CoffeeHousers'  Wall, 15 June - 21 June

Stu

Glad to see Osborne finally talking cuts; at every opportunity when BrownBalls talk spending and reject cuts they must be questioned "OK, which taxes will you increase then?"

Andrew Clark

Regarding Peter Mandelson. I keep hearing how Peter Mandelson is more powerful than ever. Personally I don't get it. When Labour goes out of power he will go back to being just another Peer in the House of Lords. He has a maximum of one year to do his thing. Am I missing something?

Michael

What can Coffee Housers organise if GB goes with a secret inquiry into the Iraq war - demonstations or whatever else - petitions?

Manceyy

I would like to make a complaint about the newspapers. I work at my local Oxfam, and recently we have been forced to withdraw a large range of CDs and DVDs, which started their lives as inserts in newspapers. It is obscene that newspapers do not allow us to sell inserts while music companies allow us to sell their CDs.

John Page

Well done, Fraser, on Simon Mayo. What a good broadcaster he is - such a wide range, and patient and very clear. You and Robert Chote did a good job.

The key message is that the Tory estimates are based on Labour numbers, and if the numbers change for Labour they change for the Tories too.

Dealing with all these different definitions of public spending is crowding yaxation out of the discussion, though.

Interesting to see the use of the Mr 10% tag - http://order-order.com/2009/06/15/byrne-onoff-on-cuts-and-spending/

The Bellman

Just listening to McSnotty's statement on Iraq. He's a broken man: he can't even read what's in front of his own eye, let alone run a government. I almost feel sorry for him.

But then I remember that this is the man who consistently failed to provide money for the appropriate military effort; but he's happy to finance a quango to kick the decisions - in which he is deeply, inextricably implicated - into the long grass.

Norwegian Anglophile

Taking up the thread of D'Ancona's Gordon/Balls fantasy of "Labour bounty versus wicked Tory parsimony":

It would be an effective Tory campaign poster which showed to identical cartoons of present-day Britain, side-by-side, the Tory picture on the right showing the situation as it it, in realistic colours, with houses on sale, lines of the unemployed, a 'debt counter' etc. and the Labour pictures on the left, displaying the exact same scene, but in a rosy, upbeat, 'Alice in Wonderland' quality....

Nicholas J. Rogers

Why no liveblog of Speaker Hustings?

Sir Graphus

Manceyy; at my local Oxfam, there are a huge number of newspaper DVDs which you can have if you make a suggested donation of 25p.

Craig Strachan

With constitutional reform once again in the air I'd like to suggest a guiding principle: there must be no increase in the number of salaried and expensed politicians as a result.

So if there is to be, say, an elected upper chamber of 150 members, the number of members of the House of Commons should be reduced commensurately.

Flemingcrag

It is early days yet but, it is developing nicely for Fraser Nelson's original article on the "10% Conservative cuts" based on Labour's own budget figures to create a "tsunami of truth" similar to Heather Brooke's F.O.I intervention(s) on the the expenses claims made by MPs.
To my mind this makes the score;
Investigative Journalists = 2
Copywriters = 0.

Perplexed from Tamworth

So it is a closed enquiry on Iraq.
Have they learnt nothing?
Did Magna Carta die in vain?(!)

What do we have to do be heard?

Simon Stephenson

Comments to The Times

For at least 2 years, the moderators at The Times have been blocking about 90% of the comments I submitted. Then, from the date of the Elections, June 4th, every single comment I've submitted, and there have been at least 20, has been published.

I speak my mind, and I don't care how far from the mainstream I pitch my contributions. I'd concluded that The Times, whilst content to publish critical views, was only prepared to do so if they are emotive rants, and not well thought-out alternative positions. Then June 4th. Have they changed their approach to moderation, or have I for some reason been taken out of the moderation process?

Has anyone else had a similar experience with comments to The Times?

Michael Booth

I see the Iraq enquiry will be held in private and the members of the committee hand picked by the Prime Mentalist. Open government and transparency? That man wouldn't know either concept if they came up and bit him. How much longer do we have to put up with this Stalinist farce?

Manceyy

thankyou very much for the suggestion Sir Graphus, I will pass it on to the store manager

Frank P

Did Magna Carta die in vain? Yes on its birthday.

Frank P

Michael Booth

"How much longer do we have to put up with this Stalinist farce?"

For at least a year, but I fear that it may be a lot longer. Perhaps until the restablishment of the Caliphate. Wake up England!

mac

Presumably, Alistair Campbell has already written the Inquiry's Executive Summary; Chilcot's role will be to produce reams of carefully sanitised padding.

Manceyy

talking about the death of the magna carta

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/video/16362/news/Man-tasered-by-police/

it is appalling that such brutal tactics are used in modern, British, policing.

Jonathan Cook

The Iraq War should be conducted in public.

The Falklands enquiry was held in secret but the circumstances were very different.

Perhaps the major issue to investigate over Iraq is the political angle and how the country was taken to war.

This issue needs public airing.

The cynical timing of this announcement shows that Labour want to hide things under the carpet. They want to obscure the facts by setting the terms of the enquiry themselves before they are booted out of office.

There was an anti war march before the invasion. It is high time we march on London to demand an open enquiry.

Edmund Jerk

The question is chaps: shall we invade America, and take back the 13 colonies, after they sent terrorists' to sunbathe in our territory, aka Bermuda?

Jeremy

Frank P:

Gentlemen of England, now abed;
Wake up! You English dead...

Carlos

Will Labour attempt to reduce the voting age, hoping that our youngsters will fall for their spiel about fairness and vote Labour back in? Just saying.

Pete Hoskin

Cracking photo and caption from THX - straight from the audience of last week's Tony Awards. Many thanks to him.

If anyone else has any pictures they'd like on the Wall, just email them to me on phoskin @ spectator.co.uk

Derek

President Obama's efforts to coerce Israel to abandon towns, cities, villages is reminiscent of President Andrew Johnson's policy of moving the Red Indian tribes off their ancestral lands in the southern states to make them available for a grab by, among others, tobacco and cotton growers. This is surely a traditional "right wing" policy whereas the Spectator, in its respect for embattled democracies, whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere,usually takes a "left wing" line. May I invite the CH to reinforce Melanie Philips largely lone fight, especially now that Mark Steyn has now been declared persona non-grata by the magazine, to invite contributions from Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post which would assist Spectator readers and others of good will to understand the importance of a strong defence of Israel, not just ideologically, as one of the linchpins of a civilized world - and for that reason, no doubt, under attack on all sides by reaction? In mitigation, and perhaps for fear that Taki might be tempted to counter-blog, I must admit that this is rather my King Charles's head...

Victor, NW Kent

‘In eleven more months and ten more days
They’re goin’ to turn me loose.
In eleven more months and ten more days
I’ll be out of the calaboose.’

Well, about that anyway.

Paul

Carlos, I worry about that. The Right-On Utopian Fantasy is much easier to sell to impressionable children anywhere in the world, let alone those fresh out of the Nulab EduKation System.

On to something else:
Scrappage. Has it been a success? There has been an abundance of ads by various manufacturers recently. This suggests to my gut instinct that the scheme is not going well. Adverts are for generating interest after all.

Combine it with the lack of ads at the time of the scheme's launch. I didn't see any of the television/radio/internet adverts that I am seeing now, and I think it's down to how the manufacturers thought that the scheme would be fully taken up very quickly. Why invest in a message that would soon become irrelevant?

Maximilian

@Derek -- We may thank Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for their timely contribution to the Mideast debate, offering the world a practical demonstration of why Netanyahu has got it exactly right.

Wilhelm

Im very disappointed in Fraser Nelson, I had such high hopes for him and he has failed me, everytime I turn on the TV news or radio, there he is , Fraser has become a media tart like that other media whore Kevin Mcquire of the Mirror, its all very sad.

THX1138

Dear Coffee Houser's my small marketing firm is looking to hire a discrete articulate responsible mature person with broadband and a telephone.. The job is working from home on a part-time basis with very flexible hours to suit you and better pay than Tesco's .

The position would be ideal for an at home parent or a retired person looking for a bit of extra cash who still wanted have time to argue with me and everyone else on the Coffee House.

If you don't mind working with this north London liberal recently converted to Dave's banner I'd love to hear from you. For more details e-mail me at simon@LDNcalling.co.uk

Wilhelm

Of all the programmes that gave an honest take on the BNP victory last week, it was on '' Loose Woman.'' Can you believe it ? The ladies were cool, calm and gave a measured response unlike the mainstream media screeeeeming from the rooftops about nazies, bigots, facists, Nick Griffen is going to invade the Sudetentland
blah blah blah.

One of the women said '' The Bnp is democratically elected, they should be allowed to speak not pelted with eggs, everyone is talking about illegal immigrants in the back of taxis and on the london underground '' Another lady said that ''England is just full up, 60 million crowded on a tiny island, there is no room plus the liblab con parties have not sorted out the immigration shambles thus letting the BNP in.''

At last some sense, catch it on Youtube, type in loose woman bnp.

Verity

Victor, NW Kent - ‘In eleven more months and ten more days
They’re goin’ to turn me loose.
In eleven more months and ten more days
I’ll be out of the calaboose.’

The scan, and the voice required, sounds like Johnny Cash.

Wilhelm

Isnt it strange that 4 women stabbed Gordon Broon in the back, Jacqui Smith, little munchkin Hazel Bleers, James Puresmell and another liebour harpy I cant remember the name of.

Talking of James Puresmell, he's the snivelling little creep who forged a photo of himself opening a supermarket in his local constituency when in fact he was 100 miles away, talk about thick and of course he was caught out instantly.

Puresmell has a face that fits his personality, teacher's pet and school sneak, grass. As I said before, if you tell lies in little things then as night follows day, you will tell lies in big things and it was proved when Puresmell sucked up to Gordon and then knifed him, hoping others would join him.

Of course they didnt and Puresmell's career ends in tatters, and if liebour does elect a new leader they wont employ Puresmell because no one likes a back stabber, like I said James Puresmell is, er, um, thick.

Derek

Correction: President Andrew Jackson - not Johnson - When typing, I must have been thinking of President Obama's predecessor,LBJ, and his frequent biblical invocation: "Come, let us reason together". Maximilian: point taken.

Verity

A photo by pushy Number Plate! There's a surprise! Someone trying to build up a portfolio of photos he can't sell but look legit because they've appeared in The Speccie!

A bunch of people on a crowded stage!

No wonder everyone else has quit posting photos here!

Michael Booth

"The Iraq War should be conducted in public".

You know Jonathan, I think you'll find it was...

Wily Trout

Did anyone hear Bob Ainsworth trying to defend the decision to conduct the Iraq enquiry in secret on Radio 4 yesterday afternoon? He is even more abysmal than the rest of the cabinet. I pity the Armed Forces - his appointment is an open display of Gordon Brown's contempt for the people he himself has endangered by withholding funding for the military ambitions of the Left Wing.

Vulture

I'm in a quandary over this Chazza/Rogers spat over the Chelsea Barracks plan.

On the one hand, I can't stand the posturing Princeling, with his preposterous privileges, Greeny views, woolly thinking and personal feebleness.

On the other, I loathe Roger's hideous Stalinoid, East German tower blocks and am delighted that a quiet word in an Arab's ear has scuppered the project. I also find Milord's batey 'We must get rid of this feudal relic- because- I've-lost a shedload of dosh' rant highly amusing.

On balance, therefore, this time I'm on dimbo Chazza's side.

Wily Trout

Does anyone know what's happened to the Political Betting website? I can't get anything after 25th April. Have I missed something?

Frank P

Wilhelm

I tend to agree with your denunctiation of Purnell; perhaps the perpetual fawning over him by the hosts of this blog gave him ideas above his station and he started to believe their PR. I hope it was deliberate on their part to encourage his overweening ambition and cause his downfall; but I doubt it. It is more likely that they really did think he was a potential 'leader' and that the invites to No.10 would follow as night follows day. Ha!

EC

Verity: "A photo by pushy Number Plate!"

So will you be applying for THX's job Verity?

Frank P

Verity

"The scan, and the voice required, sounds like Johnny Cash."

Hmmm. Or Kris Kristofferson perhaps? Somewhat more nuanced!

"Nothin' ain't worth nothin' - but it's free!"

Like both by the way, but Kris is the better poet, imho.

mac

@ Wily T:

pb has new, faster servers.
Go to: www2.politicalbetting.com

MikeF

Simon Stephenson -

I have had a similar experience with The Times - and the BBC. A lot of what you might reasonably - if necessarily subjectively - regard as constructive comment seems to get lost somewhere after it has been submitted. As you suggest if the only anti-mainstream comment that is allowed is of the slightly ranting sort then you can easily skew a supposedly open forum to present a highly misleading version of public opinion i.e. only half-wits do not follow the (left-liberal) 'line'. In addition The Times imposed a strict word limit that makes composing a reasoned argument over any length impossible.

To be fair to them both the Guardian and Independent tend to allow most things to pass, though in the case of the latter especially that does mean that some appalling rubbish appears. Ultimately any form of 'moderation' that goes beyond sifting out obscenity or libel is censorship and defeats the point of having a public forum in the first place.

TheBellman

Alistair Campbell is campaigning for the abolition that an MP sectioned under the mental health act should automatically lose his seat. Is this special pleading for the PM? Or has he changed his mind, and now thinks we need more 'psychologically flawed' characters like McSnotty in goverment?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8102596.stm

Peter Inkley

The excellent article in Spetator 6th June 09 by Douglas Eden "The threat to democracy in 1979" brings to mind the cancellation of TSR2, I think on Wilson's watch. That is a story that needs to be told.

Wily Trout

@ mac

That's sorted it, many thanks.

Augustus

"Ladies and gentlemen, you may know of the Danish psychologist
Nicolai Sennels, who recently said that Muslim integration in the West is simply impossible. Now, that is not a novel idea. a certain Frenchman said pretty much the same thing in 1959. I quote, 'those who recommend integration must be considered pea-brained even if they are scholars and scientists. Just try mixing oil and vinegar. Then shake the bottle. After a moment the two will seperate again. Do you really believe French society could absorb ten million Muslims, who would be twenty million tomorrow, and forty million the day after? In fact, my home village would no longer be called Colombey-les-deux-Eglises but would rather come to be know as Colombey-les-deux-mosques.'

This quote, you guessed it, was from none other than former French President Charles de Gaulle.

Now, I do not know whether Sennels and de Gaulle were right in their conclusion that Muslims are incapable of integrating into other cultures.
I think in reality we do see Muslims on individual levels assimilating into our societies.
But what I do know is that very many Muslims do not want to integrate. The facts don't lie:
Four in ten British Muslim students want Sharia law to be implemented, while one-third of
British Muslim students are in favour of a world caliphate..."
-Geert Wilders, Copenhagen, 15 June, 2009

EC

Pete,

Can we all put free ads up here or this another one of your exceptions?

Wilhelm

The wife of Barak Obimbo came to London on a private visit, God, she comes across as an angry woman. Did you see what she was wearing ? a yellow cardigan, white t shirt with yellow, blue, purple fluffy petals at the bottom and black trousers, she looked as if she fell out of the tumble dryer, she made Susan Boyle look like Maria Callas in the style stakes .

Some one ought to take her to one side and say
to her '' you are not going out in those curtins, luv. ''

I think Mrs Obimbo wears the trousers in that relationship, she's always mouthing off.

Verity

ED - Thx has a job?

Frank P - I lived in Texas and I am a Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Country Charlie Pride girl. (Or gal.)

Quite like Gordon Lightfoot - 'Sundown, You'd Better Take Care, if I find you've been creepin' round my back stair' (I think he's a real Native American, but of the Canadian variety - or perhaps I'm thinking of a real Canadian of the Native American variety).

You say "Kris is the better poet ...". Better than who? With whom were we comparing him? I don't think Johnny Cash wrote his own songs.

Steve.W

Peter Inkley - TSR2 – I wonder if that's too far back for some folk to understand without an explanation, why don't you write the history of this project? The one example of this aircraft is at the Cosford museum, so is the archive.

Verity

Wilhelm - I said from Day One, to much opprobrium from blogdom, that Michelle Obama dresses in the home furnishings department. She wore a couch throw to the Inaugural Ball.

Her latest outfit, that you mention which I also saw her wearing, defies description. Perhaps a Navajo wall-hanging might come close, but doesn't entirely capture the essence.

EC

Frank P,

I saw Kris Kristofferson last year. He stood up and did a 2 hour set. He sang all the songs. Very impressive. Great evening.

THX1138

Paul B great photos, is that your gorgeous daughter in the photo?

C'mon everyone summer is here,
why not get photographing our beautiful country and send the results into Pete so we can all enjoy them.

Frank P

Verity

Johnny Cash wrote most of his own hits:

http://www.mp3lyrics.org/j/johnny-cash/

His lyrics were dark, sullen and at times violent (his last album was dire), whereas Kris was always more rebellious but with a touch of the philosophical - whimsical that appeals to my warped soh.

I go back to Jimmy Rogers, 'the singing brakeman' of 1930s fame - the blues yodeller whose influence pervades all 50s/60s/70s CM singers (including Bob Dylan - though I think he cites Woody Guthrie is his main creditor): Jimmy's "Mississippi River Blues" was my favourite song (Frankie & Johnny" on the flip side) when I was five or six years old and hearing it can still waft me back to my Dad's wind-up gramophone and crystal set; the Gathering Storm and the phony war.

For me. luckily, 1939 - 45 was mainly a gramo-phoney war - to the backdrop of dull thumps as "Archie" (as my Dad referred to Hitler) tried to strafe the five aerodromes that surrounded my childhood home in the Fens (some of them dummy ones). Actually, I think most of the bombs I heard were Gerry ditching loads as The Few chased their arses back over the channel. The Luftwaffe blew up our gasworks and disinterred most of our cemetery one night as they cravenly fled.

"Berlin or Bust" by (I think) Bertha Wilmot, a gutsy wartime warbler, probably aroused my burgeoning bellicosity to fever pitch. Radio won the war for us on the home front. Sid Walker, Tommy Handley, Jimmy James, The Crazy Gang, etc., took the piss for Britain.

Sadly I never got to Nashville, and the Grand Old Oprey, but I did spend some great evenings in the Lone Star Cafe in the Big Apple in the 80s during American adventures. Happy days! Looking back is fun, wish I could say the same for the future.

Btw I still like "South of the Border" (down Mexico way) by Frank Sinatra, which relaunched his faltering career at one stage, is perhaps apropos in your case. But perhaps you are too young to remember that. Sorry to fix you with my glittering eye ...

Simon Stephenson

MikeF 16/6 : 1.46pm

Thanks for your comment.

The BBC. Well yes, I gave up with "Have Your Say" because they didn't moderate them in order of receipt, so frequently, on well-subscribed issues, your comment wouldn't appear for 36 hours, and would then be put up in a huge block of which yours was on the 19th page. The other game they used to play was to leave page 1 for ages with either suitably BBC-like comments on it, or arrant rubbish, so that these would top the recommendation listings.

I'm not sure what they're like now. Flanders, Peston and Robinson seem only to censor obscenity, which is good, but they all have unfortunately acquired various person-to-person slanging matches, which doesn't add to the joy of reading.

I had some problems at the Mail - they don't seem to like publishing anything that could be taken to imply that their reporters may be a tad on the simplistic side. So I don't bother going there any more.

You're right about The Independent - there are too many slanging matches. The Guardian's good, never had any trouble there. The Telegraph seems to print everything, but with long delays. And of course, here at the Speccie - no problems other than the delays.

What I'd urge each of them is to speed up the moderation, so that the boards can become more of a discussion, and less of a place to post manifestos.

Simon Stephenson

Iraq Inquiry

Good article* by Adrian Hamilton in The Independent today. I was struck by this section:-

"It's not that the Government thought [Lords Hutton and Butler] would do its bidding, any more than Sir John Chilcot will. It's just that they knew they would always step back from what was challenging."

This is the point, I think. By ensuring that the investigation is led by a key figure in the establishment, it can be guaranteed that no conclusion will be reached that threatens the establishment's esteem, even if this means that individuals who have behaved improperly are allowed to get away with it.

Maybe this is sound thinking, but we'd find it easier to swallow if we knew that the establishment had its own internal procedures to punish those whom it's not helpful to punish in public.

*http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/adrian-hamilton/adrian--hamilton-this-exercise-wont-even-ask-the-hard-questions-1706015.html

THX1138

Paul B great photos, is that your gorgeous daughter in the photo?

C'mon everyone summer is here,
why not get photographing our beautiful country and send the results into Pete so we can all enjoy them.

Verity

Thanks for the WWII memories, F Pulley.

I didn't know Johnny Cash was bright enough to write songs. Being from Texas, so to speak, I also love Willie Nelson - 'On The Road Again', 'Blue Eyes Cryin' in The Rain', etc. And Merle.

It really is a unique genre that grew up organically in vast spaces of Texas and the American SW. The only people who could copy it, or rather, do their own version, with any credibility, would be the Aussies.

OTOH, the Texans got "I'm Back in Folsom Prison", "On The Road Again" and "She's A Good-hearted Woman in Love with A Good-timin' Man", and the Aussies got "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport".

Just kidding, Aussies ...!

Frank P

Verity

Well you can have the best of both worlds then if you buy "Willie Nelson sings Kris Kristofferson"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sings-Kris-Kristofferson-Willie-Nelson/dp/B0000025H9

It's the best Country CD I have.
Buy it - you'll love it.

Sideline sniper

General Sir Mike Jackson and the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald QC, have both criticised the decision to hold the Iraq War Inquiry in private.

Nothing will change, however, because Gordon Brown is like a nervous swimmer, sitting on the edge of a diving board, wondering whether to jump.

He doesn’t quite have the guts to let go, so he climbs back down the little ladder, and, after a short time, returns with a long chute, which he attaches to the board, turning it into a water slide. He then, with a belated attempt at boldness, slithers down it at a medium speed, averting his eyes from any camera lenses looking down from the gallery. He’s found – in New Labour parlance - a third way; he’s literally triangulated his problems.

If the PM could just find it within him to be bold, he might start to take the people with him.

But not only will the Iraq inquiry be held in private, it also, he says, will not try to apportion blame.

It sounds like a fudge because that’s what it is.

The families of British services personnel killed in Iraq want it to be open; they want to hear all the evidence, and be able to come to their own conclusions.

This decision by Downing Street means they are being treated with contempt.

Intellectuals, like Gordon Brown, can often see many sides of an argument. It’s a virtue, not to be blinkered.

But leadership demands clear and just decision-making, and again, Gordon has been found wanting.

Kevyn Bodman

Martyn Williams or David Wallace?

I've done what I can to eliminate any bias I might have and I still opt for Williams.

Verity

Thanks, Frank. Next time I have someone coming down from Stateside, I'll ask them to bring it.

Vulture

I put up a post yesty which didn't get through the censor criticising both Richrd Rogers AND Prince Chazza over the aborted Chelsea Barracks project. Perhaps I'll have better luck this time, or I'll begin to think that Peter is already angling for his knighthood.

I usually loathe the Princeling for the gormless Greenie; aren't -my-gardens-wonderful, out of touch priveleged old irrelevance that he is. But on this occasion his pomposity has aborted a project that really deserved aborting. Roger's tower blocks looked like something out of Walter Ulbricht's East Berlin and was clearly designed to enhance
milord's bank balance rather than the London environment. It is possible to have modern archtecture that is exciting, beautiful and NOT Chazza's favoured dull neo-classicism, but these Stalinoid Lego blocks are not it. And Roger's batey statements abt cutting back on Royal power just because his already top-heavy balance took a bit of a hit was simply hilarious. Altogether a very British storm in a teacup, but just for once I'm on the Hanoverian side.

Paul B

Williams for me as well.

Pete Hoskin

Vulture: up at the second attempt! Although it's not always censorship, but sometimes technical problems, which stop comments showing. If one of yours goes missing, you can always email on phoskin @ spectator.co.uk and I'll look into it.

As for that Knighthood...

Tiberius

Unless I've overlooked it, I can't find anyone commenting on the attacks in Northern Ireland anywhere on this blog.

For all the theorizing about what constitutes racism (and we talked about it enough after the BNP won their seats in the euro elections), it is somewhat odd that when it surfaces in its unmistakeable, direct form there is no apparent outrage.

Racism may have long and vague definitions attached to it, but primarily it occurs where physical violence is inflicted merely on the basis of differing racial background. Shouldn't these incidents be given greater prominence than the political interpretation of the euro election vote?

Rhoda Klapp

Verity, Johnny Cash wrote the Folsom Prison Blues and many more of the songs associated with him.

However, it is a Nashville practice to give the singer, if well-known, a writer's credit for any minor contribution to a song from any small-time songsmith who hasn't the bargaining power to resist. Some country stars who are well-known for writing their 'own' songs have done little more than change a word or two. A clue is shared credits with many different people.

Cash's Folsom Prison was similarly inspired by a pre-existing tune and some of the words, and reached a settlement with the previous writer after the song was a hit. Apparently.

Verity

Rhoda K - Thanks for that! I didn't know. But, although I love Johnny Cash's voice and delivery, he just didn't sound bright enough to have written Folsom Prison Blues. I do believe Kris Kristofferson is clever enough to have written his own songs, though. He was a Rhodes Scholar. (But then so was Bill Clinton. And what did he ever do?)

Rhoda Klapp

Romanians in Belfast.

Have we heard the whole story? Is what we have heard enough to jump to the conclusion of racism, no other possible explanation?

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

Tiberius.

What's happened in Belfast, however ugly, is a reaction to the immigration, without any consultation as to the wishes of the local people, of large numbers of people who have no link to the country.

They have contributed nothing and yet they are entitled to the same - and usually in practical terms, much more - than those who have worked and struggled for years and who now find themselves pushed aside in the competition for resources.

These are genuine concerns which should be dealt with when the powers that be take it upon themselves to allow such fundamental changes.

Tiberius

That, Rhoda, is what I too should like to know.

The BBC reports leave no room for doubt about what's happened, but there could well be some unreported background to this.

Verity

What Alf Tupper said.

Tiberius

Hi, Alf, and I can see that you may be right. The same problems exist in parts of England too. And there has been no suggestion that the attacks are any kind of reprisal, justified or otherwise, nor are they linked with paramilitaries.

What does surprise me is the the apparent absence of concern considering of the scale of this event; many dozens of people in the same location being removed from their homes because they are under physical attack. And the police are apparently unable or unwilling to arrest the offenders.

I don't recall anything like that in Gt Britain. It is quite extraordinary.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

What a green and pleasant land.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8106092.stm

18 months and we have another home-grown jihadi riding on the Clapham omnibus.

Vulture

I think three points should be made abt the attack on the Rumanians:

1) Any act of unprovoked thuggish violence against a group containing the elderly and infants is repulsive and needs to be utterly condemned.

2) What on earth were these people doing in Belfast in the first place? They are described as 'migrant workers' but this obviously does not include old people and children. I suspect that they were, for want of a better term, benefit scroungers brought here under the absurd EU laws we are still signed up to and housed at public expense.

3) By some distance the 'hypocrite of the week' award goes to Martin McGuinness, IRA Godfather (retd.) for his foaming condemnations of racist violence. (Except when it is practised against Protestant Unionists, of course.)

Tiberius seems puzzled that this kind of mass violence happened in Belfast - has he been asleep for the last 30 years?

Finally, a prediction: there will be more - and worse- Belfasts unless the insanity of
tidal wave immigration is stopped. And stopped soon.

Tiberius

You sometimes have a strange take on things, Vulture.

Do you not think there is a difference between race and religion?

Rhoda Klapp

There's no further enlightenment in what media I've read today. One, and it seems only one, website mentioned that the immigrants are Roma. Gypsies, as we would have called them. That is a bit of a clue, but what I am going to write here is a lot of supposition and reading between the lines, and I defer to anybody who is better informed.

The Romanians are gypsies. They have arrived recently and been housed all together in a protestant area. I surmise that their behaviour (or a perception of it) has caused trouble with the locals. True Roma gypsies are a tribe. They have a tribal culture, and recognise no authority or law from outside the tribe. They are perceived by others as likely to steal, beg, cheat and abuse facilities. As immigrants of whatever race they will put a strain on resources. All this creates grievances among the rest of the community. But this is not England, where people mostly don't want to make trouble, and in the medium term react by moving elsewhere, or complaining to the police or council. This is Belfast, where communities have a tradition of looking after things for themselves, and a number of 'community leaders', hard men, paramilitaries, gang leaders, vigilantes or however you'd like to paraphrase it. They are the people you go to when there is drug dealing on your street, or vandalism or whatever. You don't go to the police or the council for justice, especially if you think they are likely to favour the immigrants, who all seem to have houses, cars, cellphones and things while getting handouts from the state.
The Hard men will lose influence in the community if they can't fix complaints. They will act in the way they know, and use muscle. Thus there is a quick route from irritation to violence.

As I said, that is all surmise. But we ought to be told the whole story, rather than the jump straight to the R word.

Sterence

Has anyone seen the excellent article on the Financial Crimes blog re the latest PSBR figures? Terrifying reading. http://alexmasterley.blogspot.com/2009/06/up-creek-no-paddle.html

Vulture

@Tiberius : Sometimes differences in race are exacerbated by differences in religion. Obvious examples being the Israeli/Palestinian conflict; and, of course, the Ulster troubles : broadly Irish Celtic/Catholics v. Anglo/Scottish Protestants. And there were mass evictions of both communities in Belfast during those troubles, so your puzzlement that it should have happened in this particular city, given its history, is...well, puzzling.

Wilhelm

British police went on record in February 2008 as saying that they were struggling to cope with an 800 percent rise in crimes committed by Romanian Gypsies in Britain.

In an article in the magazine Police Review, top officers expressed their fears after an
unprecedented rise in offences by that
community.

The magazine quoted the officers as saying that
the “dramatic increase” in crime is putting a strain on forces across the country since
migrant gangs began to flood into the UK following EU accession in January 2007.

Statistics revealed a staggering 339 Gypsy-
origin crimes were being carried out every month in London since the influx — compared
to just 30 in 2006.

Supt Bernie Gravett said pick pocketing children
are causing the biggest drain since they started to move out of the capital to target backwater
communities.

The senior officer — who heads a 12-strong
Met unit dedicated to the problem in Westminster — said: “It’s not just London — it’s
affecting every force in the UK.

“This is a new type of crime that we are
encountering. It is the criminal exploitation of
children who come from very poor backgrounds
in a foreign country.”

He said the police were “shocked when a survey of 126 Romanian children in London revealed that their convictions were spread across 32 police force areas around the UK.”
According to Met officers, the villains, who rake in around £100,000 from each child each year, are using children as young as six to unleash this crime wave which can net them up to £200 million annually.
Gangs buy the children from impoverished parents in Romania for as little as 200 Euros before they are trafficked to the UK.

Tiberius

Vulture: I didn't say I was puzzled at violence in Belfast, and I do concur with your views in as much as they are related to the main point I wanted to make.

That point (before we got side-tracked on causes, history or justification for the attacks) was why no CH blogger wanted to report on a Kristalnacht in the UK when so much had been written about the theoretical threat from the rise of the BNP.

The reports in the DT give a seemingly full account of what happened, Nazi salutes and all.

Verity

Round up the child criminals and bundle them back to Romania to deal with. They are not the responsibility of the British or Irish taxpayer whose land they are attempting to invade.

Do not send one thin penny to Romania, or Britain will have another hungry mouth on our teat from here to eternity. We can't even get Africa off our backs after 60 years and billions and billions of wasted pounds in aid.

Do not give the Romanies one thin penny. Do not be blackmailed by children.

Step No 2: Get the hell out of the EU.

Vulture

@ Tiberius
As a historian of Nazi Germany I know all about the Reichskristallnacht - and your comparison is absurd. People run too readily to make Nazi comparisons with the BNP etc- anyone who experienced the real Nazis would know what true persecution means. This was a localised explosion of low-level racism in a city which - more than any other in Britain - has long experience of sectarian violence and criminality alike. But I repeat:
there will be more Belfasts unless the root cause - viz. unfettered mass immigration - is seriously addressed. Otherwise the mob will address it. (Crystal Night was, by contrast,not mob violence but was highly organised by Dr Goebbels)>

William

900 British people sacked by a French company for organising their labour and supporting colleagues and The Spectator has nothing to say about it. It does have plenty to say about inheritance tax, though.

Yes, the next Tory Government will certainly be a government for the people.

Tiberius

No, Vulture, the comparison is not absurd. I will happily defer to your knowledge of the different aspects that may have led to both incidents, but as both entailed families being attacked in their homes the comparison is entirely valid.

The rest of what you say is again off-topic from my primary point.

William

'I don't recall anything like that in Gt Britain. It is quite extraordinary.'

Do an Internet search for 'Cluan Place' and then be quiet

Derek

I notice that CNN has said on several occasions recently that the Chinese government has been blacking out TV screens on the mainland whenever the US channel broadcasts its reports on the 20th anniversary of the Tienaanmen massacre. For the record, this may be true in Peking, I don't know, but it is not the case in Shanghai, at least not in my apartment block where, for instance, the interview with Kate Adie who has reported the masacre in person was broadvast loud and clear. I don't think the Chinese government has yet refined its control of the media to the point of blacking out all of Shanghai's reception of a CNN item except for one Englishman's. Do CNN reporters ever leave their well-worn paths? I would appreciate the members of the profession at the Spectator commenting on this curiosity. Of course, CNN did not broadcast the most spectacular of Ms. Adie's footage taken running along the corridor of a hospital lined with the dead and dying. She did describe it though, and anyone with their TV tuned in Shanghai could see and hear her loud and clear.

Tiberius

Cluan Place, Belfast, William.

Part of the UK, not part of Gt. Britain.

Now I'll be quiet if you will.

Verity

Tiberius - re these "families being attacked in their homes" ... Were these homes paid for by the Romanies, which would make them "their" homes? Were they paying rent to the council, or are these families uninvited guests of the taxpayer?

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

Well said William on the refinery workers' sackings.

Are the foreign jobs still secure I wonder?

Derek

Mr. Vulture states that "Any act of unprovoked thuggish violence against a group containing the elderly and infants is repulsive and needs to be utterly condemned". As Coffee Housers are trained to scrutinize the statements of Our Dear Leader, I hope that I will be excused if I say that I hope that Vulture does not intend to defend PROVOKED acts of thuggish violence against such a group nor to support unprovoked acts of thuggish violence against a group that does NOT contain the elderly and infants...? Even more illuminating might be to know when he thought thuggish violence did not need to be condemned.

Derek

Lovely photographs of Charlecote Manor by Paul B - Oh to be in England and all that. I wonder whether Lord Rogers might be set in front of giant enlargements of the photographs with his eyes taped open. Wasn't something along these lines shown to be effective on another delinquent, Alec Delarge, in Kubrick's film, A Clockwork Orange? Or should it be photographs of his own buildings? I can't remember which way it worked....

Verity

Before this week ends, here's a great link to the fight of a conservative American legislator: http://tinyurl.com/m7lahd

The Americans are often ahead of us in the game, so watch as this progresses.

Wilhelm

What are Romanian gypsies doing in Belfast ? Shouldnt they be in er, um, Romania.

donald fraser

Reflections on voting BNP

It has been two weeks since I cast my vote for the first time in my life for the BNP. One of the purposes to do so was to provide intellectual ammunition to reflect on it. Of course what you do in the ballot box booth is between you and your conscience. No proof exists, so I could just be making it up. Nevertheless I have been using the opportunity since then to reflect on what I did.

At heart I am seeking an antidote for my strong dislike of the establishment. By voting BNP for the first time, I knew like many others in Yorkshire that I was voting for a mindset on the ascendancy. I floated into it because without being contrite, I float. However I also did so hoping to vaccinate myself against doing so in the future. The logic being that with the craving satisfied, the secret or subconscious longing to reject mainstream parties would be eradicated from my mind for the future. I am currently a paid-up member of UKIP so it was not difficult to dismiss the European elections as unimportant. I hope I will not be tempted again by my conscience, specifically in the forthcoming elections that actually matter such as the General Election. Am I now successfully vaccinated?

In the last two weeks I have been walking around justifying myself with the thought "I have voted to give Griffin an education". I dropped out of Cambridge University myself, so I am not impressed by the thought he is educated just because he studied at Oxbridge. Griffin and his colleague will no doubt be changed men after encountering the beautiful, multi-lingual women in the EP (European Parliament). Or alternatively will they gravitate to friendship with the fringe East European candidates to whom multi-culturalism is as something new at it was to Britain in the 1950s? If that is the case, it will provide proof to my deep seated beliefs that the European Expansion of 2004 was deeply flawed. That is why I am a member of UKIP. However since I regard myself as a West European nationalist, I feel I am missing a party that really shares my ideals.

Frank P

I pass this on for any who may have missed it:

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/fish_barrel_bang/post_19.php

Brilliant! wish they would do a similar one on Brown - but I suppose he's already done his own - the You Tube hit that almost beat SuBo's McWhirter contender.

An even better idea - how about a Khamenei "Supreme Leader" skit. Must keep an eye open for this crew.

h/t Gerard Vanderleun - of course.

Also for Iran watchers, see St Mark of Steyn's latest and die:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDlhMmZmY2I1MjI0MTZlNDBhZmI3N2Y3ZDk2ZGZlYjA=&w=MA==

Mark must be due for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. :)

Frank P

Verity

Alex Massie has been reading our mail.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/3708916/saturday-morning-country-the-man-in-black.thtml

Verity

Derek writes: Mr. Vulture states that "Any act of unprovoked thuggish violence against a group containing the elderly and infants is repulsive and needs to be utterly condemned".

Well, Vulture, what is "unprovoked" in a foreign country? I would suggest that anything that doesn't agree with local laws and local behaviour is provocative.

Whereupon, the people who own the area, and have owned it for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, might get testy.

I doubt whether a single Romany could qualify for entrance into the United States, even as a visitor.

As so many people think of the US as a benchmark, meditate on that.

Frank P

Verity (2.30am)

What a very neat summary. So it goes!

Organised crime and people trafficking are the real issues behind most of this. And we all know what happens when one organised crime group encroaches of the turf of another. The disgraceful carve up in NI jigged up among some of the most corrupt politicians on earth (including the Bruttish famiglia) for the sake of expediency and a false 'peace' will go down in the annals of world infamy. All sides were sold out by their 'leaders' for cash and influence and the superficial 'peace' will not prevail.

Our own and the island of Ireland's own diddycoys are difficult enough to contain and have organised themselves into serious 'outfits' of Organised Crime. Importing foreign ones under the thrall of, and paying tribute to, the East European mobs is as ludicrous as it is wicked and another searing indictment of our ''Government's' immigration policies.

This latest little eruption is merely symptomatic of a much deeper problem and one that, the like the NI stitch-up, is one that none of the parties involved have an interest in discussing other than issuing risible platitudes like the one proffered by Godfather McGinnes; but as usual, the British taxpayer picks the bill (or rather pays the blackmail demands).

Richard Littlejohn puts the deeply hypocritical outburst of
McGinnes on the subject into perspective: it needs no further amplification:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1194046/LITTLEJOHN-Fast-tracking-Tarmacing-community-NHS.html

Read it all.

Verity

Frank P, thanks for the links and I will go to them now.

But I would suggest that "a searing indictment of our Government's immigration policies" doesn't quite cut the mustard, because "our" government's (read Mandelson and the EU's) immigration policy is the destruction of Britain.

Verity

Frank P - Please read the comments here: http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/3710043/the-brown-will-go-stories-wont-go-away-until-he-does.thtml#comments It's up at the front of the mag.

I would also recommend reading Daniel Hannan's piece in The Telegraph. It puts a wholly new and illuminating perspective on the Brown/Mandeson/EU map.

http://tinyurl.com/l6k79r Please read it. Everything else that we have been discussing on the political scene is as thistledown in the wind compared to this.

egh

Frank P - yes. You're explaining for me how the Mob stranglehold is strengthening and tightening everywhere. I've
gradually come to suspect that this is the true horror story of the West - but thanks for confirming what I see around me [which is largely Irish, with a touch of Italian and German (the Frankfurt School)].

I'm still not seeing how it ties into the Arab side of the equation - but I expect it is there.

Frank P

V-e-r-i-t-y!

The Hannan link was first posted by Neil Turner @ 9.21am 21/6 and I thanked him for it and noted my concern at 12.39pm while you were still sleeping, gal. I read your comment later at 3.53pm our time; you've obviously added me to your list of 'scroll past' trolls. ;-(

Apart from that whinge, I agree entirely with you about the seriousness of what Hannan surmises as I'm sure he's on the button. But we've been hammering this message for years haven't we - why does it take so long for these people seemingly 'in the loop' to catch up? Perhaps they should occasionally take their heads out of their own fundaments and pay attention!

Interesting link to the 'tourism' piece. See your point.
Thanks Verity.

Frank P

V-e-r-i-t-y!

Please see my comment at 12.39pm after the heads up from Neil Turner. You were till in bed when I posted. You haven't added me to you list of 'scroll past' trolls have you? ;-(

I'm hurt!

Agree with what you say about the Hannan piece, though. Thanks.

But we've been banging on about it for years, haven't we? Why is it that those supposedly still 'in the loop' are taking so long to catch up? I wish they would take their heads from out of their own fundaments and smell the coffee instead.

Great piece by Dick Morris today on Obama's attack on Fox News. Shrewd analysis:

http://news.newsmax.com/?m6ODaqSjEIqO9POoq9qUBRYH6XlkxlR1m

Moreover Fox are now using all the research we garnered, on Obama's links with Marxists and revolutionaries, during the Presidential campaign. Pity they didn't pay more attention then. Closing the stable door when the wrong horse is already scoffing at the winner's manger is tardiness in the extreme. At least the punters might wake up now and demand a steward's enquiry I suppose.