therefore irrelevant as an election issue.
There are jobs, we see people working. But the young British born and educated male cannot get into those positions and be part of a community. We need to see how those who are in work got the jobs offers, how they found out about openings and got invited to take up work there. Obviously the notice boards in the Polish community places, like churches, are written in Polish and so exclude all who did not learn that language in school or at home. Likewise Gujerati, Urdu, Ukrainian, Russian – we do not teach those languages in school here in the UK. Modern language departments in state comprehensives are in decline now that foreign languages are no longer compulsory and are thought to be hard, and tend not to teach languages other than French and German, or Spanish, for lack of teachers and exam markers. Nepotism is the norm in most cultures, looking after one’s own is a normal human thing to do. But it excludes outsiders, in this case culturally British people. This is what the BNP are seeing and working on to make progress in the polls.
The workless do not see the mass exodus of the manufacturing wealth creation base of Britain as the fault of government because nobody has told them, or shown them that is what happened. But shown that foreigners are taking jobs here is easy to understand. Unless Labour comes clean about what they have done they will lose voters to the BNP, as will other parties.
The Conservative Party needs to find a way of telling these truths in the language of the target audience, the words they use, in ways that chime in with the world they live in and experiences they recognise. That is the language of the state comprehensive, of the streets and of the X Factor – the language that might not be learned at Eton though it seems to have been taught in the scholarship funded selective public school our Glaswegian Prime Minister attended.
Labour got their message across in the late 1990’s. Now the Conservative Party must do the same only better. But to whom are the target audience listening. We must assume that a third of them have left school unable to be reading it.
Monday 7 December 2009
Garden design problems
A friend is always helping other people, never himself. Someone sends him a fax or phones him asking can he give up three days a week for six months as a voluntary helper running a mass attendance sporting event and he says, yes, I can do that. No pay, no problem. So his own home gets a bit neglected. I noticed his garden was ten feet deep in brambles and chose to do something about it, motivating him by saying he could use it for the benefit of others when it is finished and tidy.
I started with a plan and set about rooting some cuttings of low maintenance plants that would do well in a garden that appeared to be of plateau gravel topped with a thin layer of London clay. One row of Leylandii trees had been removed and another was due to go so the land was exceedingly dry and I thought my assessment of substrate and top soil was correct – a dry garden.
It was to have a hedge across the bottom of assorted evergreen shrubs with hebes, rosemary and lavender to the front and tall red tulips interspersed for Springtime focus. The backing shrubs, escalonia that has small flowers in deep pink and a tall spiky plant that has sprays of tiny white flowers followed by orange berries. This, along with the small leaved hebes, would give it distance and the greens would change like the banks of a river appear to change as you slip by in a rowing boat. It would also be very low maintenance to fit the requirements of a man who would rather not be maintaining his own garden.
To the right I envisaged planting a row of evergreen rosa rugosa that would flower in pink to pick up the dotty pink or red from the high lower border.
To the left I saw only brambles, and a few self seeded plum stalks around an apple tree then being strangled by ivy. The sun bakes the south facing garden and I guessed that side would be dry – a row of silver leaved senecio would do nicely there if he could be persuaded to cut across the top of it with his electric hedge trimmer once a year. Grey green to the right, three feet high; assorted green with red and pink dots to the back; and dingy green with dull pink to the right – it would look fantastic if he once again mowed the lawn in the middle as he had before the brambles took over the ground and other people took over his spare time. I ordered masses of weed suppressant fabric to cover each patch of ground I exposed to stop the weeds coming back with pegs to hold it down. Not enough pegs – I frequently had to go for more.
I set about with this image in mind. Chopping the brambles was hot work but good balance exercise for my wobbly legs. Snipping up the lengths of stem was simple while were still fresh and soft, and gathering all the bits onto a cleared area that needed more height was easy with a rake.
And that was where the trouble started.
I wrenched at a roll of prickly stems, now reduced from ten feet to four. It stuck and I pulled harder. The roots of the brambles came out of good black soil like string out of honey right across to the fence on the other side. Not London clay and not dry. However, the brambles grew over my head as I thought about that so back to chopping I went. At the right hand fence I found the remains of an old fence piled up on top of and among faded children’s toys and garden rubbish. Rolling that away I found the base of the bramble den and tugged them out, returning to rescuing other areas of land from ivy that was rooted under the fence pieces. Baby frogs grunted their despair as I covered the land with black stuff and I spent hours catching them up and returning them to an old pond I had exposed near the house. They spent the time hopping back again until I came across their mother and caught her up. While I went on another tea break in the shade the frogs all hopped back onto the black stuff and tried to make holes in it. They were not on my side. They had their own agenda and ran an organised campaign.
Eventually the whole area was clear and mostly covered in black fabric, lumps appeared and fell back as brambles tried to see the sun again. I snipped them as they emerged from frog splittings and pinned the gaps over assiduously.
Months later the time for planting happened, though the 1970’s trailing ivy eating the garage roof was still thriving in spite of having been sprayed with the most evil bad plant killing stuff I could buy.
Throwing the pointy-ended pickaxe into the soil as it trying to make a hole in gravel worked better than expected and the right hand side was soon being planted with seneccio – far too easily. That soil was not the dry thin clay that seneccio would love, it was black rich soil wringing wet as if over the leaking water main!
I explored. The neighbouring garden was a few feet higher and their greenhouse was next to the wet area so it was assumed that he was watering with a leaking system. Wrong.
He was not.
I had found one more of the natural springs that are common high on plateau gravel. The springs that came up and vanished and are the bane of local water suppliers who keep being called out on reports of burst water mains when the road is flooding only to find after much digging that their water main is fine. The springs that make sloping roads into ice rinks in winter. But this one was round the back and was about to kill my chosen plants with root rot.
I suggested hydrangea but the man who owns the garden does not like them. I suggested Kniphofia (red hot pokers) but he does not like those either.
I suspect that part of the garden might end up as a water feature.
Further research suggests that land now part of a housing estate was the orchards and vegetable gardens of the gardener of a big estate whose mansion and stable block is now a large school for boys. Obviously the gardener used the stable manure on his own patch and with gusto. Brilliant soil that would grow anything bigger and better than anywhere else around and he just wants a low maintenance border. But of what? Bamboo would be even more uncontrollably invasive as the brambles I spent months fighting.
I think it might be box, buxus buxus. Too bright, too short, and too dark.
Garden design was never meant to be easy.
I started with a plan and set about rooting some cuttings of low maintenance plants that would do well in a garden that appeared to be of plateau gravel topped with a thin layer of London clay. One row of Leylandii trees had been removed and another was due to go so the land was exceedingly dry and I thought my assessment of substrate and top soil was correct – a dry garden.
It was to have a hedge across the bottom of assorted evergreen shrubs with hebes, rosemary and lavender to the front and tall red tulips interspersed for Springtime focus. The backing shrubs, escalonia that has small flowers in deep pink and a tall spiky plant that has sprays of tiny white flowers followed by orange berries. This, along with the small leaved hebes, would give it distance and the greens would change like the banks of a river appear to change as you slip by in a rowing boat. It would also be very low maintenance to fit the requirements of a man who would rather not be maintaining his own garden.
To the right I envisaged planting a row of evergreen rosa rugosa that would flower in pink to pick up the dotty pink or red from the high lower border.
To the left I saw only brambles, and a few self seeded plum stalks around an apple tree then being strangled by ivy. The sun bakes the south facing garden and I guessed that side would be dry – a row of silver leaved senecio would do nicely there if he could be persuaded to cut across the top of it with his electric hedge trimmer once a year. Grey green to the right, three feet high; assorted green with red and pink dots to the back; and dingy green with dull pink to the right – it would look fantastic if he once again mowed the lawn in the middle as he had before the brambles took over the ground and other people took over his spare time. I ordered masses of weed suppressant fabric to cover each patch of ground I exposed to stop the weeds coming back with pegs to hold it down. Not enough pegs – I frequently had to go for more.
I set about with this image in mind. Chopping the brambles was hot work but good balance exercise for my wobbly legs. Snipping up the lengths of stem was simple while were still fresh and soft, and gathering all the bits onto a cleared area that needed more height was easy with a rake.
And that was where the trouble started.
I wrenched at a roll of prickly stems, now reduced from ten feet to four. It stuck and I pulled harder. The roots of the brambles came out of good black soil like string out of honey right across to the fence on the other side. Not London clay and not dry. However, the brambles grew over my head as I thought about that so back to chopping I went. At the right hand fence I found the remains of an old fence piled up on top of and among faded children’s toys and garden rubbish. Rolling that away I found the base of the bramble den and tugged them out, returning to rescuing other areas of land from ivy that was rooted under the fence pieces. Baby frogs grunted their despair as I covered the land with black stuff and I spent hours catching them up and returning them to an old pond I had exposed near the house. They spent the time hopping back again until I came across their mother and caught her up. While I went on another tea break in the shade the frogs all hopped back onto the black stuff and tried to make holes in it. They were not on my side. They had their own agenda and ran an organised campaign.
Eventually the whole area was clear and mostly covered in black fabric, lumps appeared and fell back as brambles tried to see the sun again. I snipped them as they emerged from frog splittings and pinned the gaps over assiduously.
Months later the time for planting happened, though the 1970’s trailing ivy eating the garage roof was still thriving in spite of having been sprayed with the most evil bad plant killing stuff I could buy.
Throwing the pointy-ended pickaxe into the soil as it trying to make a hole in gravel worked better than expected and the right hand side was soon being planted with seneccio – far too easily. That soil was not the dry thin clay that seneccio would love, it was black rich soil wringing wet as if over the leaking water main!
I explored. The neighbouring garden was a few feet higher and their greenhouse was next to the wet area so it was assumed that he was watering with a leaking system. Wrong.
He was not.
I had found one more of the natural springs that are common high on plateau gravel. The springs that came up and vanished and are the bane of local water suppliers who keep being called out on reports of burst water mains when the road is flooding only to find after much digging that their water main is fine. The springs that make sloping roads into ice rinks in winter. But this one was round the back and was about to kill my chosen plants with root rot.
I suggested hydrangea but the man who owns the garden does not like them. I suggested Kniphofia (red hot pokers) but he does not like those either.
I suspect that part of the garden might end up as a water feature.
Further research suggests that land now part of a housing estate was the orchards and vegetable gardens of the gardener of a big estate whose mansion and stable block is now a large school for boys. Obviously the gardener used the stable manure on his own patch and with gusto. Brilliant soil that would grow anything bigger and better than anywhere else around and he just wants a low maintenance border. But of what? Bamboo would be even more uncontrollably invasive as the brambles I spent months fighting.
I think it might be box, buxus buxus. Too bright, too short, and too dark.
Garden design was never meant to be easy.
Thursday 3 December 2009
Monday 30 November 2009
the forthcoming demise of the cheque.
Regarding cheque payments and their forthcoming demise - which is a serious problem for local councils and charities whose articles of association dictate they must have two signatures for every payment.
The law will be changed and until it is they say it is down to individual councils to find ways of dealing with the situation.
I suggest that a payment card or credit card may be used providing the clerk has a numbered form, signed by two as now, filled in approving a payment, either with the exact amount or a No More Than specified for each usage. These forms would be filed as legal documents in the same way as cheque stubs are now, but with the serial number of the form listed in place of the cheque number as we do now. Reconciliation of payments would be made in the same way as current account reconciliations are now. These Electronic Payment Approval Forms (EPAFs) may be the system for the future of parish councils and charities. It is possible we need to design a form and pay attention to possibilities of fraudulent usage, though I see little opportunity for that happening. It also needs to have a name that gives us a catchier acronym.
Preventing a fictitious rogue clerk or charity tearsurer somewhere in the future taking advantage of any payment system needs to be tested.
The law will be changed and until it is they say it is down to individual councils to find ways of dealing with the situation.
I suggest that a payment card or credit card may be used providing the clerk has a numbered form, signed by two as now, filled in approving a payment, either with the exact amount or a No More Than specified for each usage. These forms would be filed as legal documents in the same way as cheque stubs are now, but with the serial number of the form listed in place of the cheque number as we do now. Reconciliation of payments would be made in the same way as current account reconciliations are now. These Electronic Payment Approval Forms (EPAFs) may be the system for the future of parish councils and charities. It is possible we need to design a form and pay attention to possibilities of fraudulent usage, though I see little opportunity for that happening. It also needs to have a name that gives us a catchier acronym.
Preventing a fictitious rogue clerk or charity tearsurer somewhere in the future taking advantage of any payment system needs to be tested.
Sunday 29 November 2009
Star Wars revelation
On Star Wars movies there are floors on different levels, mezzanines all over the place, but no railings or bannisters to prevent anyone inadvertantly stepping over the edge.This implies all the Elf n Safety people have been rounded up and thrown into a very deep burning pit, maybe to have their entrails fed to giant mechanised camels. But who did that? Was it the Jedi Knights (good guys) or the followers of the Dark Side (baddies)?
I contend that the Elf n Safety proletariat had exceeded acceptable standards and interfered so much in people's lives and comon sense risk apprehension that the good guys were summoned to do this as an act of liberation.
I contend that the Elf n Safety proletariat had exceeded acceptable standards and interfered so much in people's lives and comon sense risk apprehension that the good guys were summoned to do this as an act of liberation.
Tuesday 24 November 2009
Iraq war inquiry
I feel the whole topic of the Iraq war is very very distressing. I said at the time it was wrong to go to war with no exit strategy, with no plans for the welfare of the population we were to invade and take over the governance of, and with our armed forces equipped for Northern European operations only. To my mind this was illegal in itself. It was tantamount to the attenpted murder of our people in uniform. And sending them to a war we had no gain from, on a lie, saying it was not for regime change when it clearly was, and always has been. Blair even claiomed success in achieving regime change as justification for going to war in the first place so he did acknowledge that had been his objective - an objective outlawed by the United Nations on whose paperwork they used to send our forces in.
Wednesday 11 November 2009
That letter and the PM’s eye.
That letter and the PM’s eye.
OK, look at it this way. The PM has ordered a generation into a war that carries no chance of victory, knowing if they come back they will see there are no jobs for the young generation he under-equips them so more get killed or maimed. But before bedtime he is told he must write letters to loved ones of all who died that day as a result of orders he gave. He threw the printer out of the room in a fit of temper and is now banned from access to printers, and keyboards, and pointy things like pens and pencils - all he has to do the job with is felt tipped pens and some headed writing paper. So he rushes off a few and leaves the room for others to do the folding and the posting. Knowing how violently explosive he has become they would not dare suggest maybe he has done it not well enough.
Then he finds the letter is doing his reputation no good at all and phones the recipient to keep her quiet, make her sorry she sent it to the press. She records it and quick as blinking the words are all over the Internet, would have been all over TV and radio if his organisation had not managed to frighten broadcasters into not broadcasting his voice on the tape.
What will he do next? What can he do?
There is his monthly press briefing coming up that same week, his one next chance to get away with having blotted his copybook, so to speak. His eyesight is poor, and like many others he has been attending the eye clinic and using the drops they tell us to use. The solution in that eye medicine is not exactly the same Ph as that of the eye so when we apply the drops it makes a stinging sensation that soon passes, but generates eye watering for a few minutes. With a flash of inspiration he puts the eye drops into that one good eye he has been told to apply it to, steps through the curtain into the public gaze with one eye still glistening. Right across the nation people with nothing better to do see him of their screens with one weeping eye. His reputation goes up. He is safe for another day – but the young people in the services are not, and the young people queuing in abject futility for every job vacancy are growing depressed and angry.
Keep using the eye drops, Gordon; you must know the side effects will give you cataracts and an excuse for leaving that job without crawling away in ignominy!
What you or I would have done is this. Having been informed that a young man, someone’s son or husband, has died as a result of following orders you initiated you know you have a duty to write to those who are grieving to let them know you are sorry for what happened. That you are sorry the consequences of your decisions led to the death of another highly trained and committed young man. You take a walk and sort out in your mind how to say what you have to say, figure out what would be the best choice of words, and think through the effect that wording will have on the recipient. Then you sit down at the desk and take up the selected writing implement. You look at the blank piece of paper, a lump developing in the throat and hand shaking, you know this had better be done right, no mistakes will be forgiven in a letter craving forgiveness. Getting the line straight you start moving the pen on the paper, so hesitantly that blots soon appear and that sheet of paper is crumpled up and dropped into the bin. On a piece of notepaper you scribble out the text, edit it and amend it and then you start again with the best ink pen on best paper, painstakingly forming every word in line and properly spaced, properly spelled. When it is done you hold it up and imagine yourself as the bereaved recipient, asking yourself if this good enough. If you decide not you do it all again. Then you have it checked over by one of the many secretaries ranked throughout the building. Only then would you fold it into the addressed envelope and place it carefully in the post out box on the sideboard by the door and get on with ending the day.
OK, look at it this way. The PM has ordered a generation into a war that carries no chance of victory, knowing if they come back they will see there are no jobs for the young generation he under-equips them so more get killed or maimed. But before bedtime he is told he must write letters to loved ones of all who died that day as a result of orders he gave. He threw the printer out of the room in a fit of temper and is now banned from access to printers, and keyboards, and pointy things like pens and pencils - all he has to do the job with is felt tipped pens and some headed writing paper. So he rushes off a few and leaves the room for others to do the folding and the posting. Knowing how violently explosive he has become they would not dare suggest maybe he has done it not well enough.
Then he finds the letter is doing his reputation no good at all and phones the recipient to keep her quiet, make her sorry she sent it to the press. She records it and quick as blinking the words are all over the Internet, would have been all over TV and radio if his organisation had not managed to frighten broadcasters into not broadcasting his voice on the tape.
What will he do next? What can he do?
There is his monthly press briefing coming up that same week, his one next chance to get away with having blotted his copybook, so to speak. His eyesight is poor, and like many others he has been attending the eye clinic and using the drops they tell us to use. The solution in that eye medicine is not exactly the same Ph as that of the eye so when we apply the drops it makes a stinging sensation that soon passes, but generates eye watering for a few minutes. With a flash of inspiration he puts the eye drops into that one good eye he has been told to apply it to, steps through the curtain into the public gaze with one eye still glistening. Right across the nation people with nothing better to do see him of their screens with one weeping eye. His reputation goes up. He is safe for another day – but the young people in the services are not, and the young people queuing in abject futility for every job vacancy are growing depressed and angry.
Keep using the eye drops, Gordon; you must know the side effects will give you cataracts and an excuse for leaving that job without crawling away in ignominy!
What you or I would have done is this. Having been informed that a young man, someone’s son or husband, has died as a result of following orders you initiated you know you have a duty to write to those who are grieving to let them know you are sorry for what happened. That you are sorry the consequences of your decisions led to the death of another highly trained and committed young man. You take a walk and sort out in your mind how to say what you have to say, figure out what would be the best choice of words, and think through the effect that wording will have on the recipient. Then you sit down at the desk and take up the selected writing implement. You look at the blank piece of paper, a lump developing in the throat and hand shaking, you know this had better be done right, no mistakes will be forgiven in a letter craving forgiveness. Getting the line straight you start moving the pen on the paper, so hesitantly that blots soon appear and that sheet of paper is crumpled up and dropped into the bin. On a piece of notepaper you scribble out the text, edit it and amend it and then you start again with the best ink pen on best paper, painstakingly forming every word in line and properly spaced, properly spelled. When it is done you hold it up and imagine yourself as the bereaved recipient, asking yourself if this good enough. If you decide not you do it all again. Then you have it checked over by one of the many secretaries ranked throughout the building. Only then would you fold it into the addressed envelope and place it carefully in the post out box on the sideboard by the door and get on with ending the day.
Saturday 7 November 2009
Taxing risk takers out of the markets.
If this government goes ahead with confiscating the rewards of risk taking in financial transactions I will take all my money off the stock market immediately and leave it off until they see sense. I already pay stamp duty every time I buy shares. Government tax revneues depended on the City making money but government took away the regulating mechanism that worked and then abolished our own Glass Spiegal rules - thus killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
No extra taxes or we risk takers and investors go on strike.
No extra taxes or we risk takers and investors go on strike.
Friday 30 October 2009
I copy and paste this article that I am told was published in the Guardian, 26 Oct 2009, because I cannot click it up now and assume it has been removed from their site. But the assertions here are important for the future of my country so it is important enough for this repeat publishing.
Subject: Ukip threat to David Cameron's election majority
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/25/ukip-cameron-election- threat
Ukip threat to David Cameron's election majority. Tories could lose out in 50 marginals over Lisbon referendum pledge * Gaby Hinsliff, political editor, and Henry McDonald * The Observer, Sunday 25 October 2009
David Cameron could be denied up to 50 MPs at the next election because of the United Kingdom Independence party (Ukip) splitting the Conservative vote, Labour party analysis suggests.
Ukip plans to try to divide the party by standing in marginal seats against Tory candidates who fail to back a referendum on the Lisbon treaty in all circumstances. Cameron refuses to say whether he would offer a referendum if the treaty were ratified, insisting merely that he "will not let the matter rest".
A private analysis by Labour strategists suggests that in marginal constituencies, even a few hundred extra votes for Ukip could frustrate Tory challengers trying to take the seats. One cabinet minister cited Ukip as among the most important factors in the battle for a hung parliament, telling the Observer it could "cost the Tories 50 to 60 seats".
Labour's figures are based on 100 "supermarginal" seats where its Mps are holding on with majorities of less than 2,000. These are the seats Cameron must win to form a majority. While Ukip will not win these seats, the minister said that if the party maintained its momentum and took about two-thirds of its support from Conservative-inclined rather than Labour-inclined voters, it could split the opposition vote sufficiently to keep the Tories out in around 50 seats.
Depending on Gordon Brown's ability to close the poll gap, the Ukip effect may not be enough to keep him in power, but ministers believe it could deliver a coalition or a small Tory majority.
The fringe party is struggling financially after a court ruling that it must return a donation ruled inadmissible by the Electoral Commission, threatening its ability to fight a general election. However, it has survived similar crises before to increase its share of
the vote in this year's European elections.
The right-wing thinktank the Bruges Group, which calculates that Ukip cost the Tories about 27 seats at the last election, said it had the potential to create more serious problems this time. Robin Oulds, director of the group, said the large Conservative poll lead disguised the fact that much of its support was still in south-east England, while Ukip's was far smaller but more evenly spread.
Nigel Farage, Ukip's leading spokesman, said he was drawing up plans to focus on key marginals. He said he was "looking to" the possibility of Tory candidates breaking ranks and endorsing a referendum in all circumstances.
John Curtice, professor of government at Strathclyde University, said Ukip could pose problems for the Tories on "party indiscipline", with candidates tempted to defy their leader over Lisbon. The threat from Ukip helps to explain why Cameron has hardened the party line on Europe, despite the concerns of some senior Tories about their allies in the European parliament. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, insisted yesterday that Ukip would not be allowed to bounce his party.
He said: "We won't be deciding on this policy [Europe] based on the activities of what is a fringe party. We'll decide on what is best for the country and what we really believe in. The real choice is between the failed government of Gordon Brown and a new government under David Cameron."
Subject: Ukip threat to David Cameron's election majority
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/25/ukip-cameron-election- threat
Ukip threat to David Cameron's election majority. Tories could lose out in 50 marginals over Lisbon referendum pledge * Gaby Hinsliff, political editor, and Henry McDonald * The Observer, Sunday 25 October 2009
David Cameron could be denied up to 50 MPs at the next election because of the United Kingdom Independence party (Ukip) splitting the Conservative vote, Labour party analysis suggests.
Ukip plans to try to divide the party by standing in marginal seats against Tory candidates who fail to back a referendum on the Lisbon treaty in all circumstances. Cameron refuses to say whether he would offer a referendum if the treaty were ratified, insisting merely that he "will not let the matter rest".
A private analysis by Labour strategists suggests that in marginal constituencies, even a few hundred extra votes for Ukip could frustrate Tory challengers trying to take the seats. One cabinet minister cited Ukip as among the most important factors in the battle for a hung parliament, telling the Observer it could "cost the Tories 50 to 60 seats".
Labour's figures are based on 100 "supermarginal" seats where its Mps are holding on with majorities of less than 2,000. These are the seats Cameron must win to form a majority. While Ukip will not win these seats, the minister said that if the party maintained its momentum and took about two-thirds of its support from Conservative-inclined rather than Labour-inclined voters, it could split the opposition vote sufficiently to keep the Tories out in around 50 seats.
Depending on Gordon Brown's ability to close the poll gap, the Ukip effect may not be enough to keep him in power, but ministers believe it could deliver a coalition or a small Tory majority.
The fringe party is struggling financially after a court ruling that it must return a donation ruled inadmissible by the Electoral Commission, threatening its ability to fight a general election. However, it has survived similar crises before to increase its share of
the vote in this year's European elections.
The right-wing thinktank the Bruges Group, which calculates that Ukip cost the Tories about 27 seats at the last election, said it had the potential to create more serious problems this time. Robin Oulds, director of the group, said the large Conservative poll lead disguised the fact that much of its support was still in south-east England, while Ukip's was far smaller but more evenly spread.
Nigel Farage, Ukip's leading spokesman, said he was drawing up plans to focus on key marginals. He said he was "looking to" the possibility of Tory candidates breaking ranks and endorsing a referendum in all circumstances.
John Curtice, professor of government at Strathclyde University, said Ukip could pose problems for the Tories on "party indiscipline", with candidates tempted to defy their leader over Lisbon. The threat from Ukip helps to explain why Cameron has hardened the party line on Europe, despite the concerns of some senior Tories about their allies in the European parliament. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, insisted yesterday that Ukip would not be allowed to bounce his party.
He said: "We won't be deciding on this policy [Europe] based on the activities of what is a fringe party. We'll decide on what is best for the country and what we really believe in. The real choice is between the failed government of Gordon Brown and a new government under David Cameron."
Tuesday 27 October 2009
I am fed up of being mugged!
I almost got mugged again yesterday! In Reading. The usual team of three nonchalantly wandering down a wide pavement, spread out as if just wandering aimlessly, near the disabled parking zone. I was standing next to my car smoking a cigarette when one darted towards the handbag hanging on my shoulder. I swung round as you do, pulled the bag under my arm and watched as he nodded to me that he had missed that time and crossed the road. Why do the police not target those people who target disabled people? You would think a team of plain clothed PCs could set up a way of catching them red handed just by parking an old car with a blue badge and have a lady with walking stick get out and look a bit vulnerable as if she could not run after a snatched bag.
Muggers usually work in a team of three, one to keep watch, one to mark and one to do the thieving, and I assume they work together to get what they want from a bag and then dispose of it and use the proceeds. Police would need a team of four to round them up, with an old car and a blue badge.
I am fed up of being mugged!
Muggers usually work in a team of three, one to keep watch, one to mark and one to do the thieving, and I assume they work together to get what they want from a bag and then dispose of it and use the proceeds. Police would need a team of four to round them up, with an old car and a blue badge.
I am fed up of being mugged!
Sunday 25 October 2009
Labour fears the BNP because
It takes one to know one. It takes a thief to catch a thief, so the saying goes. The best gamekeeper is a reformed poacher because he knows what to look for and how a poacher hides. Labour have long understood that fear is what drives voters to the polling station, and in the lead up to New Labour and Blair’s ascension to Downing Street that is what they worked on most successfully. Yet in 1997 this country and its people had nothing to fear but fear itself. We had a new Princess and a thriving Royal family, a strong and growing economy, the Cold War was over and this country had no enemies for our armed forces to face the threat from. They focussed on telling us that the Conservatives were evil, though evidence showed that to be untrue – it was successive Conservative administrations that had achieved the state of peace prosperity we then enjoyed.
The foremost fear the Labour party worked on in this country and right across Europe was fear of foreigners. Xenophobia is the proper name for that, and they covered their tactic by accusing all and sundry of xenophobia. They converted the meanings of words and preached a whole new lexicon. Fascist, for instance, they threw about to establish an assumed superior knowledge for the under class to learn, altering it to mean anything other than the original meaning – an authoritarian government of a socialist nature. They worked the crowd like players on a pantomime stage and the orchestrated the response from stalls. Now we see that Labour are terrified of the BNP and the horrible contorted features of its leader Nick Griffin strutting around like a chief bully in the playground surrounded by all-male heavies.
Nobody should fear the bully. His gang is a collection of temporarily hopeless juveniles desperately looking for any cause to do the thinking, to look after them and stick up for them in a fight; to feed their hunger and teach them prejudices. Bullies learned their craft at their father’s feet, their mother’s knees, within the family fold. They find the support they crave in the underclass that fears because they have grown up in fear and feel they need the support of a school bully figure for defence in a frightening world. But there was nothing to fear and they knew it. Mrs Thatcher stuck up for the people of the Falkland Islands, and the people of Kuwait, in the sure and certain knowledge this country expected it and supported those actions. Labour had a huge mountain to climb so they undermined it – by spreading their own racist message in the stalls of an audience of xenophobes.
In fact racism is a reaction indulged in only by the stupid. Excluding 90% of the population of the planet from your potential circle of acquaintances simply because of their outward appearance or tribal origins has got to be stupid; it limits your life experience and trading possibilities to those very close to your own vulnerable clique. Racists are halfwits. One might think there cannot be that many ignorant and stupid people registered to vote in this country. Public reaction to Nick Griffin’s public humiliation of the BBC’s Question Time TV programme proves otherwise.
Control of the food supply is a basic requirement for success to a totalitarian regime, but control of access to medicine and supply of medical aid is even more important in the long run. If the state controls the hand that rocks the cradle and dictates what soothers can be used on a peevish infant the state also controls the education of those whose parents have no other options to take. This country used up the most accessible natural resources a long time ago and left us as a nation living on our wits. Spawning generations of half-wits is the beginning of the end for such a nation. The way to do that is to have people shun the traditional soothing medicines and have them only afford and prefer illegal known or reputed painkillers and soothers – cannabis. Yes, the poor in the council estates do use cannabis to get the baby to stop crying. Cannabis destroys brain cells and limits the development or cognitive powers, leaving those people unable to make proper judgements that would come naturally to normal people. Labour has not only dropped immigration controls but it has dropped the system that stemmed the flow of cannabis and other mind altering, destroying, illegal substances into these islands.
So now we have a country of people a third of whom are racist and vulnerable to a racist agenda peddled by fully funded propagandists like Nick Griffin. Labour let this happen because they themselves had secured that core vote on a similar message, using people who said they were not in public but on doorsteps said what they knew the perceiver wanted to hear.
The only times I have encountered true poisonous racism, not joking, not humourously getting used to human differences, but real hatred and fear, is from members of the Labour Party. In a pre-election debate held at the United Nations Association in Reading one man, who I vaguely recall was named Philip from the Sudan, stood up and asked what was the meaning and origin of the phrase, The Third World? The Conservative Party candidate gave a full definition and source of that horrendous phrase – after a world war the United Nations had set about rebuilding the world and had to decide where resources should be targeted to start up the whole trade thing again. They defined things in three categories, the First World, who spent and bought and built, the Second World, whose identity is no longer known, and the Third who would grow and make an sell things to be delivered. All three needed help but that definitions helped identify the type of help to be delivered.
The Lib Dem candidate waffled something nondescript, irrelevant and inaccurate. The Labour person agreed with the other two. I stood up and related a tale of a man who had been working on another African 6 month engineering contract and finally found time to visit his grandchildren for Christmas, had even bought a Man U strip for his grandson, but found his way blocked by an African war zone. As he sat in his hotel room in Addis Ababa he was appalled to see that same grandson live on CNN squatting in the desert with a begging bowl, naked because someone had stolen his clothes. I asserted that the candidates’ reaction to this would tell us the meaning that phrase has now.
The Labour women stuttered that well, she thought it might be possible for some Africans to be qualified as engineers with a lot of support and outside help.
That is racism.
She believed that Africans, and maybe all people of pigmented skin, are by definition of lower intelligence and less capable that white people. One hears a huge, um but, in response to this. Yes, Africans were accomplished mining engineers long before Europeans arrived back there. They built the pyramids, they built palaces and wore gold jewellery. The contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb show that they had furniture crafted from wood using mortice and tenon joints, and made machines from metal long before Europeans had learned how to make chairs to sit on.
The racist message has sunk so deeply into the European psyche that now a third of the electorate secretly believe the same as that Labour candidate. Now the BNP have harnessed that set of fears Labour have little left to rely on for votes.
The foremost fear the Labour party worked on in this country and right across Europe was fear of foreigners. Xenophobia is the proper name for that, and they covered their tactic by accusing all and sundry of xenophobia. They converted the meanings of words and preached a whole new lexicon. Fascist, for instance, they threw about to establish an assumed superior knowledge for the under class to learn, altering it to mean anything other than the original meaning – an authoritarian government of a socialist nature. They worked the crowd like players on a pantomime stage and the orchestrated the response from stalls. Now we see that Labour are terrified of the BNP and the horrible contorted features of its leader Nick Griffin strutting around like a chief bully in the playground surrounded by all-male heavies.
Nobody should fear the bully. His gang is a collection of temporarily hopeless juveniles desperately looking for any cause to do the thinking, to look after them and stick up for them in a fight; to feed their hunger and teach them prejudices. Bullies learned their craft at their father’s feet, their mother’s knees, within the family fold. They find the support they crave in the underclass that fears because they have grown up in fear and feel they need the support of a school bully figure for defence in a frightening world. But there was nothing to fear and they knew it. Mrs Thatcher stuck up for the people of the Falkland Islands, and the people of Kuwait, in the sure and certain knowledge this country expected it and supported those actions. Labour had a huge mountain to climb so they undermined it – by spreading their own racist message in the stalls of an audience of xenophobes.
In fact racism is a reaction indulged in only by the stupid. Excluding 90% of the population of the planet from your potential circle of acquaintances simply because of their outward appearance or tribal origins has got to be stupid; it limits your life experience and trading possibilities to those very close to your own vulnerable clique. Racists are halfwits. One might think there cannot be that many ignorant and stupid people registered to vote in this country. Public reaction to Nick Griffin’s public humiliation of the BBC’s Question Time TV programme proves otherwise.
Control of the food supply is a basic requirement for success to a totalitarian regime, but control of access to medicine and supply of medical aid is even more important in the long run. If the state controls the hand that rocks the cradle and dictates what soothers can be used on a peevish infant the state also controls the education of those whose parents have no other options to take. This country used up the most accessible natural resources a long time ago and left us as a nation living on our wits. Spawning generations of half-wits is the beginning of the end for such a nation. The way to do that is to have people shun the traditional soothing medicines and have them only afford and prefer illegal known or reputed painkillers and soothers – cannabis. Yes, the poor in the council estates do use cannabis to get the baby to stop crying. Cannabis destroys brain cells and limits the development or cognitive powers, leaving those people unable to make proper judgements that would come naturally to normal people. Labour has not only dropped immigration controls but it has dropped the system that stemmed the flow of cannabis and other mind altering, destroying, illegal substances into these islands.
So now we have a country of people a third of whom are racist and vulnerable to a racist agenda peddled by fully funded propagandists like Nick Griffin. Labour let this happen because they themselves had secured that core vote on a similar message, using people who said they were not in public but on doorsteps said what they knew the perceiver wanted to hear.
The only times I have encountered true poisonous racism, not joking, not humourously getting used to human differences, but real hatred and fear, is from members of the Labour Party. In a pre-election debate held at the United Nations Association in Reading one man, who I vaguely recall was named Philip from the Sudan, stood up and asked what was the meaning and origin of the phrase, The Third World? The Conservative Party candidate gave a full definition and source of that horrendous phrase – after a world war the United Nations had set about rebuilding the world and had to decide where resources should be targeted to start up the whole trade thing again. They defined things in three categories, the First World, who spent and bought and built, the Second World, whose identity is no longer known, and the Third who would grow and make an sell things to be delivered. All three needed help but that definitions helped identify the type of help to be delivered.
The Lib Dem candidate waffled something nondescript, irrelevant and inaccurate. The Labour person agreed with the other two. I stood up and related a tale of a man who had been working on another African 6 month engineering contract and finally found time to visit his grandchildren for Christmas, had even bought a Man U strip for his grandson, but found his way blocked by an African war zone. As he sat in his hotel room in Addis Ababa he was appalled to see that same grandson live on CNN squatting in the desert with a begging bowl, naked because someone had stolen his clothes. I asserted that the candidates’ reaction to this would tell us the meaning that phrase has now.
The Labour women stuttered that well, she thought it might be possible for some Africans to be qualified as engineers with a lot of support and outside help.
That is racism.
She believed that Africans, and maybe all people of pigmented skin, are by definition of lower intelligence and less capable that white people. One hears a huge, um but, in response to this. Yes, Africans were accomplished mining engineers long before Europeans arrived back there. They built the pyramids, they built palaces and wore gold jewellery. The contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb show that they had furniture crafted from wood using mortice and tenon joints, and made machines from metal long before Europeans had learned how to make chairs to sit on.
The racist message has sunk so deeply into the European psyche that now a third of the electorate secretly believe the same as that Labour candidate. Now the BNP have harnessed that set of fears Labour have little left to rely on for votes.
Sunday 11 October 2009
2066 and all that
What will the celebrations of 1066 be like when the time comes? As it must. Time rolls on and the day of the centenary of the last invasion of Britain will arrive. At school the answer to the question, “Who won the Battle of Hastings?” used to be “They did”. Yet this generation are taught to say, “We did”.
I dispute that citing as evidence the eminence of the English language. The Normans tried to ban it, forbad the speaking of English in Royal Court in favour of Norman French. Yet the great documents of the day, the Doomsday Book and the Magna Carta, were written in Latin and then translated into English. The Normans burned all copies of our written constitution and imposed their own, which we were forced to adhere to but declined to adopt in spirit. The Norman one never got written down as one document, apparently. They let it evolve as fast as it needs to, and gradually included our own heartfelt feeling of right and wrong, of fairness and equality, of honour.
Having closed down all local amenities and means of government the Normans set about making new ones in their own image. Schools that had been taken over were to be run by monasteries, leaving women to illiteracy. We lost the education system developed over hundreds of years, for apprenticeships and academia – both practical and intellectual talent harnessed and brainwashed. It didn’t work; our old system of law still survives as English Common Law and as Scottish Law.
The old written constitution is said to have regarded women and men as equals. So girls and boys got whatever education was available or required. Women had equal ownership rights as men, daughters could inherit in the same way as sons did without fear of let or hindrance. Men and women ran businesses and took profits for investment, but that was all taken away by the Norman conquerors. Women were to be chattels from then on. So who won? The Normans invaders did. It took more than 900 years to get women’s rights back to as they should be in England, a free country once more.
We assimilated the Normans and let them stay. But we were the first great nation of Europe to hold a revolution and behead a king. Not since the days of ancient Greece had democracy been so important.
So what will we do on the anniversary in 2066? Should we allow the Royal family and aristocracy, apparent successors of the Normans, to claim victory or face reality and reinforce our grip on the rights of self-determination they took from us for so long?
Whatever we do to mark the day let it be of higher profile and more in tune with England than that planned in Normandy.
I dispute that citing as evidence the eminence of the English language. The Normans tried to ban it, forbad the speaking of English in Royal Court in favour of Norman French. Yet the great documents of the day, the Doomsday Book and the Magna Carta, were written in Latin and then translated into English. The Normans burned all copies of our written constitution and imposed their own, which we were forced to adhere to but declined to adopt in spirit. The Norman one never got written down as one document, apparently. They let it evolve as fast as it needs to, and gradually included our own heartfelt feeling of right and wrong, of fairness and equality, of honour.
Having closed down all local amenities and means of government the Normans set about making new ones in their own image. Schools that had been taken over were to be run by monasteries, leaving women to illiteracy. We lost the education system developed over hundreds of years, for apprenticeships and academia – both practical and intellectual talent harnessed and brainwashed. It didn’t work; our old system of law still survives as English Common Law and as Scottish Law.
The old written constitution is said to have regarded women and men as equals. So girls and boys got whatever education was available or required. Women had equal ownership rights as men, daughters could inherit in the same way as sons did without fear of let or hindrance. Men and women ran businesses and took profits for investment, but that was all taken away by the Norman conquerors. Women were to be chattels from then on. So who won? The Normans invaders did. It took more than 900 years to get women’s rights back to as they should be in England, a free country once more.
We assimilated the Normans and let them stay. But we were the first great nation of Europe to hold a revolution and behead a king. Not since the days of ancient Greece had democracy been so important.
So what will we do on the anniversary in 2066? Should we allow the Royal family and aristocracy, apparent successors of the Normans, to claim victory or face reality and reinforce our grip on the rights of self-determination they took from us for so long?
Whatever we do to mark the day let it be of higher profile and more in tune with England than that planned in Normandy.
Sunday 4 October 2009
The Cameron interview
I am sick of Labour people telling me the "your (Cons) new boy is a toff who never had a proper job." First time I met him was before he was elected as an MP and he did have a job at that time. He was an Eton boy - to have someone educated to such a standard and in such an ethos is a huge advantage to the party and to the country. Eton is the original multicultural anti-racist educational establishment. He made a good job of his interview with Andrew Marr this morning (4th October 2009) but I do wish he would remind us that he has had a proper job. He does know what it is like to have to meet a payroll every week, every month, on time without error regardless of impact on short term cash flow or personal recompense.
He has said enough about the Lisbon treaty for me to believe there will be a referendum here in the UK as soon as feasible after a Conservative government has been elected, and it is blatantly obvious Labour is never going to fulfil their promise to do it.
He has said enough about the Lisbon treaty for me to believe there will be a referendum here in the UK as soon as feasible after a Conservative government has been elected, and it is blatantly obvious Labour is never going to fulfil their promise to do it.
Saturday 3 October 2009
Lisbon will create the end of thw world as we know it
The people of the nation states of the European Union owe allegiance to their own head of state, the one they chose or agreed to be ruled by. They will not switch that allegiance to a President of Europe that they did not want and had no say in the selection of. It is like making a place for a new Hitler to step into, and there is always a candidate that wants to rule the world waiting in the wings. This world has never had a shortage of people who want to be omnipotent Kings or Emperors. The Lisbon Treaty makes a vacancy for a man who will be omnipotent and will have the command of all our defence forces so no matter what he orders, even the slaughter of the first born, he will have the power to do it and there will be nothing we can do to stop him or get rid of him.
Tuesday 29 September 2009
Mandy rubbish marketier
As part of a college marketing course students were told of one way industry had countered the drift away from drinking tea to drinking coffee. A trend that had begun in America after the Boston Tea Party had spread across the pond to Britain and then greater Europe.
A cunning plan was plotted. A subtle device was constructed. A tea company set up a company selling a particularly bland and mild brand of coffee and spun a line that said – other brands of coffee may be bitter, but not so Mellow (name of the brand marketed by the tea company). The message that stuck in the mind of the viewer, crucially the woman who did the shopping, was that since coffee may be bitter she might prefer to have tea. By apparently trying to sell coffee the advert had turned shoppers away from the whole coffee scene. Brilliant, or what?
When politicians stand up on their hind legs and start slagging off other politicians they are achieving the same as the tea company did – turning customers off the whole political scene. Few people on the average street know who George Osbourne is but a Mr Darling tells us he is practising the politics of the playground, thus messaging that politics is a cruel playground game and Mr Darling is the school bully.
When Mr Brown accused Mr Cameron’s organisation of intending to cut spending of taxpayers’ money the listeners breathed a collective sigh of relief, often verbalised with, “Oh good, now tell us the name of the party that is promising to do that.” Mr Brown duly obliged – his party’s polls rating dropped and remained down.
The message that is emerging from the Westminster village is that the other side are getting it all wrong, even though only one political party is in a position to be doing anything at all, and that politicians don’t know what they are talking about.
Coffee is bitter, and all politicians are detached from reality and talking rubbish? That is the message Mandy has got across with aplomb.
So why would anyone get out of bed and walk to a polling station to cast a vote for the party lording the man who taught us that when they can more easily stay at home and enjoy a cup of tea?
A cunning plan was plotted. A subtle device was constructed. A tea company set up a company selling a particularly bland and mild brand of coffee and spun a line that said – other brands of coffee may be bitter, but not so Mellow (name of the brand marketed by the tea company). The message that stuck in the mind of the viewer, crucially the woman who did the shopping, was that since coffee may be bitter she might prefer to have tea. By apparently trying to sell coffee the advert had turned shoppers away from the whole coffee scene. Brilliant, or what?
When politicians stand up on their hind legs and start slagging off other politicians they are achieving the same as the tea company did – turning customers off the whole political scene. Few people on the average street know who George Osbourne is but a Mr Darling tells us he is practising the politics of the playground, thus messaging that politics is a cruel playground game and Mr Darling is the school bully.
When Mr Brown accused Mr Cameron’s organisation of intending to cut spending of taxpayers’ money the listeners breathed a collective sigh of relief, often verbalised with, “Oh good, now tell us the name of the party that is promising to do that.” Mr Brown duly obliged – his party’s polls rating dropped and remained down.
The message that is emerging from the Westminster village is that the other side are getting it all wrong, even though only one political party is in a position to be doing anything at all, and that politicians don’t know what they are talking about.
Coffee is bitter, and all politicians are detached from reality and talking rubbish? That is the message Mandy has got across with aplomb.
So why would anyone get out of bed and walk to a polling station to cast a vote for the party lording the man who taught us that when they can more easily stay at home and enjoy a cup of tea?
Saturday 26 September 2009
Splitting up is hard to do
The Labour Party are going to lose the general election and will probably be out of office for at least one generation. The word is that they are going to split again. But what into? There are obvious divisions already visible, but the interesting part is imagining how it will look in two years time.
The Scottish Labour party has lost out to the Scots Nats and have their own unique problems so they might just hunker down into their own cosy familiar place. Sort of like a coalmine. English Northern Labour is again a different animal and will react differently. Disparate and looking for allowances one might expect them to switch their allegiance to another more electable party. Southern Labour is just staying at home, denying they ever voted at all as if that will help claw back some of the stealth tax money their votes cost them.
That leaves the Big Beasts and the fascist left wing of the Labour party at large. Mr Brown will probably retain his friendships and the loyalty of a few close allies. Mr Mandelson does not seem to figure in any patterns but we can bet he will not disappear like the morning mist. That leaves Charles Clark et al, homeless, socially useless and jobless.
So that is a three way split even before we start looking at ideological divisions, of which there are many. Labour instinct is for progressive taxation – that means steadily growing the tax take while employing more in the service of the people. Those people will be looking to retain their income base in the face of drastic quango culls so would be too busy to cater for Gordon or Bambi.
There will be at least 50 Labour MPs left in the House of Commons, but we have no way of knowing who they might be or of what section of the party they might belong to, or even if the party is the second largest in parliament. If they get enough seats to be Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition they will have something to do in Westminster. But if, as looks increasingly likely, the Lib Dems take that position Labour can splinter at will without any impact on the man on the Clapham omnibus – who, incidentally, I heard groaning at the sight of a newspaper stand telling us Gordon was in good health the other day.
Well, they do say you can’t make an omelette without breaking any eggs.
The Scottish Labour party has lost out to the Scots Nats and have their own unique problems so they might just hunker down into their own cosy familiar place. Sort of like a coalmine. English Northern Labour is again a different animal and will react differently. Disparate and looking for allowances one might expect them to switch their allegiance to another more electable party. Southern Labour is just staying at home, denying they ever voted at all as if that will help claw back some of the stealth tax money their votes cost them.
That leaves the Big Beasts and the fascist left wing of the Labour party at large. Mr Brown will probably retain his friendships and the loyalty of a few close allies. Mr Mandelson does not seem to figure in any patterns but we can bet he will not disappear like the morning mist. That leaves Charles Clark et al, homeless, socially useless and jobless.
So that is a three way split even before we start looking at ideological divisions, of which there are many. Labour instinct is for progressive taxation – that means steadily growing the tax take while employing more in the service of the people. Those people will be looking to retain their income base in the face of drastic quango culls so would be too busy to cater for Gordon or Bambi.
There will be at least 50 Labour MPs left in the House of Commons, but we have no way of knowing who they might be or of what section of the party they might belong to, or even if the party is the second largest in parliament. If they get enough seats to be Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition they will have something to do in Westminster. But if, as looks increasingly likely, the Lib Dems take that position Labour can splinter at will without any impact on the man on the Clapham omnibus – who, incidentally, I heard groaning at the sight of a newspaper stand telling us Gordon was in good health the other day.
Well, they do say you can’t make an omelette without breaking any eggs.
Saturday 19 September 2009
All TV stars should get paid.
Growing up in a very beautiful National Park we knew early on not to go in front of the many TV and film cameras without first having the cash and a contract in your back pocket. It might be a privilege to share a shot with the stars if All Creatures Great and Small but privilege don't pay the rent so they have to pay. £20 was the going rate for not hiding among the Shambles when someone shouted "Action!", at the top of Settle marketplace. If they wanted a crowd they had to pay the partakers of crowding.
When Blair was first elected PM the flagwaving crowd greeting him to Downing Street were not doing it for free either - they were the staff of his election office. They cheered as if that was part of the job description.
Now we have "reality TV" where people agree to step out of the crowd and be filmed for nothing. Only idiots go in front of camera with the only aim of being famous assuming that in itself is a way of making a living. Stepping out of the crowd does not mean you are no longer part of the crowd. If not on the payroll proper you will be swallowed up by it again when the cameras stop rolling. What is the point of being famous for having agreed to work for nothing? What does that do for your CV? Neither it is acceptable for a major supermarket, or any other big employer, to ask job applicants to work unpaid fpr a trial period, two hours of shelf stacking does deserve a pay cheque, as does a month of working 7 to 3 trialling in a factory.
TV companies and film makers must stop paying a few a great deal and the rest nothing. That is not a right and proper business model. Stars undergo years of training like doctors and priests but the minions should not be taken for granted. Even charity shops have to pay their staff these days!
When Blair was first elected PM the flagwaving crowd greeting him to Downing Street were not doing it for free either - they were the staff of his election office. They cheered as if that was part of the job description.
Now we have "reality TV" where people agree to step out of the crowd and be filmed for nothing. Only idiots go in front of camera with the only aim of being famous assuming that in itself is a way of making a living. Stepping out of the crowd does not mean you are no longer part of the crowd. If not on the payroll proper you will be swallowed up by it again when the cameras stop rolling. What is the point of being famous for having agreed to work for nothing? What does that do for your CV? Neither it is acceptable for a major supermarket, or any other big employer, to ask job applicants to work unpaid fpr a trial period, two hours of shelf stacking does deserve a pay cheque, as does a month of working 7 to 3 trialling in a factory.
TV companies and film makers must stop paying a few a great deal and the rest nothing. That is not a right and proper business model. Stars undergo years of training like doctors and priests but the minions should not be taken for granted. Even charity shops have to pay their staff these days!
Friday 18 September 2009
More of, yes, we saw it coming
A few days before 22 Jan 2005 the Telegraph reported Ian McCartney telling us his belief - "It is about not running out of ideas, not running out of momentum." This is a huge eye-opener of a statement. Presently around 50% of our money is going to pay a number of people, seemingly growing at an exponential rate, to do nothing of any significance and to create nothing tangible, to help nobody and encourage nothing. So much of real people's money is going down this black hole that they have nothing left over for savings. The longer this situation is allowed to continue the more of the older generations' pension capital shrinks and the harder it becomes for first time buyers to gain the capital deposit they need to set up house and start investing in their own futures, the harder it is for them to see any reason why they might bother. With every day there comes another batch of stealth taxes, one this week justified by a need to prevent people drinking away their financial despair on a Saturday night. The money of this country is all being sucked into an interminable vortex they call "public spending", and like any black hole nothing appears to come out of it again. To keep the vortex from expanding its appetite from money to human beings, to prevent it taking life as well as livelihoods, hopes, dreams and entrepreneurial aspirations it is indeed necessary not to run out of ideas and momentum.
It is his raison d'etre that is at fault. The economy should be in equilibrium, a balanced dynamism serving those paying in by reward and provision, not an avenue to a bottomless pit. Extra funding to the NHS is going to cover pension shortfalls, health and safety regulators and ethnic balancing monitors. The extra into schools is showing us a generation of leavers a growing proportion of whom are functionally illiterate and cannot add up, only subtract. The operators within an economy should not be witnessing those appointed to manage it having to run at all, let alone run in fear of their jobs.
Endogenous growth theory
Endogenous growth theory
21/06/2003
Sue Doughty
Endogenous growth theory is what Gordon Brown has given us, a model in which knowledge and capital are used in fixed proportions.
He planned to have growth from within as opposed to exogenous growth from outside input. Input of technological advances ("knowledge" based growth in ideas) or of capital. But at the same time he has conspired to ensure the regulation of every aspect of our working lives to such an extent that innovation is shunned or outlawed. And he has made capital investment so unpopular as to dunk the stock market into a perpetually low tide. Fossilisation from within, not modernisation.
He meant well, poor lamb, so where did he go wrong? In the end Endogenous Growth Theory assumes "knowledge" to be homogeneous. As if it could have been nationalised. But to do that you have to measure it, like SATs testing all of industry. This cannot be done. In the 1950s they devised equations into which to put that measurement and assumed someone who came after them would find a way of quantifying commercial knowledge. By the 1963 conference season nobody had done it and people dared to tell the bottom line truth, that there is no way to do it. They carried on looking for the number because they didn't want to abandon the theory. According to Ian Steadman, at the Growth Theory Conference, Pisa, 2001, "No amount of sophistated mathematical analysis can turn conceptual confusions into meaningful conclusions." http://growthconf.ec.unipi.it/papers/Steedman1.pdf
The hole in engonenous growth theory, that is to say, the reason why is never works, is that talk of increasing, or decreasing, or static, marginal productivity is empty hot air unless the "knowledge" variable has a cardinal identity. Since there is no way to measure "knowledge" in the business terms needed there can be no cardinality, there can be no quantifiable value to that part of the vital equation. This has been well known since 1962. How come Gordon missed those papers?
In short the endogenous growth theory Gordon Brown set his policies by is a busted flush.
So in using the phrase "endogenous growth theory" Gordon Brown openly declared at the outset that he would rely on growth from within, but 6 years on we ask, within that when most industry has transferred to more welcoming lower employment cost and regulation areas? We see he is spending more than he is drawing in, for the month of May the difference between what he received and what he paid out was a net outgoing of £6.4 bn, so the endogenous growth he has created is in government itself. Endogeous growth in government language means empire building, high taxes and big government. That is what he promised and that is what we got. He is a social planner economist, wiping competition out of an equation as if operating in a sealed box where a higher optimal growth rate might be achievable in theory. But we have to operate in the real world, real people looking to live on real pension investments later in life.
Mr Blair abolished the post of Lord Chancellor at the flick of an eyelid, now let him abolish the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer and replace him with someone who can thinks fruitfully instead of relying on vintage theories from his father's past.
21/06/2003
Sue Doughty
Endogenous growth theory is what Gordon Brown has given us, a model in which knowledge and capital are used in fixed proportions.
He planned to have growth from within as opposed to exogenous growth from outside input. Input of technological advances ("knowledge" based growth in ideas) or of capital. But at the same time he has conspired to ensure the regulation of every aspect of our working lives to such an extent that innovation is shunned or outlawed. And he has made capital investment so unpopular as to dunk the stock market into a perpetually low tide. Fossilisation from within, not modernisation.
He meant well, poor lamb, so where did he go wrong? In the end Endogenous Growth Theory assumes "knowledge" to be homogeneous. As if it could have been nationalised. But to do that you have to measure it, like SATs testing all of industry. This cannot be done. In the 1950s they devised equations into which to put that measurement and assumed someone who came after them would find a way of quantifying commercial knowledge. By the 1963 conference season nobody had done it and people dared to tell the bottom line truth, that there is no way to do it. They carried on looking for the number because they didn't want to abandon the theory. According to Ian Steadman, at the Growth Theory Conference, Pisa, 2001, "No amount of sophistated mathematical analysis can turn conceptual confusions into meaningful conclusions." http://growthconf.ec.unipi.it/papers/Steedman1.pdf
The hole in engonenous growth theory, that is to say, the reason why is never works, is that talk of increasing, or decreasing, or static, marginal productivity is empty hot air unless the "knowledge" variable has a cardinal identity. Since there is no way to measure "knowledge" in the business terms needed there can be no cardinality, there can be no quantifiable value to that part of the vital equation. This has been well known since 1962. How come Gordon missed those papers?
In short the endogenous growth theory Gordon Brown set his policies by is a busted flush.
So in using the phrase "endogenous growth theory" Gordon Brown openly declared at the outset that he would rely on growth from within, but 6 years on we ask, within that when most industry has transferred to more welcoming lower employment cost and regulation areas? We see he is spending more than he is drawing in, for the month of May the difference between what he received and what he paid out was a net outgoing of £6.4 bn, so the endogenous growth he has created is in government itself. Endogeous growth in government language means empire building, high taxes and big government. That is what he promised and that is what we got. He is a social planner economist, wiping competition out of an equation as if operating in a sealed box where a higher optimal growth rate might be achievable in theory. But we have to operate in the real world, real people looking to live on real pension investments later in life.
Mr Blair abolished the post of Lord Chancellor at the flick of an eyelid, now let him abolish the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer and replace him with someone who can thinks fruitfully instead of relying on vintage theories from his father's past.
Tuesday 15 September 2009
Sacrificial spending
There has to be government spending cuts. Revenues have fallen and the government has run out of money so now some spending plans will have to be "sacrificed". That is the new word for cuts, as seen in the FT this morning.
So that begs the question - did this government set up spending plans and recruitment circuses so they would look really professional when those projects were sacrificed at the alter of Prudence?
So that begs the question - did this government set up spending plans and recruitment circuses so they would look really professional when those projects were sacrificed at the alter of Prudence?
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