Monday:
Oh Pollyanna Toytown, what a poisonous wee troll you are.
Mr Matthew is much kinder to her, persevering to find praise for Mr Dr Vince in among all the bile she spouts. But I'm not that kind of elephant!
Replaying the Coalition negotiations with the benefit of two years' hindsight, Polly still can't get them right. The Lib Dems, she says, should have forced a Conservatory minority government. AND we should have struck a harder bargain with them from our position of outnumbered-six-to-one-by-the-gerry-rigged-electoral-system strength.
Well make your mind up. Either we agree to a Coalition and make them do some stuff, or we let them rule as a minority. We don't get to do BOTH.
We should, insists La Poll, have forced Mr Balloon to campaign for AV, and we should have prevented the austerity programme. In spite of it being HARD LABOUR'S programme too – Mr Alistair Dalek promised "cuts deeper than Thatcher's", and of course Mr Liam "Father Dick" Byrne's note "there's no money left".
Oh, it's so OBVIOUS now!
Of course, Pollyanna's HINDSIGHT is as QUESTIONABLE as her PROGNOSTICATION.
She describes Lord Adonis as "adept" in offering us an olive branch. This would be the same Lord Adonis whom she described a day earlier as being FURIOUS with us back when we were unable to negotiate a deal with Labour for the entirely inadequate reason that even if there had been enough MPs between our Parties to form a government – and there weren't – Ed Balls and Ed Milipede were too busy sizing each other up for a willy waving contest to even PRETEND to negotiate properly. I mean CLEARLY, it was the Lib Dems' fault that Labour in 2010 could neither win enough seats nor behave like adults.
She also says how Mr Milipede said from the start he would embrace us. This would be the same Mr Milipede who vowed to destroy the Lib Dems, would it? Or the one who promised he would demand Captain Clegg's head in any future coalition negotiations – an utterly RIDICULOUS position to take for a man contemplating having not managed to win an election and going cap in hand to a smaller party to ask for our support. First on the table: "F*** You" – interesting strategy, Mr Not-Going-To-Be-Prime-Monster-then. How are you going to look when you go back to your supporters and say, " Sorry guys, we're back in Opposition because I stupidly put petty vengeance on the leader of another party ahead of the good of the country".
When Cap'n Clegg said Mr Frown had to go he was only pointing out that the COUNTRY had made its JUDGEMENT. That's not UNREASONABLE after an election when someone's been decisively rejected by the voters; if the Liberal Democrats lose seats and votes as badly in 2015, I suspect the Cap'n may be telling people to negotiate with his successor because he'll do the HONOURABLE thing and step aside, just like Mr Frown should have done. By announcing his position nearly five years in advance, though, Mr Milipede reveals that he only wants Dork Lord of the Sith-esque revenge for the slaying of his Master.
Of course, Pollyanna wants to avoid this awkward moment, by having US knife Captain Clegg on their behalf.
Let me rephrase that: the Hard Labour Party would like us to get rid of the MOST SUCCESSFUL LIBERAL SINCE LLOYD GEORGE.
Hmm, is it POSSIBLE that there is an ULTERIOR motive in their suggestion there?
"If Cameron is voted out, building a moral alliance with the people who kept the Tories in power risks looking shoddy to a disillusioned electorate."
No, Pollyanna, it is YOUR POLITICS that is SHODDY, you and your vile Hard Labour toadies. YOU are the ones who scream and wail about "betrayal" when coalitions go against you, and suddenly have a change of mind when it looks like you might need our support yourselves.
On Mr Andy Marrrmight's sofa, Pollyanna makes big tearful eyes and remarks on Lords reform "we need it but it looks like we're not going to get it". Well, who's going to block it, Polly? YOUR HARD LABOUR PARTY that's who.
You utter, utter hypocrite.
You claim to WANT Lords reform, but you'd rather take cheap pops at the Deputy Prime Monster, who is ACTUALLY DOING LORDS REFORM, than make the mildest criticism of your own side when they prop up the Conservatory establishment and vested interest.
"Can you forgive the Liberal Democrats?" Polly asks.
To paraphrase You should get down on your knees and GROVEL for OUR forgiveness.
Your selfish, self-interested actions are those of a TORY. You betray the poor even as your sanctimonious columns use their plight for your own ends; you protect your own wealth and privilege, your position on the Guardian unearned except by inheritance; you are greedy for power. And your Part doesn't just support Tory policies when they have to; they go around actively coming up with Tory policies, or even more-Tory-than-the-Tories policies (ninety day detention without trial; I.D.iot cards; 18% capital gains tax; 75p for pensioners; light touch banking regulation; tuition fees; privatising the health service and all the rest).
Polly Toynbee, you ARE a TORY.
We can TALK to Tories. We can hold our fluffy noses and WORK with Tories. But we don't FORGIVE them.
Un peut cross? Oui!
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Monday, June 11, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Day 4172: Mr Balloon has it both ways
Sunday:
So, to the department of Culture Media and Sport – the Olympics provide the Sport, Lord Leveson is covering the Meeja and as a SLIME MOULD...
Look, just because he's got no hit dice doesn't mean he can't make a saving throw... especially when supported by a wandering Prime Monster.
Appearing on possibly the most oleaginous Mr Marrmite show in AGES (and is there anything else, my lord bishop, that you should like to share with a grateful nation on this occasion of jubilisious auspitude?*), Mr Balloon made his position quite clear:
He didn't WANT to sack Mr Dr Vince, but obviously what he said in PRIVATE – once it was made PUBLIC – meant that he had to.
And he didn't WANT to appoint Mr Jeremy Hunt, but he took legal advice and it turns out that what Mr Jeremy said in private OR in public didn't make ANY DIFFERENCE to how he approached his job.
Hang on, those are MUTUALLY CONTRADICTORY positions – if your private utterings don't matter, why did Mr Dr Vince have to go? If they DO, how could Mr Balloon appoint the Hulture secretary?
It is a MYSTERY!
Let us just say, Britain's chances in the Olympic gymnastics, bending over backwards to look both ways, competition are pretty good.
And to prove that he CAN enter the Get-Shot Put too, Mr Balloon has slung Lady Insider Warsi into an inquiry in under a fortnight. A new personal best!
*And that's without getting to Ms Pollyanna Toytown on the sofa. More of her later, I'm afraid, so sickbags at the ready...
So, to the department of Culture Media and Sport – the Olympics provide the Sport, Lord Leveson is covering the Meeja and as a SLIME MOULD...
Look, just because he's got no hit dice doesn't mean he can't make a saving throw... especially when supported by a wandering Prime Monster.
Appearing on possibly the most oleaginous Mr Marrmite show in AGES (and is there anything else, my lord bishop, that you should like to share with a grateful nation on this occasion of jubilisious auspitude?*), Mr Balloon made his position quite clear:
He didn't WANT to sack Mr Dr Vince, but obviously what he said in PRIVATE – once it was made PUBLIC – meant that he had to.
And he didn't WANT to appoint Mr Jeremy Hunt, but he took legal advice and it turns out that what Mr Jeremy said in private OR in public didn't make ANY DIFFERENCE to how he approached his job.
Hang on, those are MUTUALLY CONTRADICTORY positions – if your private utterings don't matter, why did Mr Dr Vince have to go? If they DO, how could Mr Balloon appoint the Hulture secretary?
It is a MYSTERY!
Let us just say, Britain's chances in the Olympic gymnastics, bending over backwards to look both ways, competition are pretty good.
And to prove that he CAN enter the Get-Shot Put too, Mr Balloon has slung Lady Insider Warsi into an inquiry in under a fortnight. A new personal best!
*And that's without getting to Ms Pollyanna Toytown on the sofa. More of her later, I'm afraid, so sickbags at the ready...
Friday, July 08, 2011
Day 3841: Goodbye Cruel World*
Friday:
It turns out that we owe an apology to Harold Camping, of all people, for LO the End of the World has arrived and the Elect has indeed been lifted to Safety!
In other news…
We may be in the gutter…
…but some of us are looking at the stars!
To the Space Shuttle Atlantis: go to Heaven.
To the News of the World: do the maths!
.
It turns out that we owe an apology to Harold Camping, of all people, for LO the End of the World has arrived and the Elect has indeed been lifted to Safety!
In other news…
We may be in the gutter…
…but some of us are looking at the stars!
To the Space Shuttle Atlantis: go to Heaven.
To the News of the World: do the maths!
PS:
*In the absence of the Current Bun covering this appalling phone-hacking story, it seems the Tell-lies-o-Graph have decided to take their place. Says it all, really..
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Day 3830: Either Or-ery
Monday:
Over the weekend Mr Mark Reckons wrote a piece I'd recommend reading on "Whataboutery", which is the way to play politics dirty so that you can attack someone who's proposing a policy you actually agree with.
This is the FALLACY of the RED HERRING: introducing an irrelevant case into an argument.
I'd like to give you a companion to Mr Mark's piece with one on another FALLACY, the fallacy of the FALSE DICHOTOMY.
Most famously presented by the former-Monkey-in-Chief, President Dubbya, as "you're either with us or against us", we've been seeing a LOT of this at the moment.
The most common occurrence is the "NHS fallacy": any reform is to be opposed with cries that the "only choice" is between the status quo and "privatisation", usually "privatisation by the back door" (to get around the fact that whatever it is clearly ISN'T going to be an actual privatisation). In fact, of course, the Hard Labour government oversaw the genuine privatisation of great swathes of our NHS through their Public Finance Initiative, which saw hospitals bought up by private companies and leased back to the public at often excessive rents (which is one of the things leading to the embuggerance of the NHS in spite of above inflation increases in government spending).
Topical this week, the public sector unions are going to go on strike over pensions because the "only choice" is between their current arrangements and "absolute daylight robbery".
Although SOME people might say that it's the UNIONS' position that is: "your money or yourlife public services"! I mean, just WHO is holding the "gun" saying "don't make me hurt the children" here?
Actually, the double standards employed by the Unions in this "debate" are outrageous. First, the Unions announce that they are going to go on strike. Then Mr Danny sets out the government's position. Now I call that being open and honest with the public, but the Unions call it "deeply inflammatory". They call it deeply inflammatory AFTER they've already announced that – regardless of the ongoing negotiations – they've decided to call a strike. Check the dates on the last two quotes: "Public sector workers back mass strike": 15th June; Danny Alexander's speech: 17th June. Deeply inflammatory. Right.
And now we have Ms Mary Bousted, leader of the ATL teachers' union, accusing the government of a "doing a Robert Maxwell on our pensions". So that would be saying that the government is illegally taking money OUT of the teacher's pension funds and using it to prop up, what, the rest of government spending?
Well, at the moment there is NOT ENOUGH money in those pension funds to meet the expected needs of the teachers (and other workers) who are paying in. So the government has to top that up from general taxation (that's ON TOP OF the employers contributions that we make).
So that would basically be the EXACT OPPOSITE of "doing a Robert Maxwell". That would be keeping the pension fund afloat at the expense of everyone else.
They tell LIES and they call us NAMES and then they have the CHEEK to try and distract your attention from it by saying that WE'RE traducing THEM!
I'd call Ms Mary a Bousted Flush!
Meanwhile, here is another example, this time from the Labour Conspiracy website:
"Our choice is to treat people with dignity or go back to the 1930s"
Is it actually USEFUL to polarise a very difficult debate about benefits and disability into "basic dignity" versus "1930s work programmes, institutions and eugenics" (and that's really not sufficiently coded to avoid cries of Godwin's Law, now is it)?
Could we not start from a basic recognition that the government isn't TRYING to be evil?
The aim of Mr Drunken-Swerve's reforms is SUPPOSED to be to enable people who want to work to be better off if they go to work, not - as the quote implies - to euthanase the disabled.
For the last thirty years, governments have been hiding unemployment among the genuinely long-term ill. It seems to me that one thing that could actively harm the interests of those who are ill is having to support the long-term unemployed out of the same pot of benefits. So, I have to ask: would a benefit system that undid that be better able to provide basic dignity for those in genuine need?
(You COULD reasonably argue "no"; e.g. you might argue that a sort of quasi-universal provision might be more effective, but you would need to justify that as a position, rather than just start from the assertion "any reform must be bad for the long-term ill".)
And if you are going to undo that hiding of unemployment, how are you to do it?
Again, it seems that either you let anyone claim disability-related benefits and accept that the benefit will be spread so thin that it helps no one, or you accept that at some point there's going to be some kind of medical testing involved.
At which point we're down to a question of degree.
So, the proposed tests sound to be too intrusive and too impersonal. And they sound like they are FRIGHTENING people (which I have to say language of "eugenics" exacerbates, which if you think about it puts you on the same side as the scary people - even though the LabCon author is clearly also one of the ones who are scared). Surely the useful question then is: "how do we conduct any testing that we have to in the most sympathetic and dignified manner?"
Clearly there ARE problems on the Coalition side here, almost certainly stemming from a terror at the department of benefits of seeing a huge spike in unemployment claims. So clearly they want to do the undoing by not jumping people from disability benefits to unemployment benefits, but by jumping them straight from disability to work, and that's just impractical. Equally, this is clearly a terrible time to be doing any forward thinking reform because the overriding need for spending cuts will at best muddle your thinking. Like, WHICH target is your main aim? Making sure that sickness benefits go to the sick? Making sure that work actually rewards the worker? Or cutting the overall benefits bill? (And your opponents are ALWAYS going to come back at you with "it's about the cuts" "it's ideological" (yawn)!)
Wouldn't it be better to think about OUTCOMES rather than INTENTIONS? The road to the toasty place being notoriously paved with the latter (as anyone who experienced the last government can testify), saying that a policy is wrong because it does this, or because it fails to do that is both more PRACTICAL and more HONEST than saying that it is just "evil".
The biggest false dichotomies, of course, are on the ECONOMY. And BOTH SIDES are guilty of using 'em.
"We must do this or the economy will fall over!"/"We must not do this or the economy will never recover!" is the now too-familiar battleline between the Coalition and Opposition, and this obfusticates the fact that the policies of both sides are REALLY VERY SIMILAR.
"It was the fault of the last Labour government"/"it was the fault of the bankers", is another.
OF COURSE it is in the Coalition's political interest to portray the Labour Party as credit-crazed spendthrifts, ruinous wastrels who would have us in penury and our children in hock forever. We, after all, are the ones who have to be in power while the agonisingly painful policies of deficit reduction are enacted.
But equally, the Coalition has to have an answer to Hard Labour's naked political opportunism when they seek to pin every scintilla of economic agony to Master Gideon's incompetence at the reins (a "bad news" policy by the Shadow Pocket Money Thief that leads to some frankly bizarre doublethink: for example, when there is a fall in unemployment, apparently, it's because unemployment is a "lagging indicator" when it goes down but "evidence of why we need a plan B" when it goes up).
(This of course was Mr Balls recent interview with Mr Marrmite, the one where he said that "the trade unions must not walk into the trap of giving George Osborne the confrontation he wants" because he spotted that choosing between supporting strikes or supporting the government was a trap for HIM!)
Any half-way decent economist (I do NOT include Mr Bully Balls in that category) will tell you that the cuts have neither begun to bite nor had nearly enough time to change the direction of the economy. The two main things affecting the economy are that MASSIVE RECESSION that happened in 2008 (in case you somehow missed it) and the fact that the government printed like a GAZILLION POUNDS leading to inflation and devaluation. (Though neither of these things are NECESSARILY as bad as they are painted either – another false dichotomy. E.g. inflation reduces the national debt as a share of GDP – as any property owner who survived the Seventies will tell you, it didn't half make their mortgages a doddle; though, flipside again, long term it started the inexorable house price inflation that leaves us now so overburdened.)
The truth is, the policies of Labour and Conservatories (and Liberal Democrats!) are not that different – in fact, given for example the discovery that Mr Alistair Dalek was secretly planning a VAT rise, you can bet your bottom dollar (which may be the only one you have left by now) that had they been returned to power, Hard Labour would have conducted a swift spending review and said "oops, it's worse than we thought, guys, have you SEEN what's happed in Greece? We have to cut faster and deeper!", and done EXACTLY what the Coalition is doing.
The MYTH of Labour's "pain free" cuts… their airy assertion that they would cut 80% of the deficit that we would but their tactical oppositionalism against every single £ reduction in spending… their repeated false dichotomy of "our way or the evil, ideological inflicting of pain on the poor"… it makes it VERY DIFFICULT to have anything approaching a RATIONAL DEBATE.
"We'd like to cut this."
"EVIL!"
"Well, maybe if we only cut it by half."
"INFINITE EVIL!"
I'm sure it plays well to the Labour Chorus, but it gets the country nowhere.
Regrettably, Mr Millipede's response to talk of a leadership crisis is a power grab for control of Shadow Cabinet appointments showing that Hard Labour are turning more INWARDS than looking outwards. While Mr Bully Balls, apparently, no longer even sees the need to run policies by the Shadow Cabinet before launching them. And sofa government worked so WELL for Lord Blairimort, after all.
In an equation where it is EITHER the Coalition OR the Labour Party, Labour seem intent on making themselves IRRELEVANT.
But even THAT is a false dichotomy. The Coalition of course consists of TWO Parties, and the true clash of ideas is now between Conservatories and LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.
You see, the ULTIMATE "either/or" is the MEEJA's HEADS WE WIN-TAILS YOU LOSE game of EITHER "on message" OR "gaffe". If you're "on message" you're a ROBOT, no to be trusted, only lying when your lips move, enemy of the people. If you" gaffe" it's even worse. Hence all this recent fuss over "U-Turns", as though LISTENING to people, DEBATING policy even, shock, CHANGING YOUR MIND were BAD THINGS for a government in what we still LAUGHINGLY describe as a DEMOCRACY (leading to the UTTERLY INSANE suggestion from a Questionable Time panellist that governments should do what is in their manifesto and only what is in their manifesto and the people should shut up for five years and only judge them at election time). DEBATING policy – in CABINET as well as in PARLIAMENT rather than at intimate tête-a-têtes with Fleet Street Editors – reduces the meeja's POWER to dictate the agenda. That's why, for them, a thinking government is a "weak" government and one that does what it's told (by a Prime Monster who does what she or he is told) is a "strong" one.
Obviously the REAL truth is the reverse, and that is why the Liberal Democrats bring real STRENGTH to this Coalition.
We are used to having Government and Opposition. In the Coalition, the Liberal Democrats are BOTH.
And how LIBERAL is that? Liberalism has NEVER been an EITHER/OR; it's always been BOTH: one and many; individual and community; local and global.
That is how I can write a big old self-important diary about "great big, important-y things" like the ECONOMY and SPACE and STUFF, and Auntie Caron, bless her heart, can read it and bring it right down to the REALLY important and PERSONAL with a post about the need for a real Liberal Voice. And they are BOTH what Liberalism is ABOUT.
.
Over the weekend Mr Mark Reckons wrote a piece I'd recommend reading on "Whataboutery", which is the way to play politics dirty so that you can attack someone who's proposing a policy you actually agree with.
This is the FALLACY of the RED HERRING: introducing an irrelevant case into an argument.
I'd like to give you a companion to Mr Mark's piece with one on another FALLACY, the fallacy of the FALSE DICHOTOMY.
Most famously presented by the former-Monkey-in-Chief, President Dubbya, as "you're either with us or against us", we've been seeing a LOT of this at the moment.
The most common occurrence is the "NHS fallacy": any reform is to be opposed with cries that the "only choice" is between the status quo and "privatisation", usually "privatisation by the back door" (to get around the fact that whatever it is clearly ISN'T going to be an actual privatisation). In fact, of course, the Hard Labour government oversaw the genuine privatisation of great swathes of our NHS through their Public Finance Initiative, which saw hospitals bought up by private companies and leased back to the public at often excessive rents (which is one of the things leading to the embuggerance of the NHS in spite of above inflation increases in government spending).
Topical this week, the public sector unions are going to go on strike over pensions because the "only choice" is between their current arrangements and "absolute daylight robbery".
Although SOME people might say that it's the UNIONS' position that is: "your money or your
Actually, the double standards employed by the Unions in this "debate" are outrageous. First, the Unions announce that they are going to go on strike. Then Mr Danny sets out the government's position. Now I call that being open and honest with the public, but the Unions call it "deeply inflammatory". They call it deeply inflammatory AFTER they've already announced that – regardless of the ongoing negotiations – they've decided to call a strike. Check the dates on the last two quotes: "Public sector workers back mass strike": 15th June; Danny Alexander's speech: 17th June. Deeply inflammatory. Right.
And now we have Ms Mary Bousted, leader of the ATL teachers' union, accusing the government of a "doing a Robert Maxwell on our pensions". So that would be saying that the government is illegally taking money OUT of the teacher's pension funds and using it to prop up, what, the rest of government spending?
Well, at the moment there is NOT ENOUGH money in those pension funds to meet the expected needs of the teachers (and other workers) who are paying in. So the government has to top that up from general taxation (that's ON TOP OF the employers contributions that we make).
So that would basically be the EXACT OPPOSITE of "doing a Robert Maxwell". That would be keeping the pension fund afloat at the expense of everyone else.
They tell LIES and they call us NAMES and then they have the CHEEK to try and distract your attention from it by saying that WE'RE traducing THEM!
I'd call Ms Mary a Bousted Flush!
Meanwhile, here is another example, this time from the Labour Conspiracy website:
"Our choice is to treat people with dignity or go back to the 1930s"
Is it actually USEFUL to polarise a very difficult debate about benefits and disability into "basic dignity" versus "1930s work programmes, institutions and eugenics" (and that's really not sufficiently coded to avoid cries of Godwin's Law, now is it)?
Could we not start from a basic recognition that the government isn't TRYING to be evil?
The aim of Mr Drunken-Swerve's reforms is SUPPOSED to be to enable people who want to work to be better off if they go to work, not - as the quote implies - to euthanase the disabled.
For the last thirty years, governments have been hiding unemployment among the genuinely long-term ill. It seems to me that one thing that could actively harm the interests of those who are ill is having to support the long-term unemployed out of the same pot of benefits. So, I have to ask: would a benefit system that undid that be better able to provide basic dignity for those in genuine need?
(You COULD reasonably argue "no"; e.g. you might argue that a sort of quasi-universal provision might be more effective, but you would need to justify that as a position, rather than just start from the assertion "any reform must be bad for the long-term ill".)
And if you are going to undo that hiding of unemployment, how are you to do it?
Again, it seems that either you let anyone claim disability-related benefits and accept that the benefit will be spread so thin that it helps no one, or you accept that at some point there's going to be some kind of medical testing involved.
At which point we're down to a question of degree.
So, the proposed tests sound to be too intrusive and too impersonal. And they sound like they are FRIGHTENING people (which I have to say language of "eugenics" exacerbates, which if you think about it puts you on the same side as the scary people - even though the LabCon author is clearly also one of the ones who are scared). Surely the useful question then is: "how do we conduct any testing that we have to in the most sympathetic and dignified manner?"
Clearly there ARE problems on the Coalition side here, almost certainly stemming from a terror at the department of benefits of seeing a huge spike in unemployment claims. So clearly they want to do the undoing by not jumping people from disability benefits to unemployment benefits, but by jumping them straight from disability to work, and that's just impractical. Equally, this is clearly a terrible time to be doing any forward thinking reform because the overriding need for spending cuts will at best muddle your thinking. Like, WHICH target is your main aim? Making sure that sickness benefits go to the sick? Making sure that work actually rewards the worker? Or cutting the overall benefits bill? (And your opponents are ALWAYS going to come back at you with "it's about the cuts" "it's ideological" (yawn)!)
Wouldn't it be better to think about OUTCOMES rather than INTENTIONS? The road to the toasty place being notoriously paved with the latter (as anyone who experienced the last government can testify), saying that a policy is wrong because it does this, or because it fails to do that is both more PRACTICAL and more HONEST than saying that it is just "evil".
The biggest false dichotomies, of course, are on the ECONOMY. And BOTH SIDES are guilty of using 'em.
"We must do this or the economy will fall over!"/"We must not do this or the economy will never recover!" is the now too-familiar battleline between the Coalition and Opposition, and this obfusticates the fact that the policies of both sides are REALLY VERY SIMILAR.
"It was the fault of the last Labour government"/"it was the fault of the bankers", is another.
OF COURSE it is in the Coalition's political interest to portray the Labour Party as credit-crazed spendthrifts, ruinous wastrels who would have us in penury and our children in hock forever. We, after all, are the ones who have to be in power while the agonisingly painful policies of deficit reduction are enacted.
But equally, the Coalition has to have an answer to Hard Labour's naked political opportunism when they seek to pin every scintilla of economic agony to Master Gideon's incompetence at the reins (a "bad news" policy by the Shadow Pocket Money Thief that leads to some frankly bizarre doublethink: for example, when there is a fall in unemployment, apparently, it's because unemployment is a "lagging indicator" when it goes down but "evidence of why we need a plan B" when it goes up).
(This of course was Mr Balls recent interview with Mr Marrmite, the one where he said that "the trade unions must not walk into the trap of giving George Osborne the confrontation he wants" because he spotted that choosing between supporting strikes or supporting the government was a trap for HIM!)
Any half-way decent economist (I do NOT include Mr Bully Balls in that category) will tell you that the cuts have neither begun to bite nor had nearly enough time to change the direction of the economy. The two main things affecting the economy are that MASSIVE RECESSION that happened in 2008 (in case you somehow missed it) and the fact that the government printed like a GAZILLION POUNDS leading to inflation and devaluation. (Though neither of these things are NECESSARILY as bad as they are painted either – another false dichotomy. E.g. inflation reduces the national debt as a share of GDP – as any property owner who survived the Seventies will tell you, it didn't half make their mortgages a doddle; though, flipside again, long term it started the inexorable house price inflation that leaves us now so overburdened.)
The truth is, the policies of Labour and Conservatories (and Liberal Democrats!) are not that different – in fact, given for example the discovery that Mr Alistair Dalek was secretly planning a VAT rise, you can bet your bottom dollar (which may be the only one you have left by now) that had they been returned to power, Hard Labour would have conducted a swift spending review and said "oops, it's worse than we thought, guys, have you SEEN what's happed in Greece? We have to cut faster and deeper!", and done EXACTLY what the Coalition is doing.
The MYTH of Labour's "pain free" cuts… their airy assertion that they would cut 80% of the deficit that we would but their tactical oppositionalism against every single £ reduction in spending… their repeated false dichotomy of "our way or the evil, ideological inflicting of pain on the poor"… it makes it VERY DIFFICULT to have anything approaching a RATIONAL DEBATE.
"We'd like to cut this."
"EVIL!"
"Well, maybe if we only cut it by half."
"INFINITE EVIL!"
I'm sure it plays well to the Labour Chorus, but it gets the country nowhere.
Regrettably, Mr Millipede's response to talk of a leadership crisis is a power grab for control of Shadow Cabinet appointments showing that Hard Labour are turning more INWARDS than looking outwards. While Mr Bully Balls, apparently, no longer even sees the need to run policies by the Shadow Cabinet before launching them. And sofa government worked so WELL for Lord Blairimort, after all.
In an equation where it is EITHER the Coalition OR the Labour Party, Labour seem intent on making themselves IRRELEVANT.
But even THAT is a false dichotomy. The Coalition of course consists of TWO Parties, and the true clash of ideas is now between Conservatories and LIBERAL DEMOCRATS.
You see, the ULTIMATE "either/or" is the MEEJA's HEADS WE WIN-TAILS YOU LOSE game of EITHER "on message" OR "gaffe". If you're "on message" you're a ROBOT, no to be trusted, only lying when your lips move, enemy of the people. If you" gaffe" it's even worse. Hence all this recent fuss over "U-Turns", as though LISTENING to people, DEBATING policy even, shock, CHANGING YOUR MIND were BAD THINGS for a government in what we still LAUGHINGLY describe as a DEMOCRACY (leading to the UTTERLY INSANE suggestion from a Questionable Time panellist that governments should do what is in their manifesto and only what is in their manifesto and the people should shut up for five years and only judge them at election time). DEBATING policy – in CABINET as well as in PARLIAMENT rather than at intimate tête-a-têtes with Fleet Street Editors – reduces the meeja's POWER to dictate the agenda. That's why, for them, a thinking government is a "weak" government and one that does what it's told (by a Prime Monster who does what she or he is told) is a "strong" one.
Obviously the REAL truth is the reverse, and that is why the Liberal Democrats bring real STRENGTH to this Coalition.
We are used to having Government and Opposition. In the Coalition, the Liberal Democrats are BOTH.
And how LIBERAL is that? Liberalism has NEVER been an EITHER/OR; it's always been BOTH: one and many; individual and community; local and global.
That is how I can write a big old self-important diary about "great big, important-y things" like the ECONOMY and SPACE and STUFF, and Auntie Caron, bless her heart, can read it and bring it right down to the REALLY important and PERSONAL with a post about the need for a real Liberal Voice. And they are BOTH what Liberalism is ABOUT.
.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Day 3643: Some GOOD News For Mr Dr Vince
Wednesday:
We all know that Mr Dr Vince "the power" Cable (currently slightly shorted) is a fan of the humble BEE.
In fact, Mr Dr Vince is a BIT like a Honey Bee himself, isn't he: a big golden thing that bumbles around making nice things and pollinating British industry. Not to mention the special dance. And, like the honey bee, plagued by irritating mites that are spitting poison.
Yes, it's the Tell-lies-o-graph continuing its vendetta against the Liberal Democrats with SHOCK REVELATIONS that Mr Vince is AGAINST A MASSIVE VESTED INTEREST and that other Lib Dems OPPOSE SCRAPPING BENEFITS.
Tomorrow, presumably, they lead on the news that Captain Clegg met Mr the Pope earlier this year and believes him to be a Catholic!
(And as for what Mr Paul Burblings could tell you about what he knows about BEARS and WOODS, well, let's just hope the Sunday edition is sufficiently… absorbent!)
Auntie Caron has more on how Mr Dr Vince behaves like a GENTLEMAN and the Tell-lies-o-graph is doing real DAMAGE to politics; while Auntie Jennie has a more PITHY response to the British meeja's recent choices for setting the agenda.
But what I GENUINELY do not understand is why we are supposed to be in ANY WAY "embarrassed" about this.
If ANYONE should be "embarrassed" it should be the Tell-lies-o-graph for getting CAUGHT out in a COVER UP, when their coverage suspiciously failed to mention the whole "going to war" against the Tell-lies-o-graph's commercial rival Mr Roger Stavro Moredick.
And if anyone ELSE should be "embarrassed" it's Hard Labour for leaping to the defence of a foreign plutocrat who already has way too much power (and pays far too little tax) in this country. I mean, nice to see that Hard Labour as still on the side of the ordinary billionaire in the street, isn't it.
Look, can someone explain to me how Liberal Democrat ministers discussing their honestly held opinions is "indiscrete" when Mr Dale Winton gabbing on the The Today Programme about the texts he's received from Tory's whinging that "it's not fair" are NOT indiscrete?
Isn't it COMPLETELY BACKWARDS that it's fine to tittle-tattle to a notorious GOSSIP behind people's backs, but actually come out and SAY what you believe, oh, the horses are frightened now!
And to those Conservatories who are spitting and hissing that a Conservatory minister would have been fired for such "indiscretions": HELLO! Have you already forgotten the DEFENCE SECRETARY, "fantastic" Dr Fox, blatantly leaking and briefing against his own government during the highly sensitive defence review? Special treatment for Liberal Democrats my BIG FLUFFY BEHIND; where's the public dressing down for Foxy, then?
It just seems very odd to me that we elect ministers to make DECISIONS on our behalf on the basis of their OPINIONS being ones we generally agree with, and then quite bizarrely expect them to exercise NEUTRALITY when it comes to MAKING those decisions.
Do you ask the waiter to recommend what's GOOD and then complain when she picks something from her own restaurant's MENU? Do you think she should be making a NEUTRAL decision and considering the benefits of the takeaway next door of the Pizza Tonight down the street, even though you've made some sort of choice to come and sit down in HER restaurant?
Yes, yes, I get it that where you want a decision made in a "quasi-judicial" way, you don't want the judge to start the case by saying: "good lord, this one's OBVIOUSLY a wrong 'um; I shall be directing the jury to find him GUILTY and am looking forward to extracting a sentence of the MAXIMUM VENGEANCE allowed by the penal code."
But Ministers are THERE to make POLICY; if you want someone to take impartial quasi-judicial decisions… get a JUDGE!
Okay, for those who insist on "playing" politics like a Game of Monopoly where all the squares are "Westminster", then the Liberal Democrats are "damaged" by this; Mr Dr Vince has set back his ability to do good things because his remarks are a little too VAIN for his own good.
But each of these "leaks" shows a Liberal Democrat considering the interests of the country: is it in the countries interest to reduce participation in the media? How will people cope with the housing benefit cut? Is the change to child benefit fair and considered? Was the tuition fees debacle a train wreck?
I can TOTALLY agree with the decision made by each and every Liberal Democrat quoted.
The decisions and compromises that our ministers have had to make have been painful and far from perfect, but they CAN say with confidence that they were made for the BEST POSSIBLE REASONS, and with the interest of the Country put first.
So this is the message to the wingnuts on the right of the Conservatory Party and the Colonel Blitherington Bufftons of the Tell-lies-o-graph: you are NOT going to get a Right Wing government if you bring down the Coalition. Look at the opinion polls you morons: if there's an election, Hard Labour will WIN. And the economic recovery is TOO FRAGILE to allow that to happen.
I can hardly believe I am saying this but: Conservatories, STOP PUTTING YOUR OWN PETTY INTERESTS AHEAD OF THOSE OF YOUR COUNTRY!
And the GOOD NEWS for Mr Dr Vince is that scientists think that they have discovered a CURE for his beloved Honey Bees.
Let us hope that we can find a CURE to clean some of the POISON out of our POLITICS too.
.
We all know that Mr Dr Vince "the power" Cable (currently slightly shorted) is a fan of the humble BEE.
In fact, Mr Dr Vince is a BIT like a Honey Bee himself, isn't he: a big golden thing that bumbles around making nice things and pollinating British industry. Not to mention the special dance. And, like the honey bee, plagued by irritating mites that are spitting poison.
Yes, it's the Tell-lies-o-graph continuing its vendetta against the Liberal Democrats with SHOCK REVELATIONS that Mr Vince is AGAINST A MASSIVE VESTED INTEREST and that other Lib Dems OPPOSE SCRAPPING BENEFITS.
Tomorrow, presumably, they lead on the news that Captain Clegg met Mr the Pope earlier this year and believes him to be a Catholic!
(And as for what Mr Paul Burblings could tell you about what he knows about BEARS and WOODS, well, let's just hope the Sunday edition is sufficiently… absorbent!)
Auntie Caron has more on how Mr Dr Vince behaves like a GENTLEMAN and the Tell-lies-o-graph is doing real DAMAGE to politics; while Auntie Jennie has a more PITHY response to the British meeja's recent choices for setting the agenda.
But what I GENUINELY do not understand is why we are supposed to be in ANY WAY "embarrassed" about this.
If ANYONE should be "embarrassed" it should be the Tell-lies-o-graph for getting CAUGHT out in a COVER UP, when their coverage suspiciously failed to mention the whole "going to war" against the Tell-lies-o-graph's commercial rival Mr Roger Stavro Moredick.
And if anyone ELSE should be "embarrassed" it's Hard Labour for leaping to the defence of a foreign plutocrat who already has way too much power (and pays far too little tax) in this country. I mean, nice to see that Hard Labour as still on the side of the ordinary billionaire in the street, isn't it.
Look, can someone explain to me how Liberal Democrat ministers discussing their honestly held opinions is "indiscrete" when Mr Dale Winton gabbing on the The Today Programme about the texts he's received from Tory's whinging that "it's not fair" are NOT indiscrete?
Isn't it COMPLETELY BACKWARDS that it's fine to tittle-tattle to a notorious GOSSIP behind people's backs, but actually come out and SAY what you believe, oh, the horses are frightened now!
And to those Conservatories who are spitting and hissing that a Conservatory minister would have been fired for such "indiscretions": HELLO! Have you already forgotten the DEFENCE SECRETARY, "fantastic" Dr Fox, blatantly leaking and briefing against his own government during the highly sensitive defence review? Special treatment for Liberal Democrats my BIG FLUFFY BEHIND; where's the public dressing down for Foxy, then?
It just seems very odd to me that we elect ministers to make DECISIONS on our behalf on the basis of their OPINIONS being ones we generally agree with, and then quite bizarrely expect them to exercise NEUTRALITY when it comes to MAKING those decisions.
Do you ask the waiter to recommend what's GOOD and then complain when she picks something from her own restaurant's MENU? Do you think she should be making a NEUTRAL decision and considering the benefits of the takeaway next door of the Pizza Tonight down the street, even though you've made some sort of choice to come and sit down in HER restaurant?
Yes, yes, I get it that where you want a decision made in a "quasi-judicial" way, you don't want the judge to start the case by saying: "good lord, this one's OBVIOUSLY a wrong 'um; I shall be directing the jury to find him GUILTY and am looking forward to extracting a sentence of the MAXIMUM VENGEANCE allowed by the penal code."
But Ministers are THERE to make POLICY; if you want someone to take impartial quasi-judicial decisions… get a JUDGE!
Okay, for those who insist on "playing" politics like a Game of Monopoly where all the squares are "Westminster", then the Liberal Democrats are "damaged" by this; Mr Dr Vince has set back his ability to do good things because his remarks are a little too VAIN for his own good.
But each of these "leaks" shows a Liberal Democrat considering the interests of the country: is it in the countries interest to reduce participation in the media? How will people cope with the housing benefit cut? Is the change to child benefit fair and considered? Was the tuition fees debacle a train wreck?
I can TOTALLY agree with the decision made by each and every Liberal Democrat quoted.
The decisions and compromises that our ministers have had to make have been painful and far from perfect, but they CAN say with confidence that they were made for the BEST POSSIBLE REASONS, and with the interest of the Country put first.
So this is the message to the wingnuts on the right of the Conservatory Party and the Colonel Blitherington Bufftons of the Tell-lies-o-graph: you are NOT going to get a Right Wing government if you bring down the Coalition. Look at the opinion polls you morons: if there's an election, Hard Labour will WIN. And the economic recovery is TOO FRAGILE to allow that to happen.
I can hardly believe I am saying this but: Conservatories, STOP PUTTING YOUR OWN PETTY INTERESTS AHEAD OF THOSE OF YOUR COUNTRY!
And the GOOD NEWS for Mr Dr Vince is that scientists think that they have discovered a CURE for his beloved Honey Bees.
Let us hope that we can find a CURE to clean some of the POISON out of our POLITICS too.
.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Day 2983: …then Get Off your Fluffy Bottom and DO something, Mr Brooker!
Monday:
It seems that the Grauniad's resident misanthropic television critic has reached the limits of human endurance with the Hard Labour Government, resulting in THIS warmly-received splenetic diatribe against the politicos of the ruling classes. Or rather against ALL politicians of every stripe.
But here's my problem: if you're fed up with the way things are, you've got two choices. Either, one: play by the rules, join a political party that WILL make a difference and change the system; or, two: organise a revolution.
Anything else is just "shootin the breeze" as the ELEPHANTS of EVIL in America would put it.
Do not get me wrong, we love Mr Charlie. And it is a GREAT rant. And, frankly, who amongst us could read Mr Jack Man O'Straw, the Sinister Minister, claiming that BLACK IS WHITE without wanting to run him down on the next ZEBRA CROSSING.
But if you don't follow through with action, it doesn't achieve a single darn thing.
Let's diagnose the problem.
Symptom: politicians don't need to pay any attention to what the general public want.
Cause: we have a political system that hands 100% absolute power to the winner of a very small number of marginal seats, meaning that the parties are forced to converge on very narrow policies to satisfy the voters in those marginals and so long as they do that can do any other darn thing they like.
Solution: change the system. Change it so that more or at least most of the seats have a meaningful contest. Make it so that MPs have to DO SOMETHING to justify the vote of their electors.
Snag: but that's so BOOOOOOORING, much easier to wail and yell and throw our dummies out of the pram about how corrupt and venal and just so HUMAN our representatives are.
If you say all politicians are the same, that ANYONE who goes into politics is therefore the same… then no one is going to go into politics to CHANGE things. And that only helps the BAD ones.
Let's just take a moment to compare the reception in Chatter-ista-land of two articles about British Freedom: Mr Huhney-Monster's FREEDOM BILL, and the Sinister Minister's DOUBLETHINK. Clearly, not ALL politicians are the same.
Look, if the Liberal Democrats actually WON an election, I really cannot GUARANTEE that we would be better than Hard Labour or the Conservatories. I know that we wouldn't be corrupt or venal in the same way… but I'm sure we could find new and exciting ways of our own to be corrupt and venal. That's the problem with absolute power, after all.
But we WOULD put a system in place that would change the balance of power between people and politics. We WOULD be the answer Mr Charlie's problem.
Here is the problem for the Liberal Democrats. We WANT to be different. We WANT to be iconoclastic, to change the system, break apart the old cosy consensus where a pathetic "opposition" permits Hard Labour ministers to block legitimate inquiries into disastrous and unjust policies that resulted in literally murderous repercussions with a casual "well we're not telling, so ner".
On the other fluffy foot, we ALSO want to be ELECTED. It's kind of NECESSARY if you want to stick within the rules of our democracy, even if your aim is to win the power to CHANGE those rules.
But playing by the rules means being part of the system. And that means that we're going to get slandered with the "oh, you're just like all the other politicians" label. Because otherwise, we get slandered with the "gaffe" label.
If you step outside the conventional – even SLIGHTLY, by maybe suggesting it's okay to not believe in Mr God, or that aspiring to virginity until marriage is a tiny touch out of date, or that maybe asteroids are worth thinking about – then you are "gaffe prone" or "a figure of fun". (And goodness knows how the meeja would cope with someone who had a REALLY alternative lifestyle – polyamory, anyone? Transvestism? Nudism? Train-spotting?)
In fact it's true of the WHOLE PARTY. We're a bit UNCONVENTIONAL – so we're told we lack CREDIBILITY.
The MEEJA is the key to this – and, I'm sorry to say, Mr Charlie works in the media.
I do so WANT to think: "well, Mr Charlie is great and it's his JOB to write articles, so this is his way of doing his bit. And the problem is the droning mass of the do-nothing brigade, all those fawning midges on Comment-is-Free-ish-subject-to-moderation, you might call them the INSECT-IGENSIA."
But the Grauniad SUPPORTS this Government. They urged people to VOTE for it at the last election, even AFTER we all knew that Iraq was a LIE. They will probably urge people to vote for it again.
(It has been suggested that they might switch their support to Mr Balloon's Conservatories. Which is even WORSE. Because it is just another run around the game of BUGGINS' TURN, that keeps the Tweedle-Tories, Dum-and-Dumber, in power.)
The Grauniad runs SPIN for this Government, the Grauniad undermines alternatives and lives in DENIAL about the true depths of Hard Labour's crimes.
They are like all those increasingly-desperate Labour backbenchers who pretty much campaign on the slogan: isn't this government dreadful – vote Labour; it's the only way to stop these bad-words!
So how CAN you be against the LYING LIARS when you are a PART of the very system that keeps them there?
If you mean it, Mr Charlie, if you really, really mean it, then you're going to have to say to the QUISLING bosses of the Grauniad, I'm sorry it's Labour or me. Tell them that either they unequivocally denounce the Government, the Labour party, Ms Pollyanna Toytown, Ms Jacuie Hashley and all the rest. Or quit.
Otherwise… you're just another politician.
.
It seems that the Grauniad's resident misanthropic television critic has reached the limits of human endurance with the Hard Labour Government, resulting in THIS warmly-received splenetic diatribe against the politicos of the ruling classes. Or rather against ALL politicians of every stripe.
But here's my problem: if you're fed up with the way things are, you've got two choices. Either, one: play by the rules, join a political party that WILL make a difference and change the system; or, two: organise a revolution.
Anything else is just "shootin the breeze" as the ELEPHANTS of EVIL in America would put it.
Do not get me wrong, we love Mr Charlie. And it is a GREAT rant. And, frankly, who amongst us could read Mr Jack Man O'Straw, the Sinister Minister, claiming that BLACK IS WHITE without wanting to run him down on the next ZEBRA CROSSING.
But if you don't follow through with action, it doesn't achieve a single darn thing.
Let's diagnose the problem.
Symptom: politicians don't need to pay any attention to what the general public want.
Cause: we have a political system that hands 100% absolute power to the winner of a very small number of marginal seats, meaning that the parties are forced to converge on very narrow policies to satisfy the voters in those marginals and so long as they do that can do any other darn thing they like.
Solution: change the system. Change it so that more or at least most of the seats have a meaningful contest. Make it so that MPs have to DO SOMETHING to justify the vote of their electors.
Snag: but that's so BOOOOOOORING, much easier to wail and yell and throw our dummies out of the pram about how corrupt and venal and just so HUMAN our representatives are.
If you say all politicians are the same, that ANYONE who goes into politics is therefore the same… then no one is going to go into politics to CHANGE things. And that only helps the BAD ones.
Let's just take a moment to compare the reception in Chatter-ista-land of two articles about British Freedom: Mr Huhney-Monster's FREEDOM BILL, and the Sinister Minister's DOUBLETHINK. Clearly, not ALL politicians are the same.
Look, if the Liberal Democrats actually WON an election, I really cannot GUARANTEE that we would be better than Hard Labour or the Conservatories. I know that we wouldn't be corrupt or venal in the same way… but I'm sure we could find new and exciting ways of our own to be corrupt and venal. That's the problem with absolute power, after all.
But we WOULD put a system in place that would change the balance of power between people and politics. We WOULD be the answer Mr Charlie's problem.
Here is the problem for the Liberal Democrats. We WANT to be different. We WANT to be iconoclastic, to change the system, break apart the old cosy consensus where a pathetic "opposition" permits Hard Labour ministers to block legitimate inquiries into disastrous and unjust policies that resulted in literally murderous repercussions with a casual "well we're not telling, so ner".
On the other fluffy foot, we ALSO want to be ELECTED. It's kind of NECESSARY if you want to stick within the rules of our democracy, even if your aim is to win the power to CHANGE those rules.
But playing by the rules means being part of the system. And that means that we're going to get slandered with the "oh, you're just like all the other politicians" label. Because otherwise, we get slandered with the "gaffe" label.
If you step outside the conventional – even SLIGHTLY, by maybe suggesting it's okay to not believe in Mr God, or that aspiring to virginity until marriage is a tiny touch out of date, or that maybe asteroids are worth thinking about – then you are "gaffe prone" or "a figure of fun". (And goodness knows how the meeja would cope with someone who had a REALLY alternative lifestyle – polyamory, anyone? Transvestism? Nudism? Train-spotting?)
In fact it's true of the WHOLE PARTY. We're a bit UNCONVENTIONAL – so we're told we lack CREDIBILITY.
The MEEJA is the key to this – and, I'm sorry to say, Mr Charlie works in the media.
I do so WANT to think: "well, Mr Charlie is great and it's his JOB to write articles, so this is his way of doing his bit. And the problem is the droning mass of the do-nothing brigade, all those fawning midges on Comment-is-Free-ish-subject-to-moderation, you might call them the INSECT-IGENSIA."
But the Grauniad SUPPORTS this Government. They urged people to VOTE for it at the last election, even AFTER we all knew that Iraq was a LIE. They will probably urge people to vote for it again.
(It has been suggested that they might switch their support to Mr Balloon's Conservatories. Which is even WORSE. Because it is just another run around the game of BUGGINS' TURN, that keeps the Tweedle-Tories, Dum-and-Dumber, in power.)
The Grauniad runs SPIN for this Government, the Grauniad undermines alternatives and lives in DENIAL about the true depths of Hard Labour's crimes.
They are like all those increasingly-desperate Labour backbenchers who pretty much campaign on the slogan: isn't this government dreadful – vote Labour; it's the only way to stop these bad-words!
So how CAN you be against the LYING LIARS when you are a PART of the very system that keeps them there?
If you mean it, Mr Charlie, if you really, really mean it, then you're going to have to say to the QUISLING bosses of the Grauniad, I'm sorry it's Labour or me. Tell them that either they unequivocally denounce the Government, the Labour party, Ms Pollyanna Toytown, Ms Jacuie Hashley and all the rest. Or quit.
Otherwise… you're just another politician.
.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Day 2966: X-Rated Phone Calls – Should the Mayor of London be treated more leniently than Jonathan Woss?
Friday:
A popular personality from BBC television programmes phones up a member of the establishment and delivers a tirade of abuse…
Obviously, Bojo the Clown going CHRISTIAN BALE on ultra-slimy Hard Labour stooge Mr Keith Vayse-Vase-or-Vose will do nothing but INCREASE the mayor's maddeningly unearned popularity… to the extent that when asked "who leaked the transcript of their private phone call" the "quo bono" question (that's LATIN for who gets the DOG FOOD!) means that the fluffy foot of suspicion should not JUST point to the Vase office.
But the REAL question is about the DOUBLE STANDARDS of the Meeja.
Will the Daily Hate Mail be mounting a campaign to have thousands of readers (who never HEARD the conversation) write in to City Hall and demand Bojo's head on a plate?
Will cat-monster-fancying former Conservatory Minister for Dungeons (and one time Bake-o-lite Girl) Ms Ann Widdy-one be appearing on Questionable Time to insist that sacking is tooo good for him?
Will mad Fart-for-the-Day contributor and celebrity vicar's wife, Ms Anne Hatpins be using her bully pulpit to call – more in sorrow than anger, of course –for the mayor to be incinerated in an enormous wicker Russell Brand?
Will they BOJO!
And anyway, since Bojo's complaint was: "I didn't bring my diary; you know I'm no good with details; and now you've told everyone that I had to keep changing my story to get the facts straight it's making it look like I was covering up that I tipped off Mr Balloon."
To which the obvious answer is: if you know you're no good with facts then wasn't it a bit STUPID to turn up without your diary?
Or, more succinctly:
Bojo: "you [expletive deleted] made [expletive deleted] me [expletive deleted] look [expletive deleted] like [expletive deleted] an [expletive deleted] idiot!"
Vose: "you don't need any help from me!"
.
A popular personality from BBC television programmes phones up a member of the establishment and delivers a tirade of abuse…
Obviously, Bojo the Clown going CHRISTIAN BALE on ultra-slimy Hard Labour stooge Mr Keith Vayse-Vase-or-Vose will do nothing but INCREASE the mayor's maddeningly unearned popularity… to the extent that when asked "who leaked the transcript of their private phone call" the "quo bono" question (that's LATIN for who gets the DOG FOOD!) means that the fluffy foot of suspicion should not JUST point to the Vase office.
But the REAL question is about the DOUBLE STANDARDS of the Meeja.
Will the Daily Hate Mail be mounting a campaign to have thousands of readers (who never HEARD the conversation) write in to City Hall and demand Bojo's head on a plate?
Will cat-monster-fancying former Conservatory Minister for Dungeons (and one time Bake-o-lite Girl) Ms Ann Widdy-one be appearing on Questionable Time to insist that sacking is tooo good for him?
Will mad Fart-for-the-Day contributor and celebrity vicar's wife, Ms Anne Hatpins be using her bully pulpit to call – more in sorrow than anger, of course –for the mayor to be incinerated in an enormous wicker Russell Brand?
Will they BOJO!
And anyway, since Bojo's complaint was: "I didn't bring my diary; you know I'm no good with details; and now you've told everyone that I had to keep changing my story to get the facts straight it's making it look like I was covering up that I tipped off Mr Balloon."
To which the obvious answer is: if you know you're no good with facts then wasn't it a bit STUPID to turn up without your diary?
Or, more succinctly:
Bojo: "you [expletive deleted] made [expletive deleted] me [expletive deleted] look [expletive deleted] like [expletive deleted] an [expletive deleted] idiot!"
Vose: "you don't need any help from me!"
.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Day 2959: M M Murder
Friday:
Number of people DEAD as a result of the Jonathan Woss / Russell Brand-name telephone titter: NIL.
(Daily Mail leads campaign AGAINST BBC)
Number of people DEAD as a result of measles due to the fall in MMR vaccinations: NOT NIL.
(Daily Mail leads campaign FOR measles)
The Daily Hate Mail: we kill people to boost our profits; trust US over the BBC or your house price will fall!!!!!!!!!
Fluffy Footnote: anyone at all familiar with where the Daily Mail's support lay in 1938 will know that accusing the BBC of using "informants" to oust Ms Thatch is IRONIC: a clear case of the pot calling the kettle… a term of racist abuse.
.
Number of people DEAD as a result of the Jonathan Woss / Russell Brand-name telephone titter: NIL.
(Daily Mail leads campaign AGAINST BBC)
Number of people DEAD as a result of measles due to the fall in MMR vaccinations: NOT NIL.
(Daily Mail leads campaign FOR measles)
The Daily Hate Mail: we kill people to boost our profits; trust US over the BBC or your house price will fall!!!!!!!!!
Fluffy Footnote: anyone at all familiar with where the Daily Mail's support lay in 1938 will know that accusing the BBC of using "informants" to oust Ms Thatch is IRONIC: a clear case of the pot calling the kettle… a term of racist abuse.
.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Day 2354: Blairimort Bites Dog
Tuesday:
So, Lord Blairimort has attacked the "FERAL BEAST" of "the Media" and pinpointed the most wicked monster among them… the SU… hang on, it says "INDEPENDENT" here!
Who does he think he is kidding? He has had the most FAVOURABLE press of any Prime Monster since pretty much ever, with the SCUM and the TIMES both STILL onside thanks to all of Lord B's bending-over-backwards to keep Roger Stavro Moredick happy.
With THAT pack of wolves on your side, blaming the Indy is like keeping the HOUND of the BASKERVILLES and then complaining about SNOOPY looking a bit frothy around the mouth!
To say that the Independent is mixing commentary with news is missing the big picture BIG TIME – all of the newspapers, and the television (yes, the BBC too) have done this for a VERY LONG TIME. The Independent is, if anything, just being a bit more HONEST about the fact that they do it. At least you KNOW that you are buying an opinion sheet when you chose to pick up a copy. And if you don't like it: exercise your choice and don't BUY it.
So what if the Independent is hectoring, or patronising, or preaching.
Sometimes we seem to think that anyone who wants to be a bit Liberal has to PLAY NICE… followed shortly by rolling over and PLAYING DEAD. Well, wake up and smell the VITRIOL! The Daily Hate Mail has been hectoring AND patronising AND preaching and SPITTING POISON like a next of vipers for a hundred years.
If people want to go out and buy the Independent when it decides to stand up for British Liberal values by giving the Hate Mail a taste of their own medicine then I say HOORAY!
Anyway, Lord Blairimort is only pee'ed off because the media want to go and play with Mr Balloon now.
"I do believe this relationship between public life and media is now damaged in a manner that requires repair."
Lord Blairimort is both RIGHT and WRONG.
He is right that the relationship between politicians and media has been damaged, almost to breaking point. But he is WRONG that it is because of the rise of the Internet. The thing that BROKE the relationship was SPIN and the Internet is not the disease, it is the CURE.
SPIN was NOT invented by NuLabour. Au contraire! Spin has been with us for a very long time, because "spin" is what the MEDIA do – not politicians. It is about putting your own SLANT on every story that you report.
Sometimes it is more subtle. Sometimes it is BLATANT – like picturing Mr Kinnock as a dead dodo.
Suppose you are a bit XENOPHOBIC! – then you can add words like "bogus" or "illegal" every time that you talk about "refugees" or "immigrants" so that gradually people get the idea that these things go together automatically and that they are therefore automatically BAD. Similarly, if you are a frothing right-winger you can have all of your papers add the word "loony" every time they discuss "left-wing politics" and it will gently begin to influence their readers into thinking they would have to be INSANE to vote for a left of centre party.
Look – I just did it MYSELF when I put the worth "frothing" in front of "right-winger". Being right-wing does NOT automatically make you a RABID ANIMAL. No – it is just a COINCIDENCE that so many RABID ANIMALS are RIGHT WING!
Oftentimes what you do is put a buzz word or key phrase into a piece about something else entirely, just to keep the ideas ticking over in the reader or viewer's head.
Lord Blairimort's big idea (no, not the invading a Middle Eastern country one) was that he needed a "spin DOCTOR".
In opposition, what he needed was a specialist who could manage the media, overcome the natural barrier to the Labour that the media's own spin was making, and make sure that they got only the stories that were GOOD for the Labour. They planned their media appearances out on a GRID, made sure that everyone said the same key soundbite – i.e. was "on message" – and co-ordinated their announcements so that the media had to follow their agenda. If bad news got out, there was the Rapid Rebuttal Force, ready with a quick answer to kill the story or a juicier scoop about something else, usually the other side.
Lord Blairimort's AMAZINGLY STUPID idea was that you could run a government this way.
The idea that policy should be DESIGNED primarily with the aim of generating the GOOD NEWS STORY ought to be BONKERS. Sadly it may well have been ROUTINE for Lord Blairimort's sofa-style government. And if you can't have good news, then at least have SCARY NEWS and spend all day sounding TOUGH. If the policy can't be explained in a soundbite then don't do it. In the end, this leads to "a good day to bury bad news".
Mr Andreas Withnail-and-Smith was on the Newsnight Show last night. He said: "the government tells lies from time to time. When you are reporting on someone who tells lies from time to time, that relationship is inevitably going to become confrontational."
Now, fair play, Lord Blairimort did put up his hands to a lot of this.
"…I first acknowledge my own complicity.
"We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media."
But then he went on to claim that it's all MUCH MORE HORRID than it used to be.
Here is Lord Blairimort's thesis:
Increased competition means journalists look for stories that give them an "edge" over the competition, stories with "impact" – discord rather than discussion; misconduct rather than mistake. This makes the new rules of reporting:
His solution: media should get back to reporting PROPER NEWS (Lord Blairimort will tell them what) and there should probably be a change of the regulating of the media – probably a new SUPER-REGULATOR (who can control all that nasty freedom of information).
"Things, people, issues, stories, are all black and white. Life's usual grey is almost entirely absent."
Well, it is a BIT LATE for Lord Blairimort to be complaining about newspaper stories all being BLACK & WHITE with no NUANCE.
I seem to recall a CERTAIN SOMEONE accusing anyone who thought getting UN agreement was more important than his "let's invade a Middle Eastern country" policy of being a FRIEND OF SADDAM; denouncing anyone who thought Civil Liberties might be more important than his "let's rip up the Magna Carta" policy as a FRIEND TO TERRORISTS; condemning anyone who disagreed with him about anything at all as THE FORCES OF CONSERVATORYISM!
Who was it who claimed there were only "24 hours to save the NHS"? The Labour.
Who was it who was first to harp on about Conservatory SLEAZE and SCANDAL? The Labour.
Who was it who called them VENAL and CROOKS rather than just a bit rubbish? The Labour.
Who was it who first whipped the press dogs into a feeding frenzy? Who was it who tried to control them with the threat of them not getting the next story? The Labour.
Who was it whose aim was to make their message the news? Who was it who confused their message WITH the news? The Labour, THE LABOUR, THE LABOUR!
Lord Blairimort has spent a LONG TIME painting choices in black and white. And CONDEMNING anyone who takes a more nuanced approach.
And the media have, by and large, COMPLIED.
Much of Lord Blairimort's power comes from the COSY inter-relationships between himself personally and the very small group of proprietors and editors who control the British newspapers. They scratch his back and he scratches out restrictions on cross-media ownerships for them, er… Between them they decide what it is that "The People" want to hear. Or will be graciously allowed to hear.
The power and patronage that comes with this little coterie is TOTALLY CORRUPTING. Lord Blairimort's agenda has been entirely neutralised by wishes of the News International Corporation. Did we join the Euro… goodness, no! Have we rolled back Thatcherism… no, we just brought it all back with new names. Did we clean up all the sleaze… ha very ha very ha.
But this is where the Internet comes in. Now people have access to MORE CHOICES. They have more freedoms of information than ever before and that takes away some of the power of the press. Instead of DICTATING the agenda, they find themselves chasing it.
Is that a BAD thing? Lord Blairimort thinks so, but I am not so sure. Is it not just MARKET FORCES: supply and demand? The press are chasing to supply the stories that people are demanding.
Lord Blairimort's reaction to the new media age seems to be:
"Ooh the Internet is scary; I can't control it!"
Here is the NEWS: you have NO RIGHT TO CONTROL IT!
We are in an age of transition: this new technology means that more and more people have the power to seek out the news and the stories that THEY want, and to seek out the people who will report it in THE WAY that they want. Mr Dale Winton's diary is not popular IN SPITE of his blatant political bias – it is popular BECAUSE of his bias.
More than anything, though the new media is INTERACTIVE. People EXPECT to be able to make comments, have their say, shout and rant and froth at each other. Those comments don't disappear into a vacuum. Well, not ALL of them. They inform the journalists and commentators – reinforce some opinions, spark some new ideas.
And the online papers and news sites can TRACK which stories get the most clickage. Their readers are literally telling them which stories they find interesting, which commentators they seek out and read.
News becomes a CONVERSATION.
It is the NEW job of politicians to talk to people, listen to people, engage with people, even argue back against people. Just like their OLD job really. Before Lord Blairimort decided his job was to decide everything FOR "The People".
I am not saying that this is ALWAYS GOOD. You get dumbing down, and the cult of celebrity, and narrowing, parochial-ising of the news. You get a hundred channels of "Living-Dead TV", and "ITV Play" and "Sky Sport 666". You get spam and pop-ups and "you have won $1,000,000,000". Because change isn't always easy and people do things that are DUMB.
But it is the people who are in charge, and NOT Lord Blairimort and NOT EVEN Roger Stavro Moredick.
Mr Andy "Life on" Marr was on the telly yesterday too, talking about Lady Thatcher. She wanted to set people free so that they could be more like the Victorians, he said. Instead she got the 1980s. That's the thing about freedom – you can't control what people choose to do with it, or it isn't really freedom at all, is it?
So, Lord Blairimort has attacked the "FERAL BEAST" of "the Media" and pinpointed the most wicked monster among them… the SU… hang on, it says "INDEPENDENT" here!
Who does he think he is kidding? He has had the most FAVOURABLE press of any Prime Monster since pretty much ever, with the SCUM and the TIMES both STILL onside thanks to all of Lord B's bending-over-backwards to keep Roger Stavro Moredick happy.
With THAT pack of wolves on your side, blaming the Indy is like keeping the HOUND of the BASKERVILLES and then complaining about SNOOPY looking a bit frothy around the mouth!
To say that the Independent is mixing commentary with news is missing the big picture BIG TIME – all of the newspapers, and the television (yes, the BBC too) have done this for a VERY LONG TIME. The Independent is, if anything, just being a bit more HONEST about the fact that they do it. At least you KNOW that you are buying an opinion sheet when you chose to pick up a copy. And if you don't like it: exercise your choice and don't BUY it.
So what if the Independent is hectoring, or patronising, or preaching.
Sometimes we seem to think that anyone who wants to be a bit Liberal has to PLAY NICE… followed shortly by rolling over and PLAYING DEAD. Well, wake up and smell the VITRIOL! The Daily Hate Mail has been hectoring AND patronising AND preaching and SPITTING POISON like a next of vipers for a hundred years.
If people want to go out and buy the Independent when it decides to stand up for British Liberal values by giving the Hate Mail a taste of their own medicine then I say HOORAY!
Anyway, Lord Blairimort is only pee'ed off because the media want to go and play with Mr Balloon now.
"I do believe this relationship between public life and media is now damaged in a manner that requires repair."
Lord Blairimort is both RIGHT and WRONG.
He is right that the relationship between politicians and media has been damaged, almost to breaking point. But he is WRONG that it is because of the rise of the Internet. The thing that BROKE the relationship was SPIN and the Internet is not the disease, it is the CURE.
SPIN was NOT invented by NuLabour. Au contraire! Spin has been with us for a very long time, because "spin" is what the MEDIA do – not politicians. It is about putting your own SLANT on every story that you report.
Sometimes it is more subtle. Sometimes it is BLATANT – like picturing Mr Kinnock as a dead dodo.
Suppose you are a bit XENOPHOBIC! – then you can add words like "bogus" or "illegal" every time that you talk about "refugees" or "immigrants" so that gradually people get the idea that these things go together automatically and that they are therefore automatically BAD. Similarly, if you are a frothing right-winger you can have all of your papers add the word "loony" every time they discuss "left-wing politics" and it will gently begin to influence their readers into thinking they would have to be INSANE to vote for a left of centre party.
Look – I just did it MYSELF when I put the worth "frothing" in front of "right-winger". Being right-wing does NOT automatically make you a RABID ANIMAL. No – it is just a COINCIDENCE that so many RABID ANIMALS are RIGHT WING!
Oftentimes what you do is put a buzz word or key phrase into a piece about something else entirely, just to keep the ideas ticking over in the reader or viewer's head.
Lord Blairimort's big idea (no, not the invading a Middle Eastern country one) was that he needed a "spin DOCTOR".
In opposition, what he needed was a specialist who could manage the media, overcome the natural barrier to the Labour that the media's own spin was making, and make sure that they got only the stories that were GOOD for the Labour. They planned their media appearances out on a GRID, made sure that everyone said the same key soundbite – i.e. was "on message" – and co-ordinated their announcements so that the media had to follow their agenda. If bad news got out, there was the Rapid Rebuttal Force, ready with a quick answer to kill the story or a juicier scoop about something else, usually the other side.
Lord Blairimort's AMAZINGLY STUPID idea was that you could run a government this way.
The idea that policy should be DESIGNED primarily with the aim of generating the GOOD NEWS STORY ought to be BONKERS. Sadly it may well have been ROUTINE for Lord Blairimort's sofa-style government. And if you can't have good news, then at least have SCARY NEWS and spend all day sounding TOUGH. If the policy can't be explained in a soundbite then don't do it. In the end, this leads to "a good day to bury bad news".
Mr Andreas Withnail-and-Smith was on the Newsnight Show last night. He said: "the government tells lies from time to time. When you are reporting on someone who tells lies from time to time, that relationship is inevitably going to become confrontational."
Now, fair play, Lord Blairimort did put up his hands to a lot of this.
"…I first acknowledge my own complicity.
"We paid inordinate attention in the early days of New Labour to courting, assuaging, and persuading the media."
But then he went on to claim that it's all MUCH MORE HORRID than it used to be.
Here is Lord Blairimort's thesis:
Increased competition means journalists look for stories that give them an "edge" over the competition, stories with "impact" – discord rather than discussion; misconduct rather than mistake. This makes the new rules of reporting:
- Scandal or controversy beats ordinary reporting hands down
- Better to challenge motive than judgement
- Hunt in a pack rather than being left behind by the news agenda
- Comment on the news with the news
- Confuse your commentary WITH the news
His solution: media should get back to reporting PROPER NEWS (Lord Blairimort will tell them what) and there should probably be a change of the regulating of the media – probably a new SUPER-REGULATOR (who can control all that nasty freedom of information).
"Things, people, issues, stories, are all black and white. Life's usual grey is almost entirely absent."
Well, it is a BIT LATE for Lord Blairimort to be complaining about newspaper stories all being BLACK & WHITE with no NUANCE.
I seem to recall a CERTAIN SOMEONE accusing anyone who thought getting UN agreement was more important than his "let's invade a Middle Eastern country" policy of being a FRIEND OF SADDAM; denouncing anyone who thought Civil Liberties might be more important than his "let's rip up the Magna Carta" policy as a FRIEND TO TERRORISTS; condemning anyone who disagreed with him about anything at all as THE FORCES OF CONSERVATORYISM!
Who was it who claimed there were only "24 hours to save the NHS"? The Labour.
Who was it who was first to harp on about Conservatory SLEAZE and SCANDAL? The Labour.
Who was it who called them VENAL and CROOKS rather than just a bit rubbish? The Labour.
Who was it who first whipped the press dogs into a feeding frenzy? Who was it who tried to control them with the threat of them not getting the next story? The Labour.
Who was it whose aim was to make their message the news? Who was it who confused their message WITH the news? The Labour, THE LABOUR, THE LABOUR!
Lord Blairimort has spent a LONG TIME painting choices in black and white. And CONDEMNING anyone who takes a more nuanced approach.
And the media have, by and large, COMPLIED.
Much of Lord Blairimort's power comes from the COSY inter-relationships between himself personally and the very small group of proprietors and editors who control the British newspapers. They scratch his back and he scratches out restrictions on cross-media ownerships for them, er… Between them they decide what it is that "The People" want to hear. Or will be graciously allowed to hear.
The power and patronage that comes with this little coterie is TOTALLY CORRUPTING. Lord Blairimort's agenda has been entirely neutralised by wishes of the News International Corporation. Did we join the Euro… goodness, no! Have we rolled back Thatcherism… no, we just brought it all back with new names. Did we clean up all the sleaze… ha very ha very ha.
But this is where the Internet comes in. Now people have access to MORE CHOICES. They have more freedoms of information than ever before and that takes away some of the power of the press. Instead of DICTATING the agenda, they find themselves chasing it.
Is that a BAD thing? Lord Blairimort thinks so, but I am not so sure. Is it not just MARKET FORCES: supply and demand? The press are chasing to supply the stories that people are demanding.
Lord Blairimort's reaction to the new media age seems to be:
"Ooh the Internet is scary; I can't control it!"
Here is the NEWS: you have NO RIGHT TO CONTROL IT!
We are in an age of transition: this new technology means that more and more people have the power to seek out the news and the stories that THEY want, and to seek out the people who will report it in THE WAY that they want. Mr Dale Winton's diary is not popular IN SPITE of his blatant political bias – it is popular BECAUSE of his bias.
More than anything, though the new media is INTERACTIVE. People EXPECT to be able to make comments, have their say, shout and rant and froth at each other. Those comments don't disappear into a vacuum. Well, not ALL of them. They inform the journalists and commentators – reinforce some opinions, spark some new ideas.
And the online papers and news sites can TRACK which stories get the most clickage. Their readers are literally telling them which stories they find interesting, which commentators they seek out and read.
News becomes a CONVERSATION.
It is the NEW job of politicians to talk to people, listen to people, engage with people, even argue back against people. Just like their OLD job really. Before Lord Blairimort decided his job was to decide everything FOR "The People".
I am not saying that this is ALWAYS GOOD. You get dumbing down, and the cult of celebrity, and narrowing, parochial-ising of the news. You get a hundred channels of "Living-Dead TV", and "ITV Play" and "Sky Sport 666". You get spam and pop-ups and "you have won $1,000,000,000". Because change isn't always easy and people do things that are DUMB.
But it is the people who are in charge, and NOT Lord Blairimort and NOT EVEN Roger Stavro Moredick.
Mr Andy "Life on" Marr was on the telly yesterday too, talking about Lady Thatcher. She wanted to set people free so that they could be more like the Victorians, he said. Instead she got the 1980s. That's the thing about freedom – you can't control what people choose to do with it, or it isn't really freedom at all, is it?
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