BLAIR SPEAKS

You'd think GREAT LEADER TONY would have the decency to jump off a tall building or at least shut up.  

The Witch-Queen is Dead

People say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead. This may be generally true but THATCHER put herself so far beyond the pale that normal rules don't apply. She may now be far beyond having any power to inflict further damage but she put herself so far beyond normality that its rules don't apply. She may be dead but she remains a symbol of all that is evil with our society. The only shame is that her death wasn't several decades earlier.

SLEB POLITICS

Even the grumpiest of us (this includes me much of the time) have to acknowledge that Saturday, 4th August was a phenomenal day for British sport.

But one unfortunate side-effect is the increased intrusion of sleb culture into politics. It was bad enough when a few appearances on HIGNFY made Buffoon Boris London Mayor (one appearance on HIGNFY is worth twenty election broadcasts) but now he's being touted as successor PM in increasingly desperate Tory circles. Someone, somewhere is hoping an emotional link will be made between golden locks and gold medals.

The irony is that Boris didn't win one gold medal (can you imagine?) any more than his soon-to-be predecessor won a General Election.

Vote for Johnny's Retirement Package

What makes the politicians think we’d be even remotely interested in voting for ‘police commissioners’? We can’t even be interested in voting for themselves. I see that John Prescott is putting himself forward for one of new positions. He’d become a figure of fun long before he retired from the ludicrous position of ‘Deputy Prime Minister’. Apparently, he’s not even going to be the official Labour Party Candidate. No doubt they’ll wheel out some other has-been or never-was for thr election, just as will the Tories Party and the LDs.

By the way, Blair believes...

With the tenth  anniversary of the World Trade Centre murders coming up, the BBC had Blair on the radio this morning to be interviewed. I had the misfortune to hear it.

I found the way Blair repeated 'by the way' literally dozens of times very irritating. No, Mr Blair, it's not 'by the way' that the world has taken such an ugly turn of events over the last ten years. You bear a major part of the responsibility for this, just as you bear a major part of the responsibilty for the deaths of half-a-million people.

But what really infuriated me was the way Blair met every sensible point put to him by the interviewer by saying things like 'I fundamentally disagree...' or 'I believe...' As if this made everything all right! Why was this man given air-time?  I blame:

• the BBC for taking the lazy way out and wheeling Blair out for 'interview' at this time
• all the Labour and Tory MPs (especially the members of the Labour Cabinet) who allowed themselves to be taken in by Blair's words. 
• all the people (this includes me) who put Blair in power in 1997.    

Smoking

I can say this with no axe to grind, because I've never smoked a cigarette, a pipe, or anything else. The anti-smoking fascists are in action again, this time making moves for cigarettes to be sold only in plain cartons from under the counter. They won't be satisfied until smoking is banned anywhere in the open air and until all smokers are made to wear a yellow armband. Everyone knows smoking is not exactly a heath aid, but what business is it of everyone else?

Administrative Shortcomings

Administrative shortcomings? Apologies? Ten days suspension? If you're going to be a benefit fraudster, you should know which benefit to defraud. Derek Conway certainly does.

Preaching Politicians

A few mornings ago I heard David Cameron bleating on the radio about 'performance related pay' for NHS staff. What about chronic patients, the elderly etc?

Preaching Politicians

Headline news in The Observer was ‘All Children Must Read by Six, says Cameron’. The Government and politicians should concentrate on providing good facilties, not preaching to us, weighing children and the like.