Ray Lewis stands down

PoliticiansStink

Couldn't believe the prominence this story was given on C4's 19:00 News the other night.
After all, it's only London, nobody outside of London (and not that many in LOndon) will be too bothered by this. Any company, business, organisation can hire a bad egg - why, even The Labour Party and C4! Must expect the quasi-socialist media to play it up though.

Ray

It kind of sums up a world obsessed with trivia and superficiality, in which the faux pas of an individual is of more interest than the nobility of what they have been trying to achieve.

Tiberius

I completely agree, James, and made a post to this effect on the Wall.

I see the queen hand-wringer, Hazel Blears, has waded in on this. It seems she needs a lesson in the meaning of "disarray" and I recommend Simon Heffer and Charles Moore in today's DT to give her an idea to which Party the word is most apposite.

Martin

James

The media are over reacting but they're doing so because Team Boris refused to listen to those of us who said calling paid advisors 'deputy mayor' would lead to confusion.

Many of the MSM really do think Lewis was Deputy Mayor of London rather than an advisor/policy director and are reporting the story accordingly.

james allen

i was sickened by the usual nauseating coverage on bbc, which suggested that the whole tory project was in jeopardy because of the resignation of boris johnson's deputy major. The bbc is the single greatest threat to a conservative 21st century, and Cameron must either abolish it, or enforce radical change on the organisation, when he arrives at Number 10. Their coverage is consistently and blatantly biased anti-conservative (both in politics and social values), which for a taxpayer-funded body is quite frankly a disgrace..

Maisie

I cannot believe how over the top the media have gone with this. Do people in the street care? No! They care about kids dying in the street not who is on Boris' team. Madness.

julia, sussex

Although it's unfortunate that Ray Lewis has been found to be less than straight on his CV, he seems to me to have been an inspired appointment to try to get to grips with the real problems facing young, black children. I think the groups which come out of this worst are the C of E bishops, who seem to have no idea how to relate to the youth in this country (black or white)and have effectively derailed what was a very promising start to the serious business of gang culture and youth violence; and the media, who have been dying to put the boot into Boris!

I'm really sad to see how this most serious problem has been reduced to party political punch-ups with Hazel Blears snapping at Boris' heels!

Ian C

I agree with the sentiment in all the posts above but it was precisely this sort of 'car-crash' that Boris and Cameron should have ensured could not happen. It was extremely amateur of them not to know every last detail about Ray Lewis, who to me is a potential solution to so many problems if what he does can be taken out across a far bigger 'market' of social failure.

If there is anything in the allegations that have been made this whole method of attack on social evils at source will have suffered enormous credibility problems.

Tory HQ should have expected to find a dodgy past in such people because they have been there and have a wardrobe full of the T-shirts. That is why they know the solutions that will work.

So we should not be surprise that Lewis has a past. It is for his potential that we need him and others like him. This should not be coming out now - it should have been known and anticipated.

Frank Pulley

As I keep saying - positive vetting, chaps. It has to be thorough - ruthless even.

It's all so amateurish. Then again ... the root of the problem is the meretricious Mayoralty itself. Just another layer of layabouts sucking on the State teat. I suggested the solution to Boris during his campaign - win it then abolish it! Restore London to what it should be, the capital city of the United Kingdom, not the Republic of Londonistan. There are too many parasitical politicians in this country already, none of whom can solve any of its intrinsic problems. Now we have a politician insisting that he be elected twice by his constituents just so that he can have a lone platform to speak from because he has something important to say; apparently the debating chamber of the gasworks is the Tower of Babel and his querulous voice cannot be heard from the front benches.

When is someone going to publish the real cost of Government and all its ancillary trades and associated leeches? Donwsizing is part of the solution and the sooner, the better.

John

Does anybody remotely sane give a toss about what they say on the Toady programme, a running lackey of ZanuLabour? Or what the regretable Blears bleats out?
Martin, I take it you personally told Boris how to organise his team?
The BBC, a totally biased state broadcaster (not only about the Tories, but about the ME, about Islam, etc etc), is not only a threat to the Tories but to this country. This disgraceful body, which considers itself above the law and conceals from its employers the public the results of a report into its bias, should be dismantled at the first opportunity.

Anan

It really shows how different the Conservatives and Labour are treated by the media. Labour corruption, repeated sex scandals (often the by the same person), financial dodgy dealings and cash for honours, etc. etc. are all either dismissed as unimportant (it's personal, and doesn't concern us the public, apparently) or covered up by the media.

When even a minor event such as this one with Boris, or a 15 year old event as with Spellman happens, involving the Conservatives, the socialist liberal media immediately come out with a crusade. Once the Conservatives come to power, they have to enact major reform of the media whereby any unbalanced reporting by any organisation which claims to be impartial is punished with fines and jail time.

"We can now join Michael "Crazy" Crick from his cell in HM Wormwood Scrubs for his view on why he has been jailed, and whether, when released, he should be allowed to use public money to carry out Labour propaganda."

james allen

martin - i completely agree, that decision appears to have been a bad one. And tiberius, also spot on. Talk about disarray - the Labour party is in meltdown. Have you seen the news coming out of Scotland? Extraordinary!

Verity

Well! A remarkable congruity of opinion on this thread! I'm at one with every point everyone made.

I would add one thing in defence of Mr Lewis, who I think was remarkably silly in putting about so much misleading information about himself: He was not on the corporate make. He wasn't in a big company and cooking the books. He wasn't embezzling. He (appears to have) aggrandised his work in pubic service. He put some bells and whistles on his real achievements. (Admittedly, we do not yet know why he didn't include on his cv his having been a vicar in the CofE for one-third of his working life.)

None of this cancels out the immense good he has done and the influence he has been on the lives of boys who would never have become productive members of society, and would never have had the means to advance themselves without his academy.

And comparing him with that vile, nasty piece of work Lee Jasper is very vicious indeed. There is no similarity at all, except for the colour of their skin. Rather telling that the ones who making this invidious comparison are socialists, is it not?

One other thing: the way this was handled - very badly - tells us that Boris Johnson is not chief executive material and has no instinct for being a top man. Front bench, yes. Chief executive, no. Absolutely not.

John - agreed. I would like to see a ceremonial dynamiting of the BBC. It is too foul to save. Blow it up and let it be a brownfield site for four or five years, until it's detoxified. We might, around the same time, carry out a tribute dynamiting of the UN. The New Yorkers would thank us, if only for freeing the streets on the East Side from illegal CD parking by African "diplomats" and others.

Again, I agree with Frank Pulley's point. Boris should have won the election and then abolished the post and the whole insane infrastructure of the City Hall and the Mayoralty of London. If for no other reason than Ken Livingstone would then have nowhere to turn up to every Wednesday or whatever.

Nicholas

Concur too. Labour & BBC truly nauseating in their behaviour on this one. The national socialists and their cronies have much to answer for. I believe we are up against absolute evil.

W.Smith

I'm hoping that the BBC coverage of the forthcoming conflict between Israel and Hezbollah will be so abominably skewed that the IDF will declare Broadcasting House a primary military objective. Come, friendly bombs and fall on White City.

Maisie W

It was wrong of Ray Lewis to big up his CV, but unless he`s been around the young boys he is helping, and know`s the way, there minds tick and what makes them turn to youth crime this country is in big trouble. This also sends out the message no second chances in this life to anyone young or old

Marian C

Well said Verity; I totally agree with all your points especially regarding the one below.

'None of this cancels out the immense good he has done and the influence he has been on the lives of boys who would never have become productive members of society, and would never have had the means to advance themselves without his academy'.

As for Hazel Blears, all I can say is the woman is an absolute disgrace.

TGF UKIP

There were many reservations expressed on this site prior to the mayoral elections by THX1138 and others over the basic competence of Johnson.

Frank Pulley and Ian C get it exactly right, this is a very basic competence issue. And it has been comprehensively failed.

Given Johnson's proximity to Cameron, their parallel background and the Cameroons now surrounding Johnson, Labour and their BBC allies would be daft not to seize and magnify every Johnson mistake.

Johnson always was a huge gamble for the Tories and at least one hack represented the London election as being no loss either way for Gordon. If Ken won he could claim credit and if Boris won he could stick Dave with every resulting cock-up.

Gordon and Labour have an awful lot riding on Johnson, wouldn't it be ironic not to say, from my point of view, amusing if one Bullingdon Boy blew it for the other.

Vorshprung durchpanic

Ich denke das dis is alles blewn out of propportion.Warum ist es always Hazel Blears who schticks seine kopf into these things um zu divert attention von ihre own probleemen.

Austin Barry

Please don't be mean to Hazel Blears. She is a loyal little hamster for whom Gordon has provided a community cohesion wheel to keep her on the payroll. Occasionally she'll fall off the wheel and squeak at the big people outside the cage, but we should not be concerned or take umbrage.

Gillian King

Well said all!(except Frank Pulley what was all that about?...'Parasitical politicians'?...)
Speaking as a memeber of the black community and a tory, I'm glad to see that commentators and readers of the Spectator see through all the sham that is the BBC and libral socialism. It is of course with a heavy heart that I read of Ray Lewis' resignation. It's true that in amongst all the mess, the true purpose and value of what the Mayor was trying to achieve for our young people got buried and lost and yet another baby has been thrown out with the proverbial bath water! Anybody want to start a petition to abolish the BBC and the horrid licence fee that gives the BBC the licence make us pay for their opinion?.....

Ian C

Welcome aboard Gillian - you will find many takers here. My heart and my head goes out to Ray Lewis. The commitment it takes to do what he has done is remarkable and the personal cost will be great. It is so hard to keep ego out of personal achievements even for exceptional people with a social conscience. I just pray that there is nothing in the financial/sex stories because either would explain the exaggerated claim of status.

Verity

Gillian King - BBC petitionwise, I'm with you. I don't just want it abolished but, as I have said before, I want it labelled a toxic site and dynamited. When Broadcasting House is finally declared fit for human habitationn again - five or six years I believe is how long it takes a brownfield site to detoxify - I suggest the government rent it at a peppercorn rent to Ray Lewis for one of his academies. Maybe a super-academy,given the space. He does fine work.

Boris - who we now know for sure - many of us intuited it - is not chief executive material - should have had him thoroughly investigated before appointing him to so prominent a position.

Had these negative points, in a thorough background check, come out about Mr Lewis before he was appointed to anything, he could have been appointed to a less high profile position. Yet still have had an official platform to continue his important work.

Boris isn't a competent chief executive, so we now know that he can never lead the Conservatives and can never be PM.

Frank Pulley

Gillian King.

If you are a black Tory and you've never met a parasite who described him/herself as a politician then you have led a very sheltered life. I suggest you visit the PoW where both the green benches and red benches are infested with them. As for the glass phallus - what's it for? London already had a Mayor the one whose parade the shit-cart follows. You mention the good intentions of Boris; it seems that courting the black vote has dropped him in the Brown stuff -twice ... in quick succession! First because he sacked his spin doctor, unjustifiably, for putting a prick in his place; then failing to check the CV of his prospective Deputy because the Great Leader of NuConservatism sponsored him; and when the contents of the cart following the Lord Mayor's parade hit the Millwall tunnel fan, Boris foolishly backed him without checking again - then had to shaft him when the porkies popped up. It's no good whinging now; that's politics for you; you seem to think that politics is populated by people of principle. Well you have been very lucky and I seem to have been very unlucky, inasmuch that you apparently haven't met any political parasites and I haven't met any principled politicians, just parasites who pretend to be. It's a funny old world (as the Dear Lady remarked). And why did you have to tell us that you are black? Did anyone hereupon tell you that they are white? It's time that you - and Boris - stopped worrying about pigmentation and became just plain Tories working for all the residents of London. In fact as it is still our capital city, despite its sobriquet Londonistan, for all the subjects of the UK also.

Fergus Pickering

I thought writing lies in your cv was creative and right on, oris that only when white guys do it?

Travis Bickle

Sexing up your CV? I thought that Lee McQueen had made this compulsory?

Tiberius

TGF: your penultimate paragraph pushes your orthodox line of argument to an extreme that is barely credible.

If Johnson was a gamble, it paid off because he won. The hack you quote sounds like Brown's equivalent of General Custer.

Boris and Dave will make mistakes because they are human, and they can no more engineer the end of cock-up theory than Brown can the end of boom and bust.

Brown and Blair have made plenty of mistakes. I think DD made a terrible error with his resignation strategy because he is probably going to end up marginalized when he could have done himself, his party and the country a favour by staying inside the fold.

Cameron, through his own efforts and despite lots of advice to the contrary, and with a little help form Gordon, has acquired a very big margin of error for his Party. I think it will take more than not insulting your reputable senior staff by checking their references to bring either of them down.

TGF UKIP

Tiberius, Johnson was a gamble not just because he was high profile but high wire too and with a penchant for falling off.

Any politician sacked in the past by his Party Leader for fibbing and with so many appearances in Private Eye to his name, must surely come with a block capital risk warning.

As to why he won, everything I read indicated that the suburbs of the benighted alien hellhole had turned against Livingstone and Labour with a vengeance and that The Evening Standard and a LOT of help from Gordon probably played as much part in Ken's defeat as your man.

With regard to your final para, we plainly do stand on different planets. "Cameron, through his own efforts......and with a little help from Gordon, has acquired a very big margin of error for his Party." A LITTLE help from Gordon, Tiberius?!!! You clearly have a self selecting memory system old boy.

And as for "not insulting your reputable senior staff by checking their references" well let's just say in that case I will not be buying any shares any time soon in Tiberius PLC.

PS I was truly shocked to learn from your post to Pete on Friday that you have an employer. I had naturally assumed, so weighty, if occasionally misguided, were your pontifications that you must be a very aged, very white haired old codger - the sage of Wolverhampton and all that. How you shatter my illusions Tiberius.

Tiberius

TGF: we ought to be doing this on the Wall I suppose but...

Brown: the difference between a Cameron majority of 30 (an estimate I made before last autumn) and as much as a 100. Agreed; rather more than a little, perhaps.

PLC: when I head-hunt Stuart Rose, I'll ask you to check his references.

Employer: see Norman Lamont in today's ST. My views are largely formed from 28 years in the accountancy profession and as FD of small to medium family companies.

Somewhat battle-hardened but no sage, the latter a description which may be better suited to your mysterious, apparent elevated situation.

Frank Pulley

Tiberius/TGF

What a wonderfully witty little contretemps to plug into of a Sunday morning. Made me cough cornflakes all over my keyboard. Yes, a late breakfast - see time of last post. 'Scuse me a minute while I clean it up (the cornflakes - not the last post). Hope your ping-pong continues, but don't forget the real tennis, I'd hate to miss Federer winning yet another bovine prize from a grateful government. However he is rather appropriately facing a matador who could kill two bulls with one raquet, so to speak.

Verity

Frank Pulley 1:17 a.m. Masterly, even for you!

Regarding, Gillian (among your many points), I had been going to note that she shouldn't have written that she is black, then thought I'd be berated for being mean-spirited.

But all Gillian had to do was tell us she is a Tory - in other words, she's in our fold - and we would have accepted her comments from that point of view. Her race is utterly irrelevant to the discussion. It is her political convictions that count and that's what we judge her on.

Tiberius

Frank P: with it having been such a wet weekend, it seems that many of us have been devoting a fair amount of time to this blog, perhaps some of us too much.

It does seem you're a bit of an anarchist at heart, a position that hopefully will ensure another strand of interesting opinion to this largely liberal Right commentary. But just who would you have as the next PM, given that Davis, Cameron, Boris, and Brown are all seemingly dimwits?

Verity

Well, I'm not Frank P, and it's not raining here - yet, but it's going to - but David Davis is not a dimwit and he is a patriot. I think this is a man of great common sense and principle and he's a savvy political operator. He gets my vote.

Cameron is a Europhile socialist. Born to sit at the Nomenklatura top table. In fact, Cameron is just awful. We have just had a vivid demonstration that Boris is not chief executive material - although he could be able Front Bench material.

Ian C

Lots of strands to pull together here….. It has been such a lousy w/e that all appear to have had some fun and are a bit stir crazy but we seem to be largely getting along better than usual…! Let’s see now….

1)Gillian – it is relevant that you’re black in this case because the subject matter is about another black person. I understood you’re reference as a means of clarifying your comment, anyway. It is generally presumed, I think, that all are white on this blog at least, as that is what we whites tend to do (and you and other blacks may well do also?). The point has been made that colour is not an issue here. Please believe it unless you are told otherwise (unlikely).

2)This is Cameron’s cock-up not Boris’s. I posted here on Coffeehouse, in the run up to his election as mayor, that he only needed to run Livingstone close in order to score the requisite political victory. This line was not welcomed hereabouts at the time. What was not known then was the lead the Tories were establishing across the country post the N&C By-election and the locals. However, this is looking truer now that Cameron has helped drop Boris in this mess - that Boris has helped by his unnecessary sacking of McGrath. Boris now has a target on his back and it’s not entirely his fault. But nonetheless this fact has come about quicker than even I had in mind.

3)I read in today’s S/Times that the Tories are accusing the church of having a dossier on Lewis that not even Lewis was aware of and that they claim to have warned Boris about Lewis in early May as part of a longer letter to him on other matters. This is hardly a ‘clear and present danger type warning’. This could turn out to be a sort of inverse ‘constructive dismissal’ counter-claim against the church, if there really is nothing to the allegations.

4)I see that Cameron’s cock-up has got the old chestnut of whether Cameron is going to be any good as PM. Just to make sure we are not too together: it is a non-subject, not worth the air in your brains to think about. The choice is Brown or Cameron. Our job is to get the latter there soonest because he is nearer to us than the alternative. Once we’ve got him there we have to make sure his nose is kept to the right grindstone. That’s all democracy in the UK is offering us this week/year/decade. So get on and be constructive within those confines.

But we should not have got to be here as a result of Cameron’s cock-up and it does not help. It does look like he was being too clever by half, like Brown not even Blair, and has been caught out, badly. He owes Boris big time.

Nicholas

"Boris and Dave will make mistakes because they are human". Hmm, and every one of which will be headlined, placed under the magnifying glass, pontificated on and trumpeted ad nauseum by New Labour's propaganda arm, the BBC, with Channel 4 News and the unlovely Jon Snow providing the reverberating echoes.

P'raps more so Boris. They will be out to get him, big time.

TGF UKIP

Tiberius, a scouser, even an expat one,considered "elevated." But I suppose Wolverhampton ....!

As for Cameron + 30, + 100 etc and The Wall, well I intend putting a post on there in the next few days which really should get the tomahawks coming out.

And while echoing your comments to Frank P, I must ask - where's David Lindsay. I hope your tribe haven't succeeded in running him off, Tiberius. He really does add an extra dimension to this blog that would be sorely missed.

And BTW, can't find owt by or about Lamont in ST.

Verity

Boris is not chief executive material and I got the feeling that he didn't really want to be mayor of London. Alocal council, however grand, is not his milieu. Dealing with all those petty little feuds. Parliament is Johnson's milieu and he shouldn't have been removed from it. (Except if Cameron saw him as a threat as leader ...)

I can't stand Boris Johnson, but I think he was pushed into this against his will and has already begun dropping bricks, which he is wont to do. Certainly creating non-functional titles of "Deputy Mayor" was irretrievably silly. Dave pushed him into this for some reason. And Dave pushed him into sacking McGrath, in my opinion. Dave comes across as a not very nice person, which would be tolerable if only he had talent.

Ian C - Dave will not be as easy to control as you think. He is surrounded by lickspittles from his own tribe and appears to have few points of reference to the everyday lives of most people. He's got a windmill on his roof, for God's sake!

In addition, I don't think Boris will last the course as mayor. He doesn't have the skill and he doesn't have the sustained concentration level that being a CEO requires. And I don't believe he ever wanted the job in the first place.

Tiberius

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/07/06/do0605.xml

There you go, mate. (Lamont).

Just remember Emlyn Hughes scored for us against you in a 4-1 win c.1980.

And quite so, Nicholas, but it's to Brown's credit that much of the incremental effect has been whittled away!

THX1138

Q -What have Ray Lewis & Julius Caesar got in common?

A- They were both stabbed in the back by Latin speaking toffs.

I see The Spectator is blaming the messenger yet again- Pathetic

THX1138

Just got back from a wet weekend walking in the Peak District beautiful as ever, been reading all you posts great ding dong TGF & Tiberius looks like I'm a bit late to join the fun. I called the Ray Lewis resignation of Friday on Clive's blog

My only comments beyond "told you so" is that you would have thought that the Tory high command with Boris in charge of LDN would have been extra extra vidulent about any cock up's either they didn't check or didn't check up hard enough on Lewis neither of which bodes well for running anything bigger than LDN.

Maybe this does go all the way to Dave & the Tory apparatchiks didn't check properly because Ray Lewis was Dave's man? Did you know that Dave's first photo opp on becoming leader was with Ray Lewis.

As for Fraser & Nick Boles trying to blame The BBC & The C of E well I think that's rather pathetic & their was me thinking that Tories were all about personal responsibility not passing the buck.

What about IDS's bluster about Ray Lewis -good man brought down by the media etc. Lets not forget he was a fraud who when he wasn't lying about being a JofP, was allegedly stealing from parishioners those he wasn't touching up that is & pretending he didn't know he hadn't been struck off as a priest.

This is the man the Dave, Boris & Melanie Phillips thought was an ideal role model & the man to sort out LDN's feral kids. So much for their judgement.

Frank Pulley

THX 1138

(As obviously everyone else is too proud to ask, I suppose I'd better do it) ... WTF is the meaning of vidulent? If you know, tell the OED will you, they pay for new words, I believe.

Using the Latin root, I can only come up with a near approximation. Vidulence: 'a tendency to make widows'. Probably used in the argot of Cosa Nostra: "Don Genovese was kinda vidulent in settling family disputes, Gino."

Ian C

THX - your cynicsim is once again exceeded by your inaccuracy.

1) What blame of which messenger? There is nil in James's piece above that fits that desription.

2) Lewis has not been stabbed in the back by anyone, except perhaps his previous employers. Otherwise he is where he is because of his own past - and that is not all bad, whatever his previous misdemeanours.

Verity, you need to set aside your concrete boots and become a positive part of the coalition that he needs to be able to manage to get us out of the current mess. To constantly snipe at his heels is to turn down and/or diminish what advantages he does/can offer.

THX1138

Frank I know what a howler It's obviously ancient stupid for vigilant.. What can I say it was late & I was state educated under Tory governments.

Ian C I read the usual Spectator buck passing, blaming sections of the Media rather than Boris Ie the BBC & The Today Programme in particular. I repeat the real cynicism here lies with Nick Boles & the Spectator It was Boris who choose Ray Lewis not The BBC or the CofE but Boris,all the BBC did was report the bad news.

The Daily Mail took almost exactly the same line as the BBC that it was a huge blow for Boris & Bad news for Dave

http://tinyurl.com/6aasvd

From The Daily Mail article

"Last night Mr Johnson's reputation for taking risks was seen as a growing liability among Tories uneasy about the way he is running his administration"

"The announcement capped a day of chaos that was in danger of tainting David Cameron, following lurid tales of Mr Lewis's time as an Anglican-priest"

Ouch

As for my stabbed in the back joke I thought it was rather funny

Frank Pulley

Ian C (6.59)

>"Gillian – it is relevant that you’re black in this case because the subject matter is about another black person"<

Bunkum! The issue is whether or not Lewis was using his vicarious position to exploit old ladies and children, whether he bullshitted about his role as a JP and whether he got defrocked. Who cares whether he (or Gillian) is black, except Lewis and Gillian and probably Boris and Cameron who are trawling for 'black votes'. I repeat, its well past the time when anyone should be treating skin pigmentation as in any way relevant to anything, anymore than ginger hair or big feet should matter (except when London Mayors put the latter in their mouths).

So according to your philosophy I should point out that I'm white everytime a white person is discussed on a thread? And speak for yourself when you say that 'we' assume that everyone commenting hereupon is white, you twat. I assume that most commenters here don't assume anything of the kind, in fact.

Ian C (10.45)

>"Verity, you need to set aside your concrete boots and become a positive part of the coalition that he needs to be able to manage to get us out of the current mess. To constantly snipe at his heels is to turn down and/or diminish what advantages he does/can offer."

This time 'bunkum!' is not strong enough. Bollocks! Verity seems perfectly capable of limpid clear explication of what she thinks, imho. I don't think she needs me to defend her either, but as she's good people so I will anyway. One hopes that Cameron or some of his handmaidens read these comments and he needs to know what conservatives think about him and the polices emanating from his political machine. Who knows? They might even cause him to trim his sails. If not then both Verity and I may be right about suspecting that he is just another Gramscian mechanic waiting in the wings to get his hands on the levers of power. We want him to prove otherwise before he gets our vote .... don't we Verity? I shouldn't speak for you, sorry, but I read your commentary assiduously and that's what I infer from it.

Frank Pulley

THX. Yeah - I guessed really, but like you I often find myself in a piss-taking mode.
Btw you missed an opportunity to whack me for tautology in that post: 'near approximation'?
Wake up at the back there! But then, you're not the vengeful type, are you?

Frank Pulley

THX

...and another thing, you may have been 'educated under a Tory Government', but what they didn't appreciate was that the teachers on their payroll were operating under Gramscian counter-cultural hegemonic guidelines - a very 'vidulent' phenomenon, which in the end put said Tory Government in the wilderness for a decade (or more - who knows?).

THX1138

Frank-You gotta have laugh on these blogs & you certainly made me laugh, people take themselves so bloody seriously we are all just whingers with too much time on our hands, we ain't ever going to fix anything it all just blah blah same goes for all those Speccie journalists who take themselves oh so seriously fighting the he good fight & would be off to the BBC in a shot if they ever got the call & don't think they wouldn't

For the record my form teacher at school for three years was nearly as much of a right winger nutter mad & he was great value too. I love this blog

THX1138

Doh I'm at it again

For the record my form teacher at school for three years was nearly as much of a right winger nutter as you & great value too. I love this blog