Modern comparitive hypocrisy

 activism, London, MSM, politicians  No Responses »
Feb 042012
 

Travelling into town to partake of a few sherberts in a drinking house of my acquaintance, I happened to pick up the Evening Standard. Being an infrequent reader of the printed press, there was much that caught my eye, not least the very different emphasis on news presented therein compared to what I stumble across within my daily RSS feeds. However it was a fortuitous day to read a paper as Mr Huhne had just been charged, and a certain detail within that article did make my wonder (just as it did Fausty). Mt Huhne is a multi millionaire, though obviously not the bad kind like one of those nasty bankers. So will he take the seventeen grand severance pay he’s entitled to for stepping down as a minister? He does after all have many upcoming legal bills to pay, and I’m sure it’s a totally different situation to bankers bonuses or honours – after all neither of those bankers where charged with anything. If he does take it there then arises another interesting question, assuming he’s innocent as claimed and returns to a ministerial role would he then pay it back?

The other wonderful gem of actual rather than potential hypocrisy the paper presented, which I’ve not yet seen elsewhere, was those charming people down at occupy London decided to occupy a scout hall. That’ll teach those evil capitalist scouts, after all they were only planning on using the hall for a fund raiser for the homeless. The Occupy lot claim it was vacant, but which I presume they simply mean there was no one there when they put to use those occupy bolt cutters. The police of course can’t do anything as they can’t prove the people currently inside squatting broke in, and committed the criminal damage inside. The terribly nice squatters have said they can leave any time but don’t want to until they “leave [their] mark on the community” – apparently depriving a community of it’s scout hall and causing a “reasonable amount of damage” isn’t enough, nope they’re “planning on holding an exhibition” before they leave. They do say that they didn’t do any damage, so obviously the locks broke themselves, as did the cupboards and shelves. Interesting how they’ve not yet managed to actually occupy anywhere that would actually inconvenience that horrid 1% they claim to be protesting about.

Obviously I’m sure that this occupation of a convention warm building had nothing to do with the forecast of snow – which is currently falling.

 Posted by Giolla at 23:52  Tagged with: , , , ,

Spare a thought for Freddie

 economics, Guest post, politicians, politics, The Wounded Cavalier, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Feb 012012
 

I was somewhat surprised by the lack of traffic this morning on certain social networking sites about the demotion of Sir Fred Goodwin to plain old Mr Goodwin. There was a certain rumble but nothing like the massed ranks of gloaters I’d expected. Perhaps, I thought, given the British public’s legendary propensity for justice and goodwill, people had decided, justice having been done, that it was best to leave the man to repent in peace.

I scrubbed that idea when I realised it was patently rubbish.

I suspect the quietude we are currently seeing on this particular front is down to neither side of the political debate being able to claim crowing rights in the matter.

The left can hardly bleat. It was under dear old Tony Blair that the lowly Mr Goodwin was elevated to the peerage for “Services to banking”. I toyed with the idea of putting together a novelty forfeiture committee certificate saying he’d been stripped of the accolade “For services exclusively to banking while ignoring the risks to the rest of us poor proles” but thought better of it.

The left, in this instant, stood by and did nothing while the bankers rose to fame. I can’t remember much in the way of vocal protest at the time and while the Labour Party basked in the kind of attention from business of which they had hitherto only guiltily dreamed it’s not all that surprising.

But while the left could be accused of sleeping on the watch, the right have little claim on the moral high ground either. I may have to plough through a slack handful of Hansards to prove my point but I don’t recall the great PMQ speeches of Messrs Hague, Duncan Smith, Howard or indeed Cameron decrying the level of fawning and sycophancy towards the financial elite during Labour’s terms. Neither can I remember any mass protests in the streets or indeed in the commons demanding tougher regulation for the multi-billion-pound casinos using the fabric of our economy for chips. Then again I don’t remember them saying much about spending too much and not saving for the future. Can’t bring a single speech to mind. The memory is such a fragile thing.

As for the current leadership of both the left and the right neither seem particularly keen to say much on the subject now the deed is done. Four years after the cataclysm, Mr Milliband might be asked why he hadn’t called for such a thing before or why he wasn’t now calling for the heads of other ennobled members of the board of RBS.

Likewise Mr Cameron seems reluctant to engage in the debate, perhaps for fear of exposing the truth, which is that rather than a Conservative party Röhm-Putsch to cleanse the organisation of it’s backstairs bastards and draw a line under the affair, the grandees have circled the wagons and thrown dear old Freddie out to face the Sioux with an archery target painted on his gingham shirt.

Her Majesty, I suspect has the best complaint but is restricted by noblesse oblige from complaining about being called upon by a former PR Executive to wield the sceptre against such a transparently sacrificial goat.

No. Whatever your political complexion there’s little schadenfreude to be gained from Mr Goodwin’s exit from the other place. The whole episode was a disgrace for us all.

Fear not though, there is one thing you can think of which will unite us all with a wry smile at Freddie’s descent back in to the the ranks.

No doubt when he was ennobled Mr Goodwin will have done what all those gaining a new title do. On gaining a PHD I understand the majority’s reaction is to change ones stationary and particulars to reflect the new letters before ones name. Of course being a diligent manager of RBS, Mr G will have taken out an account with his own company and had his cards changed in a heartbeat.

So we can all sit back now with a warm feeling in our hearts as we think of him finally getting a chance to see what it’s like to be a customer of a high street bank in Britain, the like of which he once commanded.

Imagine trying to explain to ‘Rebecca’, the hard pressed engineering graduate from Mumbai that you haven’t lost your plastic or had it stolen, you’ve simply fallen from grace. I suspect there isn’t a form for that.

He’ll presumably have to repeat the exercise with Adam & Company, who, I understand, now deal with his finances on a day to day basis.

When you tire of that image (as you may within a month or so), refresh the smile by imagining him explaining it all again to the DVLA in Swansea.

 Posted by The Wounded Cavalier at 14:36  Tagged with: , , , ,

Populism and democracy

 Intermission, politicians, politics  No Responses »
Dec 152011
 

Despite all the fun and games happening in Europe I’ve been rather quite on the matter, and am actually going to continue with that with this post. So many other people are doing a much better job of commenting all I could really add is a “what they said”. I am however going to use the EU crisis and a post about it to pose a question that’s puzzled me for years and which The Snowolf just expressed in a far more eloquent fashion than I’d manage. What the Snowolf said was:

“Politicians get very sniffy about populist policy decisions, this is no surprise, because as far as they’re concerned, it is our job to accept their decisions, not their job to act on our wishes. But of course doing the popular thing makes you, well, popular.”

Which sums up rather what’s puzzled me for so long about politicians being “populist”, after all isn’t populism the whole basis of at least our electoral system if not democracy as a whole?* The theory is as I understand it that the wannabe politician makes loads of promises and the most popular or populist gets elected and then ignores those promises.

Then when they want to be elected again they do the whole popular thing again, and oddly we believe them. It’s just in between times both the politicians, the media and all sorts of activists seem to think that populism is a terrible terrible thing. Almost makes one suspect that they do view us as an inconvenience.

So what’s puzzling me is what exactly is the difference between bad evil “populism” and “representing the majority”? Or is it one of those irregular verbs, like:
I’m erotic
You’re kinky
They’re perverted
So:
I represent the silent majority
You’re populist
They’re a rabble rouser?

I do of course welcome both other explanations and improvements to my irregular verbs.

* Both populism and democracy have roots in words meaning the people? demos and populous?

 Posted by Giolla at 00:42  Tagged with: , ,

Democracy, the EU and the MPS

 activism, Betrayal, Campaign, EU, Petition, politicians  No Responses »
Oct 252011
 

Real referendumGreat minds think a like they say, and also that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. So after our wonderful elected representatives decided that it wasn’t safe to even discuss holding a referendum about joining the EU. It looks as though we’ll have to take a leaf out of their book, and following the Irish principle just keep asking them again and again. Spotting a passing bandwagon they jump on to be anti the government they’re in, the Limpdems have set up a petition to ask for a referendum again (see linked image), and there’s a new e-gov petition as well. With luck eventually they’ll hold a referendum just to shut us up, probably when it’s getting round to election time. Mind it would be foolish to underestimate just how good our glorious leaders are at ignoring us, and stickign their fingers in their ears and going “lah lah lah can’t hear you”, so maybe it’s time to consider that most radical ideas of paying as little tax as possible? Or if you’d like to do something a bit more visual but less useful why not burn an EU flag on the 5th (after going for a little walk).

It would seem that all our suspicions about the e-petitions may even have been optimistic, for ignoring the fact that the backbench committee has no mechanism to get them debated, they’ll still happily ignore a petition over 100,00 real signatures. If though horror or horrors an MP actually stands up and asks that they maybe debate having a debate to ask us what we thing of the EU – never fear call-me-Dave will just roll out a three line whip to make sure no one is so foolish as to represent the voice of those 100,000+ signatures. Despite all that effort this was the biggest euro-sceptic/pro-democracy rebellion in parliament since we got sucked into the EU, with an entire 17% of MPs thinking that maybe we should perhaps be asked about the EU. Those 17% may of course just have done some maths and decied that maybe they don’t want to piss off the 70% of the electorate that want a referendum – after all that’s a lot of voters.

Perhaps as LegIron suggests they’re all scared of actually governing and just want to play in the pretty building. So much easier to just go along with the undemocratic and ineffective EU

 Posted by Giolla at 23:15  Tagged with: , ,

Upcoming EU vote perhaps maybe

 activism, Campaign, EU, Petition, politicians  No Responses »
Oct 202011
 

EU burningRather late to the press with this but it would appear to be that our wonderful elected MP’s are going to ask the Government if they could perhaps maybe see fit to find sometime next year to consider asking us if we’d like to stay in the EU or not.
Or if you’d rather the actual wording (via: Douglas Carswell)
This house calls upon the government to introduce a bill in the next session of parliament to provide for the holding of a national referendum on whether the united kingdom:
A) should remain a member of the European Union on the current terms;
B) leave the european union; or
C) re-negotiate the terms of its membership in order to create a new relationship based on trade and co-operation”

The vote has been moved forward from the 27th of October to the 24th which of course makes it that bit trickier for people to get in touch with their MP’s in time. So in the meantime there is a rally in London to suggest that we might quite like a vote on the matter, and regardless of if you can make it or not do sign the peoples pledge asking for a referendum on the matter. Also as Captain Ranty suggests (and provides a template for) write to your MP. They may not get your letter in time for the vote but at least they’ll know that it’s a matter that people care about.

Of course for all the talk of cast iron guarantee’s from “call me Dave” rumour has it that the Tories will be whipped to vote against the bill. Yep the idea of a bill to ask the government to debate asking us about the EU sometime next year is so terrifying that it looks likely that Dave will call in the whips to make sure no debate happens, after all they’ve already moved the vote. So again all the more reason to let your MP know that you’ll be watching. As it’s not even as if the Government has to pay any attention to the result of the vote.

If that doesn’t get their attention you might want to consider taking part in a mass flag burning on the 5th November – which if I recall correctly the EU considers to be rather naughty.

 Posted by Giolla at 19:39  Tagged with: , ,

Monday shorts

 economics, politicians  No Responses »
Sep 262011
 

I was going to post about something else but then I watched The Wonderful World of Tony Blair – which reminded me of just what a total smegging cock that waste of skin actually is, and we’re still bloody paying for him!

“Dispatches shows that at the same time as Blair is visiting Middle East leaders in his Quartet role he is receiving vast sums from some of them. If Blair represented the UK government, the EU, the IMF, the UN or the World Bank, this would not be permitted.

He would also have to declare his financial interests and be absolutely transparent about his financial dealings. But no such stringent rules govern the Quartet envoy.

However, he could opt to abide by the rules and principles of public life. They were introduced by John Major, and Tony Blair endorsed and strengthened them for all holders of public office – but chooses not to himself.”

And in other news a trader has told the BBC that:
“This economic crisis is like a cancer, if you just wait and wait hoping it is going to go away, just like a cancer it is going to grow and it will be too late!”.
(H/T Zero Hedge)

Video thanks to his Grace:

 Posted by Giolla at 20:31  Tagged with: , , ,

A lesson from the frozen north

 Civil Liberties, EU, Must read post, politicians  No Responses »
Aug 232011
 

The main stream media seems to have been keeping very quiet about this, perhaps they’re worried that we might gets ideas. The story of how Iceland refused to accept liability for private banks, prosecuted bankers, politicians alike, resisted international pressure and forged a new constitution really is proof that power can rest in the hands of the people if they choose to take it.

“An Italian radio program’s story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.

As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here’s why:…”

Go read the rest of the article, and then I can’t help but suggest that you point everyone else at it.

 Posted by Giolla at 14:06  Tagged with: , , , ,

Danegeld and riots for all reasons

 Civil Liberties, London, politicians, riots, Was all better in my day  No Responses »
Aug 162011
 

So almost a week since the looting and huge swathes of forest has been sacrificed to discuss the cause of the unrest and more importantly who was to blame. I am of course going to add to the sound and fury being generated, mainly because some of the commentary has rather tickled my sense of the absurd.

One of the early “causes” of the looting proffered by the punditry, was that youth centres had been shut down and more people had said if the youth centres shut down they’d be trouble/riots/the end of civilisation as we know it. Now to me that seems rather like a protection racket at least as old as the Vikings.
“nice village you’ve got there, hand over the danegeld and it won’t get burnt down”
“nice shops you’ve got there, now how about some youth centres to make sure they don’t get looted”*
Now the closure of these vital youth centres without which apparently the youth turn into a rampaging mob was down to evil Tory cuts, despite the fact that government spending is still increasing. The thing I can’t help but wonder though is how many youth clubs, scout groups and who knows what else have shut down or reduced in scale due to the cost and hassle of the all pervasive CRB check? As many people have observed children used to entertain themselves, then health and safety came along so adults had to be invovled, then the CRB check came along and it became difficult for the adults to be involved. Community provision for the young no longer involves a few sticking plasters and a large amount of orange squash, but instead paying the government to make suitable provision – pricing it out of the range of many communities. The idea of people providing for themselves has been quite thoroughly drummed out of us.

Meanwhile the looting had something for everyone, helped by the rapid charging of large numbers of people including teachers, millionaires daughters, Olympic ambassadors and the whole gamut of society. Proving as previously observed that the take what you want attitude really is quite pervasive. Which means the pundits can blame the welfare state, the cuts to the welfare state, greedy bankers, greedy youth anyone. You want to blame a group they were there. Even amongst the communities responding to the looting you could pick and choose there were brave Sikhs, Turks defending temples and shops and “racist thugs” out looking for trouble. So they were about race but we mustn’t bring race into it**.

If that wasn’t enough to keep everyone happy it was also an underclass uprising ‘Showing the rich we do what we want’, the rich apparently being anyone with a business or job like 89 yeard old barbers. Ignoring the fact that even the worst off of them are better off than 90% of the planet so it was perhaps a mollycoddled mob. The police who days before were murderous thugs were now not going in hard enough, and people were calling for the army to be called in.

Sadly the collective blaming amusing as it in many ways is, has led to a typical statist reaction from almost(?) all quarters of the Government. The way to prevent these things recurring, isn’t for courts to give meaningful sentences that might restore the connection between action and consequence, instead we’re all to be punished – or at least those of us who care about obeying the law in the first place. face coverings may be banned, the Government wants to be able to shut down social networks when there’s unrest, and there are calls for the law to change retrospectively to remove looters benefits and of course the old favourite of re-introducing some form of national service. The fall out from these riots for all seasons are going to take some watching.

* Yes I know it’s not that simple, and that not all youth are like that or even all youth centres state funded etc.
** Why is it frowned upon to describe areas as “white working class” but not say “chinese”, “muslim” or “black”?

 Posted by Giolla at 23:41  Tagged with: , , , , ,

Hoping Cameron doesn’t topple

 MSM, politicians  No Responses »
Jul 192011
 

If Ant goes we get DecHaving given the matter some thought I’m really rather hoping that Mr Cameron doesn’t get forced to resign due to the current kerfuffle about people listening to other peoples voice mail (really it’s not hacking). As Dizzy observes what has he actually done, compared to say the scandals that Blair sailed through? Which isn’t to say that he shouldn’t resign after all Blair should have, just it would seem unlikely. But looking at the scandal as Archbishop Cranmer notes the Murdochs control of the media is a tad over hyped:

“But it’s all a bit of a show. Rupert Murdoch owns three (non-profitable) newspapers and a minority share in BSkyB, the output of which is regulated by Ofcom. In what sense is this an ‘empire’ which exerts ‘too much power over British public life’? So much so that it needs dismantling, regulating and controlling?”

But if we’re to hang Cameron and Murdoch for this then we need to look at what the other papers and politician are doing, after all Cameron’s hardly the first to suck up to the alleged power of the Murdoch empire. Given how they behaved over the expenses scandal which was a far more direct case of corrupt behaviour amongst MPs I really can’t see them risking a wider investigation of the collusion between a crooked press and MPs. For that I am actually terribly grateful – really I am and for very simple reasons. Cameron may be a uselss drip with no convictions at all but if he resigns what will happen is this:
1) There may be a by-election in Witney
2) Nick Clegg will take over as PM until the Tories choose a new leader
3) The Tories will pick the next best Cameron clone they have who hasn’t been too close to the scandal.
4) Err.. that’s it.

Now I really don’t care if Witney has to pick a new MP, I’m sure they’ll cope and if we get a new Cameron clone I doubt we’ll even notice the difference. I don’t think we’d actually get a PM with real convictions as the main parties have done a fairly good job of getting rid of all of those. So no for me the rather troubling idea is that for as long as it takes for the Tories to pick the next wet rag we’ll have Nick Clegg in charge and whilst in theory he shouldn’t be able to do that much damage I’m sure he’d find time to sign a decent fistful of misguided environmental treaties perhaps committing us to a carbon negative tofu based economy by Michaelmas 2012?

So by all means lets string them all up from the nearest lamp posts, but lets not let Nick “I won’t raise tuition fees” Clegg into power during the process.

As the Daily Mash asks “Are you scared yet?“

 Posted by Giolla at 13:04  Tagged with: , ,

In other news…

 economics, EU, politicians, taxes  No Responses »
Jul 182011
 

In other news there is in fact other news than the shocking revelations that journalists use dodgy methods, some police will sell journalists information for a wodge or cash or a few pints and politicians will suck up to anyone that might give them a gnats fart of a whiff of power and aren’t to be trusted. As others have observed very little of this is new or really surprising – and really how much would anyone care if it had just been confined to celebs and politicians?

But yes other news, amazingly other stuff has still been happening. Mainly that the European economy is continuing to do rather badly with Italy looking like they may soon have credit problems. Meanwhile despite actual opposition our Government has decided that in this time of austerity we should be chucking another 9 billion to the IMF – to lend to countries that can’t afford to pay back their existing debts (Captain Ranty has the list of those that voted to give away our money). These problems are apparently causing the great and good to talk about doubling the Euro bailout fund (H/T Traumaville gazette) though where that money will come from… And then just to help really put the boot in whilst asking councils to save money the Government is now planning the EU fine them under the new Localism Bill – Yep a localism bill that puts more power in the hands of the EU. Surprisingly all of this may be making the EU unpopular. Meanwhile at home despite all that stimulus the economy is still flat lining, maybe it’s time to encourage business. Things aren’t looking that much better across the pond where government spending is increasing an order of magnitude faster than median income. But no worries look at those naughty journalists.

Finally for all those crying out to defenestrate Cameron (an idea I’m not adverse to) who would you replace him with? As Old Holborn observes News International seems to have collapsed in a fortnight, we could do the same with our politicians (if they don’t do it to themselves) but then what?

Meanwhile it may be time I started reading CityAM.

 Posted by Giolla at 21:49  Tagged with: , , , , ,
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