Many congratulations on your most exceptional victory. I am in complete admiration and wish you the strewngth of Samson in your endevour to modernise France.
Please note, do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Our annual vacance en France would be ruined if you iron out all the most magnificent French quirks. Two days spent railing against the shops shutting at lunchtime and the impossibly slow pace of life and then....pure relaxation. Don't ruin it.
However, very grateful if you would kindly prevent illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe and Africa from reaching, let alone encamping at, Calais. One has always wondered how these people are hosted and cared for with impunity on your side of the Channel but suddenly become illegal immigrants by the time they reach Dover (in the back of or underneath whatever vehicle they can strap themselves to).
If they are legal at your end, be so kind as to make them feel welcome.
If they are not, please deport them before they make onward travel arrangements.
Get a bloody grip.
yours,
RB
Monday, 7 May 2007
Sunday, 6 May 2007
Blair's contempt writ large
To spend his final days in power deliberately skewering his own successor at the expense of the Nation would tell you all you need to know about this pathetic little student we've had for a Prime Minister these past 10 years.
PR - The death of Government
The Scottish elections have really underlined for me why Proportional Representation is so bad.
Not only is the voting system so totally incomprehendable, but there is a fundamental disconnection between votes and candidates.
People don't vote for Parties, they vote for people. A Party dictated regional list is contemptuous of the voter. These people do not take personal responsibility for their electoral platform, they are secondary campaigners and yet, based on nothing more than a proportion of the vote, they get to sit in power and make decisions with no individual and answerable public mandate.
PR is often represented as being"fair and equal" but it is nothing of the sort. It is a collection of robots controlled by an Orwellian Party dictatorship and I will do everything possible to prevent it spreading any further.
Scotland, poor sods, are condemned to a lifetime of powerless, coalition government managing social and economic terminal decline.
Not only is the voting system so totally incomprehendable, but there is a fundamental disconnection between votes and candidates.
People don't vote for Parties, they vote for people. A Party dictated regional list is contemptuous of the voter. These people do not take personal responsibility for their electoral platform, they are secondary campaigners and yet, based on nothing more than a proportion of the vote, they get to sit in power and make decisions with no individual and answerable public mandate.
PR is often represented as being"fair and equal" but it is nothing of the sort. It is a collection of robots controlled by an Orwellian Party dictatorship and I will do everything possible to prevent it spreading any further.
Scotland, poor sods, are condemned to a lifetime of powerless, coalition government managing social and economic terminal decline.
BBC Bias (part 2,343,467)
The election coverage of the BBC, and for that matter many other outlets, was as biased and dreadful as always.
Blind to steady but evident advances the Tories were making all night long, the BBC did everything to portray the election as a disaster for the Cameron project.
Firstly there is no Cameron project, merely the resurrection of the Conservative Party as a whole and secondly winning control of 38 additional Councils and 900 additional seats to control nearly 60% of the Councils of England is impressive by any measure and a victory by all.
I am the first to accept that council elections do not wholly indicate national trends. The Tories made some pretty odd loses alongside their wins. However, people are now looking at and voting for the Tories in a way inconceivable just 5 years ago.
The most appalling aspect of the media coverage, however, was their complicity in the Labour line that the Tories were making no ground in the North and had "no Councillors in Manchester, Liverpool or Newcastle".
It is indeed the case that these three great Cities have no Conservative representation, but consider this - Labour have absolutely no representation on 90, yes, 90 English Councils. As the map below shows, Labour are lost all across the Country. There are another 40 or 50 Councils which have less than 5 Labour Councillors.
The media simply cannot bring themselves to accept the Tory resurgence. This is fine where media bias is well founded and well understood. I will never expect the Mirror or the Guardian to be treat Cameron fairly but that is a business decision and those publications live and die by their allegiance.
The BBC is very different. It exists in the public interest, funded by each and everyone of us through the most blatant and unreasonable tax.
It is very simple, the BBC can become politically biased if they want to, but they must face the same price and risk as all the others. Bias or license fee - not both. You decide.
Blind to steady but evident advances the Tories were making all night long, the BBC did everything to portray the election as a disaster for the Cameron project.
Firstly there is no Cameron project, merely the resurrection of the Conservative Party as a whole and secondly winning control of 38 additional Councils and 900 additional seats to control nearly 60% of the Councils of England is impressive by any measure and a victory by all.
I am the first to accept that council elections do not wholly indicate national trends. The Tories made some pretty odd loses alongside their wins. However, people are now looking at and voting for the Tories in a way inconceivable just 5 years ago.
The most appalling aspect of the media coverage, however, was their complicity in the Labour line that the Tories were making no ground in the North and had "no Councillors in Manchester, Liverpool or Newcastle".
It is indeed the case that these three great Cities have no Conservative representation, but consider this - Labour have absolutely no representation on 90, yes, 90 English Councils. As the map below shows, Labour are lost all across the Country. There are another 40 or 50 Councils which have less than 5 Labour Councillors.
The media simply cannot bring themselves to accept the Tory resurgence. This is fine where media bias is well founded and well understood. I will never expect the Mirror or the Guardian to be treat Cameron fairly but that is a business decision and those publications live and die by their allegiance.
The BBC is very different. It exists in the public interest, funded by each and everyone of us through the most blatant and unreasonable tax.
It is very simple, the BBC can become politically biased if they want to, but they must face the same price and risk as all the others. Bias or license fee - not both. You decide.
Ashdown, Kennedy, Menzies Campbell, ???
Standby for another Lib Dem leadership campaign. If you can bear it.
Hanging Chavs
Last week, Scotland hosted the sort of election Zimbabwe would have been distinctly proud of.
With people facing two separate elections involving three different election systems, the result was a staggering 1 in 10 ballot papers spoilt. Spoilt by confusion and complication that is, not apathy and anarchy.
The whole point about the simplicity of democracy is that everyone can understand it. The act of marking a single paper with a single 'X' is time-honoured.
Rather like Bush and his ludicrous "hanging chads", one expected Scotland to burst into a flame of legal contest as losers claimed that their victory was buried amongst the discarded papers.
Those first in the queue should be the decent people of Scotland whose honourable attempt to participate in the democratic process has come to nought through no fault of their own. I myself have spent some considerable time trying to figure it all out and well done to all those who got it right. I cannot be sure I would have myself!!
The one group of people, however, who have absolutely no right to challenge the result are the Scottish Labour Party, under whose watch and with whose direction and compliance, such an abomination was allowed to take place.
It is ironic that their own thoughtless, flawed and pathetically "equal" system has brought about their own downfall.
Mr Allan Wilson, defeated Labour candidate in Cunnignhame North, smarts at his personal loss. Not half as much as the 100,000 Scots denied their right to vote.
With people facing two separate elections involving three different election systems, the result was a staggering 1 in 10 ballot papers spoilt. Spoilt by confusion and complication that is, not apathy and anarchy.
The whole point about the simplicity of democracy is that everyone can understand it. The act of marking a single paper with a single 'X' is time-honoured.
Rather like Bush and his ludicrous "hanging chads", one expected Scotland to burst into a flame of legal contest as losers claimed that their victory was buried amongst the discarded papers.
Those first in the queue should be the decent people of Scotland whose honourable attempt to participate in the democratic process has come to nought through no fault of their own. I myself have spent some considerable time trying to figure it all out and well done to all those who got it right. I cannot be sure I would have myself!!
The one group of people, however, who have absolutely no right to challenge the result are the Scottish Labour Party, under whose watch and with whose direction and compliance, such an abomination was allowed to take place.
It is ironic that their own thoughtless, flawed and pathetically "equal" system has brought about their own downfall.
Mr Allan Wilson, defeated Labour candidate in Cunnignhame North, smarts at his personal loss. Not half as much as the 100,000 Scots denied their right to vote.
Abandon the Brown Ship
Labour’s new strategy: cut and run; survive to fight another day.
A the end of a very bad day for the Labour party in the country , it is the news that Charles Clarke has publicly announced that he will not run for the Labour leadership and John Reid's news that he will resign from teh Cabinet when Brown takes over that really gives us the meaning of it all and describes just how bad things are.
Clarke, with his cohort, Milburn, has always had that glint in his eye that just told you he was going to go for it. But even one as slightly deranged as he has taken one look at today's political landscape and has pulled out.
Everyone now knows that the game is up and that Brown must face the music – alone. It will be immensely painful but thankfully it will be brief. And that is precisely why all the other potential candidates will sit on their hands. They prefer a survival strategy. The sooner Brown takes over, the sooner they lose and the sooner Brown can be dispatched and replaced. That is the time to rescue Labour, not now.
If you are around 50-ish, that is by far a better option than challenging now. After all, even if you win, what is the prize? The vile legacy of Blair and Iraq? The economic pensions black hole of Brown? A failing NHS? The torment of the Scottish Nationalists and the collapse of the Union? A revived and attractive Conservative challenge?
No thanks, Mr Brown. Its all yours, and you deserve it.
Brown has made his bed and he must now lie in it. He will fulfil the single ambition that has driven him for two decades and, in sweet revenge for his bitterness, cowardice, stubbornness and failure, it will be a (short) living nightmare.
If you have ever wondered what it is like to be governed by a very vicious, nasty man with a bunker, Millwall* supporter mentality, you are about to find out.
It pains me to realise that I am living the best years of my life under some of the most despicable political leadership I can imagine.
*Famously, Millwall supporters chant “Everyone hates us, we don’t care!”
A the end of a very bad day for the Labour party in the country , it is the news that Charles Clarke has publicly announced that he will not run for the Labour leadership and John Reid's news that he will resign from teh Cabinet when Brown takes over that really gives us the meaning of it all and describes just how bad things are.
Clarke, with his cohort, Milburn, has always had that glint in his eye that just told you he was going to go for it. But even one as slightly deranged as he has taken one look at today's political landscape and has pulled out.
Everyone now knows that the game is up and that Brown must face the music – alone. It will be immensely painful but thankfully it will be brief. And that is precisely why all the other potential candidates will sit on their hands. They prefer a survival strategy. The sooner Brown takes over, the sooner they lose and the sooner Brown can be dispatched and replaced. That is the time to rescue Labour, not now.
If you are around 50-ish, that is by far a better option than challenging now. After all, even if you win, what is the prize? The vile legacy of Blair and Iraq? The economic pensions black hole of Brown? A failing NHS? The torment of the Scottish Nationalists and the collapse of the Union? A revived and attractive Conservative challenge?
No thanks, Mr Brown. Its all yours, and you deserve it.
Brown has made his bed and he must now lie in it. He will fulfil the single ambition that has driven him for two decades and, in sweet revenge for his bitterness, cowardice, stubbornness and failure, it will be a (short) living nightmare.
If you have ever wondered what it is like to be governed by a very vicious, nasty man with a bunker, Millwall* supporter mentality, you are about to find out.
It pains me to realise that I am living the best years of my life under some of the most despicable political leadership I can imagine.
*Famously, Millwall supporters chant “Everyone hates us, we don’t care!”
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