According to the Daily Telegraph, Gordon Brown has appointed his eighth spin doctor of the year.
I wonder if Gordon Brown remembers the following words; he uttered them during PMQs on 11 July 2007, in reference to David Cameron:
“He can go for his PR—I will go for being PM, and we will get on with the job.”
Just to refresh his his memory, the Hansard transcript is here.
On the news that the Government faces a revolt on the 10p tax issue, a ‘Treasury source’ attempts to explain that compensation for those hardest hit may not be that straightforward.
Saith he:
“The Chancellor hasn’t any money,” … “There is no secret stash up his sleeve.”
Isn’t that part of the problem? The idea that the money belongs to the Chancellor in the first place, and if ‘his’ stash is running out, then ‘he’ can’t help.
Only when they grasp that the money belongs to the taxpayer will we begin to see any real change. For starters, if they recognised that basic fact (i.e that our money is our own), they wouldn’t take so much of it from the poor, and then force them to jump through hoops in order to get it back in the form of ‘credits’.
I must say, I’m rather surprised by the less than sympathetic response to John Prescott’s revelation that he has been suffering from bulimia for many a long year (see, for example, here and here).
Could it be that one man can inspire such loathing that even the revelation of his deep suffering fails to invoke the normal human sympathy people take for granted?
Or could it be that it is not so much Prescott that is loathed, but rather all that he stood for in his time in office? Perhaps Prescott is a convenient focus for the anger and helplessness people feel as a result of the policies of his Government?
Whatever the answer, sympathy for Prescott appears to be a rare thing today. I hope, for his sake, that he doesn’t read those comments.
Beginning to stir from my long blogging slumber. And a deep slumber it has been. Nothing seemed to rouse me, not even the increasingly desperate state of affairs currently obtaining in the United Kingdom. However, the time approaches for me to return, even if gradually, to the world of political blogging.
First things first, I have upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.5. After reading of Tyger’s upgrade experiences, I decided not to attempt it myself. Justin of Webbleyou kindly sorted it out for me. He has helped me out on numerous Wordpress matters in the past, and I am really grateful to him. I don’t know what it is with me and Wordpress. I can take anything Movable Type throws at me, installation, upgrade, you name it. The same goes for Joomla!. But the very thought of upgrading a Wordpress blog, and I want to lie down and take my vitamins. So thanks, Justin.
I hope you’ve all been doing fine. More later, definitely.
An interesting story in the Daily Mail today:
A Muslim store worker at Marks & Spencer refused to serve a customer buying a children’s book on biblical stories because she said it was “unclean”.
Understandable outrage from all quarters. Even, it would seem, from Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain. However, here are his reported words:
He said: “This appears to be a very regrettable incident and the ‘unclean’ remark was clearly very offensive and unacceptable.
“Many Biblical stories complement the teachings of the Koran. We hope that M&S will investigate this incident.”
I’m sorry, sir, but you’re rather missing the point. It is immaterial whether or not Bible stories complement the teachings of the Koran. What the store worker did was unacceptable, full stop. Is Mr Bunglawala suggesting that, if the ‘offending’ item was a book that did not complement the Koran’s teachings, then the store worker would have been within her rights to refuse to sell it?
It appears to me that Mr Bunglawala does not really condemn what this store worker did. His support for the Christian customer is implicitly qualified. It is conditional upon her buying something that does not (in his opinion) contradict the Koran’s teachings. I am not sure I am encouraged by his words.
A gradual return to blogging.
Sorry for the silence. Emigrating from the UK is no easy matter, but here I am now, observing UK life from the relative calm of The Hague.
I will try to blog more regularly, but kindly bear with me just now.
Sorry for the silence, dear readers. I’m working outside the country, and haven’t yet sorted out proper internet access. I hope to be back blogging soon.
The Labour Party has been receiving donations from a wealthy businessman. Only he didn’t wish to donate in his own name, so he made the donations in the names of two of his employees.
This illegal practice has now been brought to light, and the General Secretary of the Labour Party has resigned.
According to him, although he knew of the arrangement, he wasn’t aware that it was illegal.
Really?
Not saying he isn’t telling the truth, but I find it hard to believe that he didn’t even take the precaution of checking first. That would have been the prudent thing to do. Following on from the whole ‘cash for honours’ allegations, where gifts to political parties were disguised as loans in order to circumvent the disclosure rules, one would have expected a diligent General Secretary to be on his toes, so as to avoid any further trouble of that kind.
The issue in this case is the same as that in the case of the disguised loans: people taking steps to disguise the fact that they have made donations to a political party. Surely the General Secretary should have seen that, recognised the similarity, and heeded the warning signals.
If he is telling the truth, and he didn’t know that this was illegal, how utterly, utterly inept of him. I suppose that’s the best that could be said of the matter.
UPDATE. Denis MacShane on Sky News trying to use these events to make the case for state funding. These politicians are shameless.
Australia now has a Labour Government.
Poor souls.
I wonder if they’ll still be jubilating ten years hence.
At least no one can blame Gordon Brown for this one.
