STAN'S VERY DEEP BLOG

Inspired by Mandy

2009-02-19T05:41:00.002Z

This does not mark a resumption of service. I am too busy getting gloriously rich.

Mandelson.Some might regard him as a poisonous creep of the highest degree and one many would never like to have dinner with. I beg to differ, guv.
I’m glad Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, is back. He's quite adept at giving Americans a good tongue lashing.That's for sure. He was the victim of two of the most vicious media witch-hunts in recent political memory. For Mandelson to have been forced to resign twice as a result of accusations that were eventually shown to be groundless on both occasions, is something which should greatly concern anyone who claims to be an intimate of democratic politics. Yes he borrowed money from a ministor and kept it quiet, yes it was illegal, yes it was immoral, yes it was unnaceptable behaviour for a minister of the Crown.
Yes he lied.
But its ok.
My own tuppence-worth is that the ressurrection of this potent symbol of the Blair era will bring the masses flocking back to the essential sense and decency of NuLabour.
In other words, the Labour death march to oblivion is turning into a jog. Good job, Gord.
Mandy will play his part to perfection.

Down-and-dirty Dyck under pressure

2008-02-24T19:42:00.009Z

From the Campaign Trail:
A firestorm of controversy engulfed Mighty Dyckerson's front-running campaign for the US presidency Sunday over a report insinuating he might have veered off the straight and narrow during his first, failed White House bid four years ago.
Concerns arose in the Dyckerson camp when a certain Miss Lamb began appearing with the candidate at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client's jet in 2004. Dyckerson's campaign four years ago is best remembered now for an innovative electioneering strategy pledging free internet porn to seniors.
At a heated press conference this afternoon, media mogul Dyckerson categorically denied inserting his penis in anyone's vagina.Dyckerson also dismissed questions about oral sex and cigars.
When one reporter asked, "If you have a politician, an elected official, and they can't be trusted in their own marriage, how can I trust them with the budget? How can I trust them with national security?" a clearly emotional Dyckerson responded by pointing to his genitals.
Dyckerson's wife and first cousin, Dyckette, was fully supportive of her husbands declaration. "He hasn't gotten it up since 1997", she revealed.
Several other women claimed they have also had sex with Dyckerson but they were too ashamed to speak to the news media. One woman did agree to speak so long as she remained anonymous.
"I'm afraid people will says 'that's the best you can do? You poor thing!' If Karla did have sex with him that's what I would say too!" Dyckerson who claims to possess a 22 inch penis (when folded) has refused to comment further on the current whirl of accusations.

Screw Santa

2007-12-17T12:47:00.000Z

Well, it’s about that time of the month again when I scrape together a post so here goes ( And this particular post should give pause for thought over the Yuletide season).
This Christmas Eve millions and millions of little children will climb into their beds looking for the glorious appearing of Santa Claus.
But …..
Is Santa Claus just a jolly, harmless, friendly fellow?
Or is there something or someone else hiding behind jolly ol’ St. Nick?
Surely anyone with a modicum of intelligence would realize that Santa is in reality a prejudice pedophile, bent on world domination. He promotes consumerism, communism, and obesity. Not only that, but his treatment of Mrs. Claus is atrocious. Santa is also a blatant racist. He is completely anti-Semitic and prints anti-Semitic literature. He is always talking about how the "nice" little boys and girls will get presents at Christmas. Did you ever wonder why no little Jewish boys and girls ever get a Tonka truck under the menorah from Santa? It's because Santa is affiliated with the KKK!! In fact he's heading it up!
The only solution is to put an end to Santa Claus. He is obviously the one and only reason why humans have become so utterly wicked. His tendency to feed on small children and his plan for world domination, should make Santa Claus Public Enemy Number One this year. So next time you take your child to see Santa Claus, give him a gun and say, "Honey, if Santa tries to cop a feel this year, blow his brains out." Besides, your kid can't be tried as an adult anyway, so what's the harm really if you think about it.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Stan is back!

2007-11-04T18:50:00.000Z

I've been away. I have my reasons. Doubtless my vast blogging talents have been sorely missed.
It started out as just a simple way to pass the time. I mean, everyone was doing it, right? You know....Facebook. Intending merely to test the waters, I was instead swept out to sea – up the Facebook creek without a paddle.You know like when you make your first priority to check your e-mail in the morning, just in case someone added you or messaged your Facebook account overnight.

I resisted the Facebook craze for a long time, primarily because I didn't need another electronic medium to remind me that nobody likes me. As it is, nobody AIMs me, all my best e-mail friends ever want to talk about is penis enlargement and Russian brides.
I've been invited on Facebook many times in the last couple of months (I'm not bragging, a demented clown could probably sign up and people would soon be leaving messages on his wall and joining his networks and tagging his photos). Intending merely to test the waters, I have instead been swept out to sea – up the Facebook creek without a paddle.
So get out there, poke some strangers.
Let’s face the facts here, people like to know that other people are thinking about them. The more people the better. What Facebook does is it allows you to broadcast yourself a lot easier and faster than any other website has in the past. What better way to wile the hours away (apart from porn)than to stick your nose into other people’s business without them really knowng you’re doing it. Relationships, friends, hobbies, purchases and moods… there’s little you can’t find out about someone on Facebook.
It is a stalker's dream.
Deep, deep down, maybe we're all big losers. Everyone who would rather post a message on someone's wall than actually look him or her in the eye and say hello is ultimately a useless individual. Everybody except me, though. I'm cool.
So if you’ll excuse me, I have a profile to update. ‘wonder if Ms. Babble has an account.
Tyler has.

I need help!

2007-10-20T16:46:00.001+01:00

Years ago, whenever I went to the dentist it really hurt. To make things worse, the dentist I had growing up always had peanut butter breath. The last time I went to a dentist here in the Third World, the guy drilled right into a nerve. It was the most painful ******* experience of my life, and because of it, I can't stand going to the dentist, even if only for teeth cleaning. I was so miserable about that last experience that I haven’t been back in a while....about 5 years, to be precise.
Something I have in common with many English folks. In fact, dentists are virtually unknown in Britania. I think that asshole Tony Blair abolished them. Or shot them. Or something.
Personally, I just don't like people sticking their hands in my mouth. Or inserting metal hooks, for that matter. Unless I’m nekkid and in the mood.I despise the very thought of dentistry. With all due respect to the highly professional, well educated and well meaning dentists out there (that's the rational part of me speaking...), in my irrational mind you are all a bunch of freakin’ voodoo doctors. What is it with dentists? We all know they're just flaky soldiers of Beelzebub that really couldn't make it into medical school...
That said...I have very recently had several teeth extracted, deep cleaning, root canal and gum surgery. The gum surgery occured 5 days ago and the Percocet and Motrin (800 mg) is not helping the pain and the swelling is getting worse. Any suggestions? Apart from suicide and cocaine (I just don’t have the cash)...
Damn it all.
UPDATE
My post seems to have inspired others to reflect on British dentistry (if it still exists)

The News You Need To know but the Jews won’t let you Hear

2007-10-13T12:26:00.000+01:00

In a surprise move, one-time member of the human race and former ruler of Britannia, Princess Tony Blair, has been head-hunted to advise the troubled Blackwater security firm. US federal prosecutors are, of course, investigating allegations that employees of Blackwater are responsible for the shooting dead of up to 20 Iraqi civilians. Mr Blair is, however, “entirely cool with massacres of unarmed civilians”, according to his spin doctors.The slightly effeminate Blair, who had recently been (self) tipped to take over at crisis-ridden financial giant, Northern Rock, will now be taking time away from his peace-making efforts in the Middle East to specifically advise Blackwater on beefing up cleanliness at British hospitals.
The UK government has just announced that "exclusion zones" will be established around whatever British hospital facilities are still open following the current wave of cutbacks, with only medical staff and managers allowed inside the cordon. Skilled marksmen from the Blackwater security firm will enforce the ban on movement.
"This is an entirely prudent precaution," said Health Secretary Alan Johnson. "Governments have been aware for decades that illnesses of all types are brought into hospitals by ill people, who then pass them on” Tone had this to say-”you know, I’ve often thought that we need to be tough on the ill. NHS facilities really ought to be considered free fire zones”. Mr Blair added:"...frankly I ‘ve got about 25 mortagages to pay and new ones appearing every day so I need to make some dough, folks.Fuck you very much, I'll work for whoever I damn well please."
Stay tuned for regular updates.
*Tony Blair is, of course, not employed by Blackwater....that much is a product of my fevered imagination. For their part, Blackwater would never stoop to employing such an obvious madman.

The South may not rise again!

2007-10-04T16:23:00.000+01:00

Alabama... isn’t that the US state which always comes in dead last in state school and public health rankings (or is perhaps tied with Mississippi)? Well, Alabama has always had a reputation for being a little behind the times...perhaps not unjustifiably so.
This very week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to Alabama’s law banning the sale of sex toys. Alabama is one of a handful of states, including Texas and Georgia, with laws restricting sales of sex toys. The Alabama “anti-obscenity” law bans the sale of sex toys but not their possession. Violators are subject to a maximum $10,000 fine and one year in jail.
Surely, sex toys are in the ...uh... eye of the beholder. Will they outlaw selling whipped cream or ice cubes or handcuffs? How about zucchini or falafels? Or those cell phones that vibrate? C'mon people, this is the 21st century after all... What you do in your bedroom is your business... How about flavoured condoms? Couldn't (wouldn't) they be considered a toy of sorts? Where does it end? The argument “but officer it's just a "neck massager, honest” certainly isn’t gonna work in Alabama. Just to be "safe", I would recommend forced amputation of fingers. The risk is just too great of someone, somewhere (God forbid!) giving themselves pleasure. Once again, Alabamians are getting the shaft, just not in their local store;-)
Question: If you are busted buying a dildo in Alabama, will you have to register with the state as a sex crime offender? Think about it.

Blowing my own trumpet!

2007-09-29T19:24:00.000+01:00

Well, it's about freakin' time. Finally, Stan gets a modicum of recognition, a little time in the prime time, up there with the swinging dicks, the big boys of blogging, yes, this most distinguished, very deep blog, is officially rated as no 164 in the Top 500 of British political blogs and no 84 in the Top 100 UK Centre-Right blogs. I have absolutely no idea why this is the case. I’m totally bewildered in fact...but I’ll tell ya this: I’m mildly aroused by the musky scent of success. I am pleasured to be sandwiched between some of the main figures of British political blogging....

You see I’ve been ranting my ass off for nearly a year here. I’ve sprayed you with wisdom about everything from Polish politics to poon, from the Pope to poop...with no monetary reward or sexual favours (apart from Kitty) having been exchanged or even suggested by any of you people. God knows I am disappointed. But from now on make a note: this blog is a fully-fledged quality blog, a premier political blog. Don’t you ever forget it. Thus, I’d like to thank all the little people- I appreciate your unstinting support.....I think I'll go and lie down in a darkened room now.

Hating Hillary

2007-09-26T10:05:00.000+01:00

Is there a more reviled public figure in America today than Hillary Rodham Clinton? Well, okay: OJ Simpson. But OJ isn't, as yet, running for political office. The problem now is that pundits are asking not if Hillary Clinton can win the Democratic Party nomination, but if she can be stopped. President W. Bush (remember him?) also thinks that Hilla will win the Democratic nomination and has even indicated in private that he believes she will succeed him in office. Frankly, I wouldn't piss on Hillary if she were on fire.

And I'll tell you why. Hillary personifies all that is politics. She lies, she misrepresents, she slings poop at her opponents, and she is very very expert at it. I hate her not because of her policies, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I hate her not because she knows how to play the game of politics, I respect anyone who can accomplish their goals.I hate her because she is so false, and mostly because dumb ass liberals buy into her ridiculous, superficial, insincere rhetoric. She knew about Bill's indiscretions, yet came on t.v., cried and claimed she didn't know. She stole property from the White House. As First Lady, she instituted a policy wherein people in the White House were not even allowed to look her in the face. Who the fuck does she think she is? As Senator, she voted FOR the war in Iraq. She now claims that if she had been president at the time then she would NOT have invaded Iraq.And another thing....Hilla the Hun is running perhaps the most media-controlled — and media-obsessed — campaign in presidential history. According to Politico, Clinton aides convinced GQ’s editors to spike an unflattering piece about the campaign’s inner workings by threatening the magazine’s access to the former president, who is the subject of a planned cover story.

Let me put it this way: if Hilary Clinton had a schlong and ran on the same proposed agenda that she is running for now I would imagine she/he would have a hard time getting one vote from the most liberal American. Hillary is. Horrible. On the other hand, it looks like anyone who has a chance of winning in 2008 is horrible on all the stuff that matters. America is well and truly fucked. Unless that is political maverick Mighty Q. Dyckerson can be persuaded to relaunch his flaccid campaign for the highest office of all.

The internets is bullshit

2007-09-21T10:08:00.000+01:00

In kindergarten, he had an interest in Barbie dolls. At home, when he was allowed, he wore dresses. Indeed, he still does. The self-proclaimed “Queen of Ghetto” from "Bitch Island" likes to wear fake eyelashes too.Hmmmmmmm....
Now millions beg for the favours of the young man with the Southern drawl and the extravagant mascara, declaring their love at his genius. I refer to Chris Crocker, the pseudonym of the tear-stained 19-year-old, Britney Spears fan who became an internet sensation after his YouTube defence of the embattled star’s widely-derided performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas earlier this month.
In the two-minute film (watched by more than 8 million people to date), the blond video blogger chokes back tears as mascara streams down his face, lambasting those who have criticised the singer.“Her song is called 'Gimme More,’ ’cause all you people want is more, more, more, more, more ... you’re lucky she even performed for you bastards!” he shrieks. Crocker has now been approached by a reality television company 44 Blue Productions to follow the YouTube star’s life as a persecuted gay man in a small Bible Belt town.
Now listen up!
The world is screwed.
How is this news? Its bad enough we have celebrity blogs covering Britneys performance now we have to see this freakin' asshole too. Now don’t be hating Stan!! I don't care that Crocker's gay or that he wears dresses, I do care that he has a persecution complex about everything and feels obligated to whore himself out for attention at every opportunity. I just feel someone should send him to boot camp. He might just like it...If you know what I’m saying.
Goddamnit, the power of the internets means that this man could go far....Scary, isn’t it?

In a world that stinks to high heaven….a book that offers hope

2007-09-18T17:52:00.000+01:00

I don’t give a crap about this. Nor this shit. And this guy can take a hike too.
What concerns me is something much closer to home...a matter that stares us all in the face at some point or other.
In communities everywhere, dog owners just don't seem to bother to pick up after their dogs-and the poo is everywhere - on the grass next to the street when you park the car, at the playgroup, at the park and down the street on the sidewalk(fact:it is estimated there are 7.4 million dogs in the UK. Together, they produce some 1,000 tonnes of faeces every day.There's a a pestilential plague of poo everywhere. But does that poop necessarily always belong to dogs? Not all of it, that’s for sure. Think about it. For my internets wife, Kitty, well, she might be faced by dingo turds, for example as she sashays her way to the mall. For my *special* friend Little Lamb, ovine fecal matter could be the order of the day everyday, and for Jenny! we could be talking about the droppings of any number of homeless people in the Windy City. Last but not least, there's Mr MightyDyckerson who has recently (perhaps unforgettably) covered this issue with a unique contribution all of his own. In future, you need never waste time speculating as to the origin of the turd on the grass in front of you or on the beach. Why? My friends, I present to you a comprehensive guide to identifying the droppings of every beast from aardvarks to yaks. A tome devoted to the animalistic turd in all its glory. An encyclopedia of excretion. A compendium of crap. A folio on faeces.The concept behind What Shat That? is a simple one: yearn no longer to merely identify the animal poop before you, learn to understand it. But,ladies and gentlemen, you really can learn a lot of serious and fascinating facts about nature in the book. It is surely a book that will be cherished by any nature-lover, amateur biologist or poop devotee and Christmas is not far way. Buy your loved ones some crap they can actually learn something from this Xmas.It really is not bad for a load of old poo. You could do worse.....I mean who would want to read this shit?

Taking aim....my kind of Milf

2007-09-12T06:28:00.000+01:00

Via the wonders of the internet, I have learned of a woman whose name is Eva. No, she isn’t a Russian chick seeking a husband. She is, however, blond, rich, famous, four-times married and mother of one child (ok, so the last two particulars are not exactly assets)As you have probably guessed already, I refer to German writer Eva Herman. A woman who is determined to bury feminism once and for all.Milf Eva is the author of the controversial bestseller "The Eva Principle" ("Das Eva Prinzip"), which takes a sledgehammer to modern feminist thinking. I truly despise feminists, not the garden variety “women should be equal” kind. I am talking here about the bitchy, stinky and furry, "all sex" is rape kind. Well, to hell with that kind of crap.Who needs it?
Eva Herman is leading a crusade. She feels that nothing less than the survival of Germany is at stake - Germans will "die out" if women don't change their behavior, she says. Herman sees herself as courageously breaking a "taboo" by criticizing women's liberation. She recommends women exchange the sterile sphere of work for the "colorful world of children" and discover their "destiny of nurturing the home environment." Actually, she has a point. Germany has the lowest birth rate in Europe, the population is getting older fast and is threatening to shrink yet further.But there’s more....Eva has just been fired from her job as a TV news presenter for remarks she made to a German newspaper at the weekend where she said "values like the family, children and motherhood, which were promoted in the Third Reich too, were later scrapped by the 68ers". OK, she made a PR screw-up. I never said she was perfect. I’m sure not all of what Herman has said is wrong, and much of it may have been taken out of context, but there’s certainly no “one size fits all” approach to family, parenting, and work. Am I right or am I right?

He's a freak...Convict him.

2007-09-06T18:36:00.000+01:00

The Phil Spector murder trial has been a freakin’ circus worthy of an appearance by Dyckerson himself. But before I dump a generous serving of crap on Phil....let me read the charge sheet.
For 25 years Phil Spector lived in a mansion in Beverly Hills. It was there that he masterminded his conquest of the pop charts in the 1960s and 1970s. It’s been 4 years since actress Lana Clarkson, a B-movie actress and model, was shot in the head in that same mansion. It was there that the Police found Spector hiding at the rear of his home, bloody and resisting arrest. He subsequently pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. Spector claimed Clarkson shot herself. That sounds a bit unlikely.The prosecution case, i.e., that Spector killed Clarkson because she rejected the Viagra-fueled sexual encounter he had planned, does sound more plausible....
First of all, Phil Spector looks like a creepy murderer. No woman would sit in a foyer of a house- let alone Phil Spector's house (well, look at the guy)-and say I'm gonna end it here,with Phil's gun, oh and I'm gonna blow my teeth out and wreck my face while I'm doing it. According to suicide experts, people - especially women, never hurt their face in the process of suicide.Second, Spector has a rich track record as a violent misogynist. The New York Post's has detailed how this man treated women and the behavior he got away with for so long.Spector now plans to wed his 25-year-old fiancee if he escapes the murder rap (!)Yesterday, in his closing argument,Alan Jackson, the lead prosecutor, appealed to the jury to use their "common sense" in deciding whether or not Spector is guilty of the murder of Lana Clarkson.Whatever the Jury's verdict, it's clear Phil’s hair has been dead since the early 80’s. How the hell could any right-minded lawyer let their client repeatedly appear in court looking like a total asshole?I have to admit Phil's hair weave on the lower left ....remains a personal favourite.

An Honourable Member

2007-09-03T11:22:00.000+01:00

It's a sad reality but men who troll for sex in public places, gay or "not gay," are, for the most part, upstanding citizens. In this regard, one might think of George Michael , LBJ aide Walter Jenkins, or global media mogul “Mighty” Dyckerson. There is, I have read, a delicate choreography involved in the men’s room “lewd conduct” tango. The various signals - the foot tapping, the hand waving and the body positioning - are all parts of a ritual of call and answer, an elaborate series of codes that require the proper response if things are to advance (if ya see what I mean). Put simply, a straight man would be left alone after that first tap or cough or look went unanswered.
Larry Craig will soon be an ex-U.S. Senator from Idaho. Larry is certainly a man with issues to resolve. He has faced rumors about his sexuality since the 1980s.In an interview on May 14 2007, Craig told the Idaho Statesman he'd never engaged in sex with a man or solicited sex with a man. Just a few short weeks later, Larry was arrested for being a homo bathroom cruiser trolling for action in the men's room of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He was arrested for tapping his foot, moving his hands and spreading his feet while taking a poop. Throw the book at him!Like Craig said, he didn't do anything. It’s not like he was getting a BJ or something.
Craig resigned Saturday over the men's room sex sting.....but Larry Craig should not have resigned because he has sex with other men. He should have resigned because he has consistently championed against gay rights, while getting his freak on in men's room stalls.
What lies ahead for ole Larry?
Broadway musicals, porn, or membership of the Village People, perhaps? So then we'll have the cop, the indian chief, the construction worker, cowboy, the sailor, the biker, and yes folks THE SENATOR!!!!

Public Service Announcement

2007-08-30T14:18:00.000+01:00

My wife- that’s Mrs Stan!! not to be confused with my virtual wife,Kitty- sometimes likes to utter profound comments along the lines of, “All men are crazy,” after which I usually throw something at her, such as a beer bottle, after which she smiles smugly and says, “See?”.
Au contraire, Mrs Stan!! After careful thought, prompted mainly by my sensitive post on Diana, Princess of Wales, and a few shots of Grey Goose, I have come to the conclusion that women are prone to insanity while we males are prone to divinely-inspired rational decision-making at all times.
First things first; hormones are the basis of moods in women. 'Balls (or should it be ovaries?) to that!As you may have noticed, the old hormones can affect everything from hunger and sleep to ambition and screwing. Then you have the menstrual cycles, which mean that women can have a different mood every week during a predictable cycle. God help us!And then we have pregnancy which may throw missy into a state of constant irritation, or turn her hyper-active and craving sex during every waking moment. Go figure, bro.
Then we are faced with the fact that women are insecure about everything....and I mean everything. Many of them have a constant worry that their men are going to leave ‘em, others are judging them, the bills won't get paid, or they'll screw up their kids. Actually, they might have a point with some of those concerns, especially the first two. My biggest complaint is this and I speak from years of experience with Mrs Stan!!-if you have an argument with a woman, she'll likely ask you hundreds of questions, some of which may not be connected to the current argument. What gives?
Not all women are crazy. Probably. We just need to focus more on learning how each other ticks. Remember:Stan is here to help and spread the love....Are you with me, people!

I just don't want to know....

2007-08-28T12:09:00.000+01:00

Many in Britain are currently wrapped up in a vomit-inducing nostalgia fest about Diana, Princess of Wales. It has been 10 years since her death in a Paris car crash, when many Britons were (strangely) crushed with grief over a troubled woman who was for many a style icon, charity worker, and tabloid celebrity.
Two major investigations by French and British police concluded that Princess Diana's death was a tragic accident, but 10 years on many remain convinced she was murdered in a sinister plot. In fact, Di’s death has spawned a world class outbreak of bat-shit mad conspiracy theories. My favourite one suggests leaders of a "new world order" assassinated her because she wouldn't marry former President Bill Clinton. Other theories claim that she was killed as part of a Satanic ritual, or even that she is still alive having faked her own death.
Frankly, I never liked Diana.I was never a fan. And I mean never. Diana was the product of very adept, high tech marketing and PR- nothing more; nothing less. She was of average to low intelligence. She was a self-obsessed moron who both courted media attention...and resented it when media attention didn’t suit her goals. She didn't deserve the accolades that seemed, to many, to be necessary whenever her name was mentioned after her death.
I think the Nation wept for Diana as it often does when any character from a long running Soap expires. Personally, I'd weep buckets of tears if Grey's Anatomy were ever cancelled. Does that make me gay?
I didn’t give a crap when Diana snuffed it and don’t give a crap about Diana now... Nor should you.

Mainstream

2007-08-23T09:52:00.000+01:00

The porn industry rakes in billions in revenue each year and has become increasingly mainstream. Actors show up on talk shows. Its showcases take over convention centres across much of the western world. Established corporations such as Time Warner, Inc., Marriott, DirectTV, and the Hilton hotel chain all depend on pornography as a major source of revenue.
Jenna Jameson. As I'm sure you know, she's a pretty popular porn star who wrote How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale -- a book that stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for six weeks a year or two ago.
Now she is to be the subject of a Hollywood biopic.
Even though the movie isn't even officially off the ground yet, a ton of names have already been kicked around including Scarlett Johansson, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Heather Graham, and Christina Aguilera.None of these ladies are “porn-star endowed”, since I think they are all sporting their natural curves. I wouldn't be surprised if Jessica Simpson took on the role. She might be refusing it now, but it isn't like she has many options career-wise.
I'm more perplexed by a different issue.
Who would want to see this film? I mean beyond the Showgirls type titillation. It just sounds like a sales-pitch for JJ and the porn industry. For two decades feminists have warned of the ways in which pornography—and now Internet pornography in particular—has lowered womens belief in their own sexual value. Pornography is the new crack cocaine, leading to addiction, misogyny, pedophilia,boob jobs and erectile dysfunction, according to many conservatives and the religiously minded.
Whatever way you think about it, porn has really broken into the mainstream in a way that would have seemed inconceivable 10 or 20 years ago. But what the fuck does that really say about the kind of societies we are living in?

The politician and the lap dancers

2007-08-20T10:09:00.000+01:00

Confounding his image as a squeaky clean, church-going family man, Australian opposition leader,Kevin Rudd has been forced to admit that he paid a visit to a strip club called Scores during a boozy night out in New York in 2003. Some of the ladies from Scores are pictured above-I've done my research.
Rudd has also been forced to deny claims that he had been cautioned by the club's bouncers for touching the strippers (!) He said he did not have a "completely clear recollection" of whether there were semi-naked women in the club or what they were doing(!)
Rudd also said he expected to "take a belting in the opinion polls" as a result of the revelation. Feedback to The Courier-Mail's website suggests, however, this attack on the Opposition Leader may have backfired. Of 450 responses, about 70 per cent were in Mr Rudd's favour, many claiming the strip club visit showed the Labor leader was "human".Even the Australian Christian Lobby managing director Jim Wallace has said people should remember that no one is perfect. That sounds about right to me...Does anybody really care what Rudd did? Should they?

Doust mine ass look biggeth within this?

2007-08-17T11:51:00.000+01:00

Listen up twenty-first century chicks....(but first,check out the "pair" of twenty-first century chicks to the left there)
Concerned about large or droopy breasts? Just bind them up in bandages for a few nights before washing them in white wine and rose water. (Having them tongue dried helps too, heh, heh...)But seriously, this is just one of the "helpful" suggestions in a 300-year-old book that you might call the Cosmopolitan of its day.
The Ladies Dictionary: Being a General Entertainment for the Fair Sex includes many of the hang-ups affecting modern women.(Source)
The author of the 1694 publication has some surprising suggestions on issues from diet to fashion and make-up to adultery. One remedy for the overweight involves bathing in claret and a list of ingredients you probably won't find in your local supermarket, including wormwood and something called "squinath" (male love juice perhaps). When it comes to a first date, the author asks: "Is it proper for a Woman to yield at the first address, though to a man she love?" In his opinion: "You'll get better Conditions if the Enemy does not know how weak you are within." Women are warned not to be tempted due to "dangerous consequences" and "dishonour it puts on your Sex". And in case you were considering adultery, forget it. Such affairs often end in "blood and disgrace", the writer warns. The book's advice on make-up is very simple - do not wear any. "A painted face is enough to destroy the Reputation of her that uses it," it says. On prostitution, he says it "causes a man to spend silver for flesh, till he becomes so lank that his legs are scarce able to support their late master" (!)
How far wrong can you go with advice like that?

Politician porks hooker

2007-08-14T10:56:00.000+01:00

No, Bill Clinton is not involved. It's all very sordid and involves a member of the Italian Parliament, Cosimo Mele. Mele, a married man with four kids, was caught out after a prostitute with whom he spent the night at a luxury Rome hotel overdosed on cocaine and had to be taken to hospital.
The prostitute, Francesca Zenobi, pictured above, has told investigators that the 50-year-old MP supplied her and a girlfriend who joined them at the hotel with the drugs.She also told them Mele failed to help her when she fell ill, an accusation which could complicate the MP’s position. Mele, who has campaigned in the past on the need to “defend our Christian values and identity”, has also been an advocate of drug-testing for members of the Italian Parliament.
What were you thinking of Cosimo, my man.....

The biggest pimp of them all

2007-08-10T10:32:00.000+01:00

Is there no decency left in this sick, sad world of ours? The British Department for Work and Pensions Jobcentre Plus website is currently hosting advertisements promising adults up to £100-an-hour for work at “escort agencies”. I have to say that I am shocked by these adverts which could lead countless men into lives of prostitution. One advert, promising £90-an-hour to over-18s in Cardiff, states: "Duties involve providing clients with a personal escort service in an unsupervised environment….Experience is preferred but is not essential. Duties will involve escorting and accompanying members of the public which may cause embarrassment to some people."At least, the hours are flexible I suppose. Big Brother will, of course, be taking his cut from the “earnings”.Perhaps I should freshen up my resumé...

Fake Orgasms

2007-08-07T13:31:00.000+01:00

Socrates, or perhaps it was Sharon Stone, once said: “Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake whole relationships.”
Actually, Men can fake relationships and fake orgasms, Sharon (although not the utterly honourable,Istanbul Tory, of course). A quarter of men have faked orgasms, according to a survey of 15,000 people polled by QueenDom.com a few years back. A British survey in 2004 found that 14 per cent of men who faked orgasms did so because they didn't want to explain to their partner why they hadn't climaxed.
The ladies don't appreciate this fakery apparently. But none of this matters. The point is that Istanbul Tory has been reading up on feminism lately (as you do). I’ve learned a lot. Fay Weldon suggests that sexual pleasure may be incompatible with high-powered careers and that women should simply accept they are less capable of being happy than men. Fay tells women not to expect orgasms but to fake them, and to praise their partner lavishly afterwards. Well, I’ll be darned.
That’s not a view that you normally associate with a woman who has been in the vanguard of feminism for four decades (boy, is she showing her age).
Take Fay on shopping: 'The urge to acquire is in your genes,' she writes. 'Don't beat yourself up about it. Just remember, 12 pairs of shoes is fine but 24 pairs is pushing it.' The American feminist Camille Paglia (a self-described 'feminist bisexual egomaniac') has lauded Fay’s book and its author for its courage. 'It's an important point that the career woman may often end up alone,' she reckons. 'That scenario needs to be put to younger women as they begin making their choices about life’. That sort of ties in with the thinking of Michael Noer, the news editor of Forbes.com, who caused his own furore last year by advising male readers to steer clear of ambitious women or face a lifetime of misery and discord.
Which is only common sense, when you think about: If the man has a career, and the woman has a career, neither one is going to want to clean the toilet. And who wants to live in a nasty-ass house like that? Not that we have this problem chez Istanbul Tory as both I and Mrs IT (Peace Be Upon her)leave toilet-cleaning to the servants.
This feminism thing is all a bit confusing if you ask me.

Disentangling men and women

2007-08-05T12:30:00.000+01:00

I am not remotely keen on the idea…. but there does seem to be something of a world-wide debate on the benefits of having women-only spaces as a means of dealing with sexual harrassment.
There are plenty of places- hotels, trains, beaches, swimming pools- in plenty of countries which are now women-only. The male of the species is verboten. Are segregated spaces the way forward? Is this what we have come to? Can this really be "progress"? It all sounds a bit Saudi Arabian to me….and yet another issue where the global Left seem to be of a similar view to the Mohammedans.

Healey is bang on and Boris takes some flak

2007-08-04T11:06:00.000+01:00

I am seething with anger. But first things first.Today’s Guardian contains a rather brilliant interview with Labour Party elder Denis Healey in which he reflects on a political career that seems to stretch back as far as the late-Victorian period. Anyway, Healey quite rightly describes our former PM, Mr Bliar as “bullshit and nothing else”. Indeed, those words should be engraved on TB’s tombstone.Talking of bullshit, Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered teenager, Stephen Lawrence, has been busy putting the boot in on Tory mayoral hopeful Boris Johnson. Ms Lawrence has said: "Boris Johnson is not an appropriate person to run a multi-cultural city like London... He is definitely not the right person to even be thinking to put his name forward…”She added "there is no way he is going to get the support of any people in the black community".

Apparently, she thinks that Boris is not up to running London because he once criticised aspects of the Macpherson Public Inquiry into the racist killing of her son. Boris rightly claimed some of the Inquiry’s recommendations were born of political correctness. As you may recall, the Macpherson report accused the police of "institutionalised racism". The Inquiry has certainly affected police morale and their ability to fight crime. Following the report, many officers are afraid of using their stop and search powers.Yes, Boris can’t be mayor because he isn’t…..politically correct enough.

And just look at the timing.

On Thursday, Ken Livingstone said Boris Johnson would be a "formidable" opponent. He also said he was "halfway through" reading all Mr Johnson's newspaper and magazine columns over the past 20 years - Mr Johnson was once editor of Spectator - and said his rival made right-wing Conservative peer Norman Tebbit "look like a cuddly liberal".

On Friday, Doreen Lawrence lashes out….
The strength of this (coordinated?) attack so early in the campaign also indicates that Livingstone and the London left and its allies view Boris as a serious contender for the capital’s top job. Boris should be prepared for plenty of more incoming fire.

The worst of it is that we now have a political culture in which anyone who dissents from the leftish orthodoxy is pilloried, and anyone who articulates the real concerns of people in the country is denounced as beyond the pale.

This is no way to conduct debate.....

Jihad: The Musical......Outrageous!

2007-08-02T13:57:00.000+01:00

As if the Edinburgh Festival Fringe wasn't sufficient.....now we have the Islam Festival Edinburgh running at Central Mosque Edinburgh from 1st to 31st August. This Islam Festival is part of something known as the Festival of Peace and Spirituality, run by the Edinburgh Inter Faith Association(and if they are not fully signed-up dhimmis I'll eat my sporan). An Islamic exhibition will also be held throughout the Festival Fringe.
Apparently, many Scottish Muslims are up in arms about the staging of a satirical musical about "Islamic extremists" at the (real)Edinburgh Fringe.The satirical show, Jihad the Musical, had its world premiere on Wednesday, August 1. Featuring songs such as 'I wanna be like Osama' , it tells the story of Afghan peasant Sayid who is entrapped and then "brainwashed" by "jihadis" seeking to blow up targets in the West. The British writer of the Lyrics, Zoe Samuel, has argued that the performance would appeal to the British tradition of laughing in the face of adversity.
Many Scottish Muslims, sensitive souls that they are, see the musical as upsetting as it makes fun of a serious problem.If they are fearful of this musical perhaps they should be given sensitivity training to help them combat their musicaliphobia....and why do they think punters at the Fringe will be remotely interested in an exhibition about Islam( especially in the wake of the June 30th terrorist attempt at Glasgow airport?)
Who has the greater right to be offended here?

Condi gets it badly wrong....

2007-07-28T13:21:00.000+01:00

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (pictured here with another prime chump) has apparently flipped and done a Tony Blair.

To my horror, it seems as if Condi has become a fully-fledged dhimwit (i.e.-A non-Muslim member of a free society that abets the stated cause of Islamic domination with remarkable gullibility or guile. A dhimwit is always quick to extend sympathy to the very enemy that would take away his or her own freedom (or life) if given the opportunity) (Source)

Speaking to the the US-funded Al-Hurra satellite channel on Thursday, Condi said that Islam was "a great faith and a peaceful faith".

No, Condi. Islam is not always a religion of peace.Is Condi not aware that in Egypt, Christians are treated as second-class citizens? Believers are frequently attacked byIslamic zealots. There are reports of Christian females being raped and made to marry Muslims. The Coptic Church, the largest body of believers in the Middle East, is persecuted continually. Some Coptics have been put in prison for "inciting intercommuncal strife." In the Al-Hurra interview, Condi also declared that "Islam is a very fast-growing religion in the United States", and characterised Muslims as a well-integrated part of American society. Clearly, Condi is not very well informed on these issues....

Has Condiforgotten what so many others have not ...........

And particularly if you are British, go take a look here.

Remember him?

2007-07-20T12:18:00.000+01:00

Amid the furore over the fact that no charges will be brought against the three people arrested in the cash for honours inquiry, many have failed to notice that Blair started his new job as Middle East Quartet envoy on Thursday. The Quartet -- the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations -- is hoping (some hope) to pave the way for new peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The “peace makers” have decided there will be no dealings with the Islamist movement Hamas. Israel is delighted. Sounds like a promising start, doesn’t it? The Americans have also made it crystal clear that Tony has no real authority to lead or shape the political track within the negotiations. Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has said that Blair's role is "something that is completely complementary" rather than being key to the process. Ouch....
Columnist Rami Khouri wrote in Beirut's Daily Star: "If there is an award for the combined negative credibility of an institution plus an individual, the Quartet and Blair should be its first recipients. Appointing Tony Blair as special envoy for Arab-Israeli peace is something like appointing the Emperor Nero to be the chief fireman of Rome." That would sum things up rather well in my view.

Tone's post-No 10 vanity job is slowly evolving into a non-job. How long until he jacks it all in for the lecture circuit? It won't be long now...

Kicking the buggers out...

2007-07-16T12:06:00.000+01:00

Nearly 100 MPs (mostly Labourites) are backing a call for up to 500,000 illegal immigrants to be given the right to stay in Britain. The call for an amnesty is being led by the Institute of Public Policy Research. They reckon that an amnesty would bring in up to £1 billion in extra tax revenue.
An amnesty would only be worth doing if it solved the problem. But an amnesty will achieve nothing because the group of “amnestied” illegal immigrants would simply be replaced by another group. Italy has had five amnesties in the last 20 years and Spain has had six. Each time, there have been surges in more illegal immigrants - now having reached 700,000 in Spain's case. It's worked to attract people to those countries
However, the major risk for successive governments (like the rest of us) is that even to raise the issue of immigration & asylum is to run the risk of being unfairly branded a "racist". The "race industry", justifiably, wrings its collective hands about the damage done to the indigenous cultures of the Maori, Australian aborigine, native americans etc.

Is UK/Western culture any less valid?And why aren’t we doing more to protect it?It's not a question of 'the economy' - its a question of social cohesion, the survival of our culture, history, identity, - our right to be ourselves, think the way we want to in our own country. Nothing more, nothing less....

Labour’s lack of soul....

2007-07-14T11:39:00.000+01:00

"The party I lead must have more than a set of policies, we must have a soul," said Gordo when he was “elected” as Labour Party leader.....
What does the “soul” of Gordo’s Labour party actually look like?
We learn today that the Commission for Racial Equality has just made a formal complaint to the Welsh Labour Party concerning a poster about Gypsy travellers used during an ongoing council by-election campaign.

Labour also appears to have failed to check up on some of the types who attend their (cough) fund raising events. Ah, the soul of Gordo.

Playing the race card and consorting with rapists, surely not.

So much for the "people’s party".

It’s an empire...

2007-07-12T13:27:00.000+01:00

As Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern rightly pointed out at the end of June, the new European Union treaty contains 90 percent of the policies, goals and ideals of the EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005. This is the same treaty that Blair said was "good for the UK". Blair, of course, proudly surrendered Britain's right to veto EU decisions in more than 40 other areas of policy including energy, tourism, space policy, transport, civil protection and migration as part of the treaty negotiations.
It’s long been clear that the objective of the European Union is to establish itself as the new Roman Empire. Now it’s official.
European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has suggested the EU is the first "non-imperial empire". Barroso also said "We are a very special construction unique in the history of mankind,". Unique is hardly the word.....

On the job....

2007-07-11T11:29:00.000+01:00

Time for a "clunking fist"....

A Welsh primary school head teacher jailed for a car crash which left another man in a wheelchair for life will not lose his job it has now emerged. Paul Davies was sentenced for 15 months after a 120mph crash in May when he was said to have driven like a “boy racer”. Passengers from two other cars were also injured in the incident. Interestingly enough, this is a case that Magistrates didn't want to touch at first.South Wales Police has had to apologise for the particularly inept way it handled the case.
Paul Davies has been told by school governors his job will be kept open while he is banged up. Davies, denied he had been driving dangerously during the court case (although he claims to have no recollection of the incident) . The judge told him he must serve at least half the 15-month sentence.
But at least, he will have a comfortable job to go back to on release....and he's not alone. In fact, UK public sector workers always want to get back to work ASAP whatever they may have done. And I mean we are talking serious negligence here and here.
Perhaps, there's hope for the "doctors of death" yet.
Alas, Gordon Brown seems to be focused on other more pressing matters.

2007-07-09T12:25:00.000+01:00

‘just back from Lesbos. And feeling all the better for having spent quality time among its charming natives.

Time for a fully-justified rant……“PM” Gordon Brown now wants to adopt a strong position on combating the terrorist threat by calling for a new world-wide database on suspects. Interpol has said it already had the passport numbers, fingerprints and photos of more than 11,000 suspected terrorists on its database. Amazingly, Britain does not check this register against immigrants coming into the country or foreign nationals it has arrested.

Furthermore, Blair casually signed away the UK veto over control of immigration policy at the EU Summit in June.That got me to thinking about what might happen if Turkey (a country with vast problems ) ever managed to enter the EU. Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, once headed a panel investigating potential migration from Turkey to the EU and concluded that 2.7 million Turkish migrants, about four percent of the Turkish population might emigrate to the EU. While President Sarko is leading a courageous charge against Turkey's EU membership, the EU institutions are fighting back in Turkey's defence.

Given that the UK currently has no immigration controls whatsoever, Istanbul Tory is genuinely mystified that nobody in Blighty seems to be bothered about the implications of Turkey joining the EU....

Life after Lesbos...

2007-07-09T12:02:00.000+01:00

‘just back from Lesbos. And feeling all the better for having spent quality time among the natives of the island. Time for a fully-justified rant……
“PM” Gordon Brown wants to adopt a strong position on combating the terrorist threat by calling for a new world-wide database on suspects. Interpol has said it already had the passport numbers, fingerprints and photos of more than 11,000 suspected terrorists on its database. Apparently, Britain does not check this register against immigrants coming into the country or foreign nationals it has arrested.Furthermore, Blair casually signed away the UK veto over control of immigration policy at the EU Summit in June.
And think what might happen if Turkey managed to enter the EU. Conservative estimates estimate that 1 million Turks would migrate westwards if the country ever entered the EU. Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, headed a panel investigating potential migration from Turkey to the EU and concluded that 2.7 million Turkish migrants, about four percent of the Turkish population might emigrate to the EU. Surveys in Turkey have indicated that up to 30% of Turkish youth would migrate in search of higher wages.
While President Sarko is leading a courageous charge against Turkish EU membership, the EU institutions are fighting back.
Given that the UK currently has no immigration controls whatsoever, there should be genuine concern about the idea of Turkey ever entering the EU. Strangely, nobody in Blighty seems to have the remotest idea of what might be at stake….Istanbul Tory is mystified.

The Shape of things to come…..

2007-07-03T13:10:00.000+01:00

I am currently idling away a few weeks on Turkey's Aegean coast line and was not planning to blog excessively. But "events" have intervened....

This morning, “PM” Gordon Brown said: "It is clear that we are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with al-Qaeda….”
The terrorist plot to bring car bombs to the streets of Glasgow and London appears to have brought together doctors from Jordan and Iraq. It is interesting to note that most of the suspects arrested so far are not British nationals and appear to have entered the UK only within the last 3 or 4 years. The main source of immigration into Blighty is not from asylum but from the Government's policy of increasing the numbers of people allowed to settle here from non-EU countries. The country is currently taking in more than 150,000 people a year.
We will all have to live with the consequences of this singularly misguided policy....

In France, by contrast, President Sarko has just set tough new quotas for the number of illegal immigrants authorities should arrest and expel each month. Brice Hortefeux, who heads the newly created Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development, has said a monthly quota also would be set for ferreting out those employed in France illegally. The French government is also planning to offer incentives to more immigrants to return home voluntarily. Under the scheme, Paris will provide each family with a nest egg of €6,000 ($8,000) for when they go back to their country of origin.

I think the French might be on to something....

In with the new....hold on.

2007-06-28T16:44:00.000+01:00

Gordon has been busy wielding the reshuffle knife with real aplomb. Despite the "pyschological flaws" or maybe because of them, Gordo has taken admirably to the shedding of Bliarite gristle and fat. TB never could cut and slice with any flair and preferred mincing his way through serial reshuffle failures (to whit, Mags Beckett as Foreign Secretary). At least, GB has disposed of the hapless Beckett. It seems like a relatively "new" Cabinet has just about slithered into sight. Or has it?

Someone called Jacqui Smith, formerly the Chief Whip by all accounts, is now Home Secretary. David Miliband becomes the youngest Foreign Secretary since the appointment of the 38-year-old Dr. David Owen in 1977 (we all know how well that ended up). Darling's the Chancellor of the Exchequer (more like Co-Chancellor given that GB won't be sacrificing any Treasury turf). Brownite lickspittle Balls is to head up the newly-created Department for Children and Schools. His missus, Ms. Cooper also has some kind of role as Housing Minister, without full Cabinet rank. Hain and Johnson have been shifted sideways. Ruth Kelly and Blears (against all the odds) remain in the Cabinet. A former, cough, BBC man, James Purnell becomes Culture Secretary. Benn the Younger is promoted to Environment. The Machievelli of NuLabour, Jack Straw stages something of a come back. Fine.

But what in the name of God is Geoff Hoon (see here, here and here ) doing back in the Cabinet as Chief Whip and why is Des Browne (see here , here , here) still Defence Secretary? Where are "all the talents" with that pair? Everyone thought that these two co-conspirators in NuLabourism were serving out their last days on political death row. Gordo says he is all about change. Don't believe the hype.

Good riddance....

2007-06-27T14:07:00.000+01:00

We did try to warn you in '97, 2001 and 2005 but you wouldn't listen.

May God forgive him.....I won't.

Perhaps Yates of the Yard will catch up with him yet.

No respite from Blair

2007-06-26T09:32:00.000+01:00

When John Major left 10 Downing Street in 1997, he gracefully retired to the cricket fields. Tony has no such plan. Alas, Blair retains an almost mystical belief in his personal greatness in foreign affairs. Despite the fact that his foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster. Our forces are bogged down across the globe. The UK has not been able to extract itself from a single one of the countries Blair has invaded: Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

TB is now set to carve out a new role as a (part-time) Middle East mediator according to several media reports. The idea is reportedly strongly backed by George W. Bush who is believed to have head hunted TB for the role (that will go down well on the Arab street). Israel has supported the move. So too has the semi- defunct Palestinian Authority (or at least, the bit of it not run by the Hamas Islamic republic). Syria and Lebanon take a distinctly less enthusistic view of Blair getting involved. In any case, neither Syria or Iran is remotely interested in seeing a long term resolution to the Palestinian problem, i.e, Blair has signed up for a no-hoper of a mission.
Blair is apparently oblivious of the fact that he is despised only slightly less than George W. throughout the Middle East and the wider Islamic world. What does he think he will be able to achieve where so many others have failed? Can the Israel-Palestinian conflict really be solved by a part-timer? Does Blair not recall that his last official visit to the region was an utter failure? And don’t the Blairs have mortgage debts approaching £5 million? This part-time Saving the Middle East number is not going to bring in the big bucks. A penny for Cherie’s thoughts....

Blair submitts

2007-06-23T12:07:00.000+01:00

"I am sorry that Mr. Blair is going; he has always been a man who sought compromise in Europe," said President Sarkozy as the EU barely reached agreement on a blueprint for a new intergovernmental treaty.

The media consensus is that Blair largely succeeded in sticking to the four "red line" conditions he set for agreement on the new treaty -- that Britain would not cede control over foreign policy, its judicial and police system, tax and social security rules, and an EU charter of fundamental rights.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The problem is that Blair surrendered Britain’s right to veto EU decisions in 52 areas of policy including energy, tourism, space policy, transport, civil protection and migration. TB has signed up to giving Europe a Legal Personality, which makes it a state in its own right. TB has also signed up to French demands for changes in the competition laws that will harm British business. There will also be an EU Foreign Minister in all but name. A Common Defence Policy seems to be inevitable. According to Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, it is all for the "good of the citizens."

No wonder the EU leaders will miss St. Anthony of Baghdad.

Gordon Brown meme

2007-06-21T20:03:00.000+01:00

I have been tagged by Ellee on the things Gordon Brown should be. I believe this is what is known as a "meme" ( which also happens to be the Turkish word for “Breast” you'll be interested to learn):

Proud of:
Unlike Tony, Brown has generally adopted a more sceptical - or, as he calls it, "cautious" – approach to the EU. TB never really wised up.

Apologise for:
*He should apologise for what Lord Turnbull permanent secretary to the Treasury for four years under Mr Brown, described as Gordo’s "Stalinist ruthlessness" in government, and a "very cynical view of mankind and his colleagues". He should apologise for the way he has extended his influence to every aspect of government activity. Usually with terrible results.
*He should apologise for the 100 or so stealth tax rises since 1997 that have made the UK economy less competitive and hit family incomes hard.
* Last year, the forward accounted national debt (including public sector pensions and PFI and other "off-the-books" liabilities) was almost 105% of GDP. This year it's passed 125%. Totally unacceptable.

Do immediately when he becomes PM:
*Call an early general election….which, of course, he won’t do.
*Bury the control freakery (it is, however, deeply ingrained in his personality), abandon the spin, counter-spin, dodgy dossier approach to government.

Things he should do whilst PM:
*Abolish the Council Tax rather than just tinker with it. Which Gordo won’t do.
* He should withdraw British troops from Iraq within 12 months in order to concentrate on Afghanistan. Which he will do (IMHO).
*Take a tough, unyielding, no surrender line against the re-emerging Franco-German axis within the EU. I am hopeful he will do the right thing…

*Pass legislation allowing the people of Britain to have a referendum on the approval/rejection of countries wishing to join the EU.

I shall tag EU Serf if he is still around.....

Cross-dressing...not my kind of thing

2007-06-20T09:14:00.000+01:00

Political cross dressing is all the rage these days (more on the religious variant later). First President Sarko was at it. He has been busy bringing all kinds of lefty/centrist lowlife into his government in order to build a consensus for wide-ranging economic and political reform. Now it seems that Fife’s proudest son has had a similar brainwave. Politics should be bipartisan Gordo has declared. Lib Dems ought to be house trained and bribed/brought into the Cabinet…and soon. On the record, the Lib demmers are having none of it:
“…We are an independent party which firmly disagrees with Labour and Gordon Brown on the issue of Iraq, civil liberties, including ID cards and 90-day detention, nuclear power and council tax to name but a few."

Blah, blah…..the Libs would sell their souls to Cherie Blair or even Beelezebub himself in exchange for a few seats in the Cabinet. Although the Libbers would do well to remember that Blair had made extravagant coalition promises to them on the eve of the 1997 election…and then promptly shafted them good and proper after getting a landslide majority. But then Ming might be tempted to succumb to Gordo’s dubious temptations …..after all, more than a half of Liberal Democrat voters believe that Sir Menzies Campbell should be replaced as party leader. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
It’s not just politics that is infected with cross-dressing. The Anglican community is, as we all know, a pretty desperate place these days. And at least the American bit of it is prone to a spot of cross-dressing unique it is absurdity. It seems that one Anglican woman priest…..brace yourselves….also happens to be a part-time Muslim. Islam takes a decidely dim view of inter-faithism as far as IstanbulTory is aware…..but that apparently poses no problems to the wilder edges of American Anglicanism. Whatever would His Grace say? Personally, I am not one in favour of consorting with the enemy......

Reflections on a possible renaissance

2007-06-19T21:58:00.000+01:00

I might stage a come back. If you'll have me back that is. I have been "resting" of late. Times have been tough. A long night of the soul that has lasted 3 months. But some of the old anger is building up. The old urge to vent erudite bile is coming back.....

The War on Heterosexuality

2007-03-16T14:52:00.000Z

The Polish Ministry of Education is working on a bill which will result in school headmasters risking dismissal for allowing gay propaganda in state schools. According to Krzysztof Bosak an MP from the League of Polish Families, part of the ruling government coalition:"Gay activists want to impose on society the view that homosexuality is normal. But social science brings evidence to the contrary. We see how gay lifestyle destroys people's health, we see higher levels of pathologies, addictions, suicides, violence and abuse among people who embrace the homosexual lifestyle. This is definitely not something to be presented to our children as normal, natural and healthy." Mr Bosak specifically refers to our dear old England where “… a program was devised for children to learn gay and lesbian history, which had very little to do with history or science and everything to do with an ideology that is harmful to children….”

I am not sure if I am very keen on this kind of thing either....Indeed, the proponents of this kind of sinister initiative need to understand that the only bigotry involved is precisely their own: abuse of state power to indoctrinate children into a subversive moral perspective from which dissent is neither permitted or tolerated. How very NuLabour. This week brought word that British 3-year olds are to be given citizenship lessons and fairytales are to be reworked to include homosexual themes. I feel like the world is going mad. Well Britain is at least. Dunno if that makes me 'homophobic', and I don't care either, really.

Gordo: Still crazy after all these years....

2007-03-12T04:32:00.000Z

David Cameron appears to have seriously rattled Gordo's cage. Yesterday, Stephen Hale, director of the Green Alliance, said that Conservative proposals on aviation fuel "would take them ahead of where the government are at present, if they see it through".

Today in a speech to the Green Alliance GB is set to call for a "new world order" (a rather unfortunate choice of phrase) to combat climate change. Interestingly, all Labour manifestos published before the last three general elections contained the promise to deliver a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010, compared with 1990 levels. The fact that the UK is presently at about minus 6% compared with 1990, and that in the last couple of years emissions have increased seems not to worry Gordo overly. In fact, the Government has had a poor track record on matters environmental for quite some time. Right since its first term in office. Fear not! Gordo, who has only been a member of the Cabinet for the last 10 years, is set to ride to the rescue. Things can only get better...obviously. In his speech today, the Chancellor will highlight the Government's role in new European emissions standards and call for the UN to prioritise the fight against global warming. A Tory Government would have "no credibility, no influence and no achievements" within the EU, he will say. "Let us also be clear: only a government fully committed to the UK's role in Europe can show such leadership..." Gordo appears to be unaware that the EU is both seriously divided over how to proceed on the environment and (of course) seriously incompetent in tackling the issue. The UN too is hardly noted for its successful leadership on the environment. So there we have it- Gordon's solutions to the problem of global environmental change rest with the EU and the UN. As far as Britain's membership of the European Union is concerned, the popular trend in the UK is strongly towards increasing scepticism about the value of Britain's membership of the European Union. Alas, GB seems not to have noticed. He'll be coming out in favour of the Euro next. Bring it on Gordo, bring it on!

A few observations on the nature of idiocy

2007-03-10T16:17:00.000Z

London Mayor/Clown Prince Ken Livingstone has been invited to advise politicians and business leaders on how to make the most of Edinburgh's "capital city" status. I seem to remember KL describing Scots as whingers and subsidy junkies taking money out of Londoners pockets not so long ago….I also seem to remember his suspension from office for comparing a Jewish journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard. As mayor, his flagship policy has been congestion charging for central London. The congestion charge should IMHO be scrapped as Londoners are paying to use roads twice i.e. road tax and the congestion charge. If the congestion charge is going to stay then road tax should be scrapped and there should be a pay-as-you-go system in its place. If you include council tax then London motorists are paying three times to use London roads. Ken would, of course, also prefer that his constituents didn't flush their toilets so much. Obviously, Edinburgh has much to learn from Ken. If the GLA was disbanded then think of how much more money local authorities would have and Londoners could save.
No-one is to be arrested over the Celebrity Big Brother racism row, it was announced yesterday. Hertfordshire Police said: "Following consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, it was felt that it would not be in the public interest to effect arrests or to pursue footage through the courts." The whole investigation was (predictably) a complete and utter waste of taxpayers money. The CPS are like the Police 'honour bound' (unfortunately) to 'Investigate all race hate crimes'. It is now possible for anyone (other than WASPs and Catholics of course) to have their moment of glory. On the upside, at least, we in Turkey can tune into You Tube again....the ban has been lifted. For now.

Life without You Tube

2007-03-07T19:18:00.000Z

I don't tend to foray much into Turkish matters on this blog as you will have noticed. Unless I feel particularly infuriated about goings on in these parts. Today, I have good cause to be infuriated. An Istanbul court has issued an order denying access to YouTube following an escalating dispute between Greek and Turkish users of the site. The last time I checked , the ban was still in force. For devoted supporters of Turkey’s EU bid, the very fact that I can’t really comment much on this particular story should tell you something….And then there's this. Depressing, isn't it?

Lord Levy- a victim? 'don't think so....

2007-03-07T04:52:00.000Z

Lord Levy, the Labour fundraiser at the heart of the cash-for-peerages storm, has given a veiled warning that a series of leaks about the affair could prejudice any criminal action against him. Indeed, the risk of the legal process collapsing has led to speculation that Downing Street officials have deliberately orchestrated the leaks. That much is clear….but now there’s more.
For there has also been a suggestion from Lord Levy's rabbi that anti-semitism could be behind the "smear" campaign. Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet said: "It does become very damaging to Anglo-Jewry in particular... and the wider public when we have this running on." Rabbi Schochet said he did not believe the leaks came from No 10, but rather other "sinister" corners. Some people in the Jewish community can really be pathetic when it comes to these issues. It isn't racism. Someone has attempted to pervert the course of justice. They could be a black lesbian or white heterosexual: It would make no difference. But “sinister” corners …… come off it. Levy has complained before that he was the victim of a dirty tricks campaign. When he sold his business in 1988, he had paid £2.5 million in taxes but had paid very little in 2000 because most of his capital was invested in "two very, very nice residences" that didn't bring him any income. With a fortune of more than £10 million behind him, it has been alleged that he paid only £5,000 in tax during the financial year 1998-99 - equivalent to the tax paid on a salary of £21,000. “Sinister”, some might say...

The Madness of Ming

2007-03-05T06:06:00.000Z

“Ming Campbell is one of the most respected and successful politicians of his generation.” So says the modest biography on Ming’s web site.

So "successful" that Ming the Merciless has clearly indicated his party would turn to Labour not the Tories in the event of a hung parliament. It has emerged that even proportional representation (surely a non-negotiable plank of Lib Dem policy if ever there was one) for general elections would not be set as a condition for a coalition as far as Ming the Old is concerned. In other words, Campbell is open to offers from Gordo... How times have changed since Ming’s leadership election campaign…

Given that two of the three latest opinion polls show that the Conservatives are heading for a parliamentary majority, the Left are clearly much more rattled and dispirited than I had previously thought. Would the Libs really be intent on clinging to a discredited Broon government after the 2009 General Election? Could they really get into bed with the party that has brought us the Iraq war and ID cards? Is there no honour in the Lib ranks? Erm, no there probably isn’t…And in any case, hasn’t the “real Ming” been dead since 1974?

The Lib Dems are being led by an imposter. Or at the very least by someone who has read the political runes and understood that the Tories won't need the Lib Dems after the next General Election. As we all know, the Libs would sell their soul to the devil for ministerial jobs. Then again, so would New Labour. It'll make for a perfect political marriage...and a Conservative landslide soon after.

Sex doesn't sell...

2007-02-28T14:53:00.000Z

It’s not only the Labour Party that seems to be a little on the flaccid side these days. Europe’s largest sex shop chain Beate Uhse (in which the wonderfully named Dutch pornography entrepreneur Gerard Cok holds a 20.8 percent stake) , is having to close down its stores aimed at women due to, erm, a flagging performance. The price of Beate Uhse stock has plunged from its high of 29 euros at the company's stock market flotation to a very deflated 3.95 euros in November 2006. Surely, the idea of a sex shop chain trying to embrace female customers was not the brightest of corporate decisions in the first place. Or am I misreading the female psyche? Cue our friend from "Down Under", MsSmack….

Rumblings....

2007-02-28T14:32:00.000Z

Ex-Home Secretary Charles Clarke and former Party Chairman Alan Milburn have called for an "open debate" on Labour's future. They say that after ten years in office Labour had to show that it had the "vision and policies" for Britain's future. In other words, they are trying to search out a “Stop Gordo” candidate. One cannot but help sense the hand of His Tonyness in this affair. Yet the only potential challenger for the Labour leadership is Environment Secretary Miliband who has publicly ruled out standing for the leadership or the deputy's job. Or can he be persuaded to think again? Will Gordo be pipped at the post? Surely, Gordo is the "ideal candidate"……at least, from our perspective.

To hell with Margaret Beckett’s privacy, what about ours?

2007-02-26T06:37:00.000Z

For those who may have suspected my untimely demise, fear not. Istanbul Tory remains firmly in the land of the living after grappling with a nasty bout of flu…

As Foreign Secretary, the wonderfully equine (check out her teeth in that photo) Margaret Beckett has impressed few. Yesterday brought news that the (less than stellar)impressionist, Rory Bremner had tricked Beckett into a string of indiscreet observations about government colleagues by pretending to be Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, during a telephone call in 2005. Mrs Beckett yesterday accused the impressionist of "an unprincipled and unpleasant breach of privacy". No, Mags, an “unprincipled and unpleasant breach of privacy” is what your Government is inflicting on the British people. It is NuLabour that has chosen to link the introduction of ID cards and a National Identity Register to the renewal of passports. The NIR (National Identity Register) - the individual checking and numbering of the population - will be the key to a total life history of every individual, to be retained even after death. Within a matter of weeks new adult passport applicant will be forced to travel to Identity and Passport Service interrogation Centres for an intrusive face-to-face "interview". The interview procedure will involve extensive questioning, such as about home addresses for the last few years, family details, education records, etc. Leaked Home Office documents describe these interviews as "intrusive", and admit that they will slow down the passport application process from ten days to six weeks or more.

You know where you can shove your privacy, Mags, don’t you?
Still, Beckett has begun to shine in more literary pursuits and has just written the introduction to a new book on caravanning, intriguingly titled Teach Yourself Caravanning. Beckett's spokeswoman said last night. "She was very happy to do it because caravanning has given her so much pleasure and she hopes others will be able to get the same enjoyment from it." Well, it’s nice to know she is good at something…

You will be angry....

2007-02-21T09:22:00.000Z

On the matter of dealing with paedophiles, I am firmly of the view that the full application of Islamic law has much to commend it. No need for expensive treatment programmes, group discussion and individual psycho-therapy, or conditioning methods.Alas, the Scottish Executive takes a different view. Cathy Jamieson, the Scottish justice minister/former social worker/walking disaster, yesterday rejected a suggestion by a Scottish Parliament committee that aimed to give police additional powers to enter the home of a registered sex offender without a warrant where there are concerns about the safety of a child in the area. This came in the wake of a review by members of the Scottish Parliament into child sex offenders ( following the murder of eight-year-old Mark Cummings, who was killed by a known sex offender, who lived in the same tower block in Glasgow) At the same time, Wikipedia reports Jamieson has “used her ministerial position to promote legislation that would target many sado-masochists and fetishists by proposing to criminalise possession of so-called "extreme pornography". A minister with interesting priorities it would seem. Jamieson has plenty of form you won't be surprised to learn. ( See here )

The bottom line is that there is no fool proof system of keeping children safe from paedophiles because we do not know the identities of all of them. Thus, the police need extraordinary powers….any failure to act would be inexcusable.

Cherie administers the kiss of death

2007-02-19T19:27:00.000Z

The radiantly lovely Cherie Blair leant her support to Labour’s shambolic Welsh Assembly election campaign today with a visit to a seat that Labour is likely to lose. Cardiff North tops the Conservatives’ target list for the Welsh assembly election in May. After Cherie’s visit I’m sure Labour can pretty much classify Cardiff North in the unwinnable column. The Welsh Labour Party has, of course, requested Tony not to visit during the campaign. They are shedding enough support as it is. Cherie was, however, uncharacteristically tight-lipped during her visit to Cardiff, refusing to give her views on the competition to succeed John Prescott when asked if the next deputy Labour leader should be a woman. What she did say was “We have got so many great women in the Labour Party including of course, a third of all ministers are women.”
Not so sure about the use of the word “great”….Think about it.

There’s Mags Beckett, the Foreign Secretary

There’s Patsy Hewitt, the Health Secretary

There’s Ruth Kelly, cabinet secretary for something quite obscure but I can never quite remember what

There’s Hazel Blears, Chair of the Labour Party

There’s Harriet Harman, the Solicitor General

And last but not least, there’s Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary

Of course, there’s a stack more of female dross within the government, hidden in various nooks and crannies. Try as I must, I can’t see too many signs of greatness though.
Labour is, as it has always been, a party committed to equal opportunities, especially for the hyper-mediocre in its own ranks. Cherie stands like a Nelson Mandella type hero-figure to them all. For if the likes of the Blairs have risen, without discernable talent or merit, to positions of such power and privilege, there’s surely hope for third-rate minds everywhere…

You’ve never had it so crap.....

2007-02-18T12:03:00.000Z

Tony Blair has failed to make Britain less selfish in almost a decade in power, according to a massive 90% of voters.The huge majority in a poll for the Sunday Telegraph includes 43% who think things are worse and 47% no better than under the last Tory administration. Apart from illegal immigrants, higher taxes, higher crime levels, and a growth in the number of sex offenders employed in schools what exactly has the voter gained from New Labour?
The Labour Party will shake off its mid-term blues, Education Secretary Alan Johnson has predicted, saying that the party has the chance to win an historic fourth term in government.I dare say he is right. After all, Labour has skillfully used its time in office to create an enormous client state on whose votes it can now depend. By creating hundreds of thousands of new public sector jobs that are completely unnecessary and promoting welfare as a lifestyle choice for millions of adults who ought to be at work, it now has a built in power base of what can only be described as parasites on the productive economy, i.e. the real world the rest of us live in, where the wealth to pay for it all has to be generated…. What Britain needs is a government worthy of the name.

(Things could probably get better if Ms Smack were in charge. She’d apply a firm hand to the nation’s problems. For those who know not, Ms S commands a blog that is well worth perusing and savouring, is a regular contributor to Mr Newmania's gargantuan output and is most erudite on the pleasure points of sexual politics....)

Lammy is the future…obviously.

2007-02-16T05:13:00.000Z

My trawl through the hallowed grounds of left-leaning journalism continues apace today. The Guardian (or at least, Mark Lawson) suggests that the idea of all the party leaders at the next UK election being led by “three white male Protestants: Brown, Cameron, Campbell” is, of course, an event worthy of much wailing and gnashing of teeth. This is all very diffferent to the US. “A UK equivalent of Barack Obama is very hard to spot - David Lammy, perhaps…” suggests Lawson with an apparent straight face. The real question for the "diversity" and PC brigade to ask is why neither the Labour Party (lets not count Margaret Beckett who was only an acting leader) or the Libs have never been led by a woman or a Jew? We have managed both in recent history … Lawson is right to point out that Democratic presidential contender Obama is "spectacularly unqualified, inexperienced and vulnerable". But then so is Lammy. And as a barrister (specialising in medical ethics, negligence and commercial litigation) with a masters from the Law School at Harvard University he isn’t particularly representative of many of his constituents or much of the male black community in the UK…

In denial....

2007-02-15T06:46:00.000Z

I am blazingly angry at the minute. Martin Jacques- one of the usual suspects along with Polly, Will Hutton, and Jackey Ashley- is the cause of my fury. Mr Jacques is up in arms about the “demonisation” of Islam. Nothing original in his argument. In fact, the entire article is a revisitation of the usual percieved "problem" of "anti Muslim racism." The Guardian runs with this kind of thing on a near daily basis... terror denial of course being the new "in-thing" among radical Left-leaning circles. For Martin Jacques, the plot to blow up perhaps 10 aircraft, that led to a vast security clampdown at Heathrow and new hand-luggage rules last Summer should be treated with “a degree of scepticism…given the experience of cases such as the ricin plot that never was. Martin is also very upbeat about the fact “…that deaths in the UK from Islamist terrorism have been far fewer than those perpetrated by the IRA…” For Martin Jacques, the principle of multiculturalism remains a sacred one as it “recognises the importance of pluralism” and “The attack on multiculturalism is (of course) the thin end of the racism wedge”. Martin Jacques is a prime specimen of moral idiocy, an appeaser of religious fascism. The worst of it is that his ilk believe they are fighting the good fight. They associate anti-Westernism, no matter what form it takes, with concern for the underdog and with being a compassionate lefty. It's self-hatred, but it's not hard to see why it's so appealing: it's easier to criticise your own free Western society than to take aim at countries like Sudan, Iran or China. Wouldn't want to be called a racist, would we?It's about time that the vacuous drivel chanted by leftist appeasers was attacked head on.

There's a struggle ahead. Are you up for it? Thankfully, David Cameron appears to be.....alas, the Left has already surrendered.

Agreeing (ever so slightly) with Blair

2007-02-14T09:54:00.000Z

Anti-terrorist police were right to launch a major raid in Forest Gate, London, during which an innocent man was shot, an independent watchdog concluded yesterday. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) described the raid as a "terrifying experience" for those involved and they deserved a public apology. Scotland Yard insisted last night that it would not make that apology, having already apologised "three times" last year.
Perhaps, more importantly, the investigators upheld Scotland Yard's central decision to mount the operation and the tactics used. Having reviewed the intelligence, the IPCC found that "the police decision to mount the operation was necessary and proportionate in the light of that information". The commission's report was quickly branded a "whitewash" by the family targeted. Credit where credit's due: Tony Blair reiterated his support for the police. "I think the police in trying to prevent British people being victims of terrorism do an excellent job... Sometimes I think they're in a way damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they take strong action they're liable to be criticised. But ... if they failed to take strong action and it transpired afterwards that they'd been advised there was a problem, they'd be attacked even more strongly." Exactly.

No institution, especially law enforcement is infallible, due to the extreme cases individual police officers have to confront. The injured, somewhat bearded, person concerned (pictured above) will have received the best free medical services possible and will no doubt receive the equivalent of a major lotto win in compensation. Pardon me if I refuse to weep, wail, gnash my teeth and bemoan the lot of the families concerned. If it takes the police 10 mistakes to respond to one real threat then so be it…. For once I'm on Tony's side as far as police tactics are concerned. In a wider sense, the terrorist threat must not, however, tempt democracies into undermining their own values as Sir Ken Macdonald, head of the Crown Prosecution Service warned last week.

The Modesty of Princess Tony

2007-02-12T21:18:00.000Z

Tony has a plan. It is, as über nuLabour loyalist, Jackie Ashley writes “A far-advanced, detailed plan for his life after Downing Street, which he hopes will keep him in the spotlight” and wait for it... “save his reputation”(!). Jackie wants us to know that the Plan “has been quietly worked on for 18 months” Whats more, “Key meetings this very week will take it forward”. It’s going to mean a lot of travelling for TB post-Downing Street and he’ll have to forgo the lecture circuit and the corporate boardroom for a higher cause.You have to admit, that despite everything, Blair has appeared to be very pleased with himself of late.
Actually, it’s a modest kind of plan for a modest kind of guy. Mission Blair involves nothing less…..than saving the planet from global warming. TB will deploy his global links, especially in the US, to broker a “Kyoto 2” agreement. Or at least thats what the Dear Leader appears to have in mind.
As Jacky herself puts it “There will be hoots of derision in many quarters” That I would humbly argue is putting it mildly. Blair cannot broker the follow up to Kyoto outside government. On whose authority would he be negotiating? Under what conditions would he be functioning and to whom would he be answerable?Dream on Tone. Less than a fifth of Britons see Prime Minister Tony Blair as "honest and straightforward," according to a poll released last week. It's very likely many world leaders take a similar view of Blair.

TB seems (realistically enough) to have given up any hope of a “legacy” and has now settled on a vanity project instead. How the mighty have fallen...The self-styled 'First Lady of Great Britain' at least seems to have opted for more worldly concerns post-No 10.

Beyond the haze lies class war

2007-02-11T09:47:00.000Z

During the Tory leadership election in 2005, there were repeated rumours that David Cameron had dabbled with cannabis and cocaine before becoming an MP in 2001. It now appears that as a schoolboy at Eton, Dave was disciplined by the school for cannabis use. After his Eton "bust" in 1982, Mr Cameron appears to have largely abstained from drug use. Mr Reid, the Home Secretary has correctly asked"Do we want to get to the level of ensuring that every politician who is elected or bids for leadership or takes part in national politics is a sort of plastic politician produced off some colourless and characterless conveyor belt?". "I don't think that would serve politics well", he said.

It all adds up to quite the non-story. Something for Labour bloggers and the red-tops to get all hysterical about for a while...and now on to more important issues.

For it seems that the gloriously perma-tanned Northern Ireland Secretary and Deputy PM candidate, Peter Hain has decided that it is time to soak the rich. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Hain warned companies to take action to self regulate on city bonuses or face "a big fight". He also claims that a loss of ‘moral corporate responsibility’ produces a society ‘….where you start getting envy being promoted and a sense of real antagonism and that breeds all sorts of socially undesirable behaviour..." He controversially proposes that City firms donate two thirds of their bonus pot to charity or invest it in regeneration schemes in London's East End. In 1998, Mr Mandelson said that Labour was "intensely relaxed" about people getting filthy rich but added a crucial qualification - as long as they pay taxes. Mr Hain, I thought bonus payments are taxed at 40%. If a someone in the City receives £10m as a bonus, the government gains £4m. Where's the problem? Hain's "thinking" certainly seems strangely disjointed, hazy, blurred,confused. I wonder if he ever inhaled in his youth.

While it is immensely pleasing to see the resurrection of “Old" Labour mantras at the heart of government (surely proof that "New" Labour was never anything other than a carefully crafted mirage), what concerns me more is Torygraph claims that David Cameron is about to make a speech also encouraging bosses to clamp down on bonuses, (but he will not threaten legislation). I would strongly advise DC against such an intervention. People will only accuse Dave of hazy thinking……

The Welsh are racists....its official

2007-02-09T09:02:00.000Z

This blogging thing is ultra distracting from the task of being a blood sucking capitalist leech. So I had planned not to engage in the spouting of my usual erudite bile (at least for today). But then my plan suddenly came to nought. The cause? One of the usual suspects, I am afraid. None other than the Commission for Racial Equality.A report from the Commission for Racial Equality has found that each of the 22 local authorities in Wales are failing to prevent racial discrimination in the allocation of council houses. The CRE's director in Wales, Chris Myant, said that unless councils improved in this field their chief executives would find themselves being prosecuted.The allegation of 'institutional racism' has even been raised. It’s perhaps understandable that Welsh councils have been somewhat negligent in this area. A little perspective is called for….
People from ethnic minorities made up only 4% of the Welsh population in 2001, compared to 13% for England. The number of black people living in Wales amounts to just over 7,000 people or a quarter of one percent of the population. In many parts of Wales, especially in the valleys and to the north of the country, non-white people are a rare sight. In Wrexham, 99% of the population are white, and there are only 164 black people out of a total population of 128,000. I have extracted all of those statistics from where else but the …..website of the Commission for Racial Equality. Perhaps Welsh councils feel (with some justification) that they have more important matters to focus on.....

Emasculating the Lords

2007-02-08T08:51:00.000Z

If the government is to be believed, its new white paper, The House of Lords: Reform, is an attempt to strike a balance between making the 700-year-old upper chamber more democratic without creating a rival to the House of Commons. MPs are to have a free vote before Easter on options ranging from a fully appointed chamber to a 20 to 100 per cent elected element. I say it openly- I have problems with the idea of the House of Lords. In its current form, it is too often an ermine-ridden quango populated by the clapped out, the unelectable and the unspeakable. Well, at least as far as its non-Tory members are concerned. In a genuine representative democracy, any and all politicians should be elected.
And yet the Lords are the only ones who have managed to stop some terribly stupid legislation from getting passed ( See here and here and here ) There clearly needs to be some "body" to prevent Governments (of whatever party) from acting as they wish all the time. The HoL has been a useful check on the excesses and self-interest of the HoC. It is not the notion of reform that concerns me but the fact that Jack Straw is driving it, having noted his earlier 'successes' at the Home Office and Iraq. Straw yesterday came under fire from Theresa May, the Shadow Commons leader, who described the package as a "lowest common denominator" solution which would satisfy no-one and perpetuate cronyism. Theresa May is clearly right. And I doubt whether Labour is entirely behind Straw's proposals. Obviously, in their hearts many Labourites believe that total abolition of the House of Lords would be preferable to retaining the status quo.
To my way of thinking, it shouldn't be within the HoC's power to re-structure the Upper House anyway, changes that affect the way the country is governed should be approved by referendum and not be at the whim of the current Prime Minister and his Cabinet. It is interesting too that the current government suddenly desires to reform a house which has become such a bane to its existence and in particular has brought this Prime Minister to the brink of total disgrace…

A view from the political wilderness

2007-02-07T09:17:00.000Z

In February’s Parliamentary Monitor magazine, Lord David Owen (no spring chicken himself) says that Sir Menzies Campbell is too old to be leader of the Liberal Democrats and should be replaced by "a young Turk" ( it goes without saying that I could probably help him out on that score-hee,hee, hee!) Trivia such as who should be the Lib Dem leader need hardly concern us….The weighted average of opinion polls suggest that the inevitable outcome of the next election will be a hung parliament. That should concern all of us.
Lord Owen or “Dr. Death” (as he was known by Libbers during the dismal years of the “SDP-Liberal Alliance”) has raised the prospect of a Lib-Dem-Conservative pact as a possible outcome of the next general election. He said there was now a lot of common ground between the two parties. "If Cameron has the largest number of MPs but not an outright majority, I hope he can deal with the Liberal Democrats and come to an arrangement” I think people can see a lot of Conservative policies are acceptable now”
Dr. Death, of course, has a fine track record in administering the kiss of death to a variety of political parties and generally causing matyhem, to say nothing of his bungling in the Balkans.....so his words should be treated with some caution. But what is to be done? Deal or no deal? Should the Lib Dems be “hunted down like animals until scared and shivering they are torn to pieces by a merciless pack”? (if I may cite Mr Newmania) Or, short of offering PR for the House of Commons, do we give a little, as myself and Mr Dale would prefer, perhaps PR for an elected House of Lords and so on? Just think what a Lib-Lab. Coalition would be like. It's not a pleasant prospect, is it?

Dave and the "oppressed"

2007-02-06T09:27:00.000Z

As even casual visitors to this august and erudite blog (if I may borrow His Grace's phraseology) will be aware, I have a lot of time for David Cameron and very little time for “persecuted” minorities and “agenda-driven” lobbies. Thus, my esteem for the Leader has risen to even greater heights on hearing of DC’s “blazing” row with the elders of the Birmingham Central Mosque yesterday. Dr Mohammad Naseem, chairman of the elders told DC that anti-terror raids in Birmingham last week were comparable to the Nazis' persecution of the Jews. As recently as last week Dr Naseem accused the government of "picking on" the Muslim community in order to make political points."The German people were told the Jews were a threat. The same thing is happening here," he said.

Cameron told reporters after a two-hour meeting with Muslim leaders including Dr Naseem."He's completely and utterly wrong and I think that's not responsible at all…It's quite clear from the events of 7/7 and other events that Britain does face a terrorist threat and we need to confront that and defeat it." True enough. At this very moment, Police are also searching for two men in Birmingham who were said to have disappeared before the raids were ordered.
In any case, the UK’s Muslim community would do well to note that it is the Conservatives who are on the attack over Nu Labour's attitude to civil liberties and it is the Conservatives who are pledging to oppose ID cards and moves to extend detention beyond 28 days. The Muslim community might also reflect on the fact that prior to the Iraq War they overwhelmingly used to vote Labour (it is estimated that 70-80% of Muslim voters used to opt for Labour pre-2003). Thus, if now they feel “persecuted” they have only themselves to blame. And Labour might like to abandon its reliance on (cough) ethnic bloc voting especially of the postal vote variety. Most of all, in Birmingham.

Blair escapes justice….?

2007-02-05T08:20:00.000Z

I have always believed that Blair is not going to face charges over “Cash-for-peerages”. But whilst this outcome might allow him some brief solace, it would be temporary if the prosecutors pressed charges against members of his inner circle. If yesterday’s News of the Screws and The Scotsman are right, Scotland Yard is believed to be considering charges of perverting the course of justice against Ruth Turner, Blair's 'gatekeeper', and one of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice against Lord Levy, the trusted party fundraiser. It is hard to see how Blair could continue to govern in such circumstances.

But some hardened NuLabourites think TB should go on….In today’s Grauniad, Jackey Ashley writes that Blair should stay for the "sake of the party". She also opines: "If we now have a period in which MPs' voices drown out those of the Party Animals, so much the better." Why is it wrong for Blair not to listen to the voices of his own MPs even if he is busy ignoring the voice of the country as he did with the illegal invasion of Iraq? Ashley also writes : "No, I haven't taken leave of my senses." I have to disagree- you clearly have taken leave of your senses. Perhaps Blair should go for the sake of a long-suffering people, Jackey. The Labour Party can collectively disappear up Lord Levy's arsehole for all most people care.

Despite being able to stop this situation from worsening, Brown isn't exactly pushing Blair to go. Gordo would naturally prefer Blair to be in charge at least until May so that Broon wouldn’t be tainted at the outset of his premiership with what may be catastrophic results in the elections for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and scores of English councils.
If today's Indie is to be believed, Blair is hanging on to join Bush for the bombing of Iran in the Spring.

The nightmare goes on.

Tone Deaf

2007-02-03T14:15:00.000Z

TB (great photo of the Dear Leader, eh?) still refuses to face the music. His Tonyness yesterday declared he will not be driven from office by the cash-for-peerages inquiry, but admitted he sees no point in trying to convince the public his integrity remains intact. At last, he demonstrates some realism one might say. In front of Labour's National Policy Forum today, Blair appealed to party activists to keep faith with the New Labour agenda.The agenda now includes, it would seem, using underage British children to fight in Blair’s wars. Yes, Tony Blair truly has taken the UK back into the Dark Ages…

It seems the UK has broken a United Nations treaty (signed up to by Blair) forbidding the use of child soldiers. Blair has, of course, been busy sending lots of cannon fodder/underage troops - including 17-year-old girls -to Iraq. Teenagers are by far the largest recruiting group for the military. And it’s a trend that seems set to continue. More than 1,000 crack recruiters trawl schools, Jobcentres and high streets for likely candidates.

The present policy of deployment of children clearly violates the government's duty to protect the right to physical and mental integrity of children. And their integrity is far more important than Blair’s…if any remains in that particular case.
Sending underage troops to fight in illegal wars…..It’s all part of Blair's legacy, the unaccepatable face of the New Labour agenda. I do hope the Labour activists who attended the National Policy Forum are feeling suitably inspired after communing with TB today....

On Foreign Prisoners...Reid is failing

2007-02-01T08:19:00.000Z

Between 1999-2006, some 1,023 foreign prisoners, including killers, rapists and child abusers, were released from UK prisons when they should have been considered for deportation. The government and police are still trying to locate many of them.

On 17th May 2006, Blair said: “For years, we have not been deporting all those people convicted of a serious criminal offense. I say now, ‘Let us deport all those people’.” In strict legal terms, Blair cannot change the law to deport “automatically” all foreign criminals the moment they have served their sentences. At the time, David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, correctly described Mr Blair’s comments as “disingenuous” and questioned whether ministers would remove former prisoners if they faced torture or execution on their return.

As of early January 2007, 38 violent foreign prisoners were still on the run. It seems that John Reid has failed to get a grip on the fiasco. The Home Office can’t even deport prisoners who wish to be deported! Gurdev Singh Sheri, a convicted rapist remains today in a Welsh prison three years after the completion of his sentence, and actively wishes to be deported to his native India. The Home Office does nothing to assist him in that request.

Frankly, I care very little about the rights of foreign prisoners. The vast bulk of them should be deported whatever the dangers in their home nations. If the government wants to take public safety into account, the 1998 Human Rights Act, should be abolished as a first step. The government actually claims to be looking again at the Human Rights Act in light of recent cases which have seen moves to deport foreign nationals blocked because of the legislation.
The truth is, Labour got us into this mess. So it's hard to see how they can get us out of it. Last year, David Cameron said the "interaction of the Human Rights Act and the participation in the European Convention of Human Rights made it impossible to expel them from the country”. Cameron vowed to bin the act and replace it with a bill of rights which enshrined the nation's set of values and freedom rights. We should hold him to that promise….Interestingly, while Reid and the Home Office are still failing over the deportation of foreign prisoners, they have become unnecessarily aggressive on the deportation of legitimate asylum seekers. An easy way to spike up official stats on deportation numbers, perhaps. Go figure.....

Ming’s frisky comrades

2007-01-31T08:06:00.000Z

What is it with Lib Demmers? Their fornicating ways apparently know no bounds. Last year, a series of exposes involving some familiar faces - Mark Oaten and Simon Hughes- hurt the Lib Dems' reputation for seriousness.Then, at the end of 2006 we had Lembit Opik and Gabi, his young Romanian squeeze, chanteuse of the hit The Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum). Lembit insists, as you would expect, that his new relationship is a 'meeting of minds'. Hmmmm…

Now we hear that another Lib Demmer has been actively engaged in extra marital goings on. And one of the duller, more wooden Lib Demmers, Lord Alex Carlile, as it happens. He’s the fellow in charge of monitoring the nation’s anti-terror laws (and was MP for the same constituency as Lembit from 1983-97) . He has found time to dump his wife of 37 years and is having a relationship with a barrister 15 years his junior.
The majority of recent opinion polls have registered a sharp slippage in the LibDem position. It’s not surprising while their attentions are so focused (cough) on extra curricular matters. As for their leader, the former Olympian Ming Campbell, I can't imagine him getting into bed with anyone... other than Lady Elspeth or Gordon Brown if the Lib Dems hold the balance of power after the next election… The chances are high because a Tory lead in the share of the vote of between one and 11.8 points would result in a hung parliament. Then who (forgive me) will be screwing who?

C'mon Dave, throw us some red meat....

2007-01-30T11:07:00.000Z

David Cameron is right to warn that separatist Muslims who promote sharia law and demand special treatment for their faith are the "mirror image" of the British National party. Dave has also said that extremism and multiculturalism were among the divisive factors which made people feel ashamed of being British. Very true. To my way of thinking, the right to practice a particular religion, speak a particular language, follow a particular cultural practice is not a "public good" but rather a private freedom.

Writing in today's Guardian, Max Hastings believes that Britain is a social democratic country. If Cameron wins an election, it will be in spite of being called a Tory. Max doesn’t get it. Blair has single-handedly wiped out Labour's long term electoral prospects and Brown is fatally tainted by association. The facts of Blair/Brown's failures are there for all to see: leading the World by following Bush, cleaner than clean gambling, fanatical attachment to multiculturalism, uncontrolled immigration, poverty, and poor educational standards. David Cameron is in the fortunate position of being able to sit back and watch the labour government disintegrate. If the Conservatives can position around the right ideas then they will align with voters who are deeply frustrated that their aspirations have not been met after three Labour terms. Cameron doesn't need to come out with policies just yet but he does need to establish a recognisably Conservative tone as he has done on Muslim extremists and the multicultural lobby....Keep the red meat coming, Dave.

Eco-hysteria in Edinburgh

2007-01-28T08:34:00.000Z

The end of the world is nigh reports, today’s Sunday Times. Climate change could soon make many parts of the planet uninhabitable. Perhaps Scotland could be at risk...

Scotland has, of course, become a by-word for big government and "agenda"-driven politics in recent years. So it's not surprisng that the People’s Republic of Caledonia has now decided to lead the way in the global hysteria over global climate change. Indeed, for this reason, Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth is to be shown in all Scottish secondary schools as part of a new plan to help pupils "understand" climate change.

Just a few days before the Scottish Executive’s announcement, the Wall Street Journal (not widely read within the corridors of power in Edinburgh, one suspects) contained a rather thought-provoking report by Flemming Rose, of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and Bjorn Lomborg, a professor at the Copenhagen Business School.

First, the costs associated with Gore's plan need to be explored, say Rose and Lomborg : The United Nations estimates that if we slowly change our greenhouse gas emissions over the coming century, we will live in a warmer but immensely richer world.
However, the U.N. Climate Panel suggests that if we follow Al Gore's path, by 2100 the average person will be 30 percent poorer.
Given the huge costs, it would be paramount to look at Gore's facts, which seem more convenient than accurate, says Rose and Lomborg: In his movie, Gore shows sequences of 20-feet flooding in Florida, San Francisco, New York, Beijing and others; yet the U.N. climate panel expects only a foot of sea-level rise over this century.
Gore also says global warming is bringing malaria to Nairobi; yet this is quite contrary to the World Health Organization's finding that Nairobi is considered free of malaria; but in the 1920s and 1930s, when temperatures were lower than today, malaria epidemics occurred regularly.
He also says heat waves will cost lives, but says nothing about the fact that avoided cold deaths far outweigh the number of heat deaths. In the United Kingdom, for example, it is estimated that 2,000 more will die from global warming, but 20,000 fewer will die of cold. Source

The facts are chilling if not so exciting as Gore's film. The truth is certainly inconvenient. If only the Scots knew it. As for Gore, he is no poster boy for the Green movement. He is a bland, self-satisfied blob of a hypocrite, criss-crossing the globe by Jet (citing his important work as an excuse), and preaching only to the already converted. He does not deserve our respect. He would have gone far in Scottish politics.....

Saying No to the gay lobby

2007-01-26T06:25:00.000Z

Tony can’t quite make up his mind. On the one hand, he supports gay adoptions and on the other, he is now trying to broker a compromise which retains the expertise of the Catholic Church on adoption. Gordon is silent. No fool is Broon-about 800,000 Catholic votes are at stake in the upcoming Scottish Parliament elections.

In truth, the Cabinet is hopelessly split over the issue of new equality laws.
Ruth Kelly, the communities minister, argues for an opt-out for faith-based adoption agencies while Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, insists the new laws must apply across the board. John Reid, the (Catholic?) Home Secretary, has said that Britain's fundamental value of equality could not be overruled by religious organisations or ministers because they harboured "conscientious objections”. Harriet Harman, Lord Falconer and Peter Hain also object to the proposed exemptions. The Gay lobby is in overdrive.

Catholic adoption agencies say they will defy new anti-discrimination laws. It is not only the Catholic Church which opposes gay adoption. Even Catholic Labour MP’s are beginning to stir.

The Church of England and many others have also made representations about this issue. The Muslim Council of Britain said it fully backed the "principled stand" by Church leaders.
I am afraid I am with the religious community on this one. If there is no exemption for faith-based adoption agencies, then the government will effectively force them to work against their consciences. Either that or the adoption agencies will have to close. At present doctors and medical staff can opt out out of involvment with abortions. Will the PC brigade now want to force these individuals to act against their consciences?

Frankly, I would have thought the government might have more pressing issues to consider than waste time on alienating whole sections of the electorate (See here, or here, or here ) Or is this gay adoption affair designed to distract our attention from Labour's manifold failings? Consider the timing....

Is NuLabour really concerned about the fundamental welfare of children here or are they more concerned with social engineering and pushing a gay agenda, an agenda which is supported by only a small minority of the population?
I think we can all guess the answer to that one….

You can trust Tone

2007-01-24T16:32:00.000Z

Prime Minister’s Questions are pointless. Indeed, the whole PMQ set-piece has degenerated into a colourful display of evasion and false outrage from His Tonyness. Of course, he clearly feels that his time would be more usefully employed sowing peace and prosperity in Persia, Mesopotamia and the Holy Land. Or lining up business contacts for his post-premiership career in the US…
Todays session was another exercise in blaming the Conservatives for everything and not answering perfectly legitimate questions.
But first, he began, as ever, with his now ritualised expression of (fake) grief and condolences over the death of another British soldier in Iraq. Private Michael Tench was only 18 years old.
Then TB proceeded to the urgent task of being slippery...

Tory Sir Michael Spicer asked if the EU will "take control of our criminal law." No they won't replied Blair. More evasion….The EU has every intention of taking "control" of our criminal law. As Tories have pointed out for years, the EU constitution conceals measures for handing over sovereignty over a number of key areas, including defence, tax and law and order. Under the constitution Britain will not be able to use its veto to stop EU legislation that defines serious crimes and sentences for such crimes. Britain will also not be able to veto efforts by the EU to expand the area of criminal law over which the Union takes control. The EU Constitution, in addition to expanding the powers of Europol, will also demand the standardisation of law enforcement and policing.

And the Constitution (in some form or other) is firmly back on track. German chancellor Angela Merkel expressed herself with great clarity on this point when talking to MEP’s last week.

The Prime Minister’s silence is deafening. His evasiveness without equal.

A whole lot of loathing....

2007-01-22T16:08:00.000Z

Turkish Police have detained a teenager suspected of killing the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. The suspect was arrested after a tip-off from his father.

The Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has said that the police would also look into any possible links between this assassination and the murder of a Catholic priest in Trabzon last year, for which another teenager has been jailed. I am not one for conspiracy theories but I suspect there is a significant link between the two murders.

The fact is that Europe promised the prospect of EU membership to Turkey, with good intentions, but without thinking it through properly, only to recognise slowly how immense and serious the practical difficulties are. It’s now time for the EU to seek definitive answers about what Turkey intends to do in order to improve tolerance for ethnic and religious minorities and freedom of expression in the country. It's time for Turkey to take steps in the right direction fast- no ifs, no buts.

More dodgy dealings from “Toxic Tony”

2007-01-21T09:41:00.000Z

Police chiefs last night publicly warned the Labour Party that "no one is above the law" as the cash-for-honours inquiry erupted into undisguised warfare between Downing Street and the Met. The Sunday Telegraph has reported today that detectives in the cash-for-honours inquiry were forced to "hack" into Downing Street computers to gain access to government email records.

In these troubled times, the cash-strapped party must be (cough) immensely grateful that Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal made a £2 million donation to the Labour Party last week.

The Prime Minister is now said to be considering whether to offer Mittal a knighthood or a peerage in the resignation honours list when (if?) he stands down……His Tonyness really doesn’t grasp the notion of political corruption, does he?

But the police are finally closing in on Citizen Blair. And NuLabour's response? They are in overdrive lashing out in all directions and vilifying the police because one of their “own” is arrested…The fact the Met Police are conducting a major investigation into the Labour Party but not the Liberals or the Conservatives tells you all you need to know about who has kept on the right side of the law.

Turner gets nicked, Puttnam rants....

2007-01-20T11:20:00.000Z

Yesterday’s arrest of Ruth Turner, who acts as Mr Blair's "gatekeeper" inside No 10, continues to provoke a sharp response from Labour loyalists. Indeed, Downing Street and its allies are choking on their fair trade coffee this morning. Lord Puttnam, a prominent Labour luvvie and intimate of TB, said Miss Turner was a woman of "complete probity". Indeed, His Lordship is positively scandalised about the heavy-handed tactics of Plod and has accused the police of theatrics for staging an early-morning arrest at Turner’s home: "What about turning up at 9 o'clock, or what about phoning and saying: 'I wonder if you'd mind coming into the police station, we'd like to talk to you'?” Like drop by the station for an espresso and a manicure sometime after say 2 o’clock. If it wouldn’t be too inconvenient… The Lord Puttnam clearly fails to understand that this is the most serious political corruption inquiry for more than 70 years.
You might be interested to know that Lord Puttnam gave more than £5000 to the Labour Party in 1997 and…. received his peerage in the same year. Talk about complete probity.

Arise the Mahatma Broon

2007-01-19T06:18:00.000Z

While Beezelebub himself would find it hard to compete with the evil-doing of “Blair of Arabia”, Gordo has gone all visionary and touchy-feely during his current passage to India. Yesterday, after strewing rose petals and laying a wreath at the spot where Gandhi was cremated in Delhi, Gordo spoke in almost human, non-robotic terms.He declared his distinctly modest vision of the sort of Prime Minister he intends to be. Speaking to journalists after paying his respects to the Mahatma, he said: "I could never compare myself to Gandhi (but you know he does really)and all the other heroes of mine but I do take inspiration from the way they dealt with the challenges they found."
I find it hard to imagine that Broon intends to abandon Western ways, adopt vegetarianism, and take a vow of celibacy. Will we get to see Gordo dressed in a loincloth and shawl made of handspun khaddar?
‘ not really the done thing in Kirkcaldy, I should imagine…
And I seriously doubt if anyone is going to buy into the idea that the tin man of British politics has suddenly developed human tendencies, after all those years of sullen brooding, conspiring and number-crunching at HM Treasury. Oh, come off it Gordon. People are not easily fooled by this kind of dewey-eyed moralising, packaged sentiment, playing to the cameras-thing anymore. And you can blame your boss for that…..

Never mind the mass murder….

2007-01-18T06:17:00.000Z

Will Hutton has gone insane. The man has an article in today’s Guardian that almost defies rational analysis. His demented argument (if indeed it can be represented as a line of argument at all) appears to be that Chairman Mao, despite his “monstrous crimes”, wasn’t all bad. "Nobody wants to be an apologist for Mao" begins Hutton But then, of course, he goes on to do precisely that. Well, Mao, it seems was a bit of a reformer on the quiet, pursuing a sort of oriental “Third way”. The chairman was a NuLabour forerunner if you like. Under Mao:

‘....Industrial output climbed 13-fold, albeit from a tiny base. The rail network doubled. Half of Chinese land became irrigated. There was a dramatic lowering of illiteracy. Near universal healthcare was established. Life expectancy rose; and despite Mao's appetite for imperial-style concubines, women were given the same right to petition for divorce and education as men. Their position was transformed….’

It is estimated that Mao caused the deaths of 70 million Chinese.In his youth, Mao was fond of saying, "People like me have a duty to ourselves; we have no duty to other people." Mao must have firmly believed this. There is little else that could explain his tranquility in the face of the suffering triggered by his policies. Chinese government figures show that by 1960, the average Chinese was eating about 1,500 calories a day - a diet equivalent to that of slave-laborers at Auschwitz. Mao, like Stalin, indisputably murdered more people than Hitler. The bulk of the deaths for which Mao was responsible stemmed from the famines caused by his mad agricultural collectivization program.

In short, Hutton argues that the crimes of communist China's founder shouldn't “blind us to achievements which paved the way for its current modernisation”. By the same token, I suppose Hitler laid the foundations of modern Germany by reviving the economy, building the Autobahns and getting rid of those frightful Jews.
Doctor! More Lithium here please!
The Left-wing thinker- don’t you just despair?

Nu Labour's Food for the soul?

2007-01-17T09:39:00.000Z

The ever so cool education secretary, Alan Johnson, has just unveiled a £10m package to boost music and singing both in and out of the classroom. Intrepid blogger and Environment Secretary David Miliband for one is mighty impressed by this new initiative (I must say Miliband has never published a single one of my comments on his blog-is it coz I is a Tory?)

For his part, the culture minister David Lammy (Tottenham’s answer to Obama Barack) is full of praise for Johnson’s sterling efforts : "I grew up in a house full of music. All day festivals on Broadwater Farm blended with choral singing in my local church. As a child my head had room for both Bob Marley and John Wesley…”
All-day festivals on the Broadwater Farm estate?!? What is this guy on? Folks, help me out on this one. I am sure there will be much rejoicing throughout the land as a result of this proposal but there really are more pressing problems confronting the British education system in my humble opinion. Chris Woodhead, who was chief inspector of schools in England during Blair's first term, has said "What Blair wanted to do - ensure greater parental choice, diversity and to challenge the educational establishment - was absolutely right," says Woodhead. However, he adds, Blair "has not delivered on any of that". Schools have no discipline, educational standards are falling, university is open to anyone who can write their name. See here, here and here for evidence of how bad things are. I have no wish to rubbish this new initiative but after 10 years in office these NuLabour apparatchiks are still tinkering with education rather than doing what needs to be done...

EU Update

2007-01-17T06:35:00.000Z

"Succeeding together" is Germany’s chosen motto for its six-month tenure of the EU presidency...And yet the more I hear about the German presidency, the more disturbed I become. Following on from yesterdays post on matters EU, brace yourselves for more bad news from the Brussels front.
German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries (yes, her again) said yesterday that the EU was planning to submit a resolution to the United Nations General Assembly on a global death penalty ban. Capital punishment is banned in the EU, of course, but continues to be permitted in 68 other countries. The truth is that there is barely a country in Europe where the death penalty was abolished in response to public opinion rather than in spite of it.

Yesterday, Germany together with the European Commission also succeeded in rallying all 27 member states behind a plan to grant mutual access to vehicle registration data, DNA files and stored fingerprints. But it gets worse. Now EU justice and interior ministers are discussing measures to reduce illegal immigration by (guess what?) making it easier to enter Europe legally. Vetoed by French and Dutch voters in 2005, the constitutional treaty had been put on ice for a yearlong "period of reflection" but the controversial issue has begun to reappear on the European agenda following Germany's taking over the EU presidency.

As for Blighty, better off out, perhaps?

The EU gets into banning mode

2007-01-16T08:12:00.000Z

Yesterday, at a meeting in Dresden, Brigitte Zypries, the German justice minister, demanded that Holocaust denial and the sporting of Nazi symbols be criminalised across the EU.
"We believe there are limits to freedom of expression," said Mrs Zypries. A disturbing choice of phrase from our German friend. The European commission says that in a time of growing Islamophobia, racism, and hostility to foreigners across Europe, a decision to criminalise nazi symbols would send a strong signal.
In early 2005, the European Commission rejected a call by a former Lithuanian President and a Hungarian MEP for a proposed Europe-wide ban on Nazi symbols to be extended to also cover Communist Party symbols. At the time, EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini said it would not be appropriate to include the hammer and sickle, and the Communist red star, in a draft EU law on racism banning the Swastika. So apparently some totalitarian symbols are more dangerous than others….. Wouldn’t it be better for Europe to condemn on equal terms the evils of communism and Nazism? Isn’t every victim of a totalitarian regime equal in dignity and deserving of justice? Of course, many EU politicians have been “comradely” with communists in various countries or were communists themselves at some point. And then there’s the EU’s tortured relations with China and Cuba to consider…
In a more general sense, a pan-European ban would represent yet another infringement of freedom of speech and might be better left to national governments. For that reason, if no other, we should oppose a ban. Even holocaust deniers, sad, demented loons that they are, should be allowed to express their pathetic views.

Blair isn't going anywhere

2007-01-15T05:46:00.000Z

He wants it all and he wants it now…
A senior Home Office official has been suspended from duty in the row over crimes committed overseas by British citizens. A four-day trawl of 540 serious offenders identified five individuals with convictions abroad that the Criminal Records Bureau should have known about, the Home Office said.

And Blair's latest big idea is...?
Well, today, the Dear Leader is to announce plans to set up a controversial Whitehall "super database" of personal details in an attempt to improve public services.
Tony Blair will try to persuade voters they have nothing to fear...
In other words, trust him- he’s a "pretty straight kind of guy". We have been here before though. Recall the litany of failures that extends through the Child Support Agency and the Family Tax Credit farrago.
But hold on - Why is Bliar so frantic to come up with new initiatives? Wasn’t the PM supposed to be quitting No:10? Some time in the near future. Soonish we were led to believe…
The evidence suggests otherwise. First, it was his dealings with the Bee Gees. Now, the Prime Minister's lifestyle has come under renewed attack after it was revealed that 10 Downing Street has advertised for a £50,000-a-year 'butler'.

Going, going…hire a butler. It all makes perfect sense. They say Bliar wants to be present at the EU and G8 summits in June because a new French President will make his debut at these occasions. So obviously he needs a butler for the duration. What can you say? The man is dangerous and shameless....

Are TB and GB certifiable?

2007-01-13T16:15:00.000Z

Yet more evidence of almost mind-numbing incoherence at the heart of government. Today’s Guardian reveals that at least 13 members of Tony Blair's ministerial team have campaigned over the last few months against closure of services at NHS hospitals used by their constituents. And we are not talking unknown Labour lickspittle. Tessa Jowell, Jacqui Smith, the chief whip and Mike O'Brien, the solicitor-general, have all challenged NHS reform proposals. Labour’ll be blaming the cuts on the Conservatives next…

Meanwhile, Big Gordo has been droning on about the virtues of Britishness… and, in a great flight of logic, blaming Conservatives for encouraging the end of the Union.

As for Emily, well, the Prime Minister has urged that Britain should retain a global "war-fighting" role, emphasising that military might was essential to winning the war on terror.No mention of the fact that the Chancellor’s financial settlements have increased financial pressures on the Ministry of Defence, to the point that almost half the Royal Navy's fleet of 44 warships is to be mothballed to save Money… Tony Blair has also turned the blame for his disastrous military campaigns in the Middle East on anti-war dissidents and the media. His own fatal misjudgements on foreign policy, of course, have nothing to do with it…

As Ann Treneman puts in the Times today, “…it is obvious that the PM now has got some large gaps in his knowledge of life and politics as we know it…” Obviously. But it’s not only TB who seem to be detached from reality…. the rest of the government seems to have fallen prey to the same disorder. Whatever happened to “joined-up” government?
In its death throes, NuLabour is only too eager to attach the blame for its serial failures to its own foot soldiers or in fact just about anybody. For NuLabour, the buck always stops with others....

Return of the non-gay badger watcher

2007-01-10T17:11:00.000Z

Ron Davies, the former Secretary of State for Wales, who quit the Cabinet in 1998 over his "moment of madness" on Clapham Common looks set for a political resurrection. Mr Davies is, of course, also well-known for his keen interest in badgers. He claimed to be looking for badgers after being snapped at a well-known gay cruising spot in 2003. I certainly wish him the best of British in the upcoming Assembly elections. As I am sure TB would too. How the Dear Leader must despair of the Welsh…

It was Davies who once said that “devolution in a process, not an event” and devolution has certainly shown no signs of standing still over the past nine years. That’s certainly the case North of the border where the SNP looks set to be largest party in the Scottish Parliament after May's elections, according to a new poll. The Channel 4/YouGov poll puts the SNP on 33% of the constituency vote, with Labour on 31%. The party also has a healthy five-point lead in the regional vote.
Blair clearly regards devolution as one of the most significant elements of his (distinctly shabby)legacy. It may turn out to be so…but not quite in the ways he had expected.

UPDATE

Scottish Executive report shows Scotland has an £11 billion financial "black hole"….

Euro scum,unite!

2007-01-08T17:52:00.000Z

Austria's main centre-left and conservative parties have finally cobbled together a coalition government. A mere 4 months and one week since the Austrian general election. This brings to an end the highly-controversial conservative/far-right Freedom Party coalition that had governed since 2000. There can be little doubt that European politics are blighted by the vices of dodgy coalitions and the horrors of proportional representation. European politics are equally blighted by the increasing strength of the far-right it would seem. Far-right members of the European Parliament are currently preparing to join forces and establish a formal caucus in the European parliament. The group will bring together about 20 MEPs from at least six countries. As a recognised political group in the parliament, the group will get greater funding and will have a say in setting the agenda for plenary sessions. The group's leader is likely to be Bruno Gollnisch, a French National Front MEP currently awaiting a French court verdict on charges of Holocaust denial.

The leaders of Europe's far-right are, to put it mildly, a motley crew. But we would be wise not to ignore or underestimate them. For the most important factors in the rise of the far-right in Europe are the massive immigration flows into Europe and the expansive designs of the European Union. If Conservatives and the centre-right, as a whole, fail to seize the initiative on these two critical areas.... others will. The warning signs are there already.

Will Turkey shoot itself in the foot?(again)

2007-01-07T11:26:00.000Z

The Sur district council of the southeastern city of Diyarbakir has decided to offer council services in both Turkish and Kurdish. Nothing out of the ordinary in such a decision you might think. After all, 24 percent of the local residents speak Turkish, while 72 percent speak Kurdish as a first language. The local mayor has said that: "Both Turkish and Kurdish have been used in the municipality before. In order to give a better service we'll give Kurdish, Turkish, English, Armenian and Assyrian courses to council personnel". The mayor is now under investigation by the Turkish Interior Ministry. Source.
In 2004, our beloved PM/foreign policy genius, Mr Blair, said the following about Turkey’s EU candidacy:
“…I have talked to Prime Minister Erdogan about his reform programme and his vision for Turkey. I have no doubt he is serious about reform. He has shown enormous political courage in stepping up the pace of change in Turkey…” Source.

Perhaps, Tony might need to think again...

5 things you don’t know about me

2007-01-06T20:55:00.000Z

Thanks to Lady Ellee of Ely for tagging me with the meme about five things you probably didn’t know about me. So here goes:

I delivered general election leaflets for Labour… in 1983. But I was extremely young and foolish at the time.
I am very cool on the idea of Turkey ever being allowed to join the EU. Shock, horror…
I don’t have a Maths O level. In fact, I am pretty much innumerate if truth be told.
Many moons ago, I knew the lovely Penelope Cruz in a professional capacity. A charming woman.
I voted for Ukip in the last European Parliamentary elections. I don’t know what got into me.

Saddam's revenge....

2007-01-06T16:09:00.000Z

In a speech to mark Iraqi Army Day today, Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki said the decision to execute Saddam Hussein was not a political but a judicial one (who could possibly think otherwise?) Mr Maliki also said his government could review relations with any country which criticised the execution of Saddam Hussein.
Once regarded as one of the most powerful Sunni Muslim Arab countries, the new government in Iraq is headed by Shia Muslims with close ties to Iran. Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi recently said he feared his country was on the verge of disintegration -- a situation he said he never anticipated. A chaotic level of violence reigns supreme. Even Bliar accepts that it is a 'disaster'. Surely parliament and the British people are entitled to an apology for the government’s involvement in this ‘disaster’. I would also urge a rapid withdrawal of UK military forces from a place they should never have been sent to in the first place. And Gordo's the man to do it. I hope.

The evil-doers are on the move

2007-01-04T18:19:00.000Z

Pat Robertson, the American Conservative Christian broadcaster says God told him a terrorist attack will result in "mass killing" in the United States in the second half of 2007.
"I'm not saying necessarily nuclear, the Lord didn't say nuclear," Mr Robertson said on his television show The 700 Club. "It'll be mass killing, possibly millions of people, major cities.
"The evil people will come after this country and there's a possibility, not a possibility, a definite certainty, that chaos is going to rule."
Mr Robertson told viewers they should not be afraid because "if you get blown up or something, you go to heaven; that's the worst thing that will happen to you".
So no need to worry then.....
Pat Robertson seems to have developed quite a reputation for himself as far as divinely-inspired punditry goes. It was Pat Robertson who said that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed. On the plus side, he suggested on-air in 2005 that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming "a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism." So there’s no faulting Pat’s logic on some issues.
Perhaps the current Archbishop of Canterbury could take a leaf out of Pat’s book, get into the God business and fire up the Anglican community a bit.

The joys of a Europe with open borders

2006-12-31T09:12:00.000Z

First up: a charming story from Sweden and one the conventional media seems to have conveniently ignored (I wonder why). Last week, an American woman who sought medical treatment at a clinic in the town of Karlshamn couldn’t get any. Why? Apparently, the doctor was a Palestinian immigrant who objected to American foreign policy in the Middle East. For more, go HERE
Yet, Istanbul Tory finds himself scarcely surprised by this kind of news anymore...
In the wake of last week’s dramatic arrest of four Rwandans accused of playing leading roles in the genocide, one wonders how it was possible for any Rwandan genocide suspects to have slipped into Britain and quietly build new lives.
Again, Istanbul Tory finds himself scarcely surprised by this kind of news anymore...
A large part of the migratory inflow into Britain now comes from the new East European members of the EU. If these people wish to work, they must register, and figures show that the number who have registered since eight new countries joined in May 2004 has hit the half-million mark.The Home Office, never let it be forgotten, predicted that this figure would be a maximum 26,000 over two years. Romania and Bulgaria are no longer on the horizon but on our very doorstep. As of January 1st, 30 million people from these countries will be free to enter Britain. In November 2006, the government admitted in the House of Commons that immigration is of little benefit to the British public. Their own figures show a minimal contribution to GDP per head. Immigration to the UK has trebled under the present government. And it's not just the UK. Spain, which experienced net emigration until the late 1980s, now has 3.7 million immigrants of its own - or 8.7% of the population. In Ireland, foreign-born residents now comprise just under 10% of the population.
So, in the course of 2007, expect to hear more of Palestinian doctors with grudges to bear, genocide suspects in your midst and Romanian child prostitutes working the streets of British cities ....The price we pay for open borders. And there are still those who fail to understand the appeal of the BNP.

From beyond the grave- Gerald Ford and the Iraq disaster

2006-12-29T14:46:00.000Z

George W has now suffered a stunning rebuke from the grave over the Iraq debacle. In an interview with the Washington Post, granted on condition that it be published only after Gerald Ford's death, the late president said he strongly disagreed with Mr Bush's stated justification for the war - that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. He also suggested Mr Bush had departed from his overriding duty as president to act in America's national interest.
"I don't think I would have gone to war," Mr Ford told Bob Woodward in an interview in July 2004. "I would have maximised our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever to find another answer."
Quite right too. Getting into Baghdad was the easy part. How do we get out? Neither W. or Blair has the slightest idea.

To democratize (if that is stil a goal), defend and hold Iraq together (if that is still feasible), U.S./coalition troops will be tied down there for decades. And militant Islam will never accept George Bush/Emily Blair dictating the destiny of the Islamic world. Gerald Ford was an honourable man; Bush and Blair are nothing of the sort.

Gordo sucks.....

2006-12-28T09:28:00.000Z

Many of the EU member states have lower GDP growth than the UK because they are plagued by a combination of remorselessly high tax and high public spending. You may remember New Labour's pledges from 2001 and 1997 not to raise either the basic or top rates of income tax. And yet, the tax burden on British workers is set to increase steadily over the next five decades as government spending outpaces economic growth.
According to projections published by the Treasury earlier in December, the overall tax bill as a proportion of national income will rise from 38.4 per cent this year to almost 40 per cent in ten years' time before hitting 41.6 per cent in 2056, if current policies are continued.
So much for the prudence of the “Iron Chancellor”....more broken promises.

EU set to waste more money (believe it or not)

2006-12-26T13:52:00.000Z

As of January 1 2007,Irish will formally become the 21st official European language to be given equal status within the EU. Gaelige can be used during debates and to translate all official documents from the EU. Gaining official status in Europe for the language will, interestingly enough, point to the near total failure to promote it at home.....According to census figures released by the Irish Central Statistics Office in 2004, out of the Republic's more than 4.3 million citizens there were approximately 1.6 million people claiming a self-reported competence in Irish. Of these, only 350,000 reported using Irish every day.
Translation costs for the EU's 20 official languages have already been spiraling out of control. In January 2005, officials said the amount was set to come close to two billion quid following the entry in 2004 of 10 new EU members.
For 2007, the cost of Irish translation in the Commission is estimated to be around €302m. Money well spent, I’m sure you would readily agree....And the insanity doesn't end there.For the EU's self-proclaimed "top 10 achievements in 2006" go here and expect to be wildly impressed.

His Grace speaks out

2006-12-23T15:37:00.000Z

Christians in the Middle East are being put at risk by the Government's "short-sighted" and "ignorant" policy in Iraq, the Archbishop of Canturbury has said.
Writing in The Times, Dr Rowan Williams said attacks on Christian believers in the region are increasing, and the Government should have a strategy for helping them.
The Turkish constitution guarantees religious freedom and Christians are allowed to practice their religion but many feel their religious rights are severely limited in the predominantly Muslim country.Remember Turkey's Christians while you are enjoying the Christmas holiday.

'hoping you have a very happy and peaceful Christmas wherever you happen to be.And very Best Wishes for 2007...

Consternation! Blair makes a fool of himself

2006-12-21T15:30:00.000Z

As the NuLabour project collapses in disgrace, Tony (deluded as ever) is turning his attention to foreign affairs. An area where he has rarely excelled. As the Iraq debacle would seem to confirm.Indeed, Blair has named the Middle East as one of his priorities before leaving office.
And yet Blair inadvertently made diplomatic history yesterday by uniting Iran and Iraq on one point: criticism of his approach to the Middle East.
The Prime Minister was accused by Tareq al-Hashemi, Iraq's vice-president, of being "brainwashed" on changing his mind to withdraw troops from Iraq by George Bush, the US president.Mohammad Ali Hosseini, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, said Mr Blair's speech was "hostile" and an "obvious intervention" in the region's affairs. "The negative and discordant tendencies of Britain, along with the war-mongering and unilateral policies of Bush and Blair, have been the reason for tension and extremism and the cause of public hatred in the region," Mr Hosseini told the state news agency IRNA.

Both Tehran and Baghdad accused him of fuelling tensions in the Middle East. Will Emily take heed? Yesterday Blair also said in an interview he wanted a job with "real purpose" after he leaves Downing Street. Does he have any prior experience ?

No to the "Alliance of Civilizations"

2006-12-19T16:16:00.000Z

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in New York on Monday for an Alliance of Civilizations meeting at the United Nations headquarters.
The “Alliance of Civilizations" initiative is (in theory)designed to "advance mutual respect for religious beliefs and traditions and to reaffirm humankind's interdependence in all areas." 18 countries have pledged their support to the Project so far including (cough) Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria, Senegal, Iran, and Saudi Arabia as well as the usual Euro dhimmis. Blair is, of course, a great supporter.
A front-page report by the mainstream Turkish daily Hurriyet, on July 19th 2005 elaborated on this Alliance of Civilisations stuff :
"[…] If a global consensus is reached for the 'Alliance of Civilizations' project, work will begin for the establishment of a 'World Parliament' under U.N. leadership.
" A high-level group of 18 to 20 prominent intellectuals will prepare for the U.N. a 'road map' for action. Annan is expected to disclose the names of the members he has appointed to this Commission […].
A World Parliament???
Former prime minister of Spain Jose Maria Aznar has rightly defined the 'Alliance of Civilizations' initiative undertaken by his successor Zapatero and PM Erdogan as 'nonsense.' In a statement to The Spectator last year Aznar said, "The 'Alliance of Civilizations' initiative is nonsensical. The only alliance of importance to us [i.e. Spain] is the Atlantic Alliance' […]"Full marks to Aznar. An “Alliance to rescue Western Civilisation from the current buffoons who rule over us” would perhaps seem more appropriate.

Tony in Turkey- And why you should be worried

2006-12-16T09:22:00.000Z

I, and indeed the majority of the British people, have long suspected that Tony Blair is a psychiatric case. And if proof were needed, Emily’s current visit to Turkey would tend to suggest the worst. After this and this, Tony has now determined to sow peace and democracy in the Middle East. And lobby hard for Turkey’s accession to the EU.

Downing Street said that the clashes between rival Palestinian groups yesterday demonstrated the importance of encouraging a moderate, secular Turkey to join the EU so that it could continue to act as a force for reform in the area.Hmmmm, let's look at reality for a moment.

First, Turkey has changed for the worse in recent years. For instance, Israel and Turkey were very, very close during the Cold War, partly due to their alliances with the United States. The relationship deepened after 1996, when the two states signed pacts to cooperate on military training and arms production. In the five years between 1996-2001, Israel and Turkey forged a deep, yet unofficial, military alliance. Turkey and Israel even managed to conclude a far-ranging, free trade deal in 2000.
But then came the rise to power of the AK Party led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2002. The Justice and Development (AK) party, has its roots firmly in Islamist politics. Erdogan has sought to reorient Turkish society to Islam, persistently opening wounds regarding the issue of mosque and state. Michael Rubin has written most convincingly about the AK government. I suggest Tony ought to acquaint himself with the reality of Turkish politics before he stupidly intervenes in matters of which he clearly understands little.
Surprise, surprise, Turkey now shows a new readiness to embrace its Middle Eastern partners. For example, this rather shocking event.
Damascus has in fact been overwhelmed by the warmth that suddenly radiated from Ankara in the past few years. Why should Turkey’s EU bid (which now appears to be at death’s door) encourage democratisation in countries such as Egypt, Paletsine or Yemen? Where’s the link? Turkey is a non-Arab country and is (more or less) a secular, democratic state. What kind of pressure can it bring to bear on the Arab states? Why is the country’s shift away from Israel and increasing realignment towards Syria and the other Arab states viewed as progress by Blair? Especially when Turkey is supposed to be so determined to enter the EU??? What is Blair thinking of?Especially when the reform process in Turkey has ground to a halt over the past year. And of the 25 EU member states why is the UK government still pushing so very hard for Turkish EU entry, when the majority of Europeans clearly take a very different view? I sense, and public opinion polls offer the same view, that there is no enthusiasim for Turkish EU entry in the United Kingdom. Why is Tony so obsessed with the question of Turkey and the EU? Frankly, I am none the wiser.

Tony still on the loose...for now.

2006-12-14T18:27:00.000Z

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said that Scotland Yard detectives arrived at No 10 shortly after 11am today to interview the PM. They are thought to have left about two hours later. But without taking Emily into custody...this time.

Angus MacNeil, the Scottish Nationalist Party MP who triggered the police investigation, said: "This revelation will be shaking the very foundations of Westminster. For the Prime Minister to be questioned by the police during a criminal investigation is unprecedented." Unprecedented and wonderful at the same time...

Hat tip to Martine Martin for the excellent photo montage.

Save the German newts

2006-12-13T16:44:00.000Z

The German government wants to dilute EU wildlife conservation laws to allow businesses to expand more easily.
I suspect fervent eco-warrior David Cameron wouldn’t go along with Merkel but couldn’t the German Chancellor just possibly be a wee bit right. Source

Turkey gets stuffed

2006-12-12T16:08:00.000Z

The EU foreign ministers have unanimously decided to freeze Turkey's EU accession negotiations in eight chapters in agreement with the European Commission’s recommendation. The future now looks increasingly bleak for Turkey’s EU bid.

Addressing members of his ruling party on Tuesday in Ankara, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the way the European Union is treating EU hopeful Turkey was “unfair.”
Turkish Justice Minister and government spokesman Cemil Cicek told reporters in Ankara that the European Union’s aim was the continuation of Turkey’s modernization project and that patience was required throughout the process.EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, who seemed pleased with the council’s decision, expressed that Turkey’s EU membership will show that Islam, the second biggest religion in Europe, is in harmony with European values such as democracy and human rights. An approach not likely to "win hearts and minds" in rural Austria or the Greek islands.

Turks increasingly view the EU with a large dose of suspicion and contempt (like many Europeans do). They are, however, much impressed by Emily Blair’s firm defence of Turkish interests in the EU accession process...while loathing him passionately for his disastrous adventure in Iraq with George W.

Interestingly, Nobel Prize winning author, Orhan Pamuk is mulling an entry into politics, or so the rumour mill goes. Good luck to him, politics in Turkey is a particularly brutal contact sport.

While perhaps more strangely, some Social Democrats and (former?) Islamists are apparently thinking about forming some kind of Centre-Left party with a "Muslim identity".....
Perhaps Blair will sign up for it- The Third Way meets the Green Way. Whatever next?

Free at last!

2006-12-10T17:39:00.000Z

My right honourable friend, the blogger for Croydon happily reminds us of the demise of the Soviet Union 15 years back. But there are other events to be recalled from the Cold War as well.
On a snowy Sunday morning, December 13, 1981 the Poles woke up to find their country under Martial Law, the declared aim of which was to "defend socialism". As we can all remember, the communist order felt terribly threatened (rightly) by the members of the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtin - Solidarity (Solidarnosc).

Thousands of Solidarity leadership and activists were arrested and imprisoned without court sentence. Among those arrested was Lech Walesa, the legendary Solidarity leader.On December 13, 1981 Polish borders were sealed, airports were closed and road access to main cities was restricted. Travel between cities required permission. Curfew was imposed between 10 pm and 6 am. Telephone lines were disconnected. All trade union and other independent organizations were closed. Public administration, health services, power stations, coal mines, sea ports, train stations, and most of the country's key factories were placed under military management.

Martial Law was ended on July 22, 1983. Some of the restrictive legislation introduced during martial law remained in force until the end of the eighties. The failure of the ruling Communist Party became only too clear in 1989 when Solidarity won by a land-slide in the first free election since World War II.

Poland has experienced remarkable economic success over the last decade. It now has an enviable reputation as a stable political environment and is a combative player within the EU. The queues in front of shops, food rationing and empty shelves - a daily nightmare of Socialist times are now nothing but a distant memory.

Tory grass roots are revolting

2006-12-08T17:41:00.000Z

The Tories have suffered a not insignificant defection to the UK Independence party.
Toby Horton, a Conservative party member for 40 years, who chaired William Hague's Richmond constituency while he was party leader, claimed that Ukip was the "party of real opposition" in Britain. "There is a real need in this country for a party of the centre right, and, if the Conservative party doesn't want to fill it, there is inevitably a vacuum that Ukip will fill." The defection of Horton - who was the Tory opponent to Tony Blair when he first became MP for Sedgefield in 1983 - is the third announced by Ukip this week.The tipping point for Toby Horton?
“The answer, in a nutshell, was Polly Toynbee. That was my tipping point."
Well, I agree with Horton about the Toynbee fiasco but not on Ukip where I tend to go along with David Cameron who famously remarked that "Ukip is sort of a bunch of ... fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists, mostly."
The fact is that Ukip takes its votes overwhelmingly from the Tories. The United Kingdom Independence Party took 622,000 votes at the last General Election. Although Ukip came nowhere near winning a seat, the Bruges Group said their support could have prevented the Tories from gaining 18 Labour- held seats and cutting Tony Blair's majority to a precarious 30.

What is to be done?

The French are repulsive

2006-12-07T06:00:00.000Z

As Cranmer has observed, if one posts about Islam, one is inevitably deluged with comments. As for other subjects, the level of response can be a bit on the light side....But this is an important one, folks. So indulge me.
During a five-day trip to Britain, the Rwandan president Paul Kagame has been forced to publicly deny French allegations he orchestrated the assassination of his predecessor Juvenal Habyarimana in 1994, an event that triggered a genocide that claimed 800,000 victims.
President Kagame severed diplomatic relations with Paris last month after French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere issued charges accusing nine Kagame acolytes of shooting down President Habyarimana's jet. Bruguiere filed a document at the Paris prosecutor's office, citing evidence that Kagame, a Tutsi, and members of his military staff devised the operation to destroy Habyarimana's plane

Rwanda accuses Paris of training soldiers it knew would later commit genocide. France denies any wrongdoing, saying its military intervention helped Rwandans. Survivors’ groups have accused France of inadvertently extending the genocide when its troops occupied parts of southern Rwanda in a bid to help provide safe havens for refugees. They say France’s military presence helped slow Kagame’s advance, allowing Hutu extremists to continue their killing.

France, one of the key supporters of the Hutu-led regime that governed the country in the years leading up to the genocide, has always denied any involvement in the massacres.A French parliamentary commission in 1998 cleared Paris of responsibility for the genocide while admitting that "strategic errors" had been made.

Algeria's president Abdelaziz Bouteflika has said that French colonization of his country Algeria was a form of genocide. In a speech in April 2006, the Algerian president Bouteflika said: "We no longer know whether we are Berbers (indigenous North Africans), Arabs, Europeans or French". France committed a "genocide of Algerian identity" during the colonial era, he said. Bouteflika also said "Colonisation brought the genocide of our identity, of our history, of our language, of our traditions”

Paris says that the past should be left to historians. As far as Algeria is concerned.

And yet France's lower house of parliament recently passed a bill making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide, a step that has been strongly denounced by the Turkish government. The Turkish government argues that the past should be left to historians.

Should the past be left to historians or judges? And why is France – a second rate power with a multitude of its own problems- so intent on projecting itself in the Third World? And with such a selective memory. Given that the country has so much African and Arab blood on its hands....