Unwanted

Another step in the commercial colonisation of personal relationships.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/dec/27/return-santa-amazon-unwanted-gift

Bloody bile

'Kinnock... tells a Channel 4 docudrama of his surprise at David Miliband's behaviour towards his younger brother, saying: "David's response to Ed running has, to my astonishment, been deeply resentful. David's people are spreading all kinds of bloody bile about Ed being in thrall to the left and he would be in the pocket of the unions and all kinds of crap like that".' (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/17/bloody-bile-miliband-relationship-kinnock)

This illustrates why Kinnock was never fit to lead anything, and why Welsh Labour may eventually dissolve in a pit of its own spite. I'm no fan of David Miliband, but why on earth would he not put it out that Ed is too far to the left. Isn't that what the election is about? Isn't that politics? For fuck's sake, the only bloody bile I can see is what is oozing from Kinnock's disgusting rectum in place of his mouth.

What's in a name?

So the runners are out of the stalls – Abbott, Balls, Burnham, Miliband, Miliband – and all from the first half of the alphabet!

If you look back over the postwar years the pattern is the same: Attlee, Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan, Foot, Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Brown. Add in the two temporary leaders after Smith and Brown (Beckett and Harman) – that’s 9 out of 11 with names starting in the first half.

It’s the same pattern with the Tories: Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Douglas-Home (whichever way you spell it), Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague, Duncan-Smith, Howard, Cameron – 10 out of 11.

Not so different for Liberal leaders too: Davies, Grimond, Thorpe, Steel, Ashdown, Kennedy, Campbell, Cable (temp), Clegg – 7 out of 9.

What is going on here? Could it be to do with position on the ballot paper? Possibly – if you take all 31 A-M names in the lists above, 16 of them are A-Ds (four letters) compared with 15 E-Ms (nine letters) – so the skewing to the front is even more marked.

Do we really elect our leaders on the basis of their position in the alphabet? Should we be worried?

Kiss and tell: or, hell hath no fury?

The question not yet raised in the Triesman affair is why did she turn him in? Why did she go to the date armed with a tape-recorder in the first place, and why did she think that it was right for her to sell a private conversation thing in this way? Without more information than that provided by the Daily Mail (wash my mouth out), it's hard to understand such extraordinary behaviour.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278706/FA-chief-Lord-Triesman-Spain-bid-bribe-World-Cup-referees.html
Interestingly, if you Google 'Melissa Jacobs' you get a pornstar. If you add 'FA' you get this one.

Ashes to Ashes

For systematists, the world exists to put in order. For Harold Pinter it is for dissembling, through which the good and the humane find a way to seep out through the bureaucratic cage of ingrained reflexes. In a ruthless analysis of the totalitarian, he illuminates the pain of the individual. Throwaway lines sting, little words corrode, what is half-said crushes, what is tacit forebodes catastrophe. Pinter, the tailor's son, scissors language, allowing the action to originate from the voices and rhythms of the characters. Thus, there is no given plot. We do not ask: "What will happen next"? Rather, "What is happening"? The words are instruments of power. Words are repeated until they resemble truth. In a time of over-information, Pinter frees words from describing reality and makes them reality itself, at times poetic, more often oppressive. At the end, it is only through language that we can erase our destiny and recreate it. (Per Wästberg, presenting the Nobel Prize for Literature, December 2005)

Who's a wuss, then?

So General John Sheehan thinks that allowing gays in the army makes it soft (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/19/gay-dutch-soldiers-srebrenica).
I'd like to see him repeat that nose-to-nose with Gareth Thomas (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/welsh/8421956.stm).

Result!

It's lovely when you watch a columnist getting better and better, waiting for them to hit gold, and then they do. Marina Hyde, you have scored!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/06/ashcroft-mp-expenses-unelected-influence

Creaming off the profits

So Lord Ashcroft has managed to achieve what so many have campaigned for: a political party funded by the taxpayer. Nice one!

Orange and gold

I’ve found a lovely new trick. I take one (or more) of those oranges, tangerines, clementines etc that lurk in the bowl because you know that even if you go to the labour of peeling and pulling them apart the pleasure they give will be absolutely minimal – dried up, manky things. I stick my little magic stabbing juicer into them and squeeze whatever’s there into a bowl. Then I top it up with Havana Gold. Then I drink it, and smile.

The dregs and the cream

As I said, BBC Parliament is a gem. Yesterday I left it running with the sound off, so it was there again when I started Firefox again today. Glanced at it once or twice but it was tedious House of Lords stuff. Then later in the afternoon happened to catch the Welsh Affairs debate, with the nauseating David Davies going on and on and on and on, managing to be so insufferably dull that one longed for some of his nastiness. In the end I turned the sound off again and carried on working. When I switched back later I caught Adam Price making what may well be his final speech to the House of Commons (he described it as a valedictory). Utterly assured, full of apt quotations and historical references, vintage Price, but also incredibly gracious to his Labour opposites - Paul Murphy struggling not to be charmed, but Don Touhig simply rolling over to have his tummy scratched. And then the sting in the tail - let's make this a decade of investing in Welsh industry, enterprise and knowledge, and let's conclude it by bringing the World Fair to Britain for the first time in 150 years, and specifically to Wales - and a challenge to Labour, Conservative and Plaid to make it happen. Truly the man is brilliant. Let's hope he makes good use of his time in the US, and returns soon to the role of leadership he was born for.

Taking responsibility

BBC Parliament is a gem - why don't I watch it more often? Tuned in yesterday idly to catch PMQs, and found it was followed by Brown's statement on Britain’s treatment of child migrants. His apology was actually impressive and moving, and I say that as no fan of Brown. (To understand his approach to blame-taking you don’t need Andrew Rawnsley’s gossip, just remember his statement on the McBride affair – ‘I take full responsibility for this, and that’s why the person responsible has resigned’.)

However, what really made me sit up was Cameron’s response – very weak, and his main point was that the scandal happened under all parties. Not quite true, David. It happened almost entirely under one party on particular. Guess which?

The Children Act 1948 (passed under a Labour government) stopped local authorities from arranging for the emigration of children in care without the approval of the Secretary of State. It also enabled the Secretary of State to make regulations restricting the ability of voluntary organisations to arrange for such emigration. For the next nineteen years no such regulations were made, while the practice continued. Thirteen years of Conservative governments, and three of Labour governments with weak or no majorities.

Although the scandal of child migrants came to public attention in 1987 (thanks to Margaret Humphreys). For the next ten years, under two Conservative governments, nothing was done; only in 1998 did the Labour government take the matter seriously. In 1993 John Major had the nerve to tell Parliament that ‘any concern about the treatment of the children in another country is essentially a matter for the authorities in that country’.

The Conservative record on this matter is particularly shameful. It is also absolutely consistent with the instinct to punish and blame the families of children in need rather than support them, which still characterises Conservative social policy today.

Is this a good use of time and human resources?

I was thinking today about the time we spend cutting our fingernails. Assume for the sake of argument that we each do it roughly once a week and it takes about a minute. I reckon that means that worldwide there are on average something like half a million of us cutting our fingernails at any particular moment. Just think what half a million people could do if they weren't all cutting their fingernails....