CoffeeHousers' Wall, 1 February  - 6 February

Cuffleyburgers

Very disappointed by Cameron's performance recently.

Hereally seems to be doing his best to be the heir to Blair by running a campaign based on soundbites.-

Up to now I had always assumed that he was smart enough to raise his game as the pressure built. However he is now under pressure and he seems to be crumbling.

There is no coherent, principle-based message coming out.

Now is the time to admit to GW scepticism and on Europe to put his foot down about Corpus Juris as well as contributions generally.

On the health service and cuts he does not have to make a complicated message simply one that says the principle of free-at-point-of-care is a cornerstone but e is not convinced that the current arrangements are the best ones and in government they will sek to make changes where this can be done without damaging the quality of care.

He must point out that the main dividing line between his government and labour will be that where labour defines the effectiveness of the public sector by how much it can spend, he intends to measure what is actually delivers, and whereever possible to deliver the same or better but for less.

I really cannot believe what I'm (not) hearing.

Enough keeping powder dry - the whole point about having powder is to make a bang!

Vulture

@Cuffleyburgers; I agree completely.
Over at Con.Home there's an intresting post abt a new Australian blogsite called (I think) 'Menzies.com' which recently organised the successful grassroots revolt against the Oz Tory leader Malcolm Turnbull who was ousted over his support for the Oz Liebour Govt's job-destroying Green taxes.

AS we have a 'Conservative' leader who also is also fully signed up to the loony Green agenda (not to mention the EU agenda and a whole host of other non-Conservative policies) wouldn't it be great if we could do the same here?

I know the Conservative Party is organised differently from the Australians ( they are much more ruthless at ditching failing leaders) but what about organising a British equivalent to the Tea Party grassroots movement to ditch the useless non-Tory Dave?

Judging by the myriads of posts criticising Cameron on this and other blogs there would be no shortage of support for a 'Ditch Dave Now' or 'Conservatives Against Cameron' revolt.

R King

I've just watched the BBC2 "Andrew Neil Lunchtime Show" and he should be taken to task about the totally biased interview with Phil Hammond on the tory recovery plan. Hammond answered his questions with as much detail that he was able to give but Neil just continued to repeat the question along the lines "but why won't you tell us what the cuts will be?", claiming that Hammond had not given an answer, egged on by Nick Ferari, (another pratt).
Then when he asked the same question to the labour politician he was stonewalled and Neil just accepted it.

Why doesn't he get Darling or Mandleson on his programme and ask them what their cuts are going to be? They have access to all the figures and so should be able to tell us in detail.

BIASED BROADCASTING COMPANY????

Shamefull!

Verity

I mentioned this at the end of last week's wall and it got buried under the weight of 200-odd previous comments, so I'm going to mention it again:

At airports, the brand new all-body security scanners are already rendered pointless as the Bombs R Us execs have announced new bombs that can be carried inside the bodies of suicide nut jobs.

Why are the people charged with protecting us always a day late and a dollar short? Couldn't they have figured out that this would be the next step? Surely they had it worked out that the suicide bomber is fully expecting to die in the assault, so it makes no difference to him whether he carries a bomb in his can of hairspray or inside his body? Haven't they read anything about islam?

All those millions spent on whole body scanners at airports ... boom! Gone to no purpose. Duh.

AngloWelshDragon

I am on the horns of a dilemma. As a responsible parent I have reared our children to show proper respect to adults, teachers authority figures etc.

However, last week Ed Balls paid a vist to my 15 year old son's school. My son and his friend came across the ministerial party in a corridor at which point my son nodded his head towards Balls and said loudly "There's that knob-head from the government!".

From a disciplinary position I should probably admonish him. Should I therefore be ashamed that my reaction was to burst out laughing and say "I couldn't have put it better myself".

AngloWelshDragon

A "Ditch Dave Now" campaign would be better called a "5 More Years for Brown" campaign. Get a grip!

Tiberius

R King: Andrew Neil at times appears to be in the same straitjacket as Fraser.

BTW Norman Tebbitt in the DT today gives a clear-headed analysis of where the Tories are at present.

AndyinBrum

I think it's just people treating the Tories as The Government, & Labour as irrelevant.

Edward Sutherland

I would still like an explanation from Fraser Nelson as to why the Spectator has regarded "Neather" as a non-issue.

mongoose

Here's a twist on Andy's point. It's actually the Labour strategy - to modulate from being underdogs to an insurgency against the current Tory government(!). Get people to believe that and Labour may have a chance.

Liz Brown

I would like to see a Volte Face from Dave on carbon emissions, green taxes and a junking of the debunked climate change bandwagon. Now is the perfect opportunity
How many times do the Conservatives have to say that they cannot specify spending cuts until they have a) had caterpillar's Budget and b) seen all the books and discovered the full extent of the horrors that lie in wait
I would also like to know that they are going to carefully examine everything that comes out of Brussels and will not sign up to anything that goes against Britian's interests. I would actually prefer them to tell Brussels to stuff the whole agenda where the sun don't shine and withdraw completely

Frank P

Liz Brown

"I would like to see a Volte Face from Dave on carbon emissions, green taxes and a junking of the debunked climate change bandwagon. Now is the perfect opportunity."

Depends on who has invested how much in what and where, in the green technology scams. Cambridgeshire and Norfolk (and I understand many other locations) appear from a distance to have been visited by millions of school-kids who have bought up all the beach-toy windmill's-on-a-stick and randomly stuck them around the fens. All those wide horizons besmirched with the useless contraptions. Scenic vandalism! Somebody must be raking it it in - and that's just one scam among hundreds on the bandwagon. Don't hold you breath.

Verity

Here is a very strong piece by Daniel Hannan on the creeping, under the radar, internationalisation of justice.

http://tinyurl.com/ydl8la7

Something else on which we have not heard a peep or an opinion from Dave.

James Murphy

AngloWelshDragon - my son nodded his head towards Balls and said loudly "There's that knob-head from the government!". - Surely Head Boy material?

derek

It has been argued that, in view of its parlous finances, the United States cannot afford a military strike against Iran's nascent nuclear capability because of the cost of its existing military engagements in the Middle East. Would it be correct to respond, however, that a de-fanging of Iran by the US would result in a substantial easing of military and political pressure on US forces in the region with a concomitant reduction in expense?

Verity

Edward McLaughlin and Peter Crawford - Beautiful pictures, chaps.

derek

Some other interesting photographs, in view of the recent discussion of women's headgear, can be seen here: http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2010/01/28/the-steady-erosion-of-womens-rights-in-egypt-a-photographic-story/

Frank P

Homesick, Verity?

David Ossitt

Frank P

"Homesick, Verity?"

I think; that it is evident, in most of what the good lady writes.

Jez

As a matter of (my) noseyness only Veriry, where (very roughly) do you live now?

Any wailing 'calls to prayer' and Minarets present..... (saying that- we got them down the road here, in Bradford!)

;)))

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Gloomy grey morning. Claire Short's grating voice on the radio and "Woman's Hour" whinging on and promising a discusion on legalising death by choice. Imagine government involvement in one's demise. They bugger up everything, and I can see them despatching those who are a nuisance, whether or not they wish to shuffle off this mortal coil. Lord Mandelson as Prince of Death?

Rosie

Nobody answered my main question in last week's Wall. What is the likely scale of the unackowledged Government debt, i.e. that arising from PFI, PPP and unfunded public pensions. Is it included in the 'National Debt' at the top of the Coffee House page, or not? And if not, has anybody investigated (or speculated on) its likely scale?

Alexandrovich

Apropos the run-up to the election: David Cameron is playing General George McClellan to the hilt. In his frustration during the Civil War, Lincoln said about him "If General McClellan does not want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a time."

Dan Collins

Just a quick note to let Coffee Housers know that we're running An Evening With Theodore Dalrymple in Chelsea on the evening of February 23.
Daniel Hannan has very kindly agreed to act as Dalrymple's interlocutor on the night.
The format will be a relaxed and informal chat with Dalrymple about his life, work and views, with questions later from the floor.
Ticket price includes a copy of Dalrymple's UK 'Not With A Bang But A Whimper'.
More details at www.mondaybooks.com.

Ghengis

So many words upon such a simple concept.
Government Income (Tax) Minus Spending (All) should in a well managed enterprise provide a profit which in the existence of Government Debt (deficit + interest) will diminish it. Observe the debt counter at the top of the page, and spare 10 seconds to think about it.

Alternative Home Secatary

Given that Gordon Brown and the Labour Party want to be judged on what they’re going to do in future (heaven forbid) rather than the last 12 years! Instead of moving from a first past the post system to ‘Alternative Vote’ we should go straight to a second past the post system and guarantee them another 36 years in power? Yes?

Wilhelm

Gordon Broon wants voting reform, a PR system.
So liebour has done bugger all on this for 13 years and now they want the voting system changed 3 months before the general election.

The liebour party must think we are all just off the boat, they'd do anything to cling to power, thats the only thing they are interested in, staying in power, no convictions whats so ever. It truly is pathetic.

Verity

Jez - Roughly speaking, I live in Mexico.

Frank P - As they say, you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. I am still very fond of the land of my birth and will her to recover. Many, if not most, expats feel the same way.

Verity

Lord Tebbitt has a typically trenchant piece in The Telegraph today.

http://tinyurl.com/yd4tcly

I particularly enjoyed the comment below the piece of reader 45Government, who wrote that he has “a long and healthy loathing of the spotty superannuated student activist scumbag, Jackboot Straw”. So nice to know one isn’t alone.

Tiberius

It is odd, isn't it, that the gold-plated- Machiavellian Brown (or at least he would be if he hadn't given it away) seems to be the one least impressed by the single figure poll leads for the Tories.

If he thought he had a cat in hell's chance of winning the GE, he wouldn't be concerned with AV. We saw exactly the same duplicity from Blair over PR.

Australian interest rates; BoE thinking of reducing QE; Tory deficit position. Michael Portillo floats a big financial shock any time soon...

Jez

Verity,

Which one?

The old Mexico- or the new one, aka California?

:))))

@ Peter Crawford; that photo is ace pal.

derek

Another reality check for Rod Liddle, who only grudgingly admitted in his blog recently that he recognizes that Islam is a religion not a race, is Reuters' report cited at http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/al-qaeda-offers-to-aid-nigerian-muslims-in-their-persecution-of-christians.html#comments that "An al Qaeda group in North Africa has offered to give Nigerian Muslims training and weapons to fight Christians in the West African country, where more than 460 people were killed in sectarian clashes last month."

Meanwhile, I read in my most recently received edition of The Spectator (23 January) that 25% of Jack Straw's constituency are muslim.

Where is the editor's promised article on Neather and why has it been delayed?

Verity

Jez - Most of California was once actually part of Mexico so it is no suprise that there would be Mexicans in it. Baja California (Lower California) is still Mexican.

Verity

Derek - The editor TWICE promised an article on the Neather Report.

Paul B

Thought I would draw the attention to coffee housers to the following

http://tinyurl.com/6av289

If Cranmer is to be believed , and I do not doubt his Grace,then the UK has invited Ayatollah Khamenei, the defacto leader of Iran for a state visit.

Not to put to finer point on it, I`m outraged. I don`t want that murderous, totalarian son of whatever stepping on my green and pleasant land. Why on why have we invited him ? It gives him a perverted legitmacy in his ongoing attempt to put down those brave people in Iran who denmonstrate against him. Hes way of dealing with them is to execute them. Not to mention his plans for Israel and his support for the the insurgents in Iraq, that directly lead to the death of so many of our troops- probably in Afghanistan to,

This is so wrong on all levels, I am truly sick to the bone and will be demonstrating whenever I can.

Apologies, I posted this at the end of last weeks Wall, but I should have posted it here

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Paul B: You ae correct in every details.
One thing concerns me in these topsy turvey days where Labour and Tory have become terms for the same form of policy. The Anti-Fascist League is another oddity. They are never around when Muslim fanatics are mocking the coffins of returned British service personnel, yet they protest against the English League who want to retain 'Englishness' in the barely still green and pleasant land. Will the Anti-Fascists turn out against the Ayatollah if he pollutesd us with his presence? I think not.

Noa Zrk

David Cameron continues to disappoint mightily and in doing so, in turn diminishes the ideals, standing and probity of the Conservative party.
The preservation of an independant Great Btritain, the liberty of the individual, free speech, the promotion of private enterprise, the protection of constitutional rights, truth and honesty in public office, the reduction of taxation and the public sector are all legitimate principles acceptable to the great majority of UK citizens.
Unfortunately for both its citizens and the future of the country, the enunciation of any such principles are rejected in favour of piecemenal and in the arguments over detail differences with Labour.
The lack of political or moral courage is manifest in the Tory leadership and is costing the the Conservatives dearly.

Tiberius

I wonder what the gay fraternity will think about the Ayatollah coming here?

While their kissing in public might upset the Pope, the same act would have a rather more fundamental effect on their welfare if the Great One had his way.

John Richardson

'Cufflyburgers'

I only hope there are more like yourself.
More Cameron supporters who owe more loyalty to GB and to reality itself than to the current Party system.
More who are prepared to stop lying to themselves.
It must confuse people to sell their souls for party political vengeance; and in return, lose their souls & not gain vengeance.

The whole point of Cameron was that he would be that grinning, PC, middle way media invention that could not fail. Inviting the entire world into the most private grief for example. That's what the people all want these days you know.
Makes him human.
Makes you like him.
Makes people vote for him who otherwise would not. That's the point, this IS politics after all.

Now look.
07% lead.
Laughing or crying out there ?

Today we read he is going even greener. That ambitious gibbon Sterns is 'onboard'.
Now it IS funny.

Any patriot ought to be ringing out the bells at this tiny alleged lead (how many were 'undecided' 20%-25% ?).
Whats the 'lead' amongst those most likely to vote ?

All this with UKIP without money, focus, lacking some credibility and lied about & ignored by the State run media.

So the rejection of Cameron could show residual National vigour.
I think that it does.
It shows the real simmering anger at our National Betrayal to Lisbon.
It shows people are aware of his personal greed, implied dishonesty & therefore that he should not lead us. Personal greed matters to us if not to anyone else.
This shows people know the Bankers/politicians are screwing them and don't want to dignify the process with their 'support'.

Are there any more ex-Cameroons out there, who have realised what Anne Wotana Kaye1 points out above ?
That; "...Labour and Tory have become terms for the same form of policy..." ?

--------------------------------------------

Regarding the
'The Muslims are gonna getcha if they can only zip up their flies first.
Actually. They can't. So we're safe.' situation.

I heard last night that the 'Sharp dressed man' who got the carrier through Airport Security this Christmas, has been acknowledged as a[US] Government Agent (!).
In the 'Chicago....' something.
I'll search the ref. if any one's interested.

John Richardson

Wow.
Thanks for those two pictures up there.
It's great to be cold.

You know you're alive when you're cold.

Jez

Verity,

I knoooow!!!

Ha! I've got to lose this sarcasm, trying to be funny thing- it doesn't work, that i also know!

It won't be long before it's Mexican again though.... thinking out loud; was there speak of some kind of amalgamation of Mexico, the US and Canada- a bit like the EU- with a common currency, or was it a load of 'tinternet' conspiracy rubbish?

Derek

Somewhere in the CH very recently Verity gave "a nod" towards Jordan as an Islamic country with not entirely irredeemable features.

Jordan is of course Palestine, or at least a much more substantial chunk of the mandated territory than Israel plus or minus Judaea and Samaria. "Keep mum" though. It would be embarrassing openly to acknowledge this.

Why? Because the solution to the "Palestinian" problem is of course to name Jordan as Palestine - for "the Palestinians" - and thereafter to get off Israel's case and let it continue its development as the country contributing most to the well-being of humanity in the region and, arguably, at least per capita, in the world.

The muslims will of course not let that happen if it is within their power to prevent it, in the same way that they will not let Christians thrive in Nigeria or Buddhists in the area of Thailand bordering Malaysia.

The Hashemite House in Jordan has a history of opportunism in this struggle, but also a well-developed sense of self-preservation. The Jordanian policymakers are of course not going to admit that Jordan is the "Palestinian" state in the "two state" solution and are alert to any suborning of their manufactured "Jordanian" identity.

The most recent illustration of this is an interesting variation of Verity's "Bugger Off" policy which so upset a CHer or two a couple of weeks ago.

Thus:

"A US-based human rights group criticized Jordan Monday for stripping the citizenship of nearly 3,000 Jordanians of Palestinian origin in recent years.

Nearly half the kingdom's 6 million people are of Palestinian origin and Jordan fears that if Palestinians become the majority, it will disrupt the delicate demographic balance.

Concerned about increasing numbers of Palestinians in the country, Jordan in 2004 began revoking citizenship from Palestinians who do not have the Israeli permits that are necessary to reside in the West Bank.

Human Rights Watch said Jordan stripped about 2,700 Jordanians of Palestinian origin of their citizenship between 2004 and 2008 and urged them to restore their full rights. The trend continued last year, the group said in a report released in the Jordanian capital, Amman."

That's worth a nod.

Now, turning to Bradford...

Jez

@ derek.

Bradford, or 'Braaatfud' as the locals call it now, is probably not worth looking at in too much detail.... unless of course you're collating prosecution evidence in some sort of 'crimes against the social fabric of a country' trail, we'll hopefully be having some day.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

I'm writing this in a rather defensive state, as apart from other rude names, I was in one instance caled an 'Iron Age Mystic'! This is the price one must pay if you are a person of faith, even if not conventionally religious. I read and heard today that dementia is at a far higher level here than previously estimated. The health authorities state that 'more care and attention should be paid to the body.' I suggest that more acknowledgement and respect should be paid to the spirit. In this want it all, must have it all, anything goes society, there seem a lot of very unhappy and disturbed people. At a very early age they are stuck on anti-depressives and other drugs, by NHS providers. Serious research should go into whether these drugs activate future dementia. Inner serenity, a belief in a Higher Authority are mocked and derided by Nu Labour who demand that their dictates take the place of former Biblical doctrines. Many people are left in their senior years with a sense of hopelessness, unloved, neglected and completely alone.

Ghengis

Just watched our "defence (attack) secretary seemingly admitting that his government had been following the wrong policy during their period in office. Or have I misread his statement?

Derek

Israel also has a more robust version of the "Bugger Off" policy:

debkafile has obtained the full list of the operatives Hamas believes are targeted for assassination:
Jamila Shanti, female member of the Hamas political bureau and Palestinian lawmaker;

Muhammad Deif, former supreme commander of Hamas until he was badly injured in a previous Israel attack;
Ahmad Jabry, "chief of staff" of Hamas' combat arm, the Ezz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades;

Marwan Issa, Jabry's deputy;
Abu Khaled Hijazi, chief of the Haiman Judah squads in Gaza, Fatah activists to defected to Hamas-Gaza;

Muhammad Harub, Jihad Islami, who was targeted twice for assassination by Israel;

Abu Al Montaseir Omar, head of Hamas military planning (strategy) department;

Abu Qusai, another senior commander responsible for ex-Fatah combatants;

Nader Jaber, Ezz a-Din al Qassam operations chief in the Gaza Strip;

Khaled Mansour, Jihad Islami military commander in the Gaza Strip;

Muhammad Sanwar, chief of Hamas forces in the central Gaza sector;

Muhammad Abu Shemala, chief of Hamas forces in the South;

Ahmad Randour, chief of Hamas forces in the North.

Meanwhile, is POTUS going to steel himself for similar necessary ruthlessness in the case of the looming nuclear threat from the Iranian regime? Two supporters of the Bugger Off option:

(1) http://comments.americanthinker.com/read/42323/531166.html
(2) http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=167618

On a more parochial level, I suppose we ought to consider what an international crisis of such proportions might do for Labour's chances of continuing as the governing party. It is possible that it might cooincide with the general election.

egh

Paul B @ 4.48: I responded to this yesterday, and likewise got cut off! There's a suggestion on Cranmer that the Iran posts's all satire. What do you think?

P.S: I also responded to Nicholas: I plead Not Guilty to the "arms of Venus crack." Mistaken identity, m'lud! I stay away from venusian and or martian guff.

Paul B

EGH- I`m now not convinced it-the State visit- is true. I can find no link to confirm it via the usual search engines. I truly hope its not, although I have no faith in either Brown or Millitawt.

Peter Crawford

Verity, Jez, John R

Pleased you liked the picture of my beloved Snowdonia. I wasn't cold though being equipped with ridiculously expensive clothing. It is only in the last few winters that I have had my moneys worth out of it. Oh no ...what am I implying ?
Anyway glad you liked the photo.

Ghengis

Tiberius, thats without taking into account Mandy's protocol

Ghengis

Sorry, should have been "that's"

Beer Moth

Verity.

Thank you very much.

Jez.

You been down Horton Park Avenue lately? Belter that one.

AndyinBrum

AWK if you dont like Iron Age Mysticism, how about outdated fuedal belief system based on a work of fiction thousands of years old?

The reason for Dementia is because people are living longer, bit as your brain is currently filled with "God" I doubt that logic or fact will get through.

Although the rise in Dementia does raise the point about surely the Govt should be actively encouraging Smoking, and not trying to cut it by half.

daniel maris

LATEST ON WILDERS TRIAL. NETHERLANDS JOINS THE UK AS A NON-FREE COUNTRY WHERE PEOPLE MUST FEAR SPEAKING THE TRUTH ABOUT A TOTALITARIAN MOVEMENT

Geert Wilders reacts to the Amsterdam's District Court's disallowing of all but three of his witnesses. "Reaction to the decision in the pre-trial review," from his new Geert Wilders Trial website, February 3:

Geert Wilders: No fair trial

The Amsterdam District Court apparently doesn't want to hear the truth about Islam. Nor is it interested to hear the opinion of top class legal experts in the field of freedom of expression. In one swift move, the Court brushed aside fifteen of the eighteen expert-witnesses the defence had requested to be summoned.

Only Hans Jansen, Simon Admiraal and Wafa Sultan were allowed to be heard as expert-witnesses. Their testimony will be heard in a session behind closed doors. Apparently the truth about Islam must remain a secret.

Geert Wilders: "This Court is not interested in the truth. This Court doesn't want me to have a fair trial. I can't have any respect for this. This Court would not be out of place in a dictatorship".

The Court also brushed aside the preliminary objections concerning its jurisdiction and the admissibility of the Public Prosecutor.

Nevertheless, Geert Wilders remains extremely motivated to seek justice: "I'm still counting on an acquittal".

daniel maris

re Cameron - he's made a big, big tactical error in allowing the idea that the Tories are going to attack pension and other employment rights to gain ground. Not least because there is or was substance to the charge.

Victory to the AA workers!

Jez

Beer Moth,

You mean the 'new skyline addition' near St Lukes?

I can remember the loud speaker 'call to prayers' from the major Mosque at the same time every afternoon. That was just off Lumb Lane when visiting my Grandmother- early nineties.

But hey, we should celebrate this diversity.... because NuLab, BluLab and LibDem tell us to.

The future looks bright.....

:(

Nicholas

egh - oops! My apologies. I must have you confused with some other three letter pseudonym. Anyway, let's just blame old number plate - he's a wazzock anyway and it will make up for all his posts that I haven't taken the piss out of.

Florence of Arabia

Any chance British male posters could cease with the "but hey!"? From an old American TV programme. "Friends", I think. Can't you British think of any catch phrases of your own any more?

But hey - maybe it's not that important!

Florence of Arabia

So ugly Margaret Hodge (what is it with communist women? Was this belief system their only refuge when they realised they were ugly?) has discovered that Labour's policies for immigrants over the last 13 years might have caused a little resentment among the indigenous population, aka the householders of these parts, and has announced, in obvious abject fear, that she will do something.

OTOH, the Brits could "do something" without the munificent intervention of this frightened woman. They could kick them all out, regardless of whatever the latest diktat on "immigration" aka "invasion" is from the individuals in Brussels who are nailing plans into place for a European/N African/Turkish Eurabia.

Austin Barry

Florence of Arabia (aka the inimitable Verity):

The Labour ladies are generally quite hideous and unlikely to put a ding in even Leslie Phillips' dong.

The prettiest Labour MP is surely Andy Burnham followed by Ben Bradshaw. Indeed these languid Ganymedes seem to have been promoted beyond their ability because of their looks - although quite why male beauty should be so important to the Labour leadership baffles me.

But hey - whatever floats your boat.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

AndyinBrun:

:-(
Better than being a Stone Age Man!

Rich de L

Another homesick (Moscow-based) reader would like to thank Edward McLaughlin and Peter Crawford for the pics, and also express my admiration at the politeness and restraint shown by AngloWelshDragon's son.
If I encountered a Nu-Labour numpty, I think I would administer some accupuncture with a cavalry sword.

Can't share the annoyance at the Ayatollah - Iran's view of the UK is still like something from a John Buchan novel, and the Mullah will probably be as disappointed as the rest of us when he meets the pillocks who are ruining our country

James Murphy

Only French politicians are good-looking: this is immutable law, as is the sacred maxim 'politics is show business for ugly people'. The French are, as always, the irritating exception that proves the rule. But we love them anyway. Without France how would we remember how beautiful Europe once was?

Kevyn Bodman

Hello Florence of Arabia,
I thought that was a name you only used when commenting about the dark ages desert death cult.
I use a nom de net for that as well, but I digress from the point I wanted to make.

Very few women are ugly.
A woman does not need to be a model or a beauty queen or Sandra Bullock to be attractive.
Very many women of character and achievement,and very many women who have energy are attractive.
Female athletes are nearly always attractive, I find, even if they are by no means pretty.
Margaret Thatcher was very attractive, but hardly a beauty.

Someone called Superficial Sexist (for it is me)occasionally comments here, but let's not be too superficial.
It's not just about looks.

As for Margaret Hodge's politics, I more or less agree with you.

A colleague of mine was slighly acquainted with Harriet Harman as an undergraduate. He didn't know her well, but he has told me more than once that she was absolutely stunning in looks.
But maybe not that attractive?

Superficial Sexist

James Murphy:
I agree.
That French Finance Minster: lean, graceful, mature.
And her grey, (silver?) hair is no impediment at all.

AndyinBrum

I'm a stone age man because I don't believe in superstitious nonsense?

Have a word with yourself and engage brain before typing.

Austin Barry

This just in from Mrs Cherie Blair QC sitting as a Judge at Inner London Crown Court:

"I am going to suspend this sentence for the period of two years based on the fact you are a religious person and have not been in trouble before. You caused a mild fracture to the jaw of a member of the public standing in a queue at Lloyds Bank. You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour."

Any guess at the religion of this devout delinquent?

Nicholas

"A colleague of mine was slighly acquainted with Harriet Harman as an undergraduate. He didn't know her well, but he has told me more than once that she was absolutely stunning in looks.
But maybe not that attractive?"

Obviously before the post-menopausal manic gleam distorted her features into the current mask of marxist zealotry. No-one does mad women, bad women and aggrieved wimmin with a fervent cause better than Britain. Fortunately many foreign ladies still retain their feminine charm, self-assurance and don't march about indignantly in trousers or drive about furiously in little hatchbacks denouncing the male of the species for his natural proclivities (q.v. also 'Loose Women' - a celebratory demonstration of all that is ghastly about modern British women - screeching "take us seriously and treat us as equals even though we display our shallow, vapid vanity, subjectivity, giraffe-patterned zoot suits and fanatical obsession with child bearing for all to see"). One aspect of multi-cult and globalisation men can appreciate - more choice.

Verity

Kevyn Bodman - Well, I thought I'd take Florence out for a canter, given that she hasn't had much exercise lately.

Speaking of ugly Labour women, Baroness Scotland is also in the fright category, although she isn't a patch against that new president - or is a foreign secretary? - whatever - of the EUSSR. Even Cherie Blair, Claire Short, Mo Mowlam and Jacqui Smith rolled into one - and whoaah! what a roll of advoirdupois that would be! - are not uglier than the president of the EUSSR.

Sarkozy is not handsome, but I agree he is attractive. The Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Hsien Loong is very attractive (and witty and has a twinkle in his eye) as was his father, when young, Lee Kwan Yew.

Both George Bushes were attractive. Sarah Palin's attractive. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is mega attractive. There are lots of other attractive Republicans in office. I can't think of any attractive Democrats. What is is about the left?

Denmark's previous Prime Minister (a conservative) and now head of NATO is attractive.

Mexico's conservative President Felipe Calderon is attractive. As was his conservative predecessor, President Fox.

In Britain, the most outstandingly attractive politician is Daniel Hannan. But Nigel Farage and Lord Rannoch are no slouches either.

With the exception of the socialists I mentioned, all of the above have charisma.

I have given this issue some thought, and this is my humble opinion.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

AndyinBrun: If you want to call me rude names you must expect the same thing to happen to you. You tell me to use my brain before I type. Maybe I haven't a brain, if I had, would I engage in debate with pre-Stone Age monsters? Seems I shall have to emulate Verity and say, "Bugger off!".
I enjoyed writing that. :-)

Jez

Whoaa' there Verity!

Get a room! :))))))

(I prescribe a couple of spoons full of bromide in a cup of tea before dinner!)

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Austin Barry: Yes, I can guess the religion of this thug. Probably Blair doesn't want to make waves with elections coming up.
Cherie Blair is no Catholic, whatever she says. She is an devout worshipper of Mammon.

Ghengis

Oh Dear, What has happened to the Spectator --- if I want to be embroiled in the kind of discussion lately demonstrated I might as well visit the Daily Mirror and Sun.

Verity

Yippee! India has announced that it is pulling out of the IPCC!

http://tinyurl.com/yampx78

The Indians have their heads screwed on and that's why they produce more phsyicists than any other country. And why they are third, after the US and Germany, in applications for patents for new technology. Brains.

This should be the start of an anthropogenic landslide of desertions, but crappy countries like Britain, who either bought into global warming because they believed in it or thought they could use it as a tool of repression, will cling on to the bitter(ly cold) end.

workie ticket

Verity,

A mate of mine who met Cherie B at a party some 15 years ago said she was quote "a bit of a babe" in the flesh" perhaps - like myself - she is past her 'best before' date.

As for B Scotland, I met her a couple of times some 10 years ago and in marks out of one I would give her...... As for the rest of your observations re Labour women I concur. You missed out Meg Munn and Baroness Amos who are both offences to heterosexual sensibilities as well as crummy Ministers.

James Murphy

Ghengis Khan't.

James Murphy

Ah Nicholas, don't start me on dresses and skirts! Weren't they lovely? Sadly never to be seen in public again, except on the social calendar's high days and holy days. Such gorgeous flowing garments are now sadly taken as a sign of psychological weakness and pandering to male fantasy (what's wrong with that?). Look down any high street - those in dresses are countable on the fingers of one hand (and as likely to be trannies as women). By the way, Nicholas, your wonderful contempt for Marxist wimmin reveals you to be a good hater, which quality Goethe declared vital for the development of one's mental qualities... (There, is is that pseudo-intellectual enough for you Frank?) As for the lamentable Ghengis' joyless priggery, let's see if my other comment gets in....

egh

Nicholas yesterday - thanks, no prob. If it's any aid to memory, egh = euSSR GO HOME!

As to number plate: his slip showed over on Faith-Based when he really believed that Widdicombe and the Bishop lost to Hitchen and Fry in that IQ debate! Honi soit... (I'm not RC) but I'm sure the result was a shameless demonstration of corrupt-a-vote.

I think we should worry ...

Derek

More on lamentable female dress, from the Christian Science Monitor:

"France’s immigration minister said he is refusing citizenship to a Muslim man who called his wife “an inferior being,” and forced her to wear a full veil in public, an announcement that plays well with French public support for a burqa ban."

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2010/0203/French-citizenship-denied-to-man-with-veiled-wife

Derek

I thought it might also be timely to offer this translation of the Marseillaise which I came across on Jihadwatch. It might prompt us to revive singing of the complete version of our own national anthem...Of course, having a good bottle of claret to hand the while helps.

Let's go children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us tyranny's
Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
In the countryside, do you hear
The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
They come right to our arms
To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!

Refrain

Grab your weapons, citizens!
Form your batallions!
Let us march! Let us march!
May impure blood
Water our fields!

This horde of slaves, traitors, plotting kings,
What do they want?
For whom these vile shackles,
These long-prepared irons? (repeat)
Frenchmen, for us, oh! what an insult!
What emotions that must excite!
It is us that they dare to consider
Returning to ancient slavery!

What! These foreign troops
Would make laws in our home!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would bring down our proud warriors! (repeat)
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brows would bend beneath the yoke!
Vile despots would become
The masters of our fate!

Tremble, tyrants! and you, traitors,
The disgrace of all groups,
Tremble! Your parricidal plans
Will finally pay the price! (repeat)
Everyone is a soldier to fight you,
If they fall, our young heros,
France will make more,
Ready to battle you!

Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors,
Bear or hold back your blows!
Spare these sad victims,
Regretfully arming against us. (repeat)
But not these bloodthirsty despots,
But not these accomplices of Bouillé,
All of these animals who, without pity,
Tear their mother's breast to pieces!

Sacred love of France,
Lead, support our avenging arms!
Liberty, beloved Liberty,
Fight with your defenders! (repeat)
Under our flags, let victory
Hasten to your manly tones!
May your dying enemies
See your triumph and our glory!

Refrain

We will enter the pit
When our elders are no longer there;
There, we will find their dust
And the traces of their virtues. (repeat)
Much less eager to outlive them
Than to share their coffin,
We will have the sublime pride
Of avenging them or following them!"

Beer Moth

Jez

The very one.

Ah Lumb Lane! Adjacent to so many pubs which were burned-out and the customers told they had 15 mins to vacate. And then Manningham Labour Club which was set alight with the doors blocked shut and people inside. The BBC might perhaps do a documentary some day?

Our rich diversity continues to bear fruit.

Jez

Beer Moth,

Here's the irony of irony's;

My Grandmother moved into a sheltered oap home into the most densly populated Pakistani-Muslim enclaves outside of Pakistan- from her home in Holbeck, Leeds... that incidently was three terraced streets down from where the terrorist scumbag resided that blew himself up on that bus in Tavistock Square- 'Hasib Hussian'.

That used to be a real community, corner shops, chippies, pubs- now it's a boarded up, third world asylum seeker D.U.M.P.

It was in the final phase of transition when my Grandmother moved out.

It really is frightening to see what the 'Neather people' have achieved this last few decades.

Derek

Jez and Beer Moth's dialogue opens a crack on the pain in our northern provincial cities; but why isn't The Spectator publishing articles which can give us a fuller picture?

The editor seems a nice young man if judged by the video now up on the Times web site - and one would certainly ask him for the name of his tailor if one had the chance - but his niceness and the silence of the magazine prompt me to ask if he is aware of life between London and Edinburgh and whether he has the killer instinct for the times, unless of course he is a closet Neatherite.

If our magazine lacks writers willing to venture into our besieged cities to report back to us, perhaps Jez and Beer Moth could be commissioned to break the ice with one on theirs.

daniel maris

The Spectator used to have some v. good articles by Roy "Someone" - can't recall the second name I am afraid - who specialised in West Indian life in London and elsewhere. It was an interesting insight - not at all unsympathetic but not at all PC either.

The magazine could benefit more from that.

It is v. Cameronian these days in its combination of elitism and fashionable, theoretical "charidee" style concern for the lower classes.

But I think what we need is more populism.
Populism at its best means an empathetic understanding for the lives of the mass of people, a genuine appreciation of their concerns, not a condescending extended hand. In the real world poor people are far less tolerant of the feckless and the anti-social elements than are the metropolitan elite.

The Tories have almost come a cropper against one of the most unpopular PMs of all times - and you can lay the blame at the door of metropolitan elitism.

Jez

Hi Derek,

I suspect a couple of mainstream characters will be spontaneously combusting on reading your last paragraph there pal. :)

You can hear them say;

"You let just one into our exclusive world and another will appear, then another and another. before you know it 'they'll' be taking over!" the mainstream shout.

Look what happened / happening with Rod Liddle latetely.

Just see Holbeck, Beeston, Bradford, Stoke, East London, the riots, the bombings etc as acceptable 'collateral damage' in their Utopian 'Neathergate' vision they are all striving for.

It sucks.

Jez

And also taking my above grammar and spelling into consideration, i reckon you'd be pushing it maybe.

;)))

Ghengis

"Only French politicians are good-looking: this is immutable law, as is the sacred maxim 'politics is show business for ugly people'. The French are, as always, the irritating exception that proves the rule. But we love them anyway. Without France how would we remember how beautiful Europe once was?"
Only a Spud can match the obfuscation contained in the above paragraph.

Frank P

Korski is at it - over on Coffee House; obviously he's been commissioned to soften us up for Cameron's Europhile policies vis-a-vis merging our armed forces with the Frogs. I feel that I'm on a fast and accelerating bob-sleigh bound for the abyss.

To the streets you youngsters! This old husk is now past the rough stuff, but I can shout encouragement as you hang all the traitors and start again. It will take some time and you will need some very deep pits.

Verity

While I feel Jez and Beermoth's pain and agree with Derek that their posts focus attention on what has been forced on the fine and ancient people of the north of England, and that it is criminal (now there's a thought! Lawyers? Any grounds for suing the government for destruction of a formerly coherent and effective civilisation - the British north?) could the editor please proscribe those idiotic and illiterate pictograms that Jez affixes to his posts? If he's working on a computer and not chiselling his message out of rock, there is no reason for such primitive, infantile and irritating form of "communication". (In quote because I have no idea what his pictograms are meant to represent.) Please, please can the editor announce that we will communicate by words only and that pictogrammed "messages" will be trashed?

Superficial Sexist

Back on the subject of French politicians since Ghengis has taken us there again,
how did I forget to mention Segolene Royal?

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

One can never generalise, except for Nu Labour men and women who are always vile. There was at least one French political character who was extremely ugly. The monster who got murdered in his bath, Marat.

Ghengis

Get this --- Evening Standard reports Brown has recruited Blair to go on the knocker during his election campaign. Probity AND Prudence in the same package by two Global authorities.

Jez

Verity.

Poor Mexico.

:((

Beer Moth

Two cannibals, father and son, walking through the forest. They spot a young woman and quietly watch her from a distance. She's early twenties, blonde hair and very beautiful.

Son says 'dad, can we take her home and eat her?'

'No son, we'll take her home and eat your mum'.

Jez

Hi Verity,

I know that it is important to embrace the present. I will assist in you achieving this;

:) = Smile

;) = Cheeky wink / only joking

;))) = Cheeky laugh

:o = shock

:( = sad

:(( = very sad

Ok, that's just a few Verity. If you can try and learn these for the weekend and then we'll progress onto the sms dictionary, e.g. bwl = bursting with laughter, btw = by the way

Hope that helps love.

kc-kwim (keep cool, know what i mean?)

;)

***Let's face facts, the above is more of an importance when after probably two months of some of the most gritty, down to earth opinions in here (by all) to be uttered about the state of the nation / Cameron's utter directionless attitude in the face of Nulab's kamakazi governance- and F.Nelson jumps into the mainstream arena this week and debates the finer points of BluLabour policy with Danny the Fink.

WTF ( = what the f*ck, Verity) is going on?

David Ossitt

Jez

If you post here; then it is fair to assume, that you want others to read that which you have writ.

So why do you write in such childlike code?

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Despite all the talk about anything goes, Britain is still as hypocritical as ever. Terry is losing his job, he had it away with his best friend's girlfriend. Big deal. Many of the WAGs are slappers and the players can't keep their trousers on. When the heir to the throne had a long-standing affair with his best friend and fellow officer's wife, we didn't see Charles stepping down. Perfidious Albion.

Verity

This, from Conservative Cabbie, is the American road map the British Marxist/Gramscis have been following.

http://tinyurl.com/ylawt66

I mention it not only because it is stupid, but the "positive discrimation" aspect is knowingly erroneously applied in Britain by the usual agents of destruction.

American blacks are not in America by choice. Their ancestors were taken there in slave ships, in chains, sold by other Africans and bought, sold and transported by Arabs.

But every "minority" race/religion in Britain is there because they bought a ticket or sneaked in. They are also free to leave at any time. American slaves were not.

It is this sly manipulation - by admittedly stupid and transparent people like Jack Straw, Tony Blair and all the usual suspects - that infuriates me.

Positive discrimination is also counter productive in the United States, but in Britain it is sly, inept lunacy.

David Ossitt

The BBC 1; television channel, has for many years featured a drama series called Silent Witness.

Originally it stared Amanda Burton (she of the wistful look into the middle distance) and though the story-lines were often far fetched it was watchable drama.

The program is now into its 13th series; and for me has progressively become unwatchable.

It is suffering from the same malaise that many of the other drama programs that are currently produced by the BBC are suffering from.

They all now have lots of politically correct messages as part of the scripts, often there are three or four of these poisonous back-stories written into the plots.

The synopsis for last nights and tonight’s episodes reads thus:-

“When a Zimbabwean asylum seeker is unfairly deported to South Africa, Leo needs to find a way to help her return to the UK”

Last nights episode was smorgasbord of unadulterated liberal left self hate.

Try as I might; I can find no reference or record of the names of the producers of the rubbish, to whom I can complain.

Nicholas

Jez: FMOBB

or, alternatively, FMD

Chanowhaamin?

John Richardson

David Ossitt.
7:46pm
This is not at all personal, I'm sure you are kind to animals and stuff, however....

You explain that you 'cannot find anyone to complain to'.
Try yourself Mr Ossitt.
It is 'Your BBC'.
I presume you chose to pay for the BBC ?
Then complain. Then pay .Then criticise. Then pay. Then moan. Then pay.
Do you see where I'm going with this ?
The last time I payed money to the perverts and weirdos at the Corporation was 1999.
Without sarcasm; I'm ashamed I payed for that long.
For years I have heard my friends (all with sound political instincts, bar one or two) say the sort of thing, said above, by Mr Ossitt.
Oh, but it's so depressing !
Knowing how much the BBC hates them (white, self reliant, English etc etc) and knowing they will NEVER even CONSIDER withholding the BBC's funding.
Pathetic yes, but most depressing facing the horrible truth....
The BBC is right to fleece them.
Right to award itself massive pensions on your money.
They not only asked for it with their determination to keep on watching no matter how bad the propagandising became.
They kept coming back for more and more.
Giving money.
So why complain Mr O ?
You know it will make no difference.
They know it will make no difference.
You are probably aware that they ENJOY your shock and outrage at their 'output'.
Decent people's outrage is what the BBC enjoys as it confirms it 'matters'.
It is 'challenging' it is 'provocative'.
It sure ain't entertaining or informative*.

I once read an American essay that suggested Taxation could be used as a way of determining whether or not a people were ready for enslavement.
Revolt = not ready.
Submit to unfair taxation = cattle.
This I know has original 'Boston Tea Party' connotations but still.
What does it say about those who threaten to vote for this protest/radical party and yet...oh I must pay money to the BBC ?

I hope Mr Ossitt does not take this personally, he sure ain't alone, but come on !
We bleat about what needs to be done to affect a national revival of some sorts....yet insist on funding the BBC even when it shows us the proverbial finger when we (you) tune in.
It's not their fault they are degenerates.
It's OUR fault we (ie you since'99) always insist on funding them.
Don't complain about them.
Try this instead of whining.
"What's wrong with me ?
I hate these people and they hate me, but I chose to give them money. I know the News reports are lies,yet I always watch. I hate the bias of the documentaries. The documentaries I pay money for.
Perhaps it is all I deserve ?
After all, I don't have to watch and I don't have to pay."

*One thing about not watching the BBC is that you can see how bad it is. Seeing it all the time your critical faculties are dulled. Yes even yours. Eat trash for long enough & you don't know the difference.
How many BBC programmes to succeed in the US over the last 15yrs ?
Are there any apart from 'The Office' ?

15 years at £5 Billion a year total funding.
To produce 'The Office'. Not even made by the Corporation.
There are no excuses for funding the BBC.
That's how bad the

Jez

A Sh*te strike-ridden comprehensive education under Thatcher, Dave Ossit.

Seriously, Verity. I've just got in from the gym- I sincerely owe you an apology.

I will not wind up any contributors- especially you Verity, as i honestley do respect your opinion over most others.

OK.

All the best you guys.

Jez.

Jez

Ok. If i might join the scrum again in here.

This;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article7017153.ece

"Those calling for a radical Tory manifesto should be careful. Brilliant ideas have a habit of frightening the voters away"

Wait a minute?

Dan The Fink called for the spirit of Churchill to be adopted?

Is that just for post imperialist, liberal intervention?

Or is it for Britain?

(obviously the former, as it wouldn't be published in The Times if it was for Britain)

It's time to get some balls and move forward.

Note; Parris is the guy who went berserk when some workmen put a couple of traffic-cones outside his London house to eliminate the chance of general public injury.

What a Flyer.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

David Ossit: Good evening David,
I checked out Silent Witness on Google, and hope the following is of use.
Googled Silent Witness and scrolled down to Answers.com Silent Witness
http.//www.answers.com/topic/silent.witness

Then you will find the page and scrolling down it you will reach CREDITS. There are three producers.
Hope this is of use.

David Ossitt

Jez

“A Sh*te strike-ridden comprehensive education under Thatcher, Dave Ossit.[sic]”

But you should still be able to copy without misspelling?

David Ossitt

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Thank you.

Derek

David Ossit

Is "program" creeping into the language back home? I still use the English spelling even when sending an sms - unless I'm running out of space or money (I buy telephone cards here) - but am beginning to feel a bit of a fuddy-duddy with the status of a BHOF, because generally in China everyone uses American spelling. I should hate to have to take the 'me' out of programme.

Beer Moth

Derek

Program Schmogram. I must admit, I'm loath to use 'program' just because it looks stunted and abandoned. This is daft because it works perfectly well to represent the sound of the word as it is spoken.

And 'programme' by the look of it, is in use only because some 18th c. dandy wanted us to assume a bit of the French.

One feature of English I think we deny ourselves at quite a cost, is the American use of 'gotten'. We let it go and our everyday speech is less agile for it. Stands a good chance of coming back I'd say.

The use of 'rain-check' is, I've noticed, becoming more prevalent and yet is doomed. No need in the UK - it's raining and that's it.

David Ossitt

Derek

“David Ossit[sic] Is "program" creeping into the language back home?”

Derek; I am so sorry, I like you, would always use the correct and proper programme.

I have no idea why I did not on this occasion, possibly my lapse was due to tiredness.

But; now that you have mentioned it, I do think that the media are increasingly using the lazy American spelling.

Ken

Anyone else enjoy this spectacular piece of Scots Labour self-destruction?

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1184614595?bctid=65071037001

James Murphy

Al Beeb report: "An "extremely dangerous" storm has dumped large amounts of snow in the eastern US, shutting down the capital..." Oh my goodness those blips in the AGW computer model projections are becoming, well, constant. Maybe the blips are what is constant and that there isn't any global warming at all, just simple weather that complies with the immutable laws of Chaos Theory - one entirely unsusceptible of a Socialist critique... - No that couldn't be...

I. N. Vesta

So BAe Systems has had to pay £286m as punishment for slipping a bung to Johnny Foreigner.
That money could have been used as dividends for shareholders.

The company's shareholders are punished, but the decision-makers who authorised the bungs are not.

Don't fine the company,imprison the directors.

(Of course I do realise that no search of the company's files is going to find the one titled 'Bungs to foreigners' with signatures on the paperwork. So just lock up the Chairman, CEO and CFO.)

James Murphy

John Richardson - what happened to the rest of your brilliant and excoriating post about Al BEEB? It was inspiring me to the point where I was about to cancel my licence fee and then... it stopped in mid - air. Was that a metaphor for interrupting our bovine subservience to AL BEEB? Or did you just hit the 'post' button too soon? Please tell.

Jez

Nicholas.

Yes i do.

David Ossitt.

You're Terrific. With the capital 'T' i missed of your surname.

Well done.

KT everytime

Parliamentary privilege was intended to provide vital protection to mps when raising contentious issues that, outside, might bring legal action. It was never intended to protect people who may be convicted as criminals!

The public are watching and if the Government and indeed if all MP's don't stand up for once and openly berate those 3 MP's for even considering lawyer's advice to use parliamentary privileges to evade criminal charges - the malaise (so obviously seen in the Question Time audience in Coventry) will spread. This could be the election when abstentions go through the roof - to the shame of everyone in Parliament

Frank P

I am the owner of a ten year old Toyota car, so this clip on American Digest activated my chuckle muscle, out of control and at full throttle, for about five minutes this morning, don't miss the ride:

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/critical_mass/troubles_in_threes_yet_an.php

Yeah, I know! I'm easily amused.

daniel maris

Could that be? No - the climate is definitely susceptible to pattern following over the long term, but measured more in centuries than years I would say.

We know there was a Medieval warm period (which didn't exactly lead to world disaster).

My own view is we should adopt a sensible, cautious non-alarmist policy of trying to minimise our impact on the environment, in all areas, including carbon emissions, since we haven't a real clue as to what the true recipe for the climate "cake" is.

That just seems sensible to me, especially as we can make the necessary changes at a very marginal cost to the overall economy (and many measures might benefit our own economy - e.g. developing home grown green energy).

Frank P

There is little point in expecting the criminal justice system to deal with the parliamentary conspiracy to defraud the taxpayer through the expenses scam, when those in charge of it are part of the conspiracy. Every elected member of Parliament and every member of the Upper House are all guilty either by direct participation or by wilful acquiescence and failure to take steps end it. Four flaky show trials is what they offer as a sop to the hoi polloi.

The Court of Public Opinion could fix it by refusing to vote for any currently serving MP in the next election. The House of Lords could then be sorted out by the incoming government.

The likelihood of this occurring is absolute zero. Moreover, anyone with an ounce of honour and integrity is unlikely to enter the political arena in this age of nihilistic villainy and hedonism; there are better things that they do with their lives.

That's 'democracy' for you. So quit whining and suck it up!

James Murphy

Further heartening anti-AGW news (and pace Prince Charles!), The Telegraph reports today - "This December and January has been the coldest since 1982, with an average temperature of 35F (1.5C). The coldest winter in modern times is 1963 when the average temperature was 32F (-0.18)." - How can this be, given increasing CO2 levels? Silly me! Isolated weather is not climate - climate is a world-wide, universally calculated equation by which it is presumably possible for Britain (and the USA's Eastern Seaboard, to name but two) to get colder and colder and yet still uphold the principle of global warming! I can't wait for the whole world, nay, hell itself, to freeze over - and thus prove beyond all doubt the irrefutable 'scientific' basis of global warming. - Aux igloos mes amis!

John Richardson

James Murphy.

Why did my post just stop without ending ?
Er, that clever 'bovine subservience' metaphor you suggest.
Yes, that's it.
Clever manipulation of the limitations of the medium to provoke and inspire. Challenging system based concepts of textual communication to effect new perspectives going forward n'stuff.

I wasn't very happy with the short tempered nature of the post, but then I thought 'No'; there really are no excuses for the politically aware ( as Mr O. and others certainly are) to continue in their support of the BBC.
I won't rant this time. However, stopping watching the TV was important for me spiritually and intellectually.
The BBC does not inform or entertain. I find most folk are actually ashamed of what they spend their time (lives?) watching. Then funding. Then complaining about. Then

Verity

Beer Moth - The word program looks "stunted and abandoned". Well put! It also looks as though the people who devised whatever program is being referred to didn't put a lot of thought into it. Programme just looks more elegant and well thought out.

I also agree with you re "gotten". It's a perfect word - it expresses a completed action - and I wonder why it fell into disuse in Britain. I suspect, out of the entire Anglosphere, the Americans are the only ones who have held onto it. I am going to start using it today.

Another lovely word the Americans have retained and we let wither away is Fall. The word Autumn is lovely too, of course, as it has a dismal sound, as it does conjure up a vision of mists and mellow fruitfulness and general damp. In the US, it conjures up trees ablaze with red and gold.

I don't like American spelling, as a rule, because it evolved from ignorance - but then, so did much of the spelling in Shakespeare's time ... And in the US, many of the people from our islands who took a chance and set their faces toward the sun, and travelled West across a vast ocean to a land they had only heard about - no photos in those days - didn't have any, or much, education. But they had bravery, daring and self-confidence in spades.

egh

On the american spelling bee..

I believe our very own English is under fire from the post-colonial (i.e. marxist) backlash. That, of course, is really about deconstruction: and perhaps ultimately about imposition of froggish- for which the rules are written in ironstone and imposed by swinging bricks.

Anyhoo - back to american language/spelling. As someone observed the other day, the Chinese use it; and so, I note, do Koreans and other Asians. Some of these people have themselves told me that before they learned American they'd never even heard of the English, let alone that we know how to speak English. And, by the way, why don't we [I] learn to speak it properly, the prestigious American way, like the Chinese and Koreans do?

Now these people always impress upon me that they are very humble and modest. So even though I naturally bow to U.S spelling conventions-in the appropriate environment- they have no hesitation in asserting that my arrogance and rudeness in refusing to speak American 'is unacceptable.'

Now yes, dears; this is true and has happened. Furthermore, my pronunciation is Received and Queen's-like; it's not even broad Yorkshire.

Well, you know what they can all do with their versions of our language, though I'm far to polite to tell them. To paraphrase Verity: you can take the lady out of England, but you can't take English out of the lady.

But be warned. Watch out if they start pretending they can't understand you.

Austin Barry

James Murphy

The AGW crew always dismiss cold weather as a paradoxical consequence of global warming.

No, I don't get it either.

Peter From Maidstone

I received this today and it seemed to express properly conservative views on inequality, even though it is more than 1600 years old and written by St John Chrysostom.

St. John Chrysostom on the poor:

Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between
rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich
person's gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg
the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the
level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone?

Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who
combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making
themselves rich again. Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would
feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold form the
hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have
prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would
actually do moral harm.

Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart
will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people's
hearts first - and then they will joyfully share their wealth.

-St. John Chrysostom

Radgie Gadgie

http://www.jihadwatch.org/

Note today's posting on a legal case in Pakistan. Is there a more vile country on the planet? I'd like to hear suggestions.

David Ossitt

Peter From Maidstone

“I received this today and it seemed to express properly conservative views on inequality, even though it is more than 1600 years old and written by St John Chrysostom.”

And 400 years before that.

It is at this point that Jesus says, "The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me,"

David Ossitt

The fact that three labour Members of Parliament and one conservative Peer are to be prosecuted over the expenses thievery does little to put right the wrongdoing.

That the dozy oaf; who holds the exalted position of Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer QC, had to stand at a lectern with parts of his speech heavily highlighted in colour, presumably as an aid to memory, to read out the bare facts, was almost laughable, the fact that these criminals have not been fingerprinted nor been swabbed for DNA is very far from laughable, even though there is a joke in this and the joke is on us the public.

That the three MP’s are now speaking as one, in their joint attempt to avoid criminal proceedings, by invoking parliamentary privilege, is contemptible.

Though; all three of them, do have my genuine sympathy, in that they are being fed to the nation in the hope that the other three hundred thieving bastards can get away with it.

egh

Yes, Peter f M and David O .. re Chrysostom: what a pity we don't develop minds from those moulds any more! Not that there ever were many of them; but Theodore (Greek) and Hadrian (African) rooted the tradition here, and we held onto it for a long time. I think the tragedy now is in arrogance and ignorance that promotes denial of their brilliance.

Instead, we're required to model ourselves on the image of the other Middle Easterners .. the ones who blunted their academic edge several thousand years ago, but augmented that effect in the 7th century AD.

Oh for another King Alfred!!!!

Fay Kelly-Tuncay

Sadly many in politics and journalism have lost the ability to think critically - we need more skepticism not less. In all honesty, why should we have such individuals in the the House of Commons, which was primarily set-up to be a house of dissent and debate? Skepticism is what science is all about testing hypotheses, and evaluating degrees of certainty [by the way there is no general law of climate change], similarly dissent and debate is surely what democracy is all about. The dominance of consensus politics in Britain has had a very damaging effect on our policy-making.

The move away from a liberal education, which teaches critical thought, and the move towards the acceptance (on equal terms, without any debate) of anything that mass culture and any pressure groups throw at us, has robbed the British public of its most prized possession - liberal democracy, dissent, skepticism - debate. British politics (under the Labour Government) has sunk us into a quagmire of spin and group-think, and the biggest policy cock-up in British history the Climate Change Act 2008!

It could be argued that the dominance of the climate change consensus [and the Iraq War] was perhaps one of the Telegraph’s main reason behind the cull of politicians over the expenses. Surely our whole parliamentary democratic system of government demands skepticism, dissent and debate as a mechanism to insure that the vital checks and balances of a liberal democracy remain supreme. Unfortunately we will have to wait just a little longer for these mechanism to disentangle us from climate change hysteria and group-think politics.

Derek

I once had a French lady, who had been watching a DVD with English subtitles, what the word "gonna" meant, as she could not find it in the dictionary. (Thai's 'gonna' as in "I'm gonna kick your ass [sic]"). I am afraid that I find it very difficult myself now to avoid using 'gonna', let alone to prevent my children from using it.

One still reasonably widely employed American usage which I would like to see return to English speech is "Sir", as employed by Johnson,Boswell, et alios.

New coinings from the US are often welcome and amusing, though not necessarily long-lived: today's "Snowmageddon" for example, spotted in Google News reporting on the heavy snowstorms on the east coast.

Derek

The words of St. John Chrysostom touch on two important areas, do they not? Charity and civil society.

It seems that the government may be subverting the thrust of the Statute of Elizabeth by further amendments to the law,particularly in the area of education and private schools, but I don't really have an understanding of the implications of recent legislation overall. Perhaps someone familiar with this topic could summarise?

The larger, connected issue is civil society which I see as that part of life, ever expanding or contracting, in which we are free to organize, speak and make our own arrangements among ourselves without the interference of government.

When Jesus said "ye have the poor always with you" it was, I suspect, the poor in spirit that he had in mind. The scope, narrow or broad, of civil society is usually determined by their numbers.

Nicholas

Derek: " . . . we are free to organize, speak and make our own arrangements among ourselves without the interference of government."

I like that way of describing it. It is under threat - and has been for some time, by "the quagmire of spin and group-think" equally ably described by Fay Kelly-Tuncay. Consensus becomes a bully when those unprepared to go along with it are penalised.

New Labour have followed a national socialist path in attempting to lay out not just government policies but ways of life which people are compelled and coerced to follow. They have created a statute-stuffed charity-lobby-control monster which, with strongly socialist imperatives, seeks to enter and dictate every aspect of our lives, including the family. They predicate what is right and what is not from quite a narrow personal moral perspective and harness the glib phrase "what the public want" to strengthen that "consensus" narrative.

The recent Milliband-Alexander Guardian article on empowering the state reveals all, as do the overwhelmingly hostile comments to it. The British people have been subjected to a cultural revolution they never signed up for, by a government which has assumed an authoritarian if not totalitarian approach in the belief that it, and only it, has all the answers. A government which is now led by a very flawed and dangerous individual with all the instincts and characteristics of the dictator. Did this partly come with Europe? Probably, like chicken and egg.

The distinction and separation of British politics and way of life from those of Europe, ever celebrated and preserved over the last four hundred years, has been meekly surrendered. Thus, as an old-fashioned Brit, it feels like living under an occupation by a foreign power, I expect literally in some places.

Kevyn Bodman

BBC World Service radio had a news item at 0300GMT today about Sarah Palin at a Tea Party (?)
It was quite positive,it said she 'wowed' them.

At 1000GMT it was less positive, the soundbite had changed to a brief attack by her on Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

Anyway, are these Tea Parties important?

And Ms. Palin, get yourself a voice coach.At the moment your voice is not an asset.
Policies seem pretty good,though.

John Richardson

Kevyn Bodman

"Anyway, are these Tea Parties important?"

Briefly, yes very important.
They demonstrate that the American People are not prepared to be enslaved by a Political Party Duopoly as in this country.
One march/protest had about one million people in Washington; in opposition to socialist health provision.
The MSM lied about the numbers and implied the people were all racist.
Interestingly, the people appear to be families, working people, solvent. No violence etc. not professional protesters with pre-prepared placards.
Now Obama's health proposals are finished.
All they had to do was walk down the street. It worked.

--------------------------------------------

Nicholas.

Would not your analysis suggest ignoring the Quisling co-opted political parties ?

James Murphy

Nicholas, you say, - "The distinction and separation of British politics and way of life from those of Europe, ever celebrated and preserved over the last four hundred years, has been meekly surrendered." But I'm afraid I don't think there was anything 'meek' about it. Nor, in fact, do I think it was surrendered. I think it was betrayed. Much is made on The Coffeehouse Wall of the Gramscian march through the institutions that has taken place over the past half century or so, but if the destructive spirit of Marxism has entered the once beautiful citadel of Western Culture the fact is that the gates were thrown open by the tragic stupidities of the ruling class during the Great War. I date the birth of the success of Marxism as a political force In Britain to July 1st 1916. As the German machine guns opened up that bright summer morning on the Somme and wave upon wave of honest, open-hearted Tommies went down under their fire, it was more than just a medieval method of warfare that was proven obsolete. It was the trust between the classes: i.e., the belief the working classes essentially maintained that their rulers knew what was best for them and their nation as a whole. 'Never such innocence again', as Larkin so poignantly noted. - Of course, the grotesque moral limitations of the war machine at that time were compounded by the devastating poverty endured by the working classes during the abject 20s' decade. Was this then to be their reward for following their leaders? Then let us adopt a different political philosophy altogether! (I'm sure I would have voted Labour in 1926; indeed, even my resolutely Tory grandfather did so for the first and last time in his life, and regretted it afterwards, but that's another story). My point is that, once forfeited in such a way, and let's make no bones about it, the Great War was a holocaust of Europe's beautiful young men (a hecatomb sacrificed for, and by, a corrupt aristocracy), the good faith of the working classes was shaken to the very core. Why indeed should they ever trust leaders again that had committed them to endure such purposeless slaughter? No, if they were going to sacrifice anything ever again it would be under their own terms, and these would increasingly be underwritten by something called The Labour Party. Apologies for the banal history lesson, but my essential point is that Gramsci didn't steal the keys to the city, the Ruling Classes proudly handed them over to him on a red velvet cushion, and it should really be no wonder to anyone that he took them and opened the door. How do we get them back? And when? Who knows. But my own feeling is that the current political dispensation - Tory/socialist/lib-lab - whatever - is utterly bankrupt and will in time be replaced. I believe that a new ruling class will eventually emerge from the primal stew that currently mires us, and that such a force will itself be inspired by an authentic nobility of spirit embodied in a peacefully charismatic leader. When this shall be none can say. But it will happen.

James Murphy

John Richardson, you say "stopping watching the TV was important for me spiritually and intellectually". - Absolutely take your point, but do you then entertain yourself with no medium of moving image in your own home at all? What about DVDs? And sport: how do you watch that (presumptuously assuming you like it!)? Or do you just go to the cinema more often? - Not always an easy choice, given the dross on general release. But then there's always the Chelsea Curzon. This offers some spiritually digestible fare from time to time (and the white-chocolate-coated raspberries on sale in the foyer are addictive).

Nicholas

James Murphy:- " . . . my essential point is that Gramsci didn't steal the keys to the city, the Ruling Classes proudly handed them over to him on a red velvet cushion, and it should really be no wonder to anyone that he took them and opened the door."

Er, having disputed my use of "meekly" and "surrendered", I'm struggling to see how your essential point as described above is significantly different. Is not the presentation of keys on a cushion a "meek surrender"?

But in any case I was intending to refer more to the incremental transfer of our sovereignty and our rule of law to Europe than the Gramski march, which has largely been by stealth, or deceit or misrepresentation.

No doubt history, if it survives, will make some interesting explorations of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the rise of state-sponsored Marxism and Common Purpose in Britain from that same time. That, at a time when the foreign state that commanded their loyalty and hope collapsed, the communist heart of our country had to find another way to bring about their revolution - and have largely done so. By infiltration, subversion and tentacles of influence rather than by force of arms or the barricades. And, of course the BBC and people like Tony Robinson and Richard Wilson and all the other luvvies who have used their craft and their influence to promote the Left. As a digression, it appalled me to hear on the BBC's new Leftist promotional propaganda outlet The Review Show, director Tom Hooper declare that "As liberals we . . . blah, blah, blah". No Mr Hooper, we are not all liberals.

I'm afraid I have to dispute your characterisation of the warfare of 1916 as "mediaeval". That is to overlook completely the evolution of warfare from about 1840-60 to the turn of the century, as well as the intervening centuries from the Middle Ages. Arguably it was the lessons of that evolution that had been improperly learned when those young men stepped out on the Somme, but far more learned minds than mine have argued long and hard about that - and the associated technicalities.

But yes, no doubt as to the consequences and the great emptying of our society of its finest and most unselfish genes. Comparing the qualities of intellect, compassion and spirit of those times to the current rabble of deviants, misfits and charlatans pretending to govern the British with astoundingly misplaced arrogance is to plumb the depths of depression and grief for what has been lost.

Verity

Kevyn Bodman - This is a rare case where I disagree with you. You advise Sarah Palin to get a voice coach.

She talks just fine. Americans aren't the snobs that the British are. Don't forget, they elected Jimmuh Cahduh, possibly the worst public speaker (and thinker) in the Anglosphere. Palin sounds like an American of her class, and there are tens of millions of Americans in her class. Among them the million John Richardson referred to above, who marched on DC and got Obama's socialist health programme trashed.

Also, there's nothing phony about Sarah. She talks as she talks and she is what she is. I think Republican voters sense a genuineness about her. You get what you see; and hear.

Incidentally, Americans also voted in as president a haberdasher from a small town in Missouri. I don't think I've ever heard the great Harry Truman speak, but I am guessing he sounded like a hick.

Nicholas

John Richardson:- "Would not your analysis suggest ignoring the Quisling co-opted political parties ?"

No, because I believe for practical purposes we are faced with the least worst choice. The priority has to be the removal of the national socialists. The ground swell of opinion, represented here but also elsewhere, against the encroaching state and all its abuses must develop further before it can crystallise into the sort of leadership and tangible narrative espoused by James Murphy.

The danger is of the movement being stillborn if the national socialists get another 5 year mandate to continue their work of mind control and repression. The Quisling parties might be shimmering reflections of the black heart of New Labour but they lack the cynicism and the pure evil to constitute the same danger. Government being only the co-ordinator of the socialist construct smothering Britain today, a change of government will be a spanner in the works, even if it is elected with policies that are rubbery imitations of the public face of New Labour.

This sounds rather dramatic but one of the problems has been the lack of serious understanding - and opposition - in the media for what New Labour's government has become and really represents. Even the Speccie bumbles along with the pretence that we are in some kind of celebrity-riddled, jolly parliamentary cricket game where because people wear suits and speak a political version of corporate mumbo-jumbo they are not black-hearted communist bastards intent on destroying everything we once held dear. Heavens, there is enough evidence and a trail of deliberate deceits and scandals of a magnitude that would have brought governments down in the past. But the media prefer to play the game to rules that the communist bastards long ago abandoned and are thus hamstrung or apathetic or both.

And they have been very successful in their demonisation of the Right, the "right wing", even conservatism with a small 'c', transferring their own entrenched fascist tendencies to be glibly attributed to that quarter, so much so that poor old Cameron has to jump through hoops to disavow the connection. The Right and conservatism has been neatly packaged for Leftist PR purposes with the BNP, a collection of frothing, red-faced, racist Colonel Blimps. And therein lies much of the problem. At the same time that polling shows the British to be inherently conservative, the public narrative churned out by those who control it is overwhelmingly socialist. Cameron is having to recognise that and walk the tightrope - unfortunately - but despite everything said of him we have not yet seen the true reconstruction of the Right, the true liberation and triumph of the conservatism the British people need and deserve. For that I fear a new political power and a new political party is required.

John Richardson

James Murphy.

Thanks for your response.
First I would like to address your posting to Nicholas if I might.
The ruling class died on the Somme as well.
Losses amongst NCOs were heavier than amongst the ranks (proportionally).More generals were killed than in WW2 (about 50 from memory).
If we look at how the Socialists of the USSR sacrificed others lives during WW2 (or Korea) then the British ruling classes would seem almost humane in comparison.
Yes, we are betrayed.
However it is the NWO that is at the center of the spiders web.
As with the October Revolution, the Socialists are dupes, the people the victims. Again you are 100% correct we never surrendered to the internationalists, we were betrayed.
The notion of our general compliance is a TV/ MSM lie. Just as once it was claimed the people had 'embraced multiculturalism' or 'all gone Green'.So to TV....

As for watching the television/moving images.
So much seems to be simply habit.I do watch DVDs but as you point out, few films are actually worth 2 hrs of your life. Hollywood is a propagandising operation as pristine as the BBC in it's ideological conformity.
Thinking folk wouldn't miss either.
Once out of the habit, you simply do not miss the Cinema or the TV. I do watch football in the Pub. I have seen Match of the Day perhaps 3-4 times this season. Terrible turgid studio analysis. Lazy and often juvenile.
If something occurs internationally & I want to see images, I would go online to Fox News.
The Internet is now how I 'entertain & inform myself'.
British TV News is an impediment to understanding our Nation/economy/society.
I do not own a TV.
It takes about 2 weeks to break the habit of turning on the TV when you get home from work.
Should you return to watching, you soon realise, 'Wait a minute, this is all total rubbish. What a waste of time.'
Well that's my experience.

Regards.

Nicholas

Interesting "addendum ponder" to my post. Just how much did resurgent communism in Britain, post 1989, contribute to the fall of Major (the last decent Prime Minister with British values) and the rise of the communist-national socialist mutant New Labour. Was Common Purpose already hard at work within the civil service. local government and lobbying groups by 1997?

Verity

Nicholas, thank you for another wonderful, incisive post.

John Richardson - you are 100 per cent right about the NWO, and also the fact that the socialists who think they are running Britain are pawns. And very stupid pawns at that. Although well rewarded.

Never mind the quality, feel the width. They are blinded by their greed for power, not understanding that they are being accorded the appurtenances of power but not the power itself. Does anyone really think that Jacqui Wossname was running the Home Office, for example? Or that Tony Blair was running the country?

That's why I want the votes to flood away from the two main parties.

Is Common Purpose active anywhere else, by the way? Does anyone know? Other parts of the Anglosphere? Other parts of Europe? (Not in Switzerland, that's for sure!)

Barbara

I watched the 'Politics Show' today 7.2.10 and was alarmed at the reaction to immigration the main three representitives made. Labour believe they have it in the bag with 'caps' so do the Tories but believe they can do better, the Lib Dems would have a complete open border, yet most of the small audience wanted a complet holt to immigration altogether, but were as usual ignored, they were told this was not feasible, why not? India recently sent all foreigners home as jobs were to be for Indians, so to have other smaller countries. So that aruguement is flawed. We see unprecedented cash for countries in Asia to help the 'elderly there' while we have 7% of pensioners here who have become insolvent through low pensions and no real help. No money should leave these shores until we have our own house in order and we have gotten the debt under control and while doing so our own citizens should be the first to be protected, it's our money, and that's my point this government, and Cameron have pledged to spend and spend more on others while we suffer. Madness, wrong and out of order and the British people are sick and tired of it all. Angry, and will vote and DUMP THE LOT and rightly so they deserve what they get.

Kevyn Bodman

John Richardson:
Thank you for that infornation about the significance of the tea parties.

Verity:
I was expecting your disagreement about Sarah Palin's voice,but nevertheless thank you and I take note of your points.

When Obama rose to prominence I could only see two reasons for his popularity: stupid self-conscious 'progressivenss' , ('Look at me,I'm not a racist because I'm voting for a black man,') and the power of his voice.I think he is a marvellous speech-reader.
However Sarah Palin nailed it with her comment about a charismatic man with a teleprompter.

John Richardson again: leaving aside the disappointment of watching yesterday's game from Twickenham,the result of which did not cheer me up, broadcast TV is rarely a life-enhancing experience at any time.
But there is good drama,and comedy, and documentaries produced for TV that can be enjoyed much more efficiently and actively.
I prefer to buy box sets of TV programmes a couple of years after first broadcast.

The major deleterious effect of TV watching is that it's so passive.
Looking at the schedules,deciding to watch a specific show at a specific time and then turning it off is fine.
Coming in,switching it on and slobbing in front of it regardless of content is not fine.

Verity

Barbara, yes, the Indians take care of their own. I've always loved India and I wanted to buy a house there, but foreigners cannot buy.

That's immutable. Not an Indian citizen? Can't buy property. (I called round Indian embassies in several countries, hoping that one of them had been wrong.)

Citizens only.

So I made enquiries about becoming a citizen, a notion I found quite beguiling. Why certainly! To apply, you have to have lived in India for 13 years. Thirteen years to qualify!

As the prospect of paying rent for 13 years wasn't quite as beguiling, I gave up on the idea.

But that is not to say I do not admire them for looking after the interests of India and the Indian people first. That is true governance and worthy of the electorate who voted them in.

Unlike the slappers in Westminister, who are anybody's, and the slappers who aspire to the post of PM.

Beer Moth

"the small audience wanted a complete halt to immigration altogether"

Bloody hell, how did they get tickets?

egh

Right again Verity: "Americans aren't the snobs that the British are." Incredible as it sounds, they can be infinitely worse; and the nastiness of it all is compounded by the hypocrisy with which those individuals tout lies like 'equality of opportunity,' 'freedom,' etc.

I don't know where they learn all the posturing, etc; perhaps they teach it at school. But it's quite a wonder to behold, and utterly despicable.

America's a big place, though; and the population "ain't" homogeneous. So, as in Britain, their 'special people' are all the more wonderful because they stand out from the crowd. You sound as if you know (and are protected by) some of those.

John Richardson

Nicholas.

Hi,
Thanks for your response.

This from 'The Daily Mail' on the fifth.

" ....in an interview with gay magazine Attitude, Mr Cameron said the rules should be changed to protect homosexuals fleeing persecution.
He also promised to do more to stop rappers whose songs contain homophobic lyrics from performing in Britain, and said he would force faith schools to teach pupils there was nothing wrong with being gay."

As you can imagine I would suggest this is the sort of thing that should stop any conservative putting Cameron into power.
I refer especially to education.
For a start, no Labor Party could go so far as proposed above.
Catholic MPs from Liverpool, Glasgow etc would oppose the above.
With Cameron in power, who will be left to protect children from the promotion of deviancy and perversion ?
As a Christian who is a Teacher, Cameron is telling me that if he is elected, either I stop teaching or become a criminal.
Would you agree that Cameron has made it impossible for me to support him ?
Secondly, this shows a complete misunderstanding of what politicians are for.
How can this Coke..er.. enjoying ex-PR man seriously imagine he has the moral authority to TELL parents how to instruct their own children in respect of sexual morality.
This is serious and tragic.
I begin to seriously doubt Cameron's intellectual abilities.
No-one outside TV/MSM accepts that there even is a 'pink vote' for him to chase.
How many homosexuals have you ever heard saying,
'I wish children were taught at school that homosexuality was normal and that their Bibles, Torahs, Talmuds Khorana etc were all explicitly repeatedly wrong. Also, the best people to do this should be Nuns, Priests, Christians or any teachers committed to their Faith working in Faith School. Sunday Schools should follow to avoid confusing contradictions' ?

Not many I'd suspect.
They could not be so stupid.
Above Cameron promises to remove free speech and also vastly extend the excuses that (Africans especially) people can give to enter the country and stay.
I don't need to explain 'homosexuality' is a state that cannot ever be demonstrated or dis proven.
Impossible to refuse citizenship.
All to a political block vote that,if it existed would comprise 3% (Verity cites 4%).

Nicholas, this is madness.
I won't detail his shameless commitment to the bogus 'Green Taxation Control' agenda as I feel sure you are aware of it.
Suffice to say it is not a conservative agenda.

I agree that there is an incremental public feeling that something is terribly wrong with the Governance of the country.
However, I would conclude that a vote for Cameron would not lance the boil.
The policies enacted by the 'national socialists' you mention would be pursued anyway. Worse, 'the right' would be associated with the consequences of Labour's destructive economic policies.
Though I recall you conceded this last point, the consequences could be terminal for the Country we both love. A fake Conservative, not only expanding immigration, jailing Christians (er, like me), restricting free speech and enacting Harman's Equalities Legislation; but also taking the blame for rising unemployment and the housing meltdown (I think is due in 8-18 months when rates really rise) could be catastrophic.

You are correct that the English are conservative. Yet look who leads the Conservatives ? He isn't even that good on TV.
This demonstrates just how successful the betrayal of the British People, by the Party mechanism, has been.
So far.
Our 'Partocracy' fear only one thing. That we do not vote for either of them. That our own 'Forza Britannia' somehow emerges.
That process cannot begin with real conservatives, Christians, patriots voting for a man they know despises their values (I think your final sentence acknowledges this at least theoretically).

Lots more to say (for a start a crippled, ridiculed, despised Brown in No. 10 for a few more months until the Markets kick him out in shame would not be too bad for 'the right'. We could build a political party to represent us) but that's enough for now.

Any thoughts.

PS. You're to easy on the MSM.
They knew these bastards were destructive mediocrities. They were in on the deal. The betrayal of our Country. 'The Express', 'The DM', 'The Sun', 'The Star' 'The Times' 'The Ind.'...they all supported Blair.
Treacherous swine.

Verity

egh - There are snobs all over the world, but I find - having lived there - that they are in the main kindly and forgiving. Not all, of course, but the national ethos, yes. Americans never had a titled class. They were all equal, with equal rights, from the get-go, so no one aspires to be a squire or a lord. There are snobs, of course, as that's one facet of the human condition, but it's not institutionalised.

(When I say "no one", obviously, I'm not familiar with all 300m individuals.)

I find the British are snobby about Americans and it comes from envy and anger that we are not top nation any more. It's terribly petty.

Verity

PS - "You sound as if you know (and are protected by) some of those." I'm not sure what that means, but my long term friends are middle class people and live responsible middle class lives.

As to "protection" - what protection? What on earth are you talking about?

Verity

John Richardson, I won't comment on the issues you addressed to Nicholas.

However, I want to say about Cameron chasing "the gay vote" - dear God! Instead of having a programme for the recovery of British sovereignty and the problems of immigration and welfare dependency and a monster public sector, he has come up with his latest little twinky idea: the gay vote.

Frankly, most gays will tell you there is no such thing. Gays in the professions and who are successful entrepreneurs tend to vote Conservative/Republican, just like straight people. Their interests are identical. They want to be taxed less and left alone. I have friends in the US who will be voting for Sarah Palin if she runs. Hard right. The military, including gays serving, tend to vote for the right.

Gays in show business tend to be luvvies and thus socialist. Gays in the trades or public service sector tend to be Labour anyway.

Note that I said "tend". They're invididuals, you know.

That's like saying all women would vote Labour because Harriet Harpic is furthering an agenda to crush the life out of men and push women forward - whether they like it or not.

It's crazy.

I can see a gay perhaps voting for a local council member because they favour homosexuals in housing or something, who knows?, but do you really think that homosexual men are so stupid that they would vote against their political inclinations because one candidate made some wild, bonkers promises to favour them?

James Murphy

Nicholas, I concede the point you make about my contradicting myself over my velvet cushion metaphor! But my general point stands, I believe: to wit, the old order always falls as much, if not more, by its own idiocy as by the intelligence of its opponents. The pre-revolutionary court of Louis XVI would be another example to rival the late Victorian/Edwardian Ruling Class' dereliction of duty. - You're right too, of course, about the casualty rate of the officer class (Captains and Subalterns) being proportionately as bad if not worse than that suffered by privates; but, again, my point surely remains: those young officers were not in command, but were sent to their deaths by their fathers, metaphorical and, in many cases, actual. As the great Kipling (who had the courage to admit his earlier disastrously wrong-headed propagandising) later admitted in the posthumous voice of one of the fallen: "If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied. ..."

EC

Geert Wilders, now on trial in a kangaroo court in Amsterdam:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ZUZ9CPZII

Pat Condell is no friend of religionists but, nevertheless, articulates the problem very well.

John Richardson

Verity.

Hello,
Yes, the 'gay vote'.
Pathetic isn't it ?
My above posting is in agreement with you that such a thing does not exist.
Except in the sectarian, dis-associative minds of the liberal MSM.
Does Cameron believe the 'gay vote' exists ?
If he does he is a bigger idiot than Brown and (innumerate to boot).
So what's left ?
Does he really think it is the State's job to create and nurture liberal sexual 'morality'.
The State's job as, left alone parents would not do it, and religious morality does not change ?
I suppose when he decided to give this particular interview, naturally alerting the MSM as to it's content, he was trying to achieve something.
What though ?
No psephologist would have told him there were votes in it.
I suspect that something similar to
Married Tax Allowance/refusing UKIPs referendum offer/Green Taxes
is afoot.

This IS what Cameron actually believes and he does not care if conservatives rumble him or not.
He is convinced they will never vote UKIP so he can break cover. If I'm right he will continue to dismay 'the right' as the election approaches. Dismay them by telling the truth about what he stands for.
This is the reason he is not angry. Angry at what has happened to our country. He does not care the way a patriot cares.
This is why he will not adopt conservative values or policies that would seal victory.
He has no lust for Office in Westminster. He will not sell his soul to the electorate.
He is a part of an entirely different agenda.
He will soon turn up in Brussels if he fails to win here. Does anyone believe him on the Lisbon Referendum issue ?
I reckon he sold us out & awaits his prize in Europe.
For these people politics is international now.
Domestic public values and political ideals do not matter to them. Hence his signal to Europe 'we' will take even more immigrants/colonists.
A vote for UKIP, or an independent will not rectify this process but it WILL put a spanner in their works.
Then we might have a chance.

Oh,I address posting to help continue discussions. I personally would expect anyone who wished to, to contribute.
Except Fraser Nelson. He can stick to Neather.
The dog.

Beer Moth

John R.

"Mr Cameron said the rules should be changed to protect homosexuals fleeing persecution."

"...and remember, when you get to border control, you walk with you arms folded, lips puckered, take little steps with your arse stuck out and tell them you cry when you watch 'Wizard of Oz'. Is piece of piss my brothers"

Peter From Maidstone

I am never sure why there is a perpetuation of the falsehood that the First World War was an unnecessary adventure motivated only by a class who were not engaged in the conflict itself.

Unless we wanted Europe to be German the Germans needed to be stopped, they had already been at war once, and would be at war again later in the century. Of course many died, and of course many could not see the point after years of mud, but there was a very good reason why we were at war, and that is why those who died are not remembered as fools but as heroes.

Nicholas

John Richardson: it is difficult to respond adequately in the virtual confines of the Coffee House. The complexity of the subject warrants verbal give and take - and time. I do agree with you by and large. At the end of the day how you vote is a matter for you and your conscience. I will be voting for the party not the man, whilst despairing of the latter, simply because I believe a vote for another party or an abstention is a vote for New Labour. And I want to see them and their works brought down.

Cameron's inconsistency is infuriating - and you cite a particularly good example. On the one hand the man talks about the evils of big government and on the other promises state intervention just where it is neither needed nor healthy. His promises about rappers and faith schools are puerile, like promising to legislate for jar lids for left-handed people. I think he tailors his views to try to be all things to all men but sometimes displays a staggeringly crass immaturity of thought.

And he makes the same mistakes as New Labour, of confusing tolerance with promotion, swinging the pendulum too far. Also of assuming that his personal values have some right to expression through his power rather than the will of the people that he does not yet even represent. We are supposed to be a Christian nation tolerant of other religions and allowing people freedom in their own religious beliefs. This must encompass the right to believe that homosexuality is wrong even though it is tolerated. But the promotion of that tolerance through statutory legislation runs the risk of creating intolerance, of oppressing the beliefs of the many in the interests of the few.

Actually the state has no business whatsoever trying to compel via legislation how people are to think, how they reconcile their conscience with morality or what they choose to say or write - or look at. That is East Germany. New Labour began that intrusion into the private lives of individuals and Cameron should be promising to roll it back not to reinforce it with petty regulation, let alone extend it. HIs stance on this frankly disgusts me - not least because his intellect seems incapable of grasping the dichotomy of what he proposes.

The idea that prejudice - or intolerance - can be overcome by legislation is ridiculously naive. Look at ageism as an example, far more prevalent and pernicious in our society than the invented "homophobia", or racism or any of the other "ism"s constructed by the national socialists to control and cower the population, to chill and create fear. Where the message should be simple tolerance, compassion and the no-go areas of private morality and belief, we now get strident promotion, stereotyping, sweeping soundbites and all the rest of the PC clutter that we seem unable or unwilling to ditch. And it results in the ridiculous cases we see everyday where, if I was a police officer having to enforce such garbage, I would feel deeply ashamed. The more they try to legislate for every group in society the more complex life becomes, the more conflicts are thrown up, the more hatred is sown. Politicians have become ignorant people with too much power and stupid solutions for non-existent problems, who don't practice what they preach anyway and who definitely don't know what is good for us.

The bottom line is that we don't need any of this stuff. They have invented the need for it. We already had perfectly adequate laws to protect people from threat, from assault, from coercion, without the need for pigeonholing them into categories of priority and vulnerability, or for creating the idea that minorities can be given importance disproportionate to their numbers by special laws to protect them. Supremely ironic that as we became more open-minded and tolerant as a nation the government should seek to compel beliefs through legislation, and petty legislation at that. And supremely ironic that in doing so it should pander to the least tolerant and most narrow-minded of the incoming religions. Where there used to be a broad consensus of easy-going tolerance there are now armed camps of competing lobbying factions and puerile governments desperately pandering to them.

When I was a lad there were homosexuals and paedophiles, which responsible parents gently warned about, and some people were beastly to each other, but there was certainly not the chaos of today. And there was more tolerance, not less. That is not a rose-tinted retrospective either. People simply had a better grasp of what constituted real harm, were more rational and reasoned in their judgements, not hysterical. Maybe it was proximity to the war and the legacy of values from those who had had to order their priorities in the face of real hardship, strife and danger. Maybe it was because the monstrous regiment had not yet forced its way shrieking overprotectively into the discourse. I certainly experienced far less prejudice and intolerance in my life in the decades up to the arrival of John Major and plenty afterwards. Nowadays we are seeing the legacy of spoilt and indulged children who want to infantilise society in their own image.

Nicholas

James Murphy, the point about the officers was not mine but rather John Richardson's. I was getting into the technicalities of warfare but I agree with Peter from Maidstone that the war has been unfairly caricatured. Probably the result of that nasty communist bitch Littlewood who wrote "Oh What A Lovely War!" as a prelude to re-writing our history to serve the Common Purpose.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Suppose this is too late really to post, but wanted to comment on a wonderful TV programme I saw tonight. Ann Widdecombe stood proud in her defence of the Ten Commandments in "The Bible" on C4. She showed Stephen Fry and the other so-called atheists as what they really are. Absolute bigots.

Wilhelm

John Richardson

Are you writing a book, son ?
My first marriage was shorter than some of your posts.

daifromwales

Peter from Maidstone - well said.

I've been reading my Granfather's memoire - he was at Hohlenzoren Redoubt at Ypres, and at the disastrous attack by the North Midland regiments at Gommecourt on the 1st day of the Battle of the Somme 1st July. (the day when General Snow, grandfather of the BBC Snow Dynasty, disgraced himself by his incompetence and blamed his junior officer for the slaughter). What strikes me is that that everything was happening so quickly. Historians look back with hindsight and dwell on the catastrophy - but he was part of the army that did WIN the war. The men at the time did not know what we know about the scale of losses on both sides.

Today's children are brought up to believe that the sacrifice was all in vain, that the soldiers were the deluded victims, that we should have (presumably) simply given in. That view is an insult to those who died, and to those who lived through it all. And when the survivor's sons went through it all again in 1039-1945, they also bought us a few more decades of relative freedom from tyranny. They "did us proud" - the result of their sacrifice benefited us until 2009 when the Lisbon Treaty illegally overturned the Bill of Rights and our "princes" turned the governance of the Isles over to foreign powers.

Peter From Maidstone

Is that this book?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lack-Offensive-Spirit-Division-Gommecourt/dp/0955811902

Is it worth a read?

Noa Zrk

If any fellow Coffe Housers care, like myself to indulge in a little direct action the 300 plus carpet bagging MP's who aren't being prosecuted may like, at your behest, to provide an explanation as to why they may not have paid any taxes so due, following the 31st January Return deadline. I quote from HMRC website Tax Evasion Hotline:

"HM Revenue & Customs is committed to targeting tax evasion. We know some people don’t pay their fair share of tax and that some businesses get undercut by others not paying tax. Now you can help us do something about it.
The Tax Evasion Hotline has been set up to make the most of vital information from YOU – the public and the business community. It deals with Income Tax, Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax and National Insurance.
All information, however trivial it may seem, is important to us. It could be the key to stopping fraudulent or criminal activity. However, in order that we can investigate your report we need you to give as much information as possible to help us identify the person or business you are reporting.

Information can be provided using the following methods:
Email * Make a report online
Telephone Tax Evasion Hotline
Freephone 0800 788 887

Given such an invitation, how can one resist?
"Hello is that the office dealing with Ministers' tax evasions...?"

Verity

Nicholas, again, that was a moving and lucid post. It's probably too late for me to note it on this Wall, but perhaps they'll leave The Wall up until tomorrow. You are so right on every count.

Verity

If it's not too late, Daif from Wales, a beautiful post and I agree with every word you wrote.

How did this spirit of loyalty and patriotism get hijacked by the NWO and Common Purpose? How?

If those brave, dear men who died in the trenches in the Somme and in WWII were shot down over Germany protecting our country, Britain, had known they were making the world safe for aliens with multiple wives, face-coverers who worship an aggressive low rent diety, would they have gone so willingly?

Rhetorical.

The betrayal was, as always, by the socialist one worlders. If this thread is still alive and anyone sees it, when did betrayal of one's country become not just socially OK, but a goal?

Does anyone know?

And it continues apace, both here and in the US.

daifromwales

Peter from Maidstone: yes it is - and it's on my list to read but I confess I do not have it yet...timely reminder for me.

James Murphy

P from M and Dai and Verity, much as I respect your patriotism, I confess I find it difficult to comprehend the historically two-dimensional Anglo-centric view that seems to underpin it. You say: "The men at the time did not know what we know about the scale of losses on both sides." - So that makes it OK does it? Even if we accept your premise (which I do not), the fact that men are unaware of the lunacy perpetrated in their name does not make the lunacy OK.
Furthermore, the testimonies of such brave hearts as Sassoon, Owen and Graves completely contradicts your thesis: men did know they were fighting and dying like cattle for a cause very quickly revealed after 1914 to be at best confected, and at worst downright mendacious. For example, do you really believe that the worst aspects of the industrial ambition and rapacity of the British Empire had nothing to do with causing the Great War? Was it all simply the fault of that admittedly warped Prussian Kaiser Wilhelm? Of course not. The Germans saw a country proudly sticking its flag in all over the globe and thought, 'hold on, we'll have some of that too thank you very much!" - And thus enmity of nations began to dispose itself in the system of alliances that was to wreak such havoc over the next century.
By the way you also say 'We won the war" - Did We? You could have fooled me. Sure, we danced in Trafalgar Square on November 11 1918, but we also suffered an economic collapse, and complete loss of national confidence, an ethical schizophrenia that our unity in the 2nd war merely stuck an elastoplast over. It simply won't wash to exonerate the British identity of all guilt for all the European and Western cultural ills that now beset us, and simply blame it all on the commies, the NWO or Common Purpose, or whatever the current conspiracy theory is that people who ought to know better buy into.

James Murphy

Nicholas - much to agree with in your temperately intelligent post. But allow me to intemperately refute (and split infinitives are OK Verity) one suggestion: to wit: "People simply had a better grasp of what constituted real harm, were more rational and reasoned in their judgements, not hysterical." - I cannot see the treatment of Oscar Wilde as rational and reasoned, I see it precisely as hysterical. Nor, indeed, can I ascribe those generous adjectives to a moral outlook that routinely imprisoned homosexuals for following their private inclinations. The fact is that each age has its own taboos, and may behave reasonably in one moral sphere but like a lunatic one another. To ignore this is indeed to see rose-coloured decades in the time preceding the Beatles..

Nicholas

James Murphy, I'm old but not that old! I was not alive when Oscar Wilde was being persecuted. Even so, I agree with you, but I don't believe the law ever truly represents the general view of the people. At the time, homosexuality, whilst legally persecuted, was still "tolerated" beneath the veneer of society. Wilde was unlucky - and a marked man. And I would not call the law at that time as hysterical but rather morally hidebound, outraged and disapproving. Nowadays we have real hysteria and are still persecuting people for their sexuality - just not homosexuals. The demonisation of deviance has veered and set its sights elsewhere.

I can only go on my own life experiences, which are of course perforce limited and entirely subjective, but I don't believe the place we are is better than the place we have been, at least not post-1945.

In2minds

Ali Dizaei has been found guilty, how does this reflect on the Met?

egh

james murphy - on split infinitives: some people love 'em; and large numbers of them don't even know or care what an infinitive is. They're usually deconstructionists and commies, and completely incapable of appreciating the subtleties of English, though. Which is probably why most stuff that's published today isn't worth tuppence.

People who know, care, and understand about our language ... still deplore the split infinitive.

daifromwales

James - of course there is some truth in what you write - but "we" did not instigate a bloodbath merely because we were accidentally late in arriving at the Imperialist feast. And even in Edwardian times, the writing was on the wall for Empire - and being read by a few.

It's certainly true that we did beat the Kaiser - but the winner was, of course, the USA who beat us in turn - using the far more refined weaponry of money instead of guns.

There was great incompetence from some at the top, but great heroism and, also, some great leadership in the field. The current "BBC" type view of the men is a mixture of pity which borders on contempt.

Thank you, Joan Littlewood?

Peter From Maidstone

I agree with daifromwales. WWI was not ultimately about empire, or rather it was about preventing Germany taking over Europe. Germany (I know I am speaking anachronistically) was an entirely militarised society and the societal aim of taking over Europe was one which was not eliminated from the German system for another 50 years, and it had already been the aim for the 50 years before WWI.

I am not quite sure what those who insist that WWI was a waste would have done? Just watch Germany achieve its ambitions? As far as I can see England was not trying to take over Europe, whatever else it had achieved by the way of building an empire elsewhere.

daniel maris

I don't think we can just blithely accept the logic of WW1. Britain was an imperialist country that was doing in many places around the world what Germany attempted to do in Europe (expropriate, punish civilians, rule by military order etc etc).

There was certainly a difference between England, France and the USA compared with Germany and Austria but the difference cannot dissolve the truth that WW1 grew out of imperial rivalry and an absence of international law.

There is a subsidiary issue about the way the war was conducted. Haig was one of the most unpleasant individuals you are likely to come across in British history. Thankfully Lloyd George took political control of the war and saved many lives. A much more cautious and defensive approach should certainly have been pursued.

Austin Barry

"Ali Dizaei has been found guilty, how does this reflect on the Met?"

Don't limit the reflection to the Met. This case reflects on the whole squalid world of positive discrimination, the National Black Police Association, the race relations industry, fearful accommodation of Islam and supine, submissive, let's-charge-channel 4, politically correct policing.

But this is how it is on the road to Dystopistan.

Congratulations though to Nick Hardwick, the head of the Independent Police Complaints Commission for pursuing this horrible creature with conviction to conviction.

In2minds

So Ali Dizaei has been found guilty, is this important? Yes it is. Dizaei had reached up to the heights of the Metropolitan Police Force and made them his own territory. He was a relentless self-promoter but found plenty of help on his way from certain sections of the media. He was the darling of the race relations industry. As might be expected the fight back has begun.

The Guardian tells us - Ali Dizaei 'was investigated as though he was an enemy of state'

While the Times says - 'Ali Dizaei - ethnic champion in Metropolitan Police exposed as a bully'

The problem is not, as the charge against Dizaei reads, 'perverting the course of justice'. The problems here go right to the top. Dizaei was instrumental in the creation of The National Black Police Association (NBPA). He was its leading light and worked in most of its top jobs. His relentless promotion of the organisation was personal, the NBPA and Dizaei were indivisible. Another 'suspicious' relationship is the one between the NBPA and Nulabour.

They both get into their stride at about the same time, it was love at first site. Particularly smitten here is Jack Straw, for if it could be said that Dizaei was the mouth of the NBPA then Straw was the motor. As we have seen from the Chilcot Inquiry Straw is, on legal matters, not only prepared to cut corners but happy to boast how he can get away with it too. So the charge for Jack Straw must be 'perverting the course of policing'. Vast amounts of public money have gone into the BPNA, it has been legitimised by all Home Secretaries, it is yet another area for investigation.

For it would seem that at the highest level of the Met, people still in post, worked with Dizaei to smooth things over. It's a bit of a cheap shot to be now taking the credit for getting rid of Dizaei.

Kevyn Bodman

Are Sky News editors and newsreaders idiots?

I have just seen their autocutie Samantha Simmonds read a story about critical of Sarah Palin having words written on her hand when making a speech and pointing out that Ms. Palin attacked Barack Obama for using a teleprompter.

There is no legitimate comparison.

Ms. Palin was speaking from single-word prompts. That's pretty much how I do it, and it works very well.
It is not the same as being a speech-reader in the manner of Barack Obama.

Ms. Palin's mistake was in being so inelegant about it.
One or two postcard sized cards on the lectern would have been better.

Greenslime

Anyone seen Ed Balls about recently?

Someone told me he is helping Lucan search for Shergar but I'm doubtful of that story...

Andy Carpark

IMO, splitting infinitives is a more pernicious social evil than cottaging, drug-smuggling or breeding dangerous dogs. People who are sloppy in one department will be a sloppy in another. Split infinitives mark the top of a slippery slope which ends with young women exposing their midriffs and playing the whale in pedestrian precincts.

daniel maris

From Wikipedia :

"Split infinitives reappeared in the 18th century and became more common in the 19th.[10] Daniel Defoe, Benjamin Franklin, William Wordsworth, Abraham Lincoln, George Eliot, Henry James, and Willa Cather are among the writers who used them. Examples in the poems of Robert Burns attest its presence also in 18th century Scots."

I don't think too many young ladies were exposing their midriffs in that period.

Split infinitives have their place.

"To boldly go..." would sound naff as "To go boldly..." and you would lose all the intended emphasis on the boldness of the enterprise.

Will it begin to slowly dawn on the conservative linguist that split infinitives have their uses and that to high-handedly declare them illegitimate is itself an act of imperiousness without authority?