Tarquin the Terrible

Anachronistic?

2011-10-31T12:05:00.000Z

Much has been made of the long overdue plan to update the laws of succession, notably regarding sex and religion (or rather the religion of a consort)

'It's wonderful', they cry in this age of sexual equality - only isn't this egalitarianism rather shallow? Sure, sexism is bad, but the moment you start questioning why it needs to be a man over a woman, won't you start questioning why it's the first born

...or why from a particular womb?

They preach fairness but the whole concept of hereditary entitlement is inherently unfair - it is just as arbitrary as male precedence, so surely once we question one thing, shouldn't we be questioning the rest?

The Catholic thing was in fact probably the least arbitrary feature, it served a practical and strategic purpose until the start of the last century, whereas proper hereditary succession was thrown out the window when parliament invited foreign monarchs because the true heirs were deemed unsuitable - yet we lose one not the other, when both concepts are seriously out of step with society

I find this very odd, anyone with half a brain should see the logical steps here - that's why the monarchists should be opposing it, if their rationale is to keep one big anachronism they shouldn't let the peripheral anachronisms be altered, likewise any reformer should be pushing for real equality - otherwise they're just shallow and trendy twits

Just saying..

(There's also a little noticed rule about the monarch's permission that George III made up for his brothers, but that's hardly worth mentioning)

Do we need daddies?

2011-08-15T14:43:00.000+01:00

In the aftermath of these riots-cum-looting, or general thuggishness, whichever you prefer, much has predictably been made of fatherless families

For example IDS has just said:

“We’ve been ambivalent about family structure in Britain for far too long.”

Of course, we all know this means single-parent families, predominantly single mothers, but are they really to blame?

Well, yes and no, I think

Undoubtedly the rise of the Vicky Pollard style teenage mother with her feckless brood is a problem - arguably if there were good hard-working fathers in those lives those children would be much better off (or alternate partner if you wish, I don't necessarily think it has to be a male, although generally it's going to be)

But this does not simply mean a single parent is worse, or a problem in itself

I come from a single parent family, did I go and out and rampage through the streets? I can't prove this here of course, but I'd like to think you believe me

You see it's all well and good to bang on about families and how bad people like me are, how I'm so much less likely to have a degree (masters) or a job (I do) or have a family (married), but the real issue is hidden in what I said earlier - 'good' and 'hard-working' - it is the stable environment that is vastly more important

I bet you we all know a single parent, and I bet, unless you roam around inner city ghettos that the kids are fairly standard, and likewise you may have right terrors born to 'proper' families

The statistics bear out of course, but they also bear out for black people - anybody want to suggest that's inherent to what they are rather than where they are?

You live in a place where young women are poorly educated, have little respect for themselves and are treated like dirt by feckless young men, who also have no respect for themselves or anything, then you are going to get social problems and out of control kids - even if you were to force marriage, and even fidelity, upon them, you are not addressing the root of the problem - the single mothers in question are a symptom, not the cause

So there's no need to worry about young Mrs Smith down the road, whose husband just buggered off with his secretary, producing the next gun-toting hoodlum

I do think welfare is misguided - we effectively encourage people to breed and be irresponsible, because we won't let anyone starve, but this just encourages dependency, ironically my mother never did, and never would, claim welfare

Ultimately this is about those willing, or able, to engage with society and play by the rules, and those who can't, or won't - a breakdown of respect, particularly for themselves, the individual family structure has little to do with that

So how could I ever say single parent families are to blame? I couldn't, and frankly anyone who says that is a dimwit, or just hateful

What I do say is a lot of these problems do happen to come from single-parent families, but what is needed is a stable and loving home, the culture that happens to create single mothers in deprived, inner-city areas rife with gangs is to blame - attacking the notion of single parenthood itself is, at best, just plain daft

It's for your own good

2011-07-19T13:59:00.000+01:00

I will take this opportunity to point out that several of my comments on the Peter Hitchens blogs about the 'hacking scandal' are being censored

Literally all I did was point out to people Guido's interesting post obtained via the Information Commissioner's office regarding the press and recorded offences of 'blagging' - that's it, in fact I didn't even mention details, but advised people to seek out information on the blogs

Absolutely nothing libellous, offensive, rude etc nor is anything in Guido's chart, it's all freely available government information - yet it didn't make it through

When I made the comment (which is often found on the Hitchens blog from a variety of posters) that my posts were disappearing without notice, this too failed the mods - I deliberately kept it that brief because I was pretty confident it would happen, I don't know of a way to prove this, I'm not that tech-savvy and didn't bother taking a screenshot, but I am hopeful a couple of other people had the same problem

I am not outraged by this behaviour - I think it perfectly reasonable that a company choose not to publish harmful information about itself - that's the job of others - isn't it?

Not if you listen to Hitchens arguments, last week he was warning us of the big bad politicians and how they need to be held to account

All true, but as we've just seen - nobody is holding the press, who lie, cheat and flout the law, to account and I can see no condemnation of this behaviour from Hitchens - he seems to take a 'better the devil you know' approach, and seems to justify the culture of silence between the press as a necessary evil to maintain commercial success

If we criminalise the press, and take away a vast resource of information from them (the tabloids at least) then they will not have the power to scrutinise the government

But I'd like to know who is meant to scrutinise the press - controlled by a tiny elite, they have vast power themselves and arguably papers like the Mail have a detrimental effect on our society by reducing debate to that of childish name-calling and scaremongering, we need these publications and they need to be allowed to do what they want? It's all for your own good you see

Hitchens, supposedly a man of strong moral conviction (something I've always questioned seeing as he opts to work for probably the least moral paper of them all), is quite happy to allow the press the freedom to make up s h one t, so they can make money and scrutinise the politicians, but yet won't allow people on his own blog to scrutinise one of the most powerful and influential industries in our society? The press do not scrutinise themselves ('dog eat dog'), that would just bring chaos - so how exactly do the public bring newspapers to account? They can't, which is why this hacking scandal has been quietly kept away from the public for the best part of ten years

Nobody is denying that politicians are scum, but the media are also scum, and it can quite easily be shown that the law has been violated for decades to make grubby stories about royals and celebrities to ~~line pockets~~ 'hold the government to account', this is not a price we must pay - scrutiny of the press will not bring about a North Korean situation, in fact the British press is infamous for it's cut-throat behaviour, you don't find it in perfectly free countries like the US, Australia, Japan or Sweden, a few ethical rules, such as those that we are supposed to already have and don't enforce, would quite easily control them

The real truth behind this is that the press in Britain need to behave in this manner to be successful, not because nobody would pay them without their gossip/nonsense, but because competition is fierce - Britain has a huge amount of national dailies, all vying for a piece of a dwindling readership - they need to be shocking, and therefore their tactics verge on the desperate - if the Sun doesn't do it, the Mail, or the Express, or the Mirror will

Whereas, in Australia for example there is only one populist rag - the Telegraph (or it's local NI equivalent), then there are two 'high-brow' papers - one left, one right - all controlled by one of the two main media players

While we're on it, virtually nothing the press do scrutinises politicians anyway, 'investigative journalism' essentially means celebrity/royal sex scandals - in fact I am struggling to think of an example of illegal activities bringing us a story for the public good (eg expenses scandal, WMD) - public interest arguments easily override this anyway, the crux of Hitchens defence (which I regard as a squeal) is that they need to be able to generate revenue, but the revenue is fixed - they just compete for a share, and in doing so engage in a race to the bottom (declining moral standards eh?)

Proper rules would not stop scrutiny, I find that scenario incredibly hard to believe when our media is so powerful anyway - it would just rid us of a few silly newspapers that are, in essence, solely there to sell smut

Losing a few unpopular (intelligent) papers might be bad for decent opinion you might say, but there'll be no trashed murder victims either

I know I have posted a few times before regarding Hitchens, first I lost respect, then I came to see him as a troll, but now I'm struggling to even take a word he says seriously - this act of self-serving deflection and hiding behind supposed 'freedom of the press' and an Orwellian nightmare is pretty abhorrent

Actually why do I keep going back? Silly boy

An experiment

2011-06-09T14:59:00.000+01:00

Two stories mildly piqued my interest this week, not in themselves so much, but because they both reminded me of Peter Hitchens

A man (I believe 'thug' is perfectly appropriate considering his frequent use of the term) in Bristol is let off a custodial sentence after stuffing ham into the shoes of worshippers at a Mosque in Bristol

The other story is about the scouts openly recruiting more gay members, a Christian organisation, which has irked some (in my view, I don't see why, it seems Christianity has to be represented publicly by Catholics and right wing bible bashers, many Christian groups tolerate homosexuality, the established church of England being one of them, and the scouts adhere to that church)

I have a theory that we may be seeing the scouts story, as it's one of those slightly off-the-beaten-track, Christian-beat up stories, but not the bloke who got let off

Of course, the drunken racist being let off is as good a case as any for his dislike of soft sentencing, as he showed last week, but I am curious as to whether we'll see it..and if we do see it it would be a delicious irony if it focuses on how an attack on Christians is never punished

But hey, I don't want to prejudge, it may be neither, so my apologies in advance to Hitchens Jnr if this week's article is a balanced piece of critical thinking - I simply wanted to put this down before it happened rather than just say 'I said so, honest' and I couldn't really leave it in the comments, could I?

rarghh!

2011-04-13T13:22:00.000+01:00

Cyclists - don't you just hate them?

Apparently MPs are to discuss a bill about punishing cyclists for reckless cycling, or killing

To be honest, it seems a little frivolous as I don't think they are very likely to kill us directly, or even indirectly, very often

But what I really want to rant about is the defence of cyclists, who once again continue to believe the rules do not apply to them

They cite stats that say they don't kill anyone - is anyone claiming they do? Their main crimes are breaking road rules and causing distress to pedestrians, nothing so grand as killing - it's a few kilos of thin metal going at most 30 mph, it's not particularly lethal

In particular, Guardian columnist and cycling advocate Zoe Williams says she is exasperated by the references to red light-jumping whenever bikes are discussed.
She insists the practice largely stems from fear, not arrogance, due to the high number of cyclists killed each year by heavy goods vehicles turning left at junctions, and says ministers should concentrate on tackling such deaths if they really want to make the roads safer.

In short, she doesn't care about the trivial issue of bikes jumping lights - does anyone seriously believe this has anything to do with heavy vehicles on left hand turns? To tell the truth I don't mind the left turn on red (an idea I support for cars) as long as it's not a pedestrian crossing, what about all the other times they jump reds? In my experience typically on straights

I make a note of cyclists I see in the city every day at work, I have so far noted one single cyclist that didn't break a road rule (nothing technical about lights or helmets, usually pavement surfers or light jumpers), the vast majority seem to drive on busy pavements at speed and expect you to move...I will snap soon

And guess what happened just yesterday? I was with my mother, who is fairly immobile these days thanks to a back problem and isn't that agile, crossing at a simple pedestrian light, no turns or anything, and this dickhead in lycra ploughs straight through the middle of us at full speed, nearly knocking her over - yes, the lights were very much red (she's not that slow) and cars were waiting, there was a group of people crossing and this guy didn't even look - I had already crossed so frankly he was lucky to not hit someone, wasn't like he even had a gap!

So, Zoe Williams, defend that one - still a minor issue? Should cars break reds if they have a gap? My answer would be licence bikes as they are becoming so numerous, I should be able to report this sort of person as he is far too fast for me to even kick, and any pleasant, law-abiding cyclist should have absolutely no reason to disagree with this simple rule that all other vehicles are subject to

She adds: "Can you imagine if every time we talked about cars people complained about drivers doing 80mph on the motorway?

This has got to be one of the most up-your-own-arse arguments I've ever heard - bikes jumping red lights is comparable to slight speeding?

Considering light-jumping is an offence for both vehicles why are we making this comparison? You jump a red in a car you will probably get in trouble, why is the same offence for bikes as trivial as doing an appropriate speed

And likewise - drivers can, and do, get punished for doing 80, bikes have no enforcement - get some actual rules being applied then maybe we'll start making crazy comparisons

Maybe I will vote 'yes' after all

2011-04-11T23:29:00.000+01:00

Another No to AV campaign video, and now it's just getting silly

To be honest this sort of bullshit where they make up all sorts of nonsense to scare people is starting to wind me up

Firstly Alan B'stard makes a comeback in a ridiculously unrealistic political scenario - fairly clearly aimed at your average man in the street who doesn't do politics, but I was struck by the fact that the result was exactly the same as what we have now - a party who tear up their manifesto and do a deal with the Lib Dems to form government and have no accountability

...in what way is that different to what we have? They just tacked on 'because of AV', when FPTP has given us exactly the same situation

Then they end with the frankly offensive statement 'one person, one vote' - one of the main beefs of reformers like me is that we do not currently have 'one person, one vote' - more than half of voters cannot win and therefore do not even have a chance of being heard, for FPTP campaigners to somehow claim it is one person and one vote is downright lying (of course it technically is, and the film deliberately obscured the lines between voting for a government and a single MP)

What they really want is 'one Tory/Labour voting person, one vote...in a safe seat'

Anyway - Yes to AV! Out of spite

Ever actually been to a library?

2011-04-06T14:37:00.000+01:00

There's been a lot of talk about how libraries will be having to close due to cuts (which, by the way, has more to do with local councils deciding to cut certain services over other savings because it's politically expedient) but I really do have to ask, when did you last go into a library?

I ask because I recently started using my local public library in my quest to read more classics, I am a fan of books and wish for there to be free public access to them

However, having actually been to a few I soon realised they are little more than hang-outs for deadbeats, the elderly and stay at home mums which provide more CDs, newspapers and magazines than actual books

In fact, I estimated that roughly an eighth of the building was dedicated to fiction, while the reference section was about as much use as a chocolate teapot

I don't know about you, but when I envisage saving the libraries I picture people perusing shelves crammed with literature, not an old woman saying how she just got the Lady Gaga CD to provide for her granddaughter to burn onto her computer

I think few people realise how bad public libraries are - I am not of course referring to great institutions such as the British Library, the Magdalene Library, or any decent university library (mine was top notch), which no doubt educated people regard fondly, but real local libraries which no doubt educated people never bother visiting because books are so damn cheap anyway

Because the truth is they are drab, underused buildings which can barely be placed in the same bracket with real libraries - no doubt they provide books to some people, but clearly it is very few and it seems to me that we have passed the age where we need to provide literature to the masses through poorly stocked local book houses, my local Tesco probably sells more Jordan autobiographies than the total number of books the library lends, likewise the internet is all but eliminating the need for reference material (and thank god because I pity anyone who is forced to rely on even a city library)

This may sound cruel, and to be honest, I would have thought so too a few weeks ago but having witnessed it first hand I have to conclude they are an outdated model - I still want to provide literature to the masses for free, but the model no longer fits - if you were to invent the concept today, you would not take a large building and stick a few rows of books in it, you would utilise the internet, or even mail-order, mobile libraries are probably more effective

There is of course, another argument for them - the community aspect, libraries provide one of the very few places poorer people in particular can attend classes...or where old people can spend their days communally reading newspapers

But could we not find a way to provide these services whilst getting rid of the books? It would mean smaller buildings and less staff, and I can't believe they even cost a lot now, so surely a 'community centre' would be very cheap

So yeah, cut the 'libraries' - frankly they are an embarrassment to the word and pretty much useless as a provider of books

I appreciate that this is a difficult concept to swallow, I would simply ask that you go and walk into your local town or city library and take a look - see how little use they are getting, how much space they are wasting and of how much use they are to your reading needs

I don't wish to close them per se, I just want to make a relevant service for this century

BNP VOTERSSS!!

2011-04-01T12:48:00.000+01:00

Guido has helpfully posted a NO to AV video that points out BNP votes would be redistributed and could choose the winner

Oh my God! The BNP voters could swing it...

Yes, as the video shows, the small amount of BNP votes would be added to the other parties, pushing the second placed party into first

I'm not sure if this refers to Labour or Tory, or even Lib Dem, it's pretty much hypothetical anyway - but it is either of these two parties that would win - that's the AV system, nothing changes - it just reinforces a two-party system

That's actually one of the reasons I don't want AV, and I'll vote against it, but this kind of argument just infuriates me - there is no logic to this

The word 'BNP' is essentially being used as a bogeyman here - it implies we will get the view of extremists, and also that these voters don't deserve a vote, when in reality we will get a similar result to what we have now and as much as we dislike the BNP, you are allowed to vote for them and there's perfectly legitimate grounds to boost a second placed party because for example, the majority is right/left but the vote is split by a variety of parties, allowing the minority view to come through the middle - this will work both ways, as UKIP, BNP, Greens, Lib Dems, and Labour all split the right or left vote

What I'm saying here is the typical AV argument still stands, it's a debatable point (and I'm not backing either side really), using the term BNP to scare people into thinking 'they' will dominate elections is just scaremongering and frankly pathetic - the real reason the second placed party wins is because they came a very close second and are more preferred by the majority of voters

And of course, it also misses the point that voting patterns would differ from those made in a FPTP system, where people are forced to back the lesser of two evils - there would probably be more votes for smaller parties with a preference system

That said, I'm still anti-AV - it's a rubbish, pointlessly complex system that no-one uses and produces the exact same results as FPTP, which again, no-one uses (except the US) - the whole debate is a false argument

Shelley said it

2011-03-22T09:22:00.001Z

Further to my last post about pretentious nits reading whatever they like into a famous, and therefore deeply meaningful, book, this article on Frankenstein rather amused me

My favourite has to be the Scottish guy who apparently wrote at university that it was about the English treatment of the Irish....right

Did he look at the publishing date? The guy is going on about creating a murderer (i.e. Irish republicanism) - but it was published in 1818, unless Mary Shelley had exceptional foresight this is post-modern, anti-English wishful thinking

The sheer fact that the book is subtitled (which many classics often are, and which tend to be ignored by reviewers looking for their own meaning) 'The Modern Prometheus' should tell you what it was alluding to, I hope he didn't get a good mark for that drivel

Personally I believe Shelley was really trying to promote vegetarianism and support Israel

(If you want to really know how intelligent some of these amateur literary scholars are, just look at how many think she was critiquing Victorian society - 'Victorian ambition', 'Victorian paradigm' - remind me when the Victorian era started?)

Ironically, Queen Vic was born in...1819

The Phony Book

2011-03-11T12:49:00.000Z

I recently had the displeasure to read what is possibly the most overrated book of all time, namely the Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger

This is that 'shocking' book that became the most controversial piece of literature in America and is considered one of the great modern classics, nearly always by baby boomers with an obsession with the 60s

To be honest, I knew relatively little about it, 'Catcher' is relatively popular as a set text in schools, but my school were very much anti-American literature, and I have never gone out of my way to read American since, so all I know is based on the views of others - I knew that it was a 'coming of age' tale for example, and I also knew it was considered shocking for a considerable amount of profanity in the 50s, but that it is largely inoffensive to a modern audience

That was about it, so I read it, seeing as it's always on those '100 books to read before you die' lists and everybody has an opinion on it

I knew from the first page that I was going to hate it, the book is from the perspective of a 16 year old, Holden Caulfield and is seemingly the definition of a stream of consciousness novel, from the outset he is speaking in this incredibly roundabout, pointless fashion that drove me near insane. It really did. People who constantly repeat the same goddam point really knock me out. They really do.

That's essentially the gist of it - and that dear reader, is the sort of language you will endure for nearly 200 pages, whole paragraphs devoted to him repeating and reaffirming the same goddam point, and as you may have guessed, saying 'goddam' rather a lot

I eventually worked out, after finding nothing offensive for the bulk of the book, that 'goddam' was in fact the controversial profanity - this is probably a result of my being English, where damn has never particularly been considered to be a 'swear', I was expecting at least a s h one t here and there, but nothing, the thing is ridiculously mild by modern standards, particularly if you aren't American (where the controversy has always been, in fairness)

I laboured on, learning the language after a few pages (i.e. skipping lines which I knew would only be him saying 'I hate X. I really do. That really knocks me out.') appreciating that many old classics are often written in strange ways due to their subject and/or period, assuming that there would be some great metaphorical point to a fascinating plot here

Alas, no, the 'plot' is that Holden is kicked out of his posh boarding school for the umpteenth time and goes on a bit of a bender as he heads to his home in New York, while calling everyone phonies and fantasising, a lot

The plot itself is not really the point, it's more his thoughts that the various scenarios bring up that are the key elements of the novel - like how near everyone is a 'phony' and how he hates essentially everything about modern life (movies, school, adults in general), he is both a nihilist and a hypocrite, as while Holden may be making a valid point about the falseness of society, he repeatedly shows us how much of a phony he is - constantly lying and going on about drinking and women for example - maybe that's the point, but I found it very hard to sympathise with the general point when he was so weak and childish and I kept bouncing between who was worse - the individuals who he was so disdainful of, or him

His other main focus of thought is his dead younger brother, who he hero-worships as a genius and his little sister, who seems to be the sole living person that he is positive about

That's about it, he's a confused nihilist who is defensive/hostile towards pretty much everything except that which is dead, or a child

....And now do you see why angst-riddled teenagers love it?

The boy is angry at the world and the whole wanting to stop children falling off a cliff (he's a catcher in the field of rye...) is an obvious allusion to the pain of growing from a child into an adult, the metaphor is laid out on a plate for you

Any other metaphor taken from this is just wishful thinking I think, he is a boy who is probably suffering from some sort of grief related disorder and possibly having a nervous breakdown, but I can see how his nihilism and complete disregard for anything, even himself, chimes with teenagers, while his actions may be rather extreme, I can sort of see a resemblance to my own thoughts in my nearly-forgotten teenage years

Maybe I would have liked it more back then, I certainly wasn't as bad as him, his thoughts are ridiculously erratic for one, but then very few teenagers would go that far, they might share the general sentiment of hopelessness, however, so I can see why a fair chunk of American teenagers thought it was so radical

Look at me, I seem to have started defending it and finding meaning in it, well actually I was never going to call it complete garbage, it's not a trashy romance novel and there is a clear allusion to teenage angst, but that's about it

What I wouldn't do is call it a 'classic', while there is a point to it, it is a very simple one that is made in absolutely mind-numbing language and dressed up in a load of seemingly pointless and excessive description

As I've just shown, there is a discussion to be had on it's meaning, but you could say that about all but the trashiest novels and what I really want to point out is that while I have been thinking it over since I finished it, I absolutely hated reading it - the whole point of a good book is that you enjoy it, or it is has an incredibly profound point to make, I am principally debating the meaning of this book now because I have been conditioned to expect one from it, and it's a lot more enjoyable going back over it in my mind than in the actual book -and the points I have found to think about are very few in number, I seem to have forgiven it by trying to find some meaning and I really shouldn't just forget how irritating it was solely to discuss some fairly inane points about growing up

I simply don't think it adds up to being a classic, Salinger has described an angry teenager quite well and maybe appealed to a fair few angst-ridden teens but that's about it, the thing is a chore to read and, crucially I believe, has not aged well - you look at it's biggest fans (brilliantly, almost certainly 'phonies') and they are primarily those baby-boomers who were teenagers in the 50s and 60s, they think it's a classic because it spoke to them when they were kids, and of course they, the most powerful present generation, still love the damn thing, but a modern reader has little to take from it - a classic must be timeless, it must be at least an enjoyable read or impart some wisdom or philosophical point, this just describes a moody teenager in the 50s (ok, 40s if you want to be technical)

Certainly this book is important, I have seen praise for its description of post-war New York and its impact on a generation is clear, but that makes it of historical interest - it means we look at it from the perspective of 'why was this book popular' rather than 'why is this book so good', it's akin to the current fascination around the Twilight books, it's quite simply an overrated teen novel

One last point, I've been thinking about why teachers inflict this novel on teenagers:

Number 1 is obvious - because they are baby-boomers and liked it when they were school-age

Number 2 is more fun - that teachers want to do some amateur psychology on their students and see how many can identify with it and how many think it's tosh

All thoughts welcome...unless they involve phonies, 'goddam', horsing around or knocking people out

Sheila's Wheels Come off

2011-03-09T13:17:00.000Z

I am, as usual, very late to the issue, but alas life gets in the way of my witterings

I take it everybody is aware of the week-old news that insurers will no longer be able to take a person's gender into account

Now you may expect me to rail against this decision, I love to bash 'equality' with statistics and of course the statistics clearly show that men, as a group, cost more - that's a statistical truth

But I'm going to buck my own trend here, unlike say, Peter Hitchens, I do not believe that the enforcement of an equality law here is a bad thing

Yes, men cost more, but what you have to ask is - is it fair to charge the average man 60% more than a woman simply for being a man?

Surely, if he's 60% more likely to crash (or rather, claim), then yes?

While strictly speaking yes, it is cheaper to insure women as they are less likely to claim, what this really comes down to is where you draw the boundaries - why only stop at gender? You could show a difference between people with different hair colour, eye colour, height, weight, and of course skin colour - all of these features could in theory be assessed for risk

But we choose some very simple, easy to measure categories - is this fair on men?

'Because you are a man, you are more likely to crash' - well actually, for this to be true it has to be shown to be something inherent in men generally

However, we all know that this is not the case - many men are excellent drivers without a claim to their name (me included), and they are not even a minority, but we all know there are some, shall we call them 'twats', who drive like loons and write off three cars before their 18th birthday - these are the minority

Is there any link between these two types of men? Other than sharing the same chromosomal combination, no, a minority within the group force the majority to pay more because they all happen to have the same type of genitalia - as I said, it's a simple measure to use, it's easy to draw a line through sex and offer women a better deal

But it's not really fair, saying everyone of one group is more of a risk because of a small group within that, there is nothing to stop them drawing lines around any of the features I outlined (except practicality) - imagine saying 'black people claim more, therefore black people pay more'

Could be a perfectly true statement (almost certainly there's a difference either way), but it's not done, and nor would it be done, I expect, if women were shown to cost more - that would be discrimination, because quite frankly, it is, as it's pre-judging you based on your particular grouping

The only way around this is, as Hitchens junior remarked, is that men and women are different, racially you can't get away with that argument even if the stats bear out because races are considered equal, but the assumption is made that men's brains are hardwired to be more dangerous...because of the actions of a minority, which is exactly the same principle that leads to racial stereotyping

It means I am the same risk as Paul Gascoigne or Tony Blair, but clearly there are other factors at work - if I were a tiny minority then I could understand, but the fact is the majority are punished because we are arbitrarily put into the same box as the offenders, you may as well lump us in with murderers and paedophiles as we are far more likely to be them as well

Our sex has not been shown to be the overriding factor in the risk, some men are twats, but not all (or most) - it's just an easy, and very lazy, way of measuring us

So yes, it is discrimination and there is no reason why my gender should mean I pay hundreds more a year than my wife, mother or sister, unless you're a lazy insurer who wants to cash in on women costing less, us green eyed people would cost less too!

How to get on in life

2011-01-30T06:35:00.000Z

As if we needed reminding that in this world it's not what you know but who, it transpires that Jacqui Smith is to front an investigation on BBC 5live into the porn industry

It's not enough that she's paid handsomely as a 'consultant' (i.e. back door to Parliament) for minimal work, on a gold-plated minister's pension for two years of ineptitude, and is actually being considered for appointment to the BBC Trust but she gets a stint in the media to present on an issue that led to her own downfall

Now it's clear where the production company are coming from, she was hit by a porn scandal and she's known so there's a good angle here, much like the 'Anne Widdecombe meets people she dislikes' documentary, but she is no more an expert on the issue than you or I, and considering her frankly appalling stint as one of the chief lawmakers of the country it seems rather a kick in the teeth that she is handed cushy jobs for simply having a public presence

She is, in short, a metaphor for what is wrong with our political system - she comes through the party system, is quickly promoted because she's a woman, put into a supposedly vitally important and prestigious role under an unelected and unwanted Prime Minister without any sort of qualification or experience for the job because essentially, there's no other candidates left, then f**ks up pretty much every decision and is forced to resign after less than two years due to a combination of ineptitude and revelations about fraudulent claims. She is then one of the relatively few Labour MPs to booted out of her constituency (I believe the appropriate term would be 'flogged') and is she punished for all this...

...no, she is given not only an MPs wonderful pension, but a ministerial one - now I do not mind MPs and ministers receiving pensions (although I'd rather they reflect the reality of the modern workplace) for their public service, but when a person has been parachuted into the role, with no accountability, and is generally regarded to have failed, is it right that they are rewarded for their failure?

Put simply there is no reason not to take these jobs, if the party offers you an important job in the government why not just take it? It's win-win as the worst that can happen is the media criticise you and you might lose your seat, for which you will be paid, there's no punishment, just get up there and do whatever you want

Then, to rub it in to us plebs who struggle to make ends meet, these people are handed consultancy work for large corporations, being effectively paid our yearly salaries in minutes - they have no skill, no experience, just an 'in' to the major parties, while we are told to work hard and be rewarded for our efforts in a 'meritocratic' system, if you get in to the political game all you have to do is pat the right backs and you'll find yourself right at the top being handed jobs you would otherwise never be considered for

sigh...rant over

It's your fault for not liking it!!

2011-01-06T03:52:00.000Z

Exciting news, everybody

Stargate Universe has been cancelled

Now, this was actually announced nearly a month ago, so I'm a little late to the party but I just couldn't help checking if the guys that made it were still in denial about how rubbish their show was, particularly after Joseph Mallozzi, one of the main writers, rubbed it in the critics' faces when they got a second season

Ever since the show started it was criticised, and the ratings tumbled throughout the first season as the episodes got more inane and pointless, the defence was that old Stargate fans simply couldn't let something new and interesting happen to their favourite series - I rebuked that, the simple fact is it was a rubbish show, lacking in any real direction, drama, complexity or depth and it has been really irritating to see people like Mallozzi dismiss valid complaints, made by a far wider group than traditional Stargate fans

So it saddens me to see him continue to stick his fingers in his ears, defend the tumbling figures because the tv world is just so different now to when the other two shows were on - less than a million viewers is less than a million viewers

Meanwhile the co-creator, Brad Wright. blamed the fact that SGU was bumped to Tuesdays - because you always see good shows moved from the best slots and then die in a slightly worse one...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not revelling in the misery of others, and I did want the show to be a success, but unfortunately the production team's sheer arrogance in the face of perfectly valid criticism has really annoyed me over the past two years, and I'm happy the critics have been proved right

Happy new year! By the way

I'm kind of glad...

2010-12-06T12:54:00.000Z

...That we lost out on the world cup

or rather, that we lost out in such abysmal, ridiculous, painful and disgusting fashion

Oh yes, I am - don't get me wrong, I wanted the cup here as much as the next fan, and I even thought we might get it (although I bet on Russia, as is my rule), I was always expecting Russia to win

And so was every self-respecting football fan with an ounce of intelligence - deep down, we all knew that Russia would take it, because we are England, and they are FIFA, that is the natural order of things

For the last few years we have been hoping, even believing, that it was 'our time', that we would finally be allowed to host the biggest competition in the world again

But alas, reality bites - nothing was going to beat that map of world cups and those Russian puppy dog eyes (note: not actual map used), Prince William be damned

So. why am I glad about how we lost?

Well, simply because I think we expected decent support in the voting - we expected for it to go to the wire, sure Russia might win, but we'd lose in heroic fashion and say 'fair cop'

Instead, we get one non-English vote, crash out at the first hurdle with not even a look in, showing complete and utter disrespect from the governing body, cue outrage

It is not hyperbole to say that to be dismissed in such a way is outrageous, because it is - the hopeless, virtually token bid of Belgium/Netherlands received more votes than we did, England didn't simply lose, they were snubbed (as indeed were the greenie Low Countries, and symbolic Iberia)

And it is for that reason I find a little glint of hope - because from this we can no longer simply shrug our shoulders like we do after every penalty shoot-out we lose, this calls for drastic and severe action - FIFA needs reforming and we all bloody know it, I was pretty much brought up understanding that FIFA were corrupt to the core - had we lost by a few votes we'd just take it on the chin, say Russia had a point and sit back down, but now we're all rather pissed off*

Is this typical English 'arrogance' or sour grapes that your usual nay-saying smart-arse will claim? No, I've already said that I thought Russia would win, and I don't take issue with them winning, if anything it's Qatar that is the shining example of the absolute bullshit that comes out of FIFA, my real issue is the fact that clearly the FIFA delegates had decided who they wanted, while the bidders jumped through hoops, very expensive hoops

England did have the best bid, that's not my opinion or arrogance, but the opinion of FIFA inspectors - Russia had the worst of the 2018 bidders, and surprise surprise, Qatar had the worst of both

I've admitted Russia had a case, having never hosted it, but my point is what was the bloody point of spending astronomical amounts of money on technical bids and reports when it counted for absolutely zero? Why does FIFA insist on us saying how good we are when they don't even care and give it to the worst one?

We're supposed to be swaying the opinions of 22 (24) men with this, if they aren't neutral judges then what's even the point - they knew where it was going and let us rave on about how much better we are, we even chose stadiums! All that is worth one vote, we might as well have put Afghanistan forward, there's an illusion of a meritocratic system, but it's clearly non-existent and I for one am grateful, unlike Blatter, that 2022 was decided at the same time, because it seriously showed up the weaknesses/corruption in the hosting selection process, the 2018 decision probably wouldn't have alone

They get our hopes up, pretending to have a fair contest, and in reality a dozen or so men long ago decided to give it to Russia and an oil rich micro-state

Why bother with a voting process? It seems to be completely against what FIFA espouse, and let's face it, they have always decided where to send the cup

2002 was effectively decided by Havelange (he before Blatter) deciding to have an Asian World Cup - there was at least a fair fight, but it was only between two nations and of course, resulted in a co-hosted event (so Sepp was wrong on Thursday when he said there must be losers)

2006 (which was ten years ago in voting terms) was the only time since 1992 to feature an actual open contest, in which Germany snuck through thanks to a Kiwi abstaining

That decision resulted in the frankly ludicrous rotation system which ensured that Blatter's choice for 2006, South Africa, was given 2010

This system was then used once more as it proved convenient to give a tournament to Brazil, who faced no competition, and then it was dropped - the rotation of five continents lasted all of two turns...

And now we have a country that is half the size of Wales, in both area and population, hosting the 2022 cup - there are going to be 'cities' the size of...I can't even think of a famous place small enough for reference - Newmarket? hosting matches with over 40,000 spectators

It wasn't that long ago (about a week actually) that you would be laughed out of town for suggesting a small country could host such a big event - the European championships are deemed too big for Scotland and pretty much all of Europe, yet they give a whole world cup to a desert country the size of Cyprus? Can you imagine Ireland (over six times bigger) bidding? Or how about Kuwait, or Swaziland! The only nations that are smaller are mostly the always overlooked island members of CONCACAF, and the various micro and city-states around the world, invariably the issues of infrastructure and legacy come up

Making my point here? This isn't about new places, arguably there's the middle east angle - but that never seemed to be the agenda, and Saudi and Egypt seem much more sensible choices, Qatar's population of 1.5 million is laughable - how is that bringing football to the people? If it's for the middle east in general it's like playing a European cup in the Vatican, there will be no real home side, it's a bunch of stadiums in a small space for the world to come...actually that would be a good idea, create little zones in regions...

Anyway, do I even need to list the populations of previous hosts? Brazil are about 200 million, South Africa 50, Germany 80, Japan/Korea 180, France 60 and so on and so on, the only host that comes near to this level of anonymity are the first ever hosts - Uruguay, who at least have their own identity and aren't just an oil field full of migrant workers

oh and 2026 has already been earmarked for China supposedly...who knows how they'll decide to make that fit into the rules, a country that is virtually non-existent in the football world...after a country that is virtually non-existent in the football world

Then of course there's the human rights issue - FIFA make great statements about holliganism, racism and the environment - so they pick Russia, who have severe issues with all three, as you may know, and an absolute monarchy, where you can't drink in public, show affection etc, in a desert that will require a dozen fully air conditioned stadiums to be built - go FIFA!...maybe they are bringing gay rights to the Middle East?

So I think we have some right to complain here - and the people who think we're being arrogant really need to understand how this thing works, they are assuming that the meritocratic system that the media for some reason portrayed is true, and that we didn't 'deserve' to win really - nobody ever deserves to win, and this is how it has always been:

Italy were given their second cup in 90, France in 98, Germany in 2006 (so yes, Spain would have been truly a kick in the teeth this time)

The inventors of the game now will have to wait 64 years for a second tournament, longer than any other major power** except Brazil, and I bet Spain will be given the next European one...

In fact, if you look at it from the economic side (which FIFA always do) they are incredibly arrogant on this - by giving it to Russia and making western Europe wait even longer (12 years was already a record European gap) they snub their biggest market for probably 24 years, they act with complete disdain for England, but they are a huge market - not a growth area like Asia, and taken for granted, but still worth mega-bucks, there's a reason western Europe is overrepresented, and Blatter is callous by insisting on moving to expanding markets - Germany was the most lucrative cup in recent years and I would bet it stays that way past 2022

Of course, let's not overlook that Qatar was chosen for it economic situation - not only the oil and gas, but it's position in the world - a mere three hours ahead of GMT, meaning that games can be played at 10 or 11pm at a convenient time for Europe, and with that desert heat in the day...

FIFA gets to move in to the middle east, and Asia in general, while catering to its European cash-cows, thus having its cake and eating it

That's why it's unlikely Australia will ever get it - being both a small, already developed market, geographically isolated, and having a poor position in the world clock means they are a very weak prospect, despite being a great choice for many fans they would simply not offer enough to FIFA, even though I doubt Russia will create much wealth with it's known problems in security and travel, there's probably ample opportunity to line the pockets, and Moscow time isn't too bad

Anson's right, it's not even worth bidding without massive reforms to FIFA, and thankfully I can't see Blatter hanging on past this period of office, either professionally or physically, so maybe we'll have less of the supposedly all-powerful dictator with his crusade to take the tournament to such overlooked and under-appreciated members as Qatar

Was it the media?

No, and frankly anyone who has a whinge about out media exposing the truth should go and live in Russia or Qatar and see how they like it - do you want to live in a world where the media are simply yes men to the mighty FIFA so that they may reward us with a tournament once a century?

We have a free press, that should not count against us, and frankly if that has counted against us I don't want the bloody world cup, if all they want is a free ride from their mates in the media then all their talk of human rights is utter bullshit

We should be exposing their corruption, not condoning it, and the real issue here is that FIFA are totally unaccountable, they have no link to the fans and are isolated from the member associations, like some sort of bastard child of the UN and the EU - I'm glad our media stuck it to them (and so did the Spanish by the way) and they need to keep it up, the only way to make FIFA do anything is to hound people like Blatter out, not pander to him

So how do you reform FIFA?

It's complex, a lot people seem to advocate the IOC method, which opens the ballot to a far bigger electorate - but to be honest that has just as many problems these days, the World Cup is just a bigger event, I don't see how allowing 200 votes in itself would help - you would end up with the Eurovision Song Contest where Russia cajoles all it's little satellites into voting for it, while we get Ireland...if we're lucky

24 is a ridiculously tiny number and it should be expanded - that won't solve many problems, but it's a start, I'll give you a very odd, but true, scenario - Australia were the only bidder without representation on the voting panel (the 'ExCo')

Even England were allowed Geoff Thompson, but Australia were guaranteed no votes - Temarii, who was suspended, would have been a cert, despite not even being from the same confederation anymore, but regardless, to have eight of the nine bids represented by their own national associations is just plain wrong - I wouldn't say it's FIFA's worst aspect, but it shows a lack of consideration in the structure, either give them all a vote or none, like the IOC, don't allow a powerful nation like France or Russia to crush you

And there's a lot to be said for letting all members in, the block voting needs to be worked out, but clearly having some countries represented (like...Qatar) and most others not, affects loyalties and effectively skews the result, at least all members would be fairer, the panel of 24 are clearly only acting in self-interest so there's no point in them - let's face it, if Qatar weren't on that committee would they have had Blatter's ear? It's bizarre to think that Australia and Qatar (and indeed Japan and Korea) are both in the same confederation, and yet one is massively handicapped by it's own representative

Basically the whole system of lobbying individuals needs to be ceased, as does the remarkable executive power of the president, it needs to be a fair fight considering all the options - yes someone has to lose, but to waste countries like England, Australia, Spain, the US and Belgium's time is unforgivable when you give it to the countries with the worst technical and economic outlook, at least say beforehand that you want to give it to a country that needs to build 13 stadiums, rather than ones that already have the infrastructure in place because what was the point in even asking for that information when you wanted the converse??

You could weight or rank the bids, weight the confederations by strength, instead of giving crucial votes to minnows (see: New Zealand), anything to stop an old Swiss man and his cronies getting their own way - hell, give it to some external judges to decide, less people from dodgy organisations with their fingers in all the pies

*None of this means a thing will happen, it's politics after all, but I'm an optimist
**Major power being a country that has done well, and can still host it

Bye Aaron

2010-11-11T23:10:00.000Z

I've never quite seen this level of headline feed (from Guido, but repeated elsewhere)

Porter Must Resign - Mark Wallace
Porter Must Resign – Nadine Dorries
Thank You and Goodnight -Niall Paterson [Unrelated]
Porter in Oct: “We’ll be More Militant than Ever” – Indy
Tory Twitter Stoning Joker Arrested - BBC
NUS President in Serious Trouble – Tory Bear
Were the Law Properly Briefed? – Dizzy Thinks
NUS President Should Resign Over Protests – LBC

That is a level of high-intensity pressure that even Brown was not subjected to...and this is the president of a toothless little bunch of activists, not a seasoned politician with an office of spinners to throw phones and printers at

Flash in the pan it may be, but we're talking about a relatively unknown upstart who has bugger all public standing and will quickly be served up to the tabloids without hesitation

The NUS have zero power or influence in the real world - they can get a few thousand to protest the 'cuts', and there were always a few activists who wanted to whine about fees, or more likely climb the ladder from student politics, at my uni, but that's about it - the five million-strong membership are effectively coerced into joining and simply carry their discount card around...which they now have to pay for (I refused at that point...proper little rebel, me)

In truth, they are a weak, virtually pointless organisation that do nothing but provide a step up into (Labour) politics and now charge a membership fee to do diddly squat but serve the interests of their 'elected' officials - of which Mr. Porter is a prime example

Frankly I'm glad I won't have to see him making inane comments about his 'members' (who mostly do not give a monkeys about anything except cheap beer) on Newsnight every time a student issue pops up... I watch and wait to see where he pops up again - Labour PPC I'd wager

And if any fresh young things about to apply to uni, or head off next year, here's some advice for you - in the heady days of Fresher's Week your Union, and possibly a bunch of annoying militants, will encourage you to join the NUS, with it's discount card, for a mere £10 fee...don't

You get a nice card, with some discounts in high street stores - but that's it

Your university provides support if you need it, you are a member of both your university, and student union, automatically, and for free (aside obvious tuition fees), this gives you a student card and everything your local union has to offer

This free card is valid to prove your position as a student and will take care of all your needs, including many, many discounts that are simply offered to students as a matter of course, or law (such as banks, transport, virtually all services, and usually even cinemas), hell, it will even work in the NUS-funded discount chains, either because the checkout staff are typically dopey or the companies don't mind, I never knew, all I do know is I never used the NUS thing for the one year I did have it (students really should look beyond the expensive high street chains, anyway)

Student politics is pointless, sometimes it's fun to practice what is a student tradition and have a good protest, but unless you want to climb the greasy pole into politics then there is little point to getting involved with voting and the dirty world of ~~popularity contests~~ student elections, you're just helping career politicians, the NUS is solely an umbrella group for all unions - it does nothing for you but that discount card*

So in short, unless you really want to get that ten quid back by shopping at an outlet of Topshop or Boots that won't take your regular student card for some reason, and you don't mind paying to prop up the 'union' who are paying these companies with that cash, simply so you are 'incentivised' to join in the first place, a scheme that nearly bankrupted them (hence the new fee), then don't bother

*I am not ragging on student unions, far from it - but the NUS itself, many people cannot distinguish between the two - I must declare a personal interest here and say I was heavily involved with my student union, societies and groups are great fun, but I came to despise the little Hitlers that supposedly ran it and would subsequently go on to work in the NUS and politics - the people actually running the functions of the union are normal people engaging with other students doing things they enjoy because they have the time they won't get once they graduate - the elected leaders are usually people with zero business sense and will likely turn your student newspaper into their own personal propaganda machine

Quote of the Day

2010-11-05T18:00:00.000Z

Harriet Harman [regarding Phil Woolas]:

"It is not part of Labour politics to try to win elections by saying things that are not true."

'Nuff said, really

Am I Missing Something?

2010-11-04T17:25:00.000Z

From a BBC magazine article

Job-hunting IT worker Christian Romane, 53, lives in a bedsit in leafy Earl's Court, west London, with £125 a week in housing benefits
"At the moment I spend 40 hours a week looking for work, but if these changes go through that would stop.
To make up the shortfall in rent I'd have to cancel my broadband so it would be harder to search for jobs and keep up my IT skills. I have no other spare funds - as it is I get by on one meal a day right now.
I could move further out of London, but most of the work I'm looking for is in the city and the increased transport costs mean I'd be no better off.
I've lived here for 20 years, this is my home. It doesn't seem fair that I could be thrown out because of a political decision."

Now, I may be missing something vital about the policy, so feel free to weigh in - but the lowest cap is £290 for a flat

He's getting less than half that...why would it be cut? He's getting £6,500 a year to live in a bedsit

Maybe I am missing something obvious - but nowhere in that article does it point out why a person getting this modest amount would be hit - the only change mentioned is the cap, as always - as far as I'm aware he's well under it and shouldn't be affected, the BBC should explain the reason here

Kenny is Mysterion

2010-10-30T02:15:00.000+01:00

Ok, so following on from the Coon 2: Hindsight, we got to see a lot of South Park superheroes, and there's rather a lot of debate online over who is who, notably where are Kenny and Kyle

There are eight heroes:

Coon (Cartman)
Toolshed (Stan)
Tupperware (Token)
Iron Maiden (Timmy)
Mysterion
The Human Kite
The Mosquito
and ....Mint Berry Crunch

the other four kids are shown as Kenny, Kyle, Clyde and the rarely used Bradley, presumably thrown in for his blond hair, which matches Kenny's

Mint Berry Crunch must be Kenny or Bradley - while his face is half-obscured, typical of Kenny, I can't believe Cartman would treat Kenny that way, or that Kenny would be that dorky - the hair matches Bradley, and he speaks occasionally

Mysterion, being completely obscured, is Kenny in my mind - doesn't fit very well with the original Coon episode, and in the diner Mint Berry is drinking water instead of a milkshake (i.e. poor) so I suppose Mysterion could be Bradley, but then Kenny has to be an idiot, and there isn't really anything to suggest it's not him, aside from the water (Mint Berry Crunch apparently pays his fees on time, however, which Kenny wouldn't)

We know it's not Kyle, probably everybody's number one choice, due to the original Coon episode - so we know it must be Kenny, Bradley or Clyde

The one scene where the Kite speaks sounds similar to Kyle - and I can't see him being beaten by Cartman, he also uses a familiar pose at the diner

That leaves Clyde as the sappy Mosquito

So this is a bit like one of those logic puzzles where you have to rule people out

Mysterion (Kenny, Bradley, Clyde)
Kite (Kyle, Kenny, Clyde, Bradley)
Mosquito (Clyde, Kyle)
Mint Berry Crunch (Bradley, Kenny)

We shall just have to wait for a later episode for more clues (I don't trust them to actually have a two-parter)

Modesty

2010-10-29T01:12:00.000+01:00

I just saw Lauren Booth, who rather famously has converted to Islam, defend her move as to do chiefly with respect for women and modesty

Now, I shall try to keep this brief as I'm meant to be asleep, I am left wondering why is Islam the method of choice for this statement?

Is it the only way to be modest?

Of course not, if you can't beat the 'western' sexualisation of society and obsession with looks within yourself then what does that say about you? You have to join a religion to keep yourself away from western excess? Loads of people refuse to conform, I will not watch X Factor for example - and plenty of secular women I know have no time for make-up and being stereotypical bimbos, and yes, Booth did effectively imply that it was Islam that allowed women to be modest and taken seriously, which seems somewhat odd when there are plenty of secular women with respect out there

Is she really saying you can't be a non-conformist if you don't join a group of other non-conformists? Strikes me as being incredibly weak-willed, actually - nobody is forcing you to live by 'western' rules, it's fine if religion helps you keep focus, but that could be applied to any religion, notably the one she converted from

Catholicism does teach modesty - you are supposed to cover your knees and shoulders in a church, for example, and that rule is observed in more religious societies than ours, likewise, one look at the US will show you plenty of good Christian girls from the mid-west

So it strikes me as rather odd that she chose this as the major reasoning (at least in public) for her conversion - it says nothing of the faith, the theological heart of any religion, nothing about the afterlife, God etc, just a simple practice of dress - this to me, seems a rather shallow reason to convert to anything

You would, in fact, never even mention dress in relation to Catholicism, you'd be talking about views on abortion, marriage, sin, transubstantiation, Jesus or the afterlife - these sorts of issues don't even seem to be on her radar

She was already a religious person, and it seems she has adopted a practice from another because she likes it, has she really changed her underlying religious convictions or has she just added a veil to her pre-existing beliefs? It would be more impressive had she been an atheist turning to god

So in fact, I find myself agreeing with Peter Hitchens on something - this is fashion, she's thought long and hard about herself and her modesty, but seems to lack any theological conviction, I can't see any faith based reason for why she converted aside from she gets to feel empowered by some clothing - you don't even need a religion to be modest

However, we soon diverge as he seems to think it's a trend for 'English women to take the [veil]' that's showing there's a moral gap in our society that is being filled by Islam

Uhuh...seriously? Firstly, show me this trend outside of a few media types, because I haven't noticed a surge in veils round my way just yet

And secondly - she's a lifelong Christian (like her half-sis, of course) who has worked in Palestine and works for Islam TV and an Iranian TV channel - so she was already in the religious minority, and heavily exposed to her new religion, not one of us fornicating Satan-worshippers - there was no gap for her to fill, she was a believer before, and remains one now

The Mail have played up the rise of the white, female converts - but is this much different to conversion to Christianity? We don't know how many were even Christians to start off with, making it nothing to do with secular society at large, and conversions have always happened - people were doing it in the Victorian era

And I think they've missed (deliberately, of course) one glaringly obvious fact for why women outnumber men in the conversion stats - because they always outnumber us in religion! Women are something like four times as likely to be religious in this country (forgive me, it's late, so no checking), it is men that have driven the religious decline, and if men aren't shown to be jumping on this bandwagon then how can you say Islam is filling some sort of moral gap that we yearn for?

The answer is, you can't, and that's why they ignore it in their theories - if it's only about women then it's saying something about women, who have already been shown to be far more religious and superstitious in general, not society at large

Jesus wept (that's offensive too)

2010-10-25T21:50:00.000+01:00

Oh for ****'s sake

Ofcom call Top Gear offensive for describing the Ferrari F430 Speciale as 'Speciale needs'

It's a pun! Go and jump off a pissing cliff, you humourless twats

That's offensive too, you know - should I apologise?

When will they learn - everything is offensive! Even my shoes are offensive to some people - want to ban them too?

Good, I find Ofcom offensive - ban that

(and it was post-watershed...)

The Bond retrospective - The Top Three

2010-10-24T12:05:00.001+01:00

Seeing as there are a limited amount of films to choose from I thought it would be rather foolish to keep you waiting for the No.1 entry when you can easily work it out - so here is my top three in one post!

3. The Spy who Loved Me

Strangely works

While I‘ve never actually worked out which spy is loving who (mainly because it’s the title of a completely different novel) this is undoubtedly the best Moore film, quite simply it just works – whether it’s the chemistry between Bond and the feisty Amasova, or the classic underwater Lotus scene, or those scenes with Jaws, it all just seems to fit into a highly enjoyable film, all the usual Moore elements are there, and for once the balance of humour, action and style hits all the right notes, basically it’s quintessentially Bond.

Pros
The Lotus Esprit – so much opportunity to be tacky, and yet…
Jaws in his real role, before he was turned into a clown
‘Nobody does it…’

Cons
Amasova’s motives never seem believable

...
...

2. From Russia With Love

Connery’s second outing remains one of the best Bonds going, featuring an intelligent and well thought out plot about a SPECTRE plan to steal a Russian decoding device, all the while playing the Brits and Russians off against each other. It features excellent performances all round, with Connery at his early 60s best, the near silent Robert Shaw as the menacing assassin and of course, Lotte Lenya as the unforgettable Rosa Klebb. To some, this is the quintessential Bond, retaining the gritty realism of Dr. No but also introducing several staples such as the opening sequence, Robert Llewelyn, Blofeld, and helicopter chases. The plot makes sense, the gadgetry is appropriate, the characters are fleshed out and the action is realistic, while Connery is as suave as ever. The only slight complaint I have is the occasional slow pacing, particularly on the train, and the Gypsy scenes were somewhat out of left field, which is why it just gets pipped to the post…

Pros:
Excellent spy-thriller plot
Pretty much everything else

Cons:
Slow-paced in parts
Gypsy fights?

and that just leaves...


The more developed of the Masterson sisters

1. Goldfinger

Quite possibly the most iconic Bond film – it’s got everything, the wit, the action, the perfect villain – it was actually this third Bond film that created several infamous themes, ‘shaken not stirred’, the opening mission, and of course, the DB5, as well as having that renowned laser scene, and ‘No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die!’ and let’s not forget Oddjob. In fact if you’ve only ever seen the parodies of Bond then you’ll find pretty much everything you need here, except Blofeld, and frankly, Goldfinger was better, you’ve got to love how he murders the gangsters regardless of their answer to his proposal, and the real animosity between Connery’s Bond and the tubby German makes it truly stand-out as a legendary tussle, and hearing the name ‘Goldfinger’ in that Scottish brogue will cement Connery’s voice forever as Bond in your mind - few Bond baddies are so memorable, particularly from one outing. I must admit I never found the rather elderly Honor Blackman that appealing as a woman, but Pussy Galore remains one of the best Bond girls, probably due to that fact.

Pros:
An endless list of Bond classics!

Cons:
If I’m honest I do find the climax a little silly – particularly the ‘we all fall down’ bit, but it was 1964 so it gets some slack

Did you know? They actually electrocuted Harold Sakata (Oddjob) in his death scene

On Yer Bike

2010-10-22T13:02:00.000+01:00

What is so wrong with the concept of 'on yer bike' (Tebbitt never actually said it)

The broad idea is that if there isn't work where you live, go and look for it - this has in IDS' terms become related to fairly simple commuting to nearby towns, not even upping sticks

Jeremy Vine is currently talking about Welsh people from Swansea or the famously deprived Methyr Tydfil getting, shock horror, a 50 minute bus ride to Cardiff

The irony strikes me that the poor must have jobs on their doorsteps, but no one bats an eyelid that the 'wealthy' in the south east have to sit on the M25 for an hour or catch a 7.05 train to London

I happen to live by the busiest commuter line in the country (Cambridge-London), it carries thousands every morning into King's Cross and Liverpool St, and if you've ever been on one of these trains you would know that you will not get a seat 9 times out of 10 - people in business suits crammed in reading their iphones while standing, some sit on the floor in their suits - it is not a pleasant experience

I admit the pay accommodates this, we're not talking min wage, but most of these people are not paid masses (check the slightly later trains for them), and train fares are thousands a year, so much that my commuter friends have loans for them - these people are getting on their bikes every day, and my other friends have either moved into London, or commute to nearby big towns - none work where they live or grew up, and nor do they all work in offices being paid well (some do), I refuse to be a commuter and in turn am paid worse - every day workers are expected to get on their metaphorical bikes, but the unemployed can't?

Job Centres even pay for travel to interviews this sort of distance - so why are they so loathe to move? They say low wages don't make up for the transport (a bus ride is probably an hour's pay of each day at most), but welcome to the real world - thousands of pounds a year to commute either by train or car will see you lose masses of your salary, let alone taxation, people don't want to pay this - but they have to!

Most people do not think it is right to claim benefit and do not weigh their benefits against employment - if I could claim more on benefit than my salary I would still work, because I had a job and that's my money, benefits are not another form of income

And what is so wrong with moving? As I've said, I have friends who moved to London for fairly humble work, I even used to have a teacher from Methyr who railed against those who refused to leave, I know fairly well to do people who became very hard up - they moved, in a period of less than five years, down to Dorset, then to Sussex and finally to Suffolk chasing whatever jobs they could find - Polish immigrants are, fairly obviously, moving from their homes in search of work, we were doing it centuries ago, as the poor rural workers headed to the cities for work, and we still do - there is simply a small group who refuse to accept this notion (I admit that local government may hinder this, and it should be reformed)

This issue about it being more profitable to not work should not even come about - it's wrong, and clearly people don't appreciate that, having grown up on it probably, so the government should cut benefit to non-workers - it should always be better to work than sit on your arse, people seem to forget that those who work are putting themselves through hardship, paying for everything themselves, waking up at 7am, maybe getting home after 6pm after spending the whole day at a desk, or whatever, and they have to pay for everything themselves, probably about a fifth of their earnings on getting there in the first place!

Meanwhile people who do nothing to get their own money whinge when it is cut - not realising that they get to stay at home all day, which workers would love to be able to do - see the kids more, do the housework, cook more etc

I don't mind state support - but it is not a lifestyle choice, so I think it is right that the government want to cap benefits, and I also agree with 'on yer bike' - we all bloody do it! Do not provide free houses to non-workers, do not give them unlimited pay cheques, but limit it to a year or two and then on reduce it to a very basic level - use the savings made for other incentives, subsidise transport, subsidise rent and pay benefits to those on minimum wage, who truly are the ones suffering - do not pay people to stay unemployed, who say it costs more to work!

*This was meant to be a short and concise rant...oops

Best BBC Graph Ever

2010-10-19T22:48:00.000+01:00

This is the 'savage' spending cuts in relative terms

As reported on the BBC ten o'clock news, by Stephanie Flanders

This is the truth, note the rise into a almost vertical incline after 2000, when Labour abandoned the previous Tory government's spending model and pumped huge amounts into the public sector, much of it the NHS

Does that look sustainable to you? Does it even look sensible? No - every post-war government, even the two Labour ones, has had to keep the constant rise in spending in line with economic growth - as shown by the broad trend, that rule was absolutely demolished in the past decade - to claw spending back to 2006/07 levels is moderate, even tame

I've known this for a long time, as these figures have been all over the right-wing blogosphere, I am no economist but people like Guido, the Taxpayers Alliance and others have all made the point that these are barely spending cuts, but reigning in the rise in spending, depending on inflation

This is the first time I've seen this graphic interpretation on any major broadcaster, and frankly it's about time - we can talk about the impact of the cuts, but this is the actual reason for them, and it really helps to show why we need them, and this rather dents the anti-BBC lot's case

The real issue is - why is essentially a clawing back of roughly 4% to the expenditure level of three years ago so bloody destructive? We're talking about a snip of money that simply wasn't there four years ago, and yet we're losing 25,000 MoD staff and god knows how many more public sector workers*

Not that I'm against reigning in the public sector, but it seems rather a lot for what is a relatively small cut - I know some is about future spending commitments, and it's over five years, but I can't help feeling it's a bit... inefficient, and it's the waste that's most important to cut, and I also can't help thinking that ring-fencing the NHS was a costly political manoeuvre

*though I may be underestimating the rise in the public sector workforce

Who cares about democracy?

2010-10-18T12:37:00.000+01:00

The BBC have highlighted just how few Brits enter the EU commission, less than 5% of the workforce, and it's set to decline as most joined long ago

To be honest their recruitment campaign is news to me, and the article says they don't even advertise here - so clearly it's the EU's fault for not being inclusive towards the second-biggest member, not the British graduate

And can you guess why we're so under-represented? Yes, that's right - you need to speak a foreign language (principally French and German)

The article says this could be dropped for our sakes, yet there is no hint that this is a totally unfair practice to start with - I've blogged a few times before about the pointlessness of learning either of these languages, while of course, huge swathes of Europeans learn the international language of business as a matter of course - we do not need to learn minority languages, unless we want to work in France, the Ivory Coast or Germany, or apparently the EU

This gives us a massive disadvantage simply because they are learning from an early age a highly useful way of communicating with the world, and we have little reason to learn their individual languages, which we are not exposed to nearly as much as they are English - this unfairly keeps out any native English speaker

And to top it off

"Brits working in the EU are not working for the British government, they are working for the European Union," he says.
"But what they bring is an understanding of British culture and of the importance in the UK of enterprise and of the British common law system. It's a reality that when you're working with a commission official, if you have a common background, then the relationship is different."
This subtle impact is acknowledged by the few Brits who have actually made it through the exams.
"The people who win in Brussels get 90% of what they want at the Commission (the executive arm of the EU)," a senior British EU official told the BBC, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
"You don't then need to send ministers in to defend red lines. It is simply a more elegant way of doing business, having people drafting the legislation who think in a British way influences law around Europe."
And there is also a frustration at the perception of the EU back home.
"This is an exciting place to come," the official says. "You work with a bright bunch of people and you make policy that affects peoples' lives."

Legislation...without elected ministers

We already knew the Commission is effectively an unelected government, but this is just brazen - no need for ministers, get whatever you want once you're in...

I'm the first to criticise democratic governments, but to paraphrase Churchill there isn't really an alternative - government by psychometric testing (Theocracy? Oligarchy?) is not right, making up laws without those pesky voters and journalists questioning you is easier, but not right

The Bond retrospective - Number 4

2010-10-17T21:54:00.000+01:00

This next entry sits almost alone in modern Bonds in any top lists, nearly twenty years after the rest of my top five

4. Goldeneye

Best Game Ever

It’s another reboot for Bond, and after a much needed breakin the early 90s, Pierce Brosnan provides us with a suave, sophisticated Bondwho gives the perfect blend of action and style. Goldeneye features one of themost coherent plots in the series, full of twists and turns, as well as a nicepersonal angle for Bond, and a nice shiny new M, played by Judi Dench, whoreally helps to bring Bond out of the Cold War…and the 80s in general

Pros:

Tasty plot

Brosnan at his best

Cons:

Answers on a postcard

Oh no he shouldn't!

2010-10-15T17:16:00.000+01:00

Chris Evans has said Chris Moyles should leave Radio 1, after that little rant of his

While I agree it was wrong to 'hijack a BBC microphone', as I said at the time, I don't see why he should have to leave when his listeners don't seem to care, it wasn't out of character or untypical for the show, he frequently argues with callers, usually very early in the morning, and it's usually some of the best entertainment

That said, the show has been getting a bit stale for a while, and you maybe can't settle in front of the radio in comfort like you can with Radio 2's ever-familiar line-up, the audience changes far more rapidly (i.e. we all get old)

Likewise Moyles is probably starting to push it - he's getting to nearly forty, the last really successful host (Evans himself) left at 31, there comes a point when you are seen as middle-aged, no matter how youthful your behaviour - he might have appeal to me and other twenty/thirty-somethings, but he's a generation removed from the younger part of the audience

But there is a reason he should stay, and I come back to that point about Evans being the last good host - it took years to find someone decent, and Moyles is not known as 'the saviour of Radio 1' for nothing - it was languishing ten years ago and he is a big reason for it's success today, if he were to go then the BBC would probably struggle to find a decent replacement

Remember that Moyles built up his reputation over ten years ago, working in various slots and eventually the drive-time, or number 2, show - there is no one ready to take on the mantle

Scott Mills, whose not young himself, is an unlikely choice, I personally don't like his show and there are very few people who seem to like it when he fills in for Moyles, as he's clearly the second talent at the station

Likewise, Fearne Cotton, who I assume is well thought-of by the management, is seemingly hated by the listeners I know and there is a fear she would be moved in as she's a rising young star, but I doubt she'd be liked and isn't known for her humour, while there are still people like Sara Cox, who got bumped down a few years ago, hanging around

In fact the only person at the station I can think of who is mildly entertaining is Vernon Kay, but as he's exactly the same age as Moyles and Mills (bizarrely they are all within three months of each other), he seems unlikely as a long term replacement, so that does not bode well for finding a successor to the flagship show

So is it any wonder they are reluctant to think about losing Moyles?

He should stay for as long as possible...

The Bond retrospective - Number 5

2010-10-14T17:33:00.000+01:00

And the top five is off...

Controversial?...

5. Dr No

Quarrel's way better than Honey

The original James Bond film is rather different from its successors, it develops some traditional themes such as the evil, deformed megalomaniac and his lair, but is also far closer to a real spy flick, as Bond gets his hands dirty investigating a mysterious murder in Jamaica without gadgets or car chases, and there’s some real chemistry between Bond and Ursula Andress’ legendary Honey Rider – some may find the plot a little slow at times, and it’s definitely very dated, but this is probably the most ‘real’ Bond film until the Daniel Craig era.

Alright, there you go

So, the original is not quite the best, while an excellent film on it's own it is, rather paradoxically, not the 'iconic' Bond - its greatest contribution was probably giving the world Connery's Bond, but beyond that most other series staples, and a lot of the best moments, came from the next few films

Pros:
Connery
Some realism – particularly the climb through the vent
That bikini scene

Cons:
A bit slow
‘Underneath the Mango tree’ sticks in the head - not in the good way

Place here a commercial, followed by a recap, then another commercial...then a teaser of the next few, then another commercial

The final countdown

2010-10-14T10:56:00.000+01:00

As requested, here is the list so far

At 20. The Man with the Golden Gun (M)

19. Die Another Day (B)

18. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (L)

17. Octopussy (M)

16. A View to a Kill (M)

15. Diamonds are Forever (C)

14. Moonraker (M)

13. The World is Not Enough (B)

12. Thunderball (C)

11. For Your Eyes Only (M)

10. Live and Let Die (M)

9. The Living Daylights (D)

8. Licence to Kill (D)

7. You Only Live Twice (C)

6. Tomorrow Never Dies (B)

5....?

The Bond retrospective - Top Five

2010-10-14T00:32:00.000+01:00

..Starts tomorrow!

For those keeping track, there are going to be three Connery films in the top five, with one Moore and one Brosnan - any guesses? (as to the order, you can surmise the individual titles quite easily)

You might even sway me...

All Must Win Prizes?

2010-10-13T13:14:00.000+01:00

I've just been reading Policy Exchange's report on the AV system (that's the Cameron-favoured think-tank)

Now, I agree AV is a pile of manure, but the report is full of pro-FPTP bias and patronising statements regarding reformers, have a full read here

As I said, and have already outlined, AV is a crock, and broadly their analysis of that system is correct - AV is just FPTP with a 50% threshold, any chump can see that - but it's the subtle digs at any other form of voting (MMP, STV, PR etc) and assumed fairness of FPTP that I take offence with

The concept of wasted votes, and safe seats, are brushed aside for the airy belief that MPs are fairly elected to represent us, and that a proportional system is the 'all must have prizes' system - this very statement is evidence of the inherent bias present before the report was even written, it's a belittling comment that one expects to hear about a primary school sports day where everyone gets a medal

To use it in reference to an electoral system is at best crude, and at worst plainly offensive

Is STV or another proportional system 'all must win prizes'? No - the concept is solely that for every vote you receive, you gain a proportion of a seat - every vote counts, if you get 10% of the vote, you get 10% of the seats

Is that really a patronising, egalitarian idea? The concept is not that the Greens are given equal footing with the Tories or Labour, but that if they can get a decent share of the popular vote, they are represented - the Tories get 40%, they get 40%

And note 'decent' - a proposed benchmark at 5% would see very few minority parties win a 'prize', but supported nationally by at least a million people (that's based on a low turnout)

Nothing vindicates this more than the Lib Dems - in the present three party system say they were to receive 20% in every single seat - they could potentially win none - that's 20% of the population missing out, or about 5-6 million voters, in actuality they got 23% of the popular vote, seven million, and 8.5% of the seats so I balanced it a bit

There is little defence for this anomaly, it's certainly not a patronising 'all win prizes' system, but one that recognises every vote, which is something people do note, otherwise they wouldn't even count the national shares - the only true argument against it is the local one, hence the defence of constituency MPs

That is where we move into the ideological and opinion-based concepts of elections - whether or not it is important, and fair to elect one person in a winner-takes all election in a small geographical region

For my money, and as I've said before, there's nothing wrong in principle with that system - but it's no longer reflective of modern society - we look at the national picture in elections, we have leaders' debates, MPs have virtually no freedom from the party, bizarrely even defenders of our antiquated system say we elect governments, therefore smashing a defence of constituency-based FPTP

If you are electing one person for one role (say, a mayor) then FPTP, or it's 50% threshold brother, AV, works, but we have taken this individual aspect away from Parliament so now that the main parties benefit on a national scale from traditional local voting patterns

If you are looking at a national party, and a government, not an individual MP, then the case for FPTP is dead, and I think you'll struggle to find many who don't vote on the 'national' level, therefore I feel that we need a fairer national system, and that's why I formed my subjective opinion, look at the broad picture and decide what is fairest, there's no 'true' answer - but I didn't feel it necessary to belittle my opponents with patronising phrases

In short we already have the result of a PR system, just without the fairest aspect of it, as far as I see

This article was biased from the start, and picked on the easy target of AV to belittle all reform - expect more of these tactics from both the Conservatives and their various supporters and think-tanks for the next nine months

And yet I have decided to vote NO on AV - the reason I didn't bother fully fisking the report was because I agree AV is wrong, for most of the reasons outlined, and I don't want to settle on a weak system, believing politically it's better if the Tories actually win, but disagreed with their obvious bias and patronising attitude towards reform

Personally I want to see a system that retains a direct election, thereby preventing ultimate safe seats like the EU Parliament system, but that is also proportional - stopping situations like in East Anglia, where there are two main parties and one just happens to lose 48 times out of 52, mostly on slim majorities, thanks to the boundaries - I think a multiple constituency system, possibly even based on FPTP, that brings in the most popular candidate(s) from hard-done by parties would be fairest. This 'FPTP+' system I have created would see slightly enlarged constituencies, grouped together returning those who win each seat, and the best runner-ups, representing the share of the vote and keeping direct elections, removing the need for a dreaded list system

In my example, this would see the Lib Dems move from about 7% of the seats based on over 25% of the vote, to about 15 seats, while the Tories would go down from a ridiculous 92% of seats to a more realistic level (forgive me, limited time, and I'm basing this on memory - they were rather close overall, and clearly nobody got near 92% of any popular vote)

And I also have to ask, Policy Exchange is fully staffed and has many professionals working for it, this was written by 'Director of Research' Natalie Evans and edited and proof-read - why then was a relatively short document (no more than 10,000 words) riddled with fairly obvious typos? I'm writing this in half an hour, for free...how many did I make?

A Browne Stick

2010-10-13T00:23:00.000+01:00

University funding is always a fun issue, so many problems, so few obvious solutions

I probably can't handle a full debate of all the issues right now, but I will try to extrapolate what is in my head

Firstly I feel the issue boils down to this:

University costs money

Previously (in living memory), the student was aided by the government to attend university, however this was a very small figure and therefore quite cheap, ironic considering it was mostly the wealthiest going in the first place...

So to improve fairness, more people were allowed to go to university - costing more, and more, and more

Until one day it cracked, and Parliament, solely inhabited by those who had never paid for this education, inflicted a capped amount on students to reduce the burden - this rose twice in the past decade, meaning the typical student paid about 9 grand for a degree

Labour then spent hundreds of billions of pounds on what was effectively a credit card, granted with a very good APR, but eventually it meant we had to stop spending on things like students...which they had at the same encouraged to be every second teenager, meaning we once again had to find university cash

But by this point, students, paying three grand a year plus living costs were rather angry about having to pay nine grand before even having a real job, and having to amass thousands of pounds of debts, when the very ones who benefited from a free education, their parents' generation, were the ones to inflict it on them

And so lifting the cap would cause outrage, from students, parents and Lib Dems alike

And so a 'graduate tax' was thought of - those who benefited from university paying slightly more for the privilege of it for the rest of their lives, this didn't go down too well with the Conservative Members - who saw the idea of taxing someone who earns the same as a builder more because they happen to have a degree in the history of art, as rather unfair

And so along came Browne, another one with a free education, and he took the middle road - he did raise the cap, but he also said don't pay upfront, but pay after, with added interest

In effect, a tax on being a graduate, but one that was based on what you cost, not a true 'tax', but one that was worth a finite amount determined by you - and it also stopped the hard-pressed parent or student paying up front, thus appeasing the Liberals, they hoped

But alas, it did not appease many - some resented yet another rise in the cost, and disliked the idea of debts being enforced, whereas before they were an option, and others pointed out that the richest will pay off fastest, the poor won't pay at all, and the rest of us will pay the most

Meanwhile there were concerns that allowing the best universities to charge more than the worst, would prevent the poorest (or 'middlest') accessing what should be theirs on merit

And so, the government of toffs was once again, seen to be unfair on the common pleb, from whom it had already stolen the breeding bonus

Joking aside, I am in a pickle - the whole issue is in a pickle, we simply don't know who should pay, the individual or the government

If the individual pays it becomes elitist, for the wealthy, and only the poorest benefit from hand-outs, the average man loses out big time

If the government pays, then we all pay for a free education - probably the 'fairest' option, but also costly and would require a tax rise (or a dramatic redirection of funds...which I'm not opposed to, myself)

So neither is viable - once again we sit between the American and the European models - wanting individual liberty and choice, but fairness and equality in opportunity at the same time

The choice is fairly simple - either pay or don't, the fact that this is the third review in a decade shows that the system we have cooked up is not sustainable long-term, primarily down to far too many students, which while forcing individual costs up, has, ironically, pushed the worth of a university education down - meaning we're paying more, for less

Personally, I don't mind a contribution - the problem lies in how much is too much? Why is 10 grand too much? Is three too much? It's completely subjective, and charging a fee you pay back later seems to me, a reasonable idea - but the added interest is an unfair tax on the typical middle-income worker, and the uncapped system is also unfair on that same group, likely to shy away from bigger debts just because they're really good at exams on Shakespeare

Likewise, how often can we expect a rise in the cost? At present it's about every three years, usually a 100% rise, this again, is unfair on future generations

It is of course only unfair if we choose to see it as a right, not a privilege, but we seem to expect our higher education to be accessible to all, that is ingrained in our culture and we seem unlikely to head down the private, free market road

I think a degree of repayment is sensible - certainly you should pay something back, if not through general taxation, but the issue I see, that few have yet to mention is the unsustainable aspect of expanding education - the government wants to increase student numbers, this year it didn't, but it admits it doesn't want to cut places

Any cut in funding, or rise in numbers, places a further burden on the system - hence why we keep altering it and forcing one generation to have it worse than the last - that to me, doesn't seem 'fair'

The system needs to be sustainable - that means limiting the number of students to a good proportion of the population, but accepting that only this proportion need, or are capable of, this advanced education - this will stop saturation of the jobs market, reductions in teaching quality and further punitive rises in 'contributions'

They have to accept the idea of 'failed applicants' - of course some will fail, if there weren't failures then we'd be advocating a universal system, it's called competition, and while the system should be fair, until it's a universal education system then there will, and should, always be those who aren't accepted, however sad that may be

Right now we have an education sector that is exploding in size, and that is why we're having so many issues, and politicians, of all hues, have failed to grasp the nettle (as always) - dealing with it in minute steps to avoid political fall-out

The alternative to capping the number of students is to cover the cost through general taxation, if student numbers grow and grow then it will truly become a 'right', to expect this level of education, and if we all benefit, then we should all pay, and the fairest method for that, is... income-based taxation, with possibly a fixed across-the-board, but stable, fee

Historically, this could simply be seen as a period of growth - if it plateaus, then the unfairness dies away, but if it keeps growing, we're in for decades of turmoil

What Cuts?

2010-10-11T23:31:00.000+01:00

I keep seeing (sob) stories on the news, and newsnight, various other articles about how this and that will suffer from 'cuts'

Exactly what cuts are these? As far as I'm aware, the spending review is still days away, people are assuming everything is going to lose funding, including healthcare (Newsnight participant), and it's all the good stuff the police do, 'how I need my benefits' yadda yadda

All very well - but I don't see why good programmes need to be cut - the government spending plan will not even be cutting expenditure, as highlighted by Guido, among others, merely reduce the rise in spending to nearly zero with inflation adjusted (even Thatcher only 'cut' in real term spending in one year) and for years we have been going on about waste and inefficiency - as soon as they announce what is effectively a balancing of the books, all spending is good!

Fact is, we have debt, we pay interest on that debt, it is good to not have to use our tax revenue to pay said interest - therefore we are either spending too much, or need to raise more

We need to decide in a grown-up way what we can do without - unfortunately everyone seems to have jumped the gun and believes the welfare state will no longer exist in a few years

This is despite the fact most cuts will come from general budgets - it is up to the budget holders, often the local government, government agency or whatever bureaucratic authority it is, to decide what to spend, what is necessary and what is not - this is common sense for any institution, whether private or public, or indeed personal, when available money shrinks

Cutting everything across the board, and for political gain, is not - it'll just make the situation worse, and for what it's worth the reverse, which is 'ring-fencing' the bloated NHS, which everyone thinks is wasteful, but wants, was a weak, if politically necessary, move

Nobody, except the media and Labour are saying all this will happen...

'Equality'

2010-10-11T08:32:00.000+01:00

So apparently Trevor Philips is still about, being paid by the rather frivolous 'Equality and Human Rights Commission' to tell us:

'The commission said that on average women earned 16% less than men, widening to 27% for women aged 40'

An average, widening in the older groups...I'm shocked - does this mean it's narrowing in the young?

'When it came to pay, the report said that the gender pay gap was lowest for the under 30s, rising more than five-fold by the time workers reached 40'

Hang on - five-fold? Does that mean it's roughly equivalent to a measly 5% in young people?

I've said before that to compare older workers is ridiculous when there is nothing you can do about their educational prospects thirty years ago - instead what we have is females being given massive advantages to even out the figures, which does nothing for older 'unequal' women, and creates real, state-sponsored inequality in the education and employment sectors

Among other equality issues, it said that girls of all ethnic backgrounds outperformed boys in education.

Essentially they offset older women being held back by deliberately holding young men back, this is 'equality'

Other gems include: 'while one in five people lived in a household with less than 60% of average income.'

Really - 20% live in households more than 40% away from the average? As streams of people have said before - it's relative! If they earned more the average would in turn be higher! The only way of ever lifting people out of 'relative poverty' is to pay everyone the same

Mr Phillips said: "This review holds up the mirror to fairness in Britain. It is the most complete picture of its kind ever compiled.
"It shows that we are a people who have moved light years in our attitudes to all kinds of human difference, and in our desire to be a truly fair society, but that we are still a country where our achievements haven't yet caught up with our aspirations."

Is that code for: we can't catch up with the inequality of generations past? Or is he just bleating that we still haven't met the targets, and reality be damned

There 70 million of cuts right there (operational costs - £175k per employee, nearly twice that of the NHS)

In other news - people who are (about) my age are idiots, they think that of all cuts benefits Jobseekers' Allowance should be cut, many of whom said by 'a lot' - are they aware how tiny JSA is? It's a pittance, equivalent to less than a day's work a week and is heavily restricted - the real benefit money is in housing and income support, not counting disability

However, they did also support benefit capping (again, showing this cap is actually a good, popular idea, despite the Labour howls), but christ..cut the dole - to what? Zero?

Looking forward to 'the cuts' next week...

The Bond retrospective - Number 6

2010-10-09T15:20:00.000+01:00

Life is too short to talk about moaners, so I'm finally revealing number six in my unquestionable ranking of Bond films

...you know some people put this bottom...philistines

Bond went for a more 'modern' look

6. Tomorrow Never Dies

A strong follow-up to Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies fits in a decent, coherent plot about a media baron bent on starting world war three for the purpose of selling his papers. Overall it does a good job of finding a contemporary plot, much like its immediate predecessor, however Jonathon Pryce’s portrayal of Elliot Carver doesn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of small children, and the obvious Murdoch overtones are generally unwelcome, but a mostly enjoyable film nonetheless, oh and the Russian arms bazaar prelude is highly memorable.

Pros:
Wai Lin kicks ass
Russian Arms Bazaar
Nice song by Cheryl Crow

Cons:
Rupert Murdoch evil…ragghh!

Punishing bigger families?

2010-10-08T00:07:00.000+01:00

Now, while I can see inherent problems of fairness with the child benefit cut (yawn) - I do not have any issue with capping a family benefits at 26,000, or rather a 'salary' of 35k

What is wrong with this? That's a pretty nice amount to live on for an earner, why should someone on benefits take more when most workers will earn less?

I perfectly agree with helping people at the bottom - I don't people to be trapped in poverty, but I also want work to pay - this principally involves big tax cuts at the bottom and probable tax rises at the top (sorry), not giving massive hand-outs to people who don't, or won't, work, I do agree with benefits, supplements, tax breaks, but not funding a lifestyle that is actually better than the poor saps who work in the worst jobs can afford - that is not 'fair'

So capping benefits at a very reasonable level, seems rather appropriate to me

The only argument against this is that it hits large families, as your benefit won't keep going up as you pop out more dependants

But I'd like someone to explain to me, why it should keep going up with the amount of kids you have? - 35k is a decent amount for a typical family, and they do not get a salary rise with every kid - they budget, if they have nine kids on a salary of 35k that's their own fault...but if they are on benefit and not working, they should have their rising number of kids paid for by the state?

That's both unfair and economic madness - taxpayers do not get paid for children (except CB of course...), but major benefit claimants do - they are not subject to the same restrictions to those who actually work and live within their own means

I have every sympathy for the poor, but I don't see why they apparently have a right to reproduce ad infinitum, when the rest of us don't

Give them a salary and let them stick to it, like we do!

(also: for Diane Abbott's rather tetchy response that it punishes the ones who are already born - just make it a new contract, applies to children born after X date - then it's parents' own fault for their declining standard of living)

83%

2010-10-05T23:45:00.001+01:00

Anyone would think the media types somewhat over-represent those top rate tax payers...

Yougov have produced a poll that shows 83% are in favour of this cut (sorry no reliable link)

Roughly 15% pay higher rate tax...

Yet the journalists harp on about it, when any chump could tell you the whingers are actually very few in number, even if they are very vocal on the BBC forums

Clearly, they're overpaying the journalists

I think we all agree it unfair on some level, but it's hard to have sympathy for people who earn enough to have the choice to not work and the unfairness is mostly theoretical - affecting I would bet, a few thousand lucky sods

I've seen the gripes about how these people 'can't afford it' - yes, you can, love, because I've been there and grew up on rather a lot less, and the rest of us do not even have the choice - they can whinge about two earners but the whole point is those two earners need to work, therefore you are better off in the first place!

I'm not saying you're 'rich' - but you're blind to the fact that you have the luxury of choice, which the vast majority of us don't, so welcome to our world!

They are whingeing about a benefit cut to the wealthiest earners in society, while benefits to the poorest (deserving or not) are being cut at the same time - the fact is you cannot cut an expenditure without it hurting someone

I think I've boiled it down to a simple point:

We don't 'need' a universal child benefit, we don't have a sole breadwinner model anymore and the system is not designed to prop up the housewife model (nor does it) - it's a token from a bygone age, the problem people have is that they are losing money - which we all hate, but if you never have it, you can't miss it - a BBC documentary on high earners pointed out that wealthy GPs were living hand to mouth because of their mortgages, cars etc - when we have it, we spend it

doesn't mean we 'need' it

Are you really that pissed off?

2010-10-05T00:26:00.001+01:00

The media are having great fun with this child benefit cut

The lefties naturally oppose any cut (despite it being against high earners...) and the Mail who usually rail against benefits, despise the cutting of middle-class benefits - so nobody's happy

But I have to ask - is it really that bad?

The Tories, and many supporters, will admit it's ridiculous to pay the wealthiest people (e.g. David Cameron, who can claim £2,500 if he chooses) benefits - and I point to the decent tax breaks in their stead being a far more sensible option than taxing and repaying the middle classes

So why is twenty quid a week so important? Everyone, including families (particularly at the bottom), will have gained hundreds in tax breaks by 2013, so what if we cut off the top 15% from a fairly minor benefit?

We have a huge welfare bill, and a small chop from those who can probably afford it, seems very reasonable to me

There are some notable problems, I admit - the main one being that a family can earn 35 grand twice and keep it, while a sole earner on 50 cannot, thus penalising stay-at-home-mother families

However, how many are being hit by this 'rough justice' as Philip Hammond put it? As he pointed out - the median earnings for a couple both under 44 grand is only 46, while sole earners were in the seventies

In short, just how many people are at the bottom end of this scale - i.e. sole income families earning around 45k? The stats show that the very few people who do live off one wage these days need a little bit more than the higher rate threshold anyway - you will always find people who do exceedingly well from a situation, and those who get caught out quite badly - that's the Mail's job

But as long as it remains a few this is a rather painless cut to the vast majority of people, and is highly unlikely to put anyone into poverty, if it does, I apologise, but I'll take the risk

I agree it's in principle unfair, and a few will benefit to the detriment of others - but the fact is the PAYE system is much, much easier to base this on than means testing all claimants, and therefore more cost-effective - I challenge you to work out a simple way of cutting an unnecessary benefit while keeping it totally fair

I agree it is against traditional Tory principles, they support stay at home mothers, but that's their problem, not mine, I think that's a more philosophical debate for them, for the rest of us however, it will have a tiny impact on families who can largely afford it

Likewise, the 'universality' line they used in the election is going to come back and bite them, because it is a break - they can claim they didn't win the election but who seriously believes this one was caused by the Liberals? They should be cutting extravagant benefits anyway - get some balls, and don't lie in your manifesto (it's not technically lying if you don't win...)

It's a few grand (tops), to those who are paying higher rate tax - I bloody wish I was paying higher rate tax...

Also, I must take issue with the man in the Newsnight crowd who claimed it went against aspirational values - i.e. people wouldn't aspire to earn 44k because they might lose a benefit of 20 quid a week

Does he not understand maths? If they are aspirational, all they have to aspire to is 47k before they wipe out the perceived loss (dependent on number of kids) and they are back in 'aspiring' territory - do people just get to the threshold and sit there forever more?

With the increase in the tax threshold and allowances we are getting a good deal for losing a bit at the top end - it's unlikely people are going to be worse off in general when you look at the overall picture of taxation, so I think this is a perfectly fair, and rational, decision

In my mind (though I doubt anyone else's), surely the Lib Dems are doing well here - without them we wouldn't have got the big increases in the allowance, and with them this wouldn't have been cut - I doubt anyone will note that they're the ones with the popular policies, however

Also this 'no families on more than 26k of benefits' needs some fleshing out - is that 'every' benefit? And how do you keep tabs on all the various payments made?

I agree it needs doing (and frankly 26k is too high), but it's going to be bloody difficult when you consider housing costs in certain areas (as Nick Robinson points out)

But this is way more fun than the sodding Labour soap opera

Update: The BBC are using 'human' stories from the people to point out the flaws (which are obvious)

'Trisha' from Hertfordshire claimed it was the only income she gets - right, besides the 44k+ that you get from your husband/partner?

Let's break that down - you are 'earning' £20 or £34 (average number of kids is two) a week, this is what? Spending money? That's not even a weekly grocery shop! Meanwhile, post tax your family earns roughly £610 a week minimum - otherwise equivalent to £2,500 a month against £130 (and that's minimum)

In no one's world is this your sole income, it's nice to get money but do you really need it? I am working on highly conservative estimates here, and while all cash is nice it is not an 'income' - it's a small supplement

Is Trisha's hubby getting 45k? Or is he getting more, like, say an MP? (I'd be interested to know where we draw the 'fair' line) And by 2013 will her kids be at school and will she be able to balance her budget so that this two grand a year fall in revenue can be expected, seeing as it's announced nearly three years in advance

Get a grip, people

The Bond retrospective - Number 7

2010-10-03T21:13:00.000+01:00

Perhaps this would have been better at 'Number Eight', but alas, it's a top seven film!

7. You Only Live Twice

Japanese... Romulan..whatever!

Ah, very good, Bond-san. Yes, that’s right, this is the one with the hollowed out volcano, hungry spaceships and the worst Japanese disguise you’ll ever see. Personally I quite like the film – it certainly starts well, with Bond’s murder and ‘funeral’, and the whole plot being nicely set up as Blofeld attempts to ignite a world war, leading our man to Japan, where he trains with ninjas and has a haircut. However, the latter half is where most people find fault – the ridiculously large lair of Blofeld is the stuff of parody, but being the original ‘outlandish Bond’ saves it for me, and the plot derails slightly in parts, but nevertheless mostly makes sense by the end. Donald Pleasance is both a classic and somewhat of a disappointment – for the modern viewer, he is Blofeld, certainly more memorable than the other two, however from a 1960s perspective he was a bit of a let-down after years of just being a hand and a cat as he was given little space in this rather lengthy film. Ultimately it boils down to whether or not you like the big-style Bonds, of which this is the first, and if you like hollowed-out volcanoes with little trains – I personally feel that the assault on the volcano is the only massive gunfight that really works, as it got stale pretty quickly after that. All in all, a decent film that was a bit grandiose and is not to everyone’s’ tastes, but enjoyable.

And remember, if you're a spy don't build walls made of paper

Pros:
Lots of over-the-top action
The best Blofeld

Cons:
Occasionally confusing and a bit long
Somewhat comical

The Bond retrospective - Number 8

2010-10-02T15:37:00.000+01:00

Any ideas? Hint: The first film not be based on a Fleming novel

He's not quite got the idea...

8. Licence to Kill

Timothy Dalton’s second, and final, outing is one of those ‘marmite’ Bond films (hell, he’s Marmite Bond), and the debate between which of his is the better is a rather heated one - I am a lover of the latter film, it’s definitely gritty, and the most gory of Bond films, while Robert Davi’s drug lord is far more sinister than the usual caricature villain – if you like lots of guns and anger then this is for you, Dalton doesn’t really deliver on the humour or style, nor are the Bond girls very interesting, but it has to be remembered that Dalton was very much the antidote to the ridiculously cheesy Moore era. Really depends on your taste, but I think it’s certainly a watchable film, and you can't dislike the ending (the one with lots of flammable liquid and a lighter).

Pros:
Some real action
Desmond Llewelyn’s biggest role

Cons:
Lacks the style of Bond

Profit!

2010-10-02T00:17:00.000+01:00

This morning punters were backing BBC strikes to take place over the Tory conference at 80%

Now they have been called off...

Guess who got a piece of that action...

If I want to call you Hitler, I will

2010-10-01T23:28:00.000+01:00

Guido has the news that Sir Andrew Green is taking legal action against Sally Bercow:

after Sally dismissed a MigrationWatch report that proves a link between a rise in youth unemployment and immigration was “dangerous propaganda” and compared it to arguments used by Hitler and Mosley. Live on Sky News

He has since clarified the issue with a link to the Index on Censorship and doesn't expect anything to come of it, probably never did

The reason I am posting is to question why this issue ever came up in the first place - she called a MigrationWatch report 'dangerous propaganda' - surely nothing defamatory in that, certainly no more than in your typical tabloid rag

She then likened it to arguments used by Hitler and Mosley - again, I'm not aware there's a law that states you can't bring up Hitler - with the obvious exception of Godwin's, which isn't usually a legal matter

Even calling someone Hitler, or shouting 'fascist' at them, which she didn't do, is not defamation - it's all fair game in the discourse of politics

The English libel laws are a joke, their main use seems to be exploiting them to stifle political debate

...and I'll stop there for fear of legal action

They did not invent them!

2010-10-01T00:36:00.001+01:00

Watching the Daily Politics, Oona King and Portillo are having a debate about inventions - main topic, who came up with the rent-a-bike scheme in London - Johnson or Livingstone

The real question is - who went to Europe and pinched the idea?

Launched in Paris in 2007, any tourist will see them - and indeed most major northern European cities had a scheme when I went round Europe long before Boris launched our system in London

As Wikipedia states - Lyon had the breakthrough in 2005, and even Portsmouth toyed with it in the 90s

Likewise, it's been popular in the US for many years

Basically we saw a good idea and stole it - nothing wrong with that, but it's not 'innovative', nor was it our invention, it's just about in the realms of forward-thinking, that's it - don't believe politicians when they state it's a London thing, we're as behind on this one as the famously useless Ozzies

Introducing the Oyster card was somewhat more impressive - certainly wasn't the first smartcard, but it involved massive changes to a pre-existing infrastructure system, and it actually worked, the bikes just required a copy of someone else's system to be built

edit: and as any Cambridge resident will tell you - we've been practising a reciprocal bike-sharing agreement for decades, they just call it 'bike theft' everywhere else

The Bond retrospective - Number 9

2010-09-28T14:06:00.000+01:00

It's getting difficult! Time for our first Dalton I think

Did I mention realism?

9. The Living Daylights

Ah, ‘the one with the cello’ as it’s commonly known round my way, Dalton came in as the anti-Moore and took it to rather extreme lengths by being both monogamous and incredibly serious, as with Licence to Kill, it’s really up to the viewer how they like Tim’s Bond. For me, it’s a good, solid plot without the campness, and I like it - it’s a bit of gritty realism, while still an enjoyable romp. There are some slow points, and it’s probably the driest spy film since Dr No, which is why I generally prefer the more graphic Dalton film, and perhaps Bond needs a bit more humour, but next to the latter-Moore era it’s perfect in my view. There’s also the rather bizarre Afghanistan scenario in which we support the Taliban, which of course we did in the 80s, but watching it these days may throw up some issues for people.

Pros:
Realism!

Cons:
Enough with the bloody cello!
A-ha? Really?

Also while we're on the topic, I found this quiz on Flixster - I naturally felt obliged, but I am not signing up to spam to argue, so read on for pedantry:

One of the most prominent villains in the James Bond saga is Jaws, played by Richard Kiel. He was introduced in Moonraker, but later made another appearance in another movie opposite James Bond. Which was it?

The Spy who Loved me - which was the film before Moonraker, he went off with his girlfriend in Moonraker, remember?

Which James Bond film was the only James Bond film to not have it's name title in the beginning song? [Octopussy]

Considering there were questions about Daniel Craig...

This actor appeared in just one James Bond movie. That movie is widely considered to be the best non-Connery bond film.

Opinionated much? I would naturally disagree, and a quick check of Wikipedia references (IGN, MSN etc) shows zero agreement with this fact - Goldeneye, The Spy Who and even Live and Let Die were all non-Connery films variously ranked above Lazenby, and on Rotten Tomatoes The Spy who is just above - do not put 'best' anywhere near that film in my presence! Particularly with 'widely considered', unless it's with 'by idiots'

Don't you just hate quizzes when you are right and the quiz is wrong?

It's a race!

2010-09-27T18:32:00.000+01:00

This is a very good poster against AV (or rather for FPTP), that Tom Harris posted:

It is rather excellent, highly emotive and plays on our sense of fairness - the idea of a race being won by the first across the line

Only...it's not true, it's a bloody brilliant campaign idea but it's not true, far from it

I've said before, I don't really like AV - but I cannot defend FPTP

I think it should be obvious why the concept is quite wrong but here's a summary

1. Unlike an actual race, the finish line is not fixed - in a race between two candidates, there is a fixed line of 50%, but once it becomes say, four, like in the poster, it becomes a lot lower

Let's say three candidates occupy the centre-right, one occupies the left - the right has a natural advantage in the population, say 65%, but in the election the right vote is split into 15%, 20% and 30% for our three losers - the leftie crosses the line first at 35%, despite being the minority viewpoint - the finish line has been moved, if we want to use images such as this maybe that should be made obvious when less than a third of MPs have a true majority (and a lot less than my made-up 35%, which is usually enough for a win)

2. The metaphor is simply misleading - yes they share a theme of crossing a line, but in an election the distance travelled by a loser is people's votes - win by .1 of a second, great, you're better than the other bloke, win by one vote, then nearly half (or worse, more than half), didn't actually want you and are denied representation - races are about winning, elections are not winner takes all

3. To tactically hold back an opponent is called 'cheating' in a race

and lastly, Tom even defends FPTP being used in the general election, when virtually all other elections, including his own party leadership, use AV or PR

Apparently 'AV is a good system for filling a single position. If Britain had an elected president, for example'

Last time I checked, we did vote for a single position - that of an MP to represent his/her constituency

But he quantifies this brand of logic by saying we elect a government, not individual MPs really

Right...despite that being the primary reason for using FPTP - governments are formed by the relatively tiny swing in seats that can be changed by this system, resulting in a situation where a party with less votes can in fact win, and indeed the reverse happened this year, where the Tories got the biggest majority since 1997 and yet couldn't get enough seats - if you deny the election of single MPs as relevant then you call into question the supposed election of governments on FPTP, Cameron was clearly over the line first...

In fact his argument is a fairly clear one for PR, he openly says

Whether we like it or not, the general public believe that the general election is there to elect a Prime Minister, not your own MP. That’s why we had the televised leaders’ debate (an innovation I opposed, incidentally) – because most people saw May 2010 as a contest among three men to become (or remain) Prime Minister.

So the individual MPs are pointless, and the FPTP system is therefore working against the election of governments - move away from local MP elections and you support PR, or a brazenly unfair national system

This is Labour logic at work, he just wants to keep his ~~safe seat~~ rotten borough, where he believes he is winning a race (forgot to point out the geographical boundaries that have no similarities to a true race) - in reality he's being given a 99m head-start

Unfortunately this will also become Tory logic soon enough

Although AV is pretty crap

*Highlighted by Dizzy

Has 'Red Ed' Played the Clever Game?

2010-09-25T22:56:00.000+01:00

If you hadn't heard, Ed Miliband has pipped his brother to the post by 50.65% to 49.35% of the rather abstract Labour vote

This is widely seen as a win for 'the left' - as David Miliband was the only notable Blairite, favoured in the polls of both Labour voters and the general public, the opposition parties will be gleeful at the prospect of Labour's so-called return to the left

Likewise the fact that this result was essentially created by the unions, mainly the ones led by Whelan and Simpson, whereas the more pragmatic Labour party members and MPs overwhelmingly backed his older brother, will reinforce the view that he is the unions' man, a vain, self-interested choice likely to lose the election four years away

But I'm left wondering, after hearing his rather blatant attempt to appeal to the right in tomorrow's Telegraph if he simply hasn't played this all rather well

Yes, the unions won it for him - but what loyalty does he now owe to them?

He espoused some more left wing policies than his brother, and the unions put their support on the one most likely to win who wasn't a Blairite, but he's now leader and he can get away with whatever he wants, if he wants to adopt the same line (which is pretty vague) as his big bro then essentially, he can - he's just played it incredibly well when David was the massive favourite throughout the race

He's now leader, the unions do not control the party, and nor are the unions the be-all and end-all of Labour thought - they like their symbolic victories like today, but the membership is mostly indifferent these days, and unless he's particularly weak, then there's little reason he'll be in the pocket of Whelan and co. It's a potential ploy worthy of Blair himself

That of course, doesn't mean he'll fare better than his brother, we'll never know - undoubtedly the press will make sure he is seen as a left-wing and union choice, but what this relative unknown says between now and an election may well be more important, it may be that his small stature and geeky voice cause him more harm than the tabloids could

So I'm not writing him off as the next Kinnock, just yet

(I don't think he'll win the election, I'm just going to be impressed if he has manipulated the system so well)

Taking 'fairness' to a new level

2010-09-25T00:04:00.000+01:00

I found this rather bizarre entry in the BBC's Magazine (which let's face it, is usually bizarre)

Can men and women ever compete fairly in a sport like running?

Well, um no is the answer

In short, Lucy Proctor has used statistics to work out when men and women can, on average best performances, perform equally well - in a nutshell, men in their early fifties are equal to peak performance women. Now, while I am rather fond of daft academic studies that seek to work out these things for the hell of it (she is clearly not being serious or promoting a Harperson-esque agenda), the fact is 'fairness' means all things to all men

I don't actually consider it fair to test a much older male against a younger female just so that they are on a supposedly level-playing field, in the same way it's not fair to work out the best time a lardarse can do and weight a lithe runner against him, that's equalising, not fairness

It's just statistics - fairness is in the eye of the beholder - to me, that means shoving everyone onto a start line and saying 'go' - that's a fair fight between all

Yes you can adjust the results for age, a seventy year old is hardly likely to match Paula Radcliffe, and it's a different expectation of achievement, but they are never going to be fairly competing - for a start the statistics are far too malleable and only relate to the very best athletes, not your common runner who will have a host of other advantages or disadvantages besides sex

I would like to see a team sport equalised in such a way - how do you make women's football as fast and powerful?

Answer: you don't

The Bond retrospective - The Top Ten Starts Here

2010-09-23T20:45:00.000+01:00

I have now worked out how many Bond films I consider to be good - ten (pre-Craig) as from here on in I start giving positive reviews, with criticisms, rather than critical reviews with a few decent bits

So anyway, coming in at number ten:

10. Live and Let Die

I don’t know why some people have an issue with the ‘Blaxploitation’ theme of this film, yes it’s slightly cringeworthy but it’s from 1973 and really is not that bad – it’s actually quite a good film. It’s fairly light-hearted, got a fair bit of action, a decent plot and it’s not overly cheesy, as well as having one of the best Bond girls in the form of Solitaire. While it’s certainly not brilliant, Dr Kananga and the voodoo-type Baron Samedi being arguably some of the poorest villains in the series, it is entertaining, which is why it’s a favourite with television networks. Sheriff J ‘Dubya’ Pepper’s first appearance is somewhat of a guilty pleasure (which is more than I can say about his second) and there are a few other memorable scenes that ensure that the first Moore film is at least well-known, even if it’s not all that, and for that it gets a spot firmly in the middle

Pros:
Brilliant song by Paul McCartney and Wings…when covered by Guns and Roses
Solitaire

Cons:
‘Honky’
Baron Samedi…ooh I’m so scared of your weird cracking head

Moyles needs to come back to Earth

2010-09-22T20:20:00.000+01:00

Whilst it is regrettable that anyone isn't paid by their employer for two months, I would generally not recommend that media stars have a strop about it live on air

While Chris Moyles is right to feel aggrieved, does he really think whingeing to listeners that he's missed out on two months of his mega-fat paycheck is going to get him much sympathy?

I don't know how much he earns, Wikipedia claim it was 630k in 2007, he took a 20% paycut last year and just signed a new contract (a cock up on that being the reason his pay hasn't come out apparently) so who knows, but we can safely assume it is at least half a mill a year

Or at least 40k a month, roughly double the average annual salary in one month - complaining about missing a bit of this to workers sat in traffic or asleep in their cereal bowl before another full day of work is not going to win much sympathy for a man employed to talk for 3 and a half hours

Moyles responded: "What, because I get paid more than you, if I don't get paid for two months I should just go 'oh well, harrumph'?

Not at all, I do think he has every right to feel annoyed, scale doesn't matter and I'm not going to bash the level media stars earn either, the same way unpaid footballers have a right to their millions - but I question whether he should be airing this

Firstly, as we all know it's unwise for high earners to whinge to the common folk about money, many would consider it tactless and it's natural for people to lack sympathy for a person who earns their annual salary in two weeks - what was he expecting?

Secondly, it's completely unprofessional and an abuse of your position to use your own show to air your issues - most workers do not get this opportunity and generally would not announce a pay issue in the office, let alone the whole country - again, not a reason to show sympathy to someone, it smacks of being self-important

He's entitled to the money, he's entitled to be angry, he's even entitled to not show up for work, but using his show to air it in public? No, just deal with it like the rest of us have to

The Bond retrospective - Number 11

2010-09-21T15:30:00.000+01:00

It gets harder from here...

11. For Your Eyes Only

On first impressions, you would think a woman holding a crossbow whilst wearing bikini bottoms backwards would indicate a bad film, but the rather raunchy cover image gives a false impression about John Glen’s directorial debut. There is a crossbow, and swimwear…but it’s somehow better than that, For Your Eyes Only is in fact one of the better laid out Bond films, and one of Moore’s best performances. It’s a good old fashioned spy flick with few gadgets based on human greed, rather than elaborate world domination plans that involve lasers. Here, we watch Bond chase down a Greek smuggler attempting to sell secret technology to the soviets, and there’s even a bit of a personal edge thrown in through the Bond girl, Melina. The film is much faster-paced than it’s predecessors, crammed with car and ski chases, and yet it doesn’t feel rushed, nor does Moore suffer horribly from his age, which I feel is a deliberate lighting technique or something, the only time it’s noticeable is the cringe-worthy subplot featuring Lynn-Holly Johnson as the too-young skater, Bibi. Overall it’s a decent, relatively gritty film with a sizeable amount of action that’s easy on the camp, although the opening with Blofeld (who you can’t see for ‘legal reasons’) is one of the few openings that detracts from the main film. It all ends with a rather subdued, some might even say poignant, meeting with our old friend General Gogol, no need for massive explosions or over-the-top deaths here. Although you could point out that’s why nobody remembers who the actual bad guy is…or this film in general

Pros:
Realistic, understated, yet action-packed
The Thatcher scene…

Cons:
One of those last few ones you can never remember during pub quizzes
Blofeld…electric wheelchair…helicopter
The Thatcher scene

I doubt they are...

2010-09-21T00:34:00.000+01:00

I do wonder if Tim Montgomerie and whoever runs the Mail's rather obvious 'Whingewatch' campaign against the BBC were watching Panorama: Public Sector Pay tonight

Vivian White took a fairly balanced approach, highlighting some excellent, deserving work in education and policing, with constant input from Francis Maude (Tory Cabinet Secretary) - the theme was very much 'why are public sector workers being paid more than the PM?'

In some cases you could see a return, in others, notably local government and certain Quangos, you couldn't really justify 'market rate' (which it's not really in many cases) - the NHS figures were eye-watering, even without GPs and consultants

I found it fairly balanced, there was certainly some defence of high salaries, and personally I don't object to the head of the army or civil service being paid more - these are far more experienced and knowledgeable public servants than David Cameron, or any PM, politicians don't really require, or necessitate higher salaries than they already have

But it was laced throughout with scepticism about paying four people at the waterways nearly a million quid and so forth, interesting to see if the Mail will take note, I see the usual crowd have decided to press on ahead with next week's show which involves the military, because the BBC hate them, and never produce a show critical of public sector pay...

See!

2010-09-17T09:57:00.000+01:00

(no pun intended)

While the likes of Guido have, rather bizarrely (for him, I feel), been lambasting the press for being atheist bigots because they are supposedly intolerant of a religious leader, it is clear that the Pope is trampling all over our beliefs the same way the metropolitan press supposedly do to his

Making comments about 'aggressive secularism' and 'Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society' are just as big a slight on the non-believers than a person of faith

As always with these debates, secularists have to show respect towards religious types, but conversely, they are allowed to criticise anything non-religious - this is why I shall oppose the Pope

He comes here belittling our secular beliefs, as the religious always do because they seem to think they have a (God-given?) right to be able to preach and convert the non-believers, which is a practice that would be condemned if it was addressed to members of another religion - but if you're secular you are fair game

I disagree with Guido on this, who I think is clouded by his own faith, this is not simply 'antipathy' towards the Church, it is a response to someone saying we're wrong, do we not have a right to stand up when someone criticises our ways? Can you imagine if he went to Israel and started belittling Judaism?

Wherever I see this debate, where usually Christians get offended and advocate their beliefs above non-belief - they never appreciate that being of no belief should command the same respect they demand for their faith, or others, we may not be a single organisation with rules and books, but we do have our own rational, secular beliefs and we are going to get just as pissy as a Hindu, Muslim or Jew who is being called godless by the Pope

I've said it before, even though I have my own history with the Catholic church and I know I'm completely biased against them and I'm also very sensitive to Catholic preaching, but the Pope is welcome to talk to his flock here - I have no interest in protesting him as an individual any more than I do Mugabe. However, he doesn't get to trample all over our secular values simply because he does not respect the idea of no faith, this is the ultimate irony of all the Christians who claim offence but never appreciate that they do the exact same thing

He keeps making comments like these then we are completely justified in protesting him

Questionable Time

2010-09-16T23:18:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit perplexed by Question Time's Labour special

Now at first I found it rather amusing, watching them all scramble over each other over 'left-wing', 'new labour' and unions

However, once they started talking about Tory cuts it became very apparent this was a mistake - as much as Dimbleby tries to play devil's advocate you have five people who are, as D. Mili says, 'all united on this' - that they are all anti-Tory

Allowing them to set up a narrative against 'cuts' and the government was questionable in my view

I think Dimbleby has done reasonably well steering them away from unopposed Tory bashing, and it was inevitable they would bash their main opposition, but it makes me uneasy letting them say 'jobs are going', 'harsh cuts' etc without response

We knew it wasn't going to be balanced, so fair play, but this feels very strange on QT

By the by, Andy Burnham is by far the most appealing to me - not politically, of course, but he's honest, he admits mistakes of the past and he's got a more rational stance - he could've done a lot more before, while in government, but compared to the other three men he's a bloody saint

I like Abbott's sincerity, but she's just too far gone for me

Stoke the flames!

2010-09-15T22:47:00.000+01:00

Nothing like being aggressive and derisory to a country already having several issues with your visit to really stir things up, eh?

These comments weren't made by his Popiness himself, but a senior 'diplomatic' cardinal - and they will now frame the visit even if it wasn't Benedict

The Heathrow comment is slightly inflammatory, but let's be honest - it's true, Heathrow is a bloody hole

The comment that's really going to piss off the already vocal opposition is the aggressive tones about neo-atheism and general condescending attitude to the way we run our country, especially considering they lost this particular flock 400 years ago you'd think they'd have got the message by now

If the church, even if it is an individual's opinion, is going to attack us, then they will get a defence coming squarely back at them

Until now the opposition had general claims of child abuse, homophobia, sexism, promoting AIDS etc, but a largely diplomatic figure who would be hard to land a hit on, now they have a nice little nugget of aggressive Catholicism to rally them and the mostly indifferent population

Just when I thought this visit was going to be rather dull, nice work, Cardinal Kasper!

The Bond retrospective - Number 12

2010-09-13T19:53:00.000+01:00

I've been giving this next entry some thought, it's getting rather tight now - this could be controversial

12. Thunderball


Jetpack - Blue Peter

Ah, the one that’s main claim to fame is that it has its own lottery game. Thunderball is notable for one) having a huge amount of underwater scenes, two) the iconic scene around the SPECTRE table, and three) the archetypal plot of stealing nukes and holding the world to ransom. Thunderball is in fact one of the most straightforward plots to follow, nuclear loaded plane gets hijacked and hidden in sea, Connery swims around for two hours, finding the nukes in the end. To be honest there are no real moments of brilliance, Connery is better in his past performances and the next one in my opinion, and there are no stand out scenes, it’s just a lot of water, and the finale is similar in tone to that of Moonraker, with an immeasurably large harpoon battle that fails to capture the imagination. That said, all in all it’s a good solid romp with a climactic action scene, however it suffers from lengthy and slow underwater scenes and what with this being one of the longest Bond films it really doesn’t help the situation, definitely a middling film.

Pros:
Shark pools
Domino

Cons:
Way too much trudging around the seabed

Lengthy division

2010-09-11T00:24:00.000+01:00

Were you aware that kids stopped learning long division and multiplication a decade ago?

Those lucky bastards, missing possibly the most pointless piece of 'traditional' education this side of French (see earlier post)

Now, at first glance, I was naturally sceptical, being good at maths and wary of terms like 'chunking' made me instantly think 'dumbing down'

Personally I don't think there's a substitute for times tables, and understanding the basics of number systems is key

But long division was always something that eluded me - and my disinterest in it always angered my teachers as I would inevitably get the answer by doing all sorts of unusual things in my head, turns out I was doing these new methods like 'gridding' all along, this is the way the brain breaks it down for you into chunks of manageable equations, far easier in your head than writing down columns with remainders (I always thought that was the single stupidest thing teachers made us do - carry the one? Why?? I can see where it bloody goes, I don't need to write it on the side and add it in later), and probably quicker

I never bothered with long division, once out of primary it was assumed you knew how to do it and I was allowed to do whatever I wanted, and use a 'real' pen!

I digress, some will no doubt mutter that education is falling apart, but I believe long division is outdated bilge anyway - let's face it, do you actually learn 'mathematics' through the use of systematic columns? Nope, you learn a system, you learn how to divide up longer numbers into smaller, manageable sums that you learn through times tables - basically you've only learnt up to 10x10 and then you start breaking down numbers into that - that's not learning, that's a rote system, which I remember thinking back then was a ridiculous way for adults to do numbers

I put this to the test, never bothering with it myself, I went to my parents, one of whom works with numbers, one of whom is rather worse, and asked them 372x612

The result: one took far too long after years of using Excel spreadsheets and calculators, the other just looked rather blankly at me and guessed - in essence the system was forgotten, because once you're out of school, if you aren't using the written column system regularly then you will forget it, therefore it's pointless to learn it

In short, once we got calculators, the Victorian system needed to go - so yay for modernism

Bulldog!!

2010-09-09T21:53:00.000+01:00

Watching Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys on BBC2 tonight, I am reminded of the disgrace that has seen British Bulldog banned by an increasing number of schools (or 'female head teachers') in recent years

For those who don't know, Bulldog is a game where you have to run from one side of the playground to the other without being tagged by the 'bulldogs' who roam the middle, played in primary schools it's pretty harmless, played by adults it's bloody deadly

Fear of injuries (or lawsuits) abound, and in recent years it has been banned by a lot of schools, primary school was less than twenty years ago for me - it was our favourite past-time back then and now it seems to be behind a locked door marked 'dangerous'

Yet, there is scant evidence of costly legal action by opportunist parents and injuries are probably no rarer than in rugby or football - playing on asphalt or concrete, as you do, is where most of the issues arise, if it was played with a bit of supervision on grass it would be as safe as houses

And yet, primary schools, now mostly run by women, elect to outright ban the game I and my fellow boys have played for decades in modern schools rather than introduce a few basic rules

They are denying these boys a rite of passage, and no doubt it's worsening their physical state by banning effectively the only team game they've got without a ball

Mr Jones, Mr Jones

2010-09-08T23:55:00.000+01:00

I seriously can't believe we're having this debate

I just watched on Newsnight as two people (Peter Tatchell and some Catholic woman) actually toyed with the idea of limiting free speech for fear of violence

Tatchell was the more freedom loving, the Catholic couldn't see past respecting faith, as you would expect, but he still felt it was best to try and stop this bloke

For all those who claim lefty BBC bias, it was the open-mouthed Paxman leading the free speech brigade, pointing out that we're essentially bowing to threats here and if it's the Koran today, what's to stop anything else tomorrow (my words)

As far as I can see there's not even an argument here - you can burn a book if you wish, obviously it's not ok if it's Nazi Germany doing it, but in a free society I can burn whatever I want (except the Queen's image...)

This happened when Harry Potter came out in the US and far more copies were burned than what this small church in Florida is about to, no violence from wizards, and no claims to ban the activity

Yet, 'oo it's a special book' combined with 'they'll kill people' provokes a different response, a coward's one

People may die, it may even be soldiers in the Middle East, which is a little unfair on them I'll grant you - but is that Jones' fault that this is a people that choose to kill in response to the burning of what is essentially, a flammable material? This is not a lawful, respectful response - while it is far more provocative than the satirical cartoons, which could be seen as a more appropriate expression, it is essentially no different

How provocative is it to kill British soldiers, or carry placards through London? We don't go out and riot, nobody dies, nobody is threatened (well, much)

I believe in freedom, end of - and Terry Jones has a right to do whatever nutty thing he wants, we are free and tolerant, they are intolerant and we need to start recognising that we cannot be afraid of threats

Live free, or die

*Pointing out there's absolutely nothing wrong with peaceful protests over a blasphemous act, and I'm not insinuating every Muslim, or Muslim country will have a violent reaction

The Bond retrospective - Number 13

2010-09-07T19:58:00.002+01:00

This one is a favourite of a friend of mine...I'm in for an argument

13. The World is not Enough

Brosnan’s third film neatly fits in as his third best, some fast-paced action scenes and a bigger role for Judi Dench help to make it enjoyable, but the weak plot surrounding an oil pipeline, a rather strange female villain and only a brief use of the talent of Robert Carlyle makes for a fairly average Bond film, and that’s before I even mention Denise bloody Richards.

Well, that was a short review - have I missed anything...

Pros:
A bigger part for Dench

Cons:
Did I mention Denise Richards?

Would I vote for, or against

2010-09-06T23:15:00.000+01:00

MPs are currently voting (actually, it just passed) on the electoral reform bill that will put forward a referendum on the AV system

I have a dilemma

Naturally I want to back reform, I want to rid us of the rotten boroughs and minority victories (2/3s of MPs do not have a majority)

I admit AV is a step in the right direction, majority verdicts are preferable in my view - and breaking down Labour's gerrymandered seats is a good thing

However, I have seen AV in action, in Australia - and I have two main worries

Firstly, if we adopt a modern, relatively 'fair' system, where it is harder to show blatant problems and inherent unfairness, as we can now, will we simply accept it? Reformers, for the most part, do not want this system, nor do the traditionalists - but if we pass this, I fear we may be stuck with it, as they are in Australia, where this relatively modern electoral system has little opposition and yet produces confusing results - it may well be that we are better off arguing with something far worse and waiting for something much better than taking what is effectively, a sticking plaster, right now

Secondly, as I mentioned - AV produces confusing results, while they may be more legitimate in theory, the weighting element adds a confusing layer of jargon to the electorate and encourages even more tactical voting, in Australia, parties can hand over preferences that aren't allocated, for example

As you can see with the argument over legitimacy between Abbott and Gillard down under, it's hard to see who has more votes, or is more preferred - and their two-party system is even more ingrained than ours, so AV doesn't seem to help dissenting voices, or provide better politicians

I don't want AV, and personally I think if were we to accept it it would badly damage the cause for reform

But then, if it's defeated....there's no public attitude for reform, is there?

The Tories have got this one wrapped up, I think - and I don't think they even know it, because a victory would both put the constituencies back in their favour, and set back proportional systems

methinks the wily Cameron may know that, even if the backbenchers don't

Newsflash: The Pope really does excrete in the woods

2010-09-05T13:29:00.000+01:00

Surprisingly, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has said the taxpayers should pay for the Pope's visit

I'm shocked, truly...does he also believe Jesus was in fact the son of God?

What's even the point in asking his opinion...of course he bloody thinks the Pope should come here, he probably also thinks we should all join his church

While I agree on the point about state visits - this is not really a 'state' visit, he's the leader of a religion, he does not come representing the national interests of the Vatican as a country, but his own religious views

And while he may represent 1 in 5 people on the planet (a statistic Catholics love), it's more like 1 in 12 in the UK (or 8%), and probably far less in actuality, polls show a minority welcome the visit, most not caring about it but also not wanting to waste money on a visitor who can easily self-fund and provides no tangible benefit in coming

We cut national services and yet spend on this abuse-riddled organisation to self-promote?

The argument follows that he was invited - true, but following up on that whole democracy thing, where most of us don't want to pay, which democratically elected leader invited him?

That's right, Gordon Brown, in February last year - the same government who created a load of expensive new commitments just for electoral purposes forced their successors' hand once again, knowing full well they would not be the ones to welcome the old git

Would Blair, the elected leader, the man who avoided any ties to Catholicism til he left office, have invited the Pope to these shores for the first time in history? Unlikely

If Brown wants to meet the Pope maybe he, or the Labour party should fund the visit

The Bond retrospective - Number 14

2010-09-02T18:36:00.001+01:00

With apologies to Frisky - I am sorry I haven't put the infamous one in yet - 6th from bottom is quite high for this next entry to a lot of people

But I have been making the decision while viewing all of the films, and while this one has detractors (and I'm putting it bottom 6) I simply felt a few less memorable films were less fun to watch

But finally, here it is

14. Moonraker

Drink numbs the pain

Roger Moore’s fourth outing is notoriously bad and it does virtually write its own Austin Powers movie, not only does it actually send Bond into space, but it has a full-on laser battle, and that’s before we even get onto the non-existent plot as we jump, seemingly randomly, from the US, to Venice, to Rio and the Amazon before we even get to outer space…it’s just a series of exotic locations with some rather dodgy action sequences. But that said, it is at least watchable – hell, if it wasn’t for the whole space segment it would be a reasonable outing, its problem is that it piles on the comedy and general Moore-style cheesiness far too thick and lacks any real coherence, but it’s not complete dross, and won’t turn you off completely, until the very end, and for that reason it’s not bottom, where some people would put it.

Pros:
Some nice one-liners (‘you missed…’)
Michael Lonsdale as the understated Drax
Miss Goodhead was one of the better innuendos

Cons:
Overly ridiculous – that bloody gondola in particular
Little to no plot
Bond doesn’t even fire his gun

1 vote for Guido

2010-09-01T22:42:00.001+01:00

While I admit Guido's campaign against Hague's SpAd Christopher Myers, complete with a lot of speculation about sexuality, may not be the most important political issue of the day and he should be relaxing on holiday, he is ultimately, right

Now the boy has quit, Hague's crying about miscarriages and Iain Dale is a very angry homosexual

Firstly, I think Guido is bang on for questioning why an inexperienced personal friend was parachuted into a plum SpAd role over other, more qualified candidates, and the fact that they shared a room only serves to lend weight to the theory that his appointment is personal, not professional, regardless of whether there was anything going on or not

Secondly - if this was a 25 year old woman, would it be, as Guido says, heterophobic? It's perfectly legitimate to question the scenario, and in fact surely this is the way forward for homosexuality - to be seen as usual, if we expect a politician to be bonking his male assistant as much as his female one surely that's a good day for equality?

The Bond retrospective - Number 15

2010-09-01T14:57:00.000+01:00

Time for Sean Connery to make an appearance

15. Diamonds are Forever

Women's ultimate weakness...water?

While some feel Bond neatly entered his camp period with the advent of Moore it was in fact Connery’s 1971 return that saw the series sink to silly in-jokes and self parody, many Connery fans seem to conveniently forget that the ageing Scotsman seemingly played this solely for the cash and put in a swaggering, lazy performance. Bond’s animosity with Blofeld, the man who killed his wife two years previously, is completely non-existent, and yet is actually referenced in the lacklustre opening. After that we crawl through a dull plot about diamond smuggling featuring one of the weakest Bond girls in Jill St John, and don’t even see Blofeld, whose ‘shocking’ appearance is about as shocking as French toast, until the very end, by which time you’re asleep. Along the way you have to endure the bizarre homosexual assassins known as Winn and Kidd, a camp moon-buggy chase (that’s the low point) and two female bodyguards who as Felix might say ‘kick ass’… but can’t swim. Overall there’s very little to entertain, the action is poor and unrealistic, the characters are unappealing and there’s next to no plot, the only memorable scene comes with the Mustang chase. It’s another of those ‘forgettable’ Bonds

Pros:
Mustang
Shirley Bassey

Cons:
One of the least interesting Bond girls…and she got a lot of screen time
Moon buggy with flailing arms

The Bond retrospective - Number 16

2010-08-30T19:43:00.000+01:00

Remember this one?

We're confused too

16. A View To A Kill

Apparently the lowest ranked Bond film on Rotten Tomatoes, I have to say I disagree, while Moore’s final appearance is no classic, it is hardly discernable from any other average Bond film. The plot is fairly straightforward and understandable, if somewhat contrived, the action scenes are decent enough, with campness being kept to a minimum and there’s a decent villain in Christopher Walken. However, it doesn’t get much better than that, it’s quite long and trudges in parts, the plot is paper thin, Moore was already too old in the seventies, and Grace Jones was a terrible, terrible mistake. The long and short of it is, there’s nothing really bad here, on most counts you can find a film that did it worse, for example despite all the criticism of Moore’s age, I found it more of a problem in FYEO, which was four years earlier, it’s just that there’s nothing really good here either, it’s completely unmemorable aside from being ‘the one with Grace Jones and Christopher Walken in’ – hence why I’ve barely mentioned the film itself here, so yes it’s average, forgettable, but if you’re looking for the worst Bond film you would probably overlook this one as it simply slips under the radar.

Pros:
Christopher Walken is one of the better villains
Duran Duran, anyone?

Cons:
Nothing to remember fondly
Grace Jones

Go back?

2010-08-29T11:58:00.001+01:00

I'm not going to go on about Glenn Beck's rally, because let's face it, it's crazy

But this stood out

"America today begins to turn back to God"

and the BBC reports

'Some individuals at Mr Beck's rally said honour and morality had diminished in the US because of the separation of government and religion'

Now, people can certainly want the US to be more religious, that's freedom - but surely comments or implications that it should somehow go back to God are just plain misleading, designed to stir the blood of the ignorant

Separation of government and religion was laid out in the constitution, the United States has always been that way - and while we may be more secular now in practice, the US was originally a mirror image of the British model (unelected head of state, established church etc), they were the ones stopping government bodies invoking religion long before we did such things, so now to call for it to go back to God is not only bizarre, but downright offensive to their own constitution, the same one held up by their historical conservative heroes and the basis of their 'patriotism'

Oui!

2010-08-28T17:20:00.000+01:00

British pupils should give up learning French

If you hadn't noticed, French has gone into massive decline since languages stopped being compulsory at GCSE in 2004, now at nearly half the level it was before

As someone who had to go through the torment of five years of 'teaching' of French, I can only celebrate this and be envious of the lucky youngsters who can actually learn instead

I don't say this as someone who found it 'hard' as the BBC describe - I found it a doddle to get my B, the trouble is I can't actually speak it, or I can a bit, and I'm pretty good at reading it, but I can't work out a thing a Frenchman says

As Paul Noble points out in the article - we aren't taught conversational French, the bit that's actually got a tangible benefit, sitting in a room with 30 people constantly writing out verb forms is a complete waste of time - the only students who were ever any good at speaking French were those who had a French-speaking background, the teachers all loved them of course, 'why can't you all do this?' they'd ask but no-one else stood a chance of being able to converse

Looking back, it's fairly obvious the teaching system was fatally flawed, mostly because you can't teach dozens a language at once, the small groups in the options of Spanish and German spent most of their time in conversation with assistants (who for some reason, were absent in the much bigger French classes) and seemed to be far more advanced than us. That, and my later experience of my friends teaching themselves languages like Spanish and picking it up within months proved to me that every student in Britain had been wasting 5-odd hours a week for five years of their lives

I don't think students are put of by the difficulty of gaining the GCSE (I certainly didn't perceive difficulty levels at the age of 14) , but the fact that they would've done three years of nonsense, whereas virtually all other subjects provide some sort of benefit - like being able to write or do maths, would put them off - if you could actually speak French at the end maybe they would bother - but if memory serves, not a single non-French speaker came out of my GCSE French class being able to communicate in it, it's a joke subject

Then we get onto the point of doing French - it's great for your holidays to the south of France, but what else? Some niche jobs in business and politics require it, but that's about it - and whilst it has been cemented as a language of diplomacy historically, it's now mostly an excuse for French arrogance that only they get their little language on Eurovision and the Olympics

And yes, it is a little language - the BBC points out that it's spoken by 200 million people, although it's only a first language to about 130 of those, this is roughly double the population of the native country, and the vast majority are in western Africa

It's beyond question that English, Spanish and Mandarin speakers vastly outnumber French speakers, whether first tongue or not, whilst Hindi and Russian are probably spoken by more people, Portuguese is probably a similar number and arguably more important economically

And yet we allow the French language to dominate international bodies simply so a few people in Paris can lean back and smirk as they get a special translation just for them, not bad for a country that lost all its power 200 years ago and left little discernible impact outside parts of Africa and Canada

Why should we help with this French ego stroking? By all means allow kids to learn it, some will need to, but forcing them was making the teaching of it pointless, and keeping out the world's more important languages (which are now soaring in schools) simply because France was near and had a plentiful supply of teachers was foolish economically - even German would be more useful, and it's far easier to learn, sharing a lot of roots with English

The Bond retrospective - Number 17

2010-08-27T15:23:00.000+01:00

17. Octopussy

Moore should have called it quits at five, but alas, he continued on until we got sick of him and needed Timothy Dalton and a cello. In this instalment we see Bond tackling an Indian jewel smuggler (or something) and a rogue Russian general in a rather convoluted and boring plot. Although in fairness it attempts to be more serious than certain ‘other’ outings, but it is completely ruined by the ever-increasing amount of insanity placed into the film – this is actually a fairly gadget-light spy flick about smuggling but it involves a ridiculous tennis-themed car chase, Bond in a clown and a gorilla suit…and even doing a Tarzan impression. That’s not to mention the fairly poor villains, where the main problem is the division between Kamal Khan and General Orlov, the latter being particularly underdeveloped, yet taking valuable scenes from the main villain. There’s also the seriously disturbing fact that Moore was 56 in this film, and that the eponymous female lead was played by Maud Adams, who was Scaramanga’s mistress, Anders, a few films earlier. All in all, it’s a fairly dull, uninteresting outing that’s not awful, but nobody’s favourite, and that’s its main problem – it’s forgettable, at least you remember the really ridiculous ones.

Pros:
Some semblance of a real spy flick

Cons:
Clown suits never make good drama
‘Octopussy’ really isn’t a good name for an actual person…seriously, call someone it

The Bond retrospective - Number 18

2010-08-25T23:16:00.000+01:00

It's getting hard to determine where to put these now...

Anyway, this may cause contradiction:

Who are you?

18. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

The infamous one, it remains one of the most divisive Bond films of all time, on the one hand you have some really shite acting from Lazenby and some frankly ridiculous scenes, and on the other this is the film where Bond gets married – which means it can never be forgotten, and is seemingly loved by mothers everywhere. Let’s start with the basics – the plot surrounds Bond’s hunt for Blofeld, which leads him to the top of a swiss alp where the main man is brainwashing pretty women (uh-oh!) and chopping off his earlobes so he can become a count for some unexplained reason. Along the way down the mountain Bond develops a relationship with Tracy, one of the better developed of all Bond girls, eventually asking her to marry him. Predictably, she gets captured and he gets his father-in-law (a crime lord..) to launch an attack on the alpine base in a bid to rescue her. Explosions follow and Bond escapes to marry Tracy, and then as he takes the flowers off the car, Blofeld drives past and Tracy takes one in the head, and so we witness the saving grace of the film, and probably the most poignant moment in the Bond series, as Lazenby cradles his dead wife saying ‘we have all the time in the world’. Other than that the film is a combination of dreadful acting, poor writing and stop-motion action scenes, some standout moments are Bond in a ridiculous kilt and cravatte combo, and the cringeworthy seduction where Lazenby repeats the same lines to different women. In short Lazenby is an appalling ‘Bond’, the action, the style, none of it’s there; but in his defence, there’s no way that the playboy Connery version could have pulled off love and marriage, so if you like a good action romp, don’t bother, but if you’re sentimental maybe you’ll like it a bit more than the average Bond fan. Personally, it’s always near the bottom for me, even if the ending is the saving grace.

Pros:
Diana Rigg as one of the best Bond girls
The ending

Cons:
Everything else

The Bond retrospective - Number 19

2010-08-24T21:44:00.000+01:00

Do I have to tell you?

Coming in at 19th (or virtual last) is...

Die Another Day

More exciting than Golden Gun, but it's still the film that nearly killed Bond - Halle Berry given equal billing? Invisible cars? Ice palaces? So much product placement it’s beyond parody, and then there’s the various references to older films – some, like the Union Jack parachute, wheel spikes and the shoe blade are wonderful tips of the hat for Bond fans, but others, like the reference to Diamonds are Forever being to copy half the plot, and the renowned Ursula Andress bikini scene just feel like rip-offs, in fact the whole film just feels like a bloody reference to the other nineteen films padded out with a large amount of explosions. Yet it all starts out so well – a typical Brosnan action scene starts us off and his capture and torture sets it up well, but it all goes downhill after about half an hour as we descend into Halle Berry and a non-existent plot, but it did give us Daniel Craig…

Pros:
Some enjoyable references

Cons:
Most of the film
Madonna cameo…

The Bond retrospective - Number 20

2010-08-22T21:55:00.001+01:00

Did I ever mention I am a big Bond fan? Well I am, and as I've recently been watching them I thought I'd rank them, for my own mind as much as anything (it's bloody hard to think of best and worst in your head with 22 films)

I am only doing up to the end of the Brosnan era - I thought it best to let the dust settle on the Craig era, but for what it's worth I think Casino Royale was certainly top five material, and Quantum of Solace was considerably worse

So without further ado...Number 20 (or bottom)

The Man with the Golden Gun

In this instalment Roger Moore’s Bond faces off against one of the world’s best assassins, Francisco Scaramanga, played by Christopher Lee – sounds good, doesn’t it? Unfortunately it falls flat on its face and unlike somewhat ‘marmite’ films like Moonraker, it is consistently seen as one of the worst films simply because it’s so dull – the slow-paced, lacklustre plot about some sort of solar device literally sends me to sleep, and rather than Scaramanga being a sinister assassin he comes over more as a doe-eyed geek in awe of Bond, and that’s even with a decent performance from Lee, and while the ‘funhouse’ ending starts well the finale is completely unfulfilling. Then there’s quite possibly the weakest showing by any Bond girl in the form of Mary Goodnight, played by Britt Ekland, who gets almost no screen time and is seemingly just thrown in at the end, avoid at all costs.

Pros:
The plot is a typical spy thriller, albeit poorly executed
Christopher Lee

Cons:
Goodnight
Incredibly slow plot with next to no action, or comedy
That caterwauling by Lulu
Third nipple?

Bloody oath, mate! (or is that 'Shiela'?)

2010-08-18T00:02:00.000+01:00

In a rather bold move by Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard has said Australia should move to become a republic when the queen dies

This is an interesting play on an issue that has largely been quiet for ten years since the last referendum in 1999 - personally I am in agreement with her, and many republicans share the view that the queen, who is immensely popular throughout the Commonwealth, is only going out one way - it will be the installation of her less respected heirs that bear the scrutiny from the modern public

I'm not sure whether this will have more traction here or in Oz, however - Australia has very little to do with the monarchy in real terms, and personally I'd prefer to be in the Australian's situation, who benefit from a ceremonial head of state without the pomp, or the cash, than the British, but whatever my feelings - Republicanism remains much more viable down under than in the Motherland according to most polls

In terms of Ozzie politics, this seems to be another attempt at a dividing line between herself and the staunchly conservative Abbott - it won't surprise you that Labor are the party of Republicans, so if anything this will be an optimistic shot at more liberal (small l - I hate these two party names) swing voters, a gamble that Australia is more republican now than it was under Howard, and yet another reason for the moderate to hate the Catholic, abortion-opposing, gaffe-prone Abbott

If you're interested I quite like Bryant's latest blog about the narrowness of the Australian electoral system - where they are all forced to vote and yet a smaller number of swing votes than ours decide their government, they of course use blooming AV - yet more evidence that constituency based parliaments do not work for their country, might've been a good idea once, but no more

As an aside - does anyone have a real defence of the monarchy post-Queen? It always centres on her - but she's been there since a time when we liked hereditary rule and since before most of us were born, what happens when some tosspot who no-one respects takes over?

We'll probably roll over and take it...as usual

Where Have I been...

2010-07-09T23:25:00.000+01:00

Yes I'm still alive, what with holidays, work and general laziness I haven't found time to blog

Personally I think the lack of a government to despise has killed my mojo a bit - not that I'm pro-Tory or anything, but a new government and all that, and they are somewhat better than the last lot...give it a year or two

Anyway...now this is policing:

The Big Questions need answering!

2010-05-13T22:07:00.000+01:00

Such as:

What policies have the Tories/Liberals ditched?

Will there be a VAT rise?

Where will the cuts come?

and the really important one...

will there be a Tory and a Lib Dem on Question Time?

Well this is fun...

2010-05-08T00:48:00.000+01:00

So the votes have been counted, but I am not going to bore you with tales of what Clegg should demand, or point out the Tory idiots who refuse to compromise despite not winning a majority

Instead, here's a few facts and figures:

Cons got 10.7 million (36%) - up 2 million, swing of 3.8% - gain 113 seats to 306 (47%)

Labour got 8.6 million (29%) - down 800,000, swing of -6.2% - lost 98 seats to 258 (39.7%)

Libs got 6.8 million (23%) - up 900,000, swing of 1% - lost 5 seats to 57 (8.8%)

More and more this system looks incredibly unfair - we have a national election, with televised leaders' debates and campaigns focused on the leaders, but yet we hold on to a flawed local system that is not reflective of the national vote (although in some ways this is the most reflective for years, as there's no majority)

This may sound like a cry for the Lib Dems (and quite frankly, why shouldn't it be?) but look at this:

in 2005 Labour got 9.5 million votes (35.3%)

Tories got 8.7 million (32.3%)

a difference of less than 800,000 votes - it gave Labour 158 more seats and a majority of 22 - in this election, Gordon Brown has got fewer votes than Michael Howard had, despite a vastly higher turnout, Cameron has beaten him by nearly three times the amount that Blair beat Howard by, and yet Labour only go down to 258 - despite this being their worst poll since 1983, and second worst since the first world war, meanwhile the Tories get a higher share of the vote than the last Labour majority, and indeed all their own majorities after Thatcher's initial win, and yet are still short of the winning post.

Clearly something is not right, Labour have blatantly been gerrymandering the boundaries to suit themselves and effectively cannot get anywhere near Hagues tiddly 166 seats - and yes, you guessed it, even he got more votes than Brown

I say this not as a disgruntled Tory (and nor do I believe that 36% should give you carte blanche in Parliament), but out of horror that we have got a system that is so blatantly biased that a margin that gave Blair his whopping majority in 2001 cannot even give Cameron a simple majority - it's insane, and frankly the Tories are fools for supporting it, the country has clearly moved on from local constituency voting, the television debates only confirmed that, and more importantly for the Tories it is now in their best interests to support reform

And seriously, a million extra votes, a 1% gain...five seats lost and a reduced share of seats

People are going to start getting pissed at this - the young in particular are becoming less tribal and are seeing a national party who they gave nearly seven million votes to get dicked around because they could only finish a strong second in a hundred safe seats - why the bloody hell should it be right that the biggest minority in a seat get full control, where a difference of 1 vote (yes, several seats were under a margin of 100) can see over half the population's vote wasted simply because of where the arbitrary geographical line is drawn around them? In the east of England, where Labour don't exist (save for some now-defeated parts of Norfolk and Basildon) the Lib Dems are the second party - they got just over half the vote the Tories did, otherwise known as a ratio of 1:2 - the Tories got 52 seats...the Libs got 4

It's an old argument, but I feel now the case is stronger than ever - we have a record vote for the Lib Dems (and a record piss-take), and it's now seriously affecting the Tories, electoral reform is more important than ever

...not that it means it will happen

Above, None of the

2010-04-30T00:03:00.000+01:00

Why does one have to win?

They all lie about what they will do, none of them need to actually convince the public, none of them will get a majority of votes, and one seems to have serious inter-personal issues (but we knew that didn't we?)

Our system just makes me want to bang my head against the wall, of course three years of unelected Brown has worn me down and I may get better in a few years, but seriously, it's so depressing and I feel so helpless - I'm just focusing on ousting the Tory from my safe seat with some jumped-up Lib Dem, who I don't actually like, just because it's all I can do

And so the only salvation for political geeks like me is.... a good old breach of electoral law! Because let's face it, we need some entertainment in this world

And it's doubly enjoyable because it's all thanks to that inane tool that allows us to get minute-by-minute blows of Stephen Fry's latest risotto

Thankyou Twitter!

Sleep sound

2010-04-23T00:07:00.000+01:00

Honestly, I didn't watch the debate...global affairs? Who cares, there's little between them on the EU, there's no cold war anymore, this election is wholly domestic for me

All I've really come to say is that I am amazed Brown actually said Clegg threatens our safety by opposing Trident

Seriously? ...That year I spent in Australia I was in constant fear...

(oh and the same line about the economy to Cameron was equally shallow - where's the substance, Gordon? It's all how evil the opposition are and NO POLICY)

Tories deserve what they get

2010-04-19T22:42:00.000+01:00

I was just on Guido reading the latest Bingle diatribe and I thought I'd post my thoughts here too:

"There was a mixture of gallows humour and real concern. Nobody could understand why with the most unpopular PM ever and an economy on its back the Tory Party is polling at the same level as Michael Howard when he lost in 2005. The only solution was to have another glass of wine."

Because we don't bloody want the Tories - just because Labour are utter crap does not mean you get to automatically win, that sheer arrogance is why all the swing voters are backing the third party, bring us some real policies, real ideas and real leadership - you do not deserve to win, and people will try their hardest to keep both parties down

How f***ing dare the Tories believe they are entitled to win, effectively they could have put a sheep as head of their party and expected to win - it's wrong, we deserve a choice to vote FOR, not against, our political system is badly broken and that is why the voters with brains will try to get a hung parliament, too long have we been kept down by the cosy collaboration of the big two

And don't even get me started on Cameron's line about voting for Clegg and getting Brown - vote for whoever you bloody want, and people are smart enough to know how to vote tactically on a local basis in our ridiculous system, I really hope that insult to the intelligence of voters pushes more people away from the chinless wonder

I don't actually need you, Dermot

2010-04-17T23:04:00.001+01:00

Dermot O'Leary makes a good point

What's obvious is that these "young people" don't want to bepatronised, they don't want to be pigeon-holed or spoken down to. Theyare better informed with far more information at their fingertips thanthe generation that went before them.
They just want some straight talking.

And you can bet that the decisions first-time voters make will bepredominately on policy, trust and ideology - not who can use a smartphone, is the best dressed, the most attractive or who can name thecoolest band

Oh so true, well done, that Dermot

Only, why exactly is this 36 year old bloke off X Factor supposedly representing my views?

Aren't the BBC stepping into exactly the same trap as the politicians by treating young people as some sort of mystic force that must be understood and communicated via the means of popular entertainment which we all must watch?

Dermot's bang on that we don't want to be patronised by idiots like Cameron and Brown trying to sound like they can rap, but nor do we want to be patronised by the BBC who thinks we need our own 'first voter question time' (not that I personally am), or that we all watch X Factor, listen to 'black and urban music' and use bloody Twitter

All we want is someone to represent the views of the disaffected youth, the main parties cannot offer that with their middle aged mandates - they never have been able to, and I don't need sodding Dermot O'Leary talking down to me to tell me that

Lazy Posting

2010-04-09T23:56:00.000+01:00

I'm afraid I am rubbish at posting - work really screws up your free time doesn't it? No wonder it's only students and the unemployed who can handle blogging - also explains why so few people really bother with politics (I did know that before, it's just depressing)

Anyway...I'm thoroughly sick of the election campaign already - have we had any firm manifesto pledges? No...

As yet all we get are pledges to be 'fairer', and the Tories won't even rule out that VAT rise...(as Guido points out)

They are all talking crap and do you know why? Because they can...they are guaranteed to win one way or the other and that is why are politicians have no integrity or care for the good of the nation - we either need to wake up and defeat them, or we need a 'none of the above' box

Or we need to stop being whiny and bloody riot

Lies, damn lies

2010-04-01T23:57:00.000+01:00

Following on from yet another Labour statistics lie ('mistake') - and for fairness sake I'll point out Chris Grayling was also guilty of such a 'mistake', we have another rebut from an impartial statistics comapany, this time it's Yougov

The Torygraph make some bizarre claims about their 'Labour bias' - I'll let you decide who makes a better case

As usual, I'm backing the person with more intelligence, integrity and experience - which is never the politico

And of course, Yougov will be scrutinised come about 5 weeks, the same can't be said for the tabloids

Blatantly Biased Against...United

2010-03-19T13:43:00.000Z

Following on from the damning (and incredibly robust...) report in the Sun about anti-Conservative bias in the BBC I have unearthed further bias

Just look at this

Arsenal draw favourites Barcelona

Why do they focus on the left-leaning French squad and not Fergie's men?

It's a disgrace...

Who's 'less knowledgeable'?

2010-03-05T00:11:00.000Z

Apparently young people are

"less knowledgeable, less interested and less politically active than average"

I can agree with the last two, but less knowledgeable sounds a bit insulting - perhaps they are less aware of Nick Clegg, but these polls tend to focus on parliamentary politics, not actual politics

Actual politics is student loans, university admissions, gay rights, economic policy, and sigh...climate change, not old duffers on green benches taking potshots at each other, young people are as political as ever, they just have less interest in a pointless, weak and corrupt institution which they have no say over

The real answer is simple - young people aren't interested because they aren't represented, they don't vote because they can't win and therefore they aren't interesting to politicians, except in a few urban places like Brighton

The only votes interesting to the pollies are, of course, the elderly, and the various middle-aged groups, I forget how many MPs are under thirty now, it may only be one now, but possibly two

Two! To represent a third of the population...yes I'm counting kids in that, but for a simple reason - if you're born today you will have to wait thirty-to-forty years to see your contemporaries in power, the views of young adults are generally heard twenty years late, and so can you blame them when they don't get a chance to vote for their own generation? They have different views and different agendas, and they aren't heard by politicians, so why should they be interested in them?

What we get is incredibly patronising 'down with the kids' rubbish (a bit like that BBC article) where a massive age-band of voters are treated like fools by their parents' peers, I constantly hear older commentators wish to stop the under-35s getting into Parliament (I did count once - it was below twenty ffs...) but they get their views heard, why shouldn't the young? You may as well raise the voting age and be done with it

Simply put, if you place actual young people up for young people's votes, rather than getting David Cameron in a hoody, they might actually vote

(and yes, I vote...out of spite)

Comedy Genius

2010-02-18T17:00:00.000Z

'Sir' Nicholas Winterton, who has already made an arse of himself with his fellow-MP wife over renting his own property, has, as I'm sure you've heard by now, said that MPs 'need' to travel first-class

Guido's already picked it up, and I don't really need to have a rant (did that in the car..) but I heard it live and it was brilliant, particularly as he was on to discuss the Falklands..

But what I do want to say is that Stephen Nolan has been brilliant the last few days, he's been covering Victoria Derbyshire this week and he's turned the slot into a Paxman-esque grilling of politicians, far more fun, I wish he'd stay, Victoria is alright, but she wouldn't get him to announce that MPs are a different type of people (although knowing Sir Nick...)

I would like to address a few issues, however

Why exactly was it fair to pay rent for a property he already owned? How is that justified, even if it's an 'allowance' not 'expenses' - that's taking all you can get regardless

Secondly he said you can't get a seat in standard class, that would only apply to rush hour, but he also said children travel in standard class - I've never experienced children in rush hour, at 7am there are no seats, but also no kids

Furthermore, he's from Macclesfield and has a London flat...so he's not a commuter and wouldn't even be on a train in rush hour...hence he experiences noisy children in standard, and hence there would be seats available

I am reminded of that train ad that suggests you go by train (standard class) to get some much-needed work done rather than having to drive...apparently not MPs

I also found this from his local paper

And I drive with my wife to and from London, which is vastly cheaperthan the train, and I also subsidise my travel with my salary." (April 2009)

So when the hell is he claiming for first class travel?? He claims 6 grand on it, not a low figure - he says he's cheap but that's overall and down to an incredibly stingy office budget - generally I'd say office budgets are far more beneficial to the public, and they don't go on the individual but staff and costs

This also raises the issue of MPs standing down - why should we be subject to this sort of behaviour? Because he's not going for re-election he can do absolutely anything, he might as well start waving a Nazi flag around for four or five years, MPs should be subject to some sort of scrutiny, not given five years of complete freedom, perhaps we need a power of recall in these cases

Responses on electoral reform

2010-02-15T22:17:00.000Z

I wished to respond to points made by Dan and Spidie in my last post but for some reason blogger is being an arse, so I'll post my points as an entry:

I'm not exactly sold on PR or anything - but my view is we already have the worst aspect of a PR system, ie party rule

A primary or caucus would certainly be better - but that has flaws, everyone would have to join the party, leading us to American-style politics and an even more cemented two-party system

I also still don't like the 'local' thing - it's all very well to use a caucus to elect a decent local candidate but until the MP actually has some sort of power then all I see is a disjointed system propping up the two main parties - direct plurality voting is fine, but you're not actually voting for that MP to represent you, you're voting for the party as a whole - to me, until that's changed, the FPtP system remains intrinsically unfair, the way parliament works needs a change first

Weak government? Often thrown out, and it's true it's hard to get rid of a government totally, but can we really say we have 'strong' government? Most people seem to hark back to Thatcher when talking about that...is Brown strong? Did we really like the electoral dictatorship of 'president' Blair?

The choice we get is Brown and Cameron - doesn't seem like much of a choice to me, and there doesn't seem to be a huge difference, what exactly are we voting for? All I see is two parties who want power

Personally I think it's a red herring when there's really only two major countries that use our system - the US and us, are we any better off than Germany, or indeed most major nations?

I don't really support PR as such, but simply see it as the lesser of two evils, I think it would be fairer in our current situation...but really Parliament needs a massive overhaul in general and people need to be more engaged and I think the plurality system we have is a massive impediment to voter engagement

A few more tory lies

2010-02-10T08:51:00.000Z

I'm developing a bit of a theme here - this isn't a partisan blog, and Brown is behaving like an overgrown 2-year-old, but he's not the one opposing reform for the sake of it, and lying about it

The Tories have an opinion on electoral reform but what are they actually lying about? I hear you ask

Take this from Dominic Grieve:

The current system delivered "clear, clean results" and allowed voters to "get rid of" MPs they did not want.

Have you ever 'got rid' of an MP you don't want?

The usual arrogant claptrap from the Tories - they keep most of their MPs through ridiculous safe seats where they face no scrutiny at all and with the first past the post system it is virtually impossible to defeat the biggest minority vote - this, in the Tories' minds (and Labour's btw), is a fair system and means people actually want those MPs...when most people don't actually know the name of their MP or PPC

I'll give you my own local example - all over East Anglia Tory MPs like mine hold majorities of a few thousand, few, if any, have a 50% majority but they win with a bedrock of support - the fact that 60% do not want the Tory is ignored, how is that electing the 'most popular' and indeed how can 'you get rid of' an MP when all the opposition votes are split - are you seriously telling me that since 1950 whatever Tory has held the seat has been wanted?

Alternative vote will (sorry, 'would') be a slightly better, less negative system as it will force a two-horse race, the Tories are right that it will cause a 'least unpopular' system, but it's a lie to suggest we have a 'most popular' system now, especially when they seem to support reality in choosing governments (ie. an unfair system for a distinct government change) but don't support that at constituency level

Their view is a slap in the face to all of us in the majority who don't want their hand-picked chums representing us

Don't insult us

2010-02-08T09:40:00.000Z

Cameron has somewhat of a nerve attacking Brown over expenses/parliamentary reform

Now, I hate Brown as much as the next man, but the simple fact is all parties were hurt by the expenses scandal, and while I don't support the wall of silence from the leaders on this, it's simply bizarre to take pot-shots at the enemy when they are all guilty

Clegg is right - Cameron, who hasn't got a reforming bone in his body, is simply being an opportunist - he knows that no reform is needed, so he offers it to appear like some sort of white knight

I do agree that Labour should be withdrawing the whip and any party lawyers, but that's by-the-by, Cameron is simply re-enforcing the myth that parliamentary privilege could protect these crooks

This issue came up during the expenses saga itself - it didn't apply to reviewing accounts, so why on earth would it apply to criminal proceedings under the Theft Act? Some in the media were just stirring the pot back then, but for these pollies to actually think it will protect them serves no-one but the lawyers who are making a fastbuck from trying this route, all it's doing is telling people is politicians are protected

Can't really blame them, as Morley and co. are basically saying Parliamentary privilege protects them from criminal proceedings - therefore they could be trying this route as a defence for murder, anyone with a shred of legal knowledge will tell you it won't stand up

Cameron is a shameless opportunist...again

The vast majority...

2010-02-05T08:27:00.000Z

'...Have done nothing wrong'

That's what they've been saying all along...'it was a minority', 'not all politicians are corrupt...' etc etc

While it's true that not all politicians have been bad, we cynics have always said it was the minority who actually behaved themselves, a quick look at the claims will tell you that

Do you think we can get an apology now that 390, which is more than 50% of MPs (I do understand if most of them don't know what a 'majority' means) have been asked to repay money?

Why do they deserve to vote on the system that produced them?

2010-02-01T20:58:00.000Z

News reaches me that Labour are to try and bring in an AV system

Good, I guess, but my first reaction was - what right do a party elected by this severely flawed system, led by an unelected and unwanted prime minister, who will almost all be thrown out in three months time, have to decide our electoral system, which they have gerrymandered no end?

Meanwhile the opposition are totally against it because...well, they like winning

and Labour are only doing it t paint said opposition as anti-reform

I despair

(in fairness anything Brown tries to introduce makes me wince - because I cannot recognise him as our leader, because he's not, we were never asked)

The inevitable Chilcot post

2010-01-29T23:56:00.000Z

I really didn't want to get too caught up in Chilcot but I ended up listening to Blair all day on the radio at work..it was pretty dull, let's be honest, but I have a pretty clear image in my mind that I wish to share

Firstly, it seems clear after Sept 11th that Blair and Bush wanted rid of Saddam, despite there being no credible link between the two (that remains a rather bizarre, unanswered connection) - Blair seems to have shifted to the 'regime change' argument the yanks supported since 1998

The British would never accept regime change as a legal argument, unlike the Americans, therefore there needed to be an actual threat - to the Americans the regime is a valid threat in itself, as a yank advisor just pointed out on Newsnight, but the British and the UN would disagree

So Blair felt justified in removing Saddam - this is what he said all day, but the fact remained that the argument presented to us was WMD, this turned out to be false - to me this is crucial, in fact it's the only point that matters

Yes, Blair has to make decisions, and frankly had he supported regime change and said that in 2002/3 then I wouldn't have a problem, but the fact is he used the threat of WMD as the main argument, not the great regime change he talks about now - he stood up in parliament and said '45 minutes' and that the intelligence was 'beyond doubt'

Again, if the intelligence was simply wrong and we were all mistaken, fair enough - but it turns out that intelligence was at the time 'patchy and sporadic', and when we combine that with the testimony of Hans Blix, who never finished the inspection, and the fact that nobody really seems to have been keen on this action but 'president' Blair it seems increasingly obvious that WMD was a crock, and the intelligence simply wasn't strong enough for Blair to use as an excuse - he wanted regime change, he used a false argument, written by Alastair Campbell, quickly exposed by Andrew Gilligan

That's the issue here - we were taken to war on false pretences, for Blair to constantly say now 'Saddam's gone, we're better off' is completely beside the point, that wasn't why Parliament was asked to go to war

The only question that needs asking is did he genuinely believe in that so-called 'sexed up' dossier, or were we being deliberately misled to suit his ends?

I'm afraid Chilcot will not determine this, I doubt anyone ever will, but I do hope this is the end of over seven years of infernal debate about this - we have a pretty clear picture that Blair acted almost alone in his support of the US, with little cabinet or legal support, nor very good intelligence, and it seems increasingly likely that Parliament was indeed misled to remove Saddam - that's probably the best we'll ever get from this, if you don't believe the ends justifies the means then you're argument cannot be dismissed as ravings, you were right - I hope people can accept a moral victory as I think it seems pretty clear to most of us that we were indeed lied to and that we've been right from the start

But you're dreaming if you want to see him punished

A Labour MP I can agree with

2010-01-29T18:29:00.000Z

Paul Flynn, who is already somewhat of a legend with his rebellious drugs stance, has come out and said people who use bone-crushing handshakes should be charged with assault

Now of course, I would never support another bloody law, but he's jesting (see, he's not a normal Labour polly) - and let's face it, people who do bone-crushers are, excuse-my-french, wankers out to prove how tough they are, who normally occupy some sort of business role and have small dicks

Personally I always go for the attempt to out-crush said idiot, but I do like his sarcastic approach - just give them a funny look and say 'what are you doing?' Although unfortunately I may have to wait til I'm a bit older, as I generally have to be pleasant

I can't wait to be a cantankerous old git

still easing my way back in...

I'm not dead

2010-01-22T21:31:00.000Z

It's amazing how you get out of the loop in just three weeks...

Well, I'm back now - but I've got a new job (finally) so blogging may take a while to get back into gear, I haven't even been reading Guido lately

In the meantime - Brown has a nerve trying to 'woo the middle classes' and Cameron is an arse who can stick his marriage idiocy where the sun doesn't shine

So nothing new then...

A Belated Happy New Year

2010-01-01T10:11:00.000Z

I'm still here!

Off on hols now! Blogs will be intermittent for a few weeks

Wishing all a clean break for the new decade

except Gordon of course

(aww that's not nice - he can have my wishes when he leaves office)

HO HO HO

2009-12-24T10:15:00.002Z

MERRY CHRISTMAS

and a happy new year to all (or decade)

When marriage is at all time low, is it a good idea to insult everyone who isn't married?

2009-12-23T12:01:00.000Z

The Tory marriage plan really irks at me - first and foremost it's based on flawed analysis and shallow reasoning - and secondly, it's just insulting to all those from 'broken homes' (like me!)

The Tories say marriage will become exclusively middle-class, and that will be detrimental to lower-income people, right... Forgive me if I find that a little bit patronising

I'm middle-class (perhaps upper-lower-middle-class) and my mother never married, on principle - she may just be being bloody-minded but we seem to have done quite well, and I'm telling you I know of few people who agree with this 'marriage is great' rubbish - the younger ones who do want to get married have no issue with co-habiters and blended families, they're so common it's impossible not to accept them

The only people likely to go for it are the Tory hardcore - the sort of people who believe Peter Hitchens is real, perhaps it's to shore up the core vote as the Tories drift increasingly to the middle, much like Labour ramp up benefits and protect public sector jobs for their core

This is the one socially conservative policy the Tories have - but I question it, traditional old ladies may agree with it, but I would say a lot of people dislike it and it's probably doing more harm than good by annoying those swing voters who tend to sit in the middle and could see this as old fashioned bigotry

It may be that other issues take precedence in the election, but it does nothing for me but turn me off Cameron - I find it to be judgemental, another minus point for the Tories - not that I'm the sort of voter they want, of course

*Apologies for the lazy entry - it's Christmas, I'm busy and can only devote so much of my time to being angry

I'm either stupid, or a genius!

2009-12-21T11:12:00.000Z

According to the British Journal of Cancer, having early sex explains why cervical cancer is more common in poor women

It could be that the infection (as this cancer is basically an STD) has more effect on younger women - fair assumption I guess

Now, the number of sexual partners has no impact apparently, so that knocks my theory a bit - but could it not be that poorer girls from deprived areas are more likely to be hooking up with infected young males (or 'chavs') from council estates?

This is what the sources on wikipedia (from the American Cancer Council in the US) suggest, and considering this is effectively an STD does that not explain the rich/poor divide quite well also? If it's caused primarily by an STD, how can the number of partners not make any difference to risk? This is how all STDs tend to go - 'deprived' people from council estates tend to be somewhat less cautious than their middle-class counterparts, it's well documented

Me smells a rat:

"Importantly, the results back up the need for the HPV vaccination tobe given in schools at an age before they start having sex, especiallyamong girls in deprived areas."

A good old Tory smokescreen

2009-12-20T10:00:00.000Z

After that gross miscarriage of justice where a man ~~beat the living snot out of a pinned-down burglar with a cricket bat, metal bar and hockey stick~~ used reasonable force to defend his home, the Tories have pledged to review householder rights

Mr Grayling said: "Conservatives argue that the defence that the lawoffers a householder should be much clearer, and that prosecutions andconvictions should only happen in cases where courts judge the actionsinvolved to be 'grossly disproportionate'."

Only can you see the problem with referring to this case to appeal to the masses who want to be able to defend their home?

Namely, this was 'grossly disproportionate' - any change in the law would have seen Mr. Hussain still guilty of a crime and sent to jail

Hussain was not convicted for defending himself or his home, he wasn't done for breaking the guy's leg y chucking a table at him - as the judge made patently obvious, he was convicted for pinning the fleeing burglar down and giving him brain damage as he and his brother beat him weapons

I am all for defending property, and the judge made it clear he had the right to defend his property - that doesn't extend to executing your own form of malicious revenge, that's why we have the police and the courts

Any Tory proposal wouldn't change this case, this is just smoke and mirrors to appeal to the Daily Mail crowd

Glug

2009-12-17T07:52:00.000Z

Ah, good old sir Liam, he was the one who warned us all about swine flu deaths...remember?

Now he's saying parents (specifically middle class ones) who let their teenage kids 'taste' booze will make them more likely to be heavy drinkers as adults

Any stats for that?

I'm not saying he's wrong...but if you've been wrong before you can be wrong again, right?

Far be for me to use anecdotal evidence - but I was tasting booze from about 14, drinking possibly too much at 17 and 18, but nowadays I barely drink at all - I got bored of it once I got away from the first-year student culture, and I'd have to blame my friends and the culture of binge-drinking far more than my parents for my occasional excesses back then, I was a teenager - teenagers are quite stupid

Yet, here I am, faculties in order, with a proper academic degree and writing in prose - we all know alcohol is harmful, worse than a lot of illegal drugs in many ways - but it's not a substantial risk to drink it, particularly in moderation, we have a life expectancy of what? 78? And we've been drinking the stuff for millenia, while kids all over the world do fine after drinking, the stats do show that more liberal countries in Europe don't get nearly as much alcohol-related-violence so there's some balance to this debate, Liam

But don't take my uninformed opinion on it, thankfully the BBC love a good counter-argument

here's Jeremy Todd of Parentline Plus

He said: "Parents can have a huge influence on their child's drinking choices.
"Ratesof teenage drunkenness are higher amongst both the children of parentswho drink to excess and the children of parents who abstain completely.

So irresponsible and draconian approaches don't work - meaning being responsible does work, unfortunately no amount of government interference can make people responsible - stop trying, Liam

"Whilst parents have a greater influence on their children'sdrinking patterns early on, as they grow older their friends have agreater influence.
"It is therefore crucial for parents to talk to their children about alcohol and its effects."

Quite right, and banning stuff = not talking, I'm not sure if Sir Liam has ever met a teenager

I particularly liked Professor Ian Gilmore:

"We know that adults who drink sensibly tend to pass these habits onand that some families choose to introduce alcohol to their childrenyounger than 15 in a supportive environment."
He stressed that not drinking alcohol at all remained the "healthiest option" for children.

Spot on - why isn't this man Chief Medical Officer? (He's already president of the Royal College of Physicians)

What we do not need is more bloody preachy adverts:

"He announced a major publicity campaign on the subject in England, which will get under way in January 2010."

Stop wasting our bloody money on 'don't drink' adverts! Unless they actually return a profit through less cost to the NHS then they are a frivolous drain on our ever-growing deficit - don't they know there's a recession on?

It's her again

2009-12-16T08:56:00.001Z

Last week, Allison Pearson got on my tits a bit with her claims of how great marriage is for society

On that entry I received a comment (anon) that pointed out she herself is divorced, and has children with a man she isn't married to

Wikipedia confirms this, as much as it can confirm anything (it also states she is my near-neighbour - so many annoying media types seem to take up refuge in my dear city)

So while I cannot claim certainty on the matter, I do have to question this article

My husband would kill to defend our family... so why has Munir Hussain been jailed for protecting his? [italics mine, of course]

Far be it for me to suggest she is lying, I have no proof of that, but I do have to question the headline, and would ask her to confirm her status, perhaps on her wikipedia entry - considering how she slammed unmarried mothers last week I would hate to think she is a hypocrite, or indeed, misleading the public on this issue

Right to Bigotry

Unfortunately when I head to the Mail I tend to get distracted, I have since developed a technique that gets it all out of me in about half an hour, but it can be annoying - this was actually the story I was after:

Christian Registrar sacked for refusing to marry gay couples (updated story about judge) - and I actually have few complaints about the article itself

It was actually Cranmer's frankly very poor defence of it that got me started

Christian groups have attempted to play this out as a Christian v Gay rights, but it really isn't - it boils down to gay people being allowed to be married ('civil union'ed for pedants) and her having an obligation to perform her duty as registrar

Her 'religious rights' do not extend to being able to conduct a government job along her own personal beliefs, no matter how 'deeply held'

They are a belief - if I was an anarchist could I sue the government? Or if I were a communist could I work at any profit-making business and complain? Likewise could I refuse to serve gays simply because I didn't like them - there is absolutely no difference between that position and hers

It's something people like this fail to grasp - they feel their opinions are more valid because they are 'religious', being a secularist I see no distinction between a religious belief and any other one - it's all just opinion, why is my homophobia any less valid than theirs? (please note: purely hypothetical - my driver is of course, gay)

Yes there are human rights surrounding religion, thought and conscience - they allow you to practice, worship, congregate and think and say what you like - and they also extend to secular types like me being allowed to think whatever we like too - what they do not allow us to do is enforce those views in the workplace - if I was racist I couldn't refuse to serve a person of colour

Religion is no different - for some reason some people think it is, I could easily set up a religion entirely based on racism, homophobia or antisemitism (as long as it didn't 'incite hatred'...), it would be just as valid - some would disagree, but they would also be the people who felt Scientology wasn't a real religion - well I'm afraid to us who look from the outside they are all the same, some are just older - and that is how a government must look upon it, it can't pass judgement that Christianity is 'real' and Jedi (to use a Cranmer favourite) isn't

If you were allowed to assert any beliefs you felt like in the course of your job providing services we would be setting ourselves up for complete chaos - particularly as I would immediately start a church that demanded the eating of meat and I therefore refused to serve vegans at work, protected by my 'right' (to bigotry, presumably)

and besides - who has the right to ask a customer's beliefs? I can just see the checkout ladies now - "are you a Christian or a Muslim, love?"

Serve one, serve all

Ginger Ninjas

While I'm at the Mail - found that Ginger story I noted yesterday - funny how the Mail backed the mother in this case - normally they're all for 'PC gone mad' (as one look at the comments will show) but when Tesco becomes involved, much like the BBC, they are automatically the bad guys

and yes love, cards do take the mick out of fat kids (I'll concede the black jokes) - next time I'm in I'll have a look for ones that mock fatties, uglies, disfunctional penises, baldness, mothers-in-law and old age and send it to Davinia Phillips of 'no sense of humour'

A Rotten Speaker?

2009-12-15T09:08:00.000Z

The Mail report that speaker Bercow wants to create a new 'seat' for the speaker that would only have MPs as its constituents

A barmy idea, yes, and the Mail's implication about this existing at the next election is complete nonsense, but it opens up the debate

Bercow has brought this up solely because he faces a real, if slight, threat from UKIP at the next election, but this really should go beyond this

The real crux of the issue is that a constituency goes unrepresented for several years - that's 70,000 people (Buckingham) without an MP

Bercow may say

‘It is both possible and necessary for the Speaker to continue to be a highly active constituency MP. '

But he's talking nonsense - while they can act as an MP and talk to constituents, they do not vote, table motions, debate etc etc - those constituents are disenfranchised, even if they can go and whinge to their MP...who can't vote

And of course, they get no choice in the matter - for some reason you aren't supposed to oppose a speaker, so a constituency gets lumbered with an MP (who remember, can be a "highly active constituency MP") who they have no say over, and the poor people of Buckingham lost their MP this year without even a say

Isn't that a tad paradoxical? A neutral, uninvolved person in the commons, who is also an elected MP who can deal with constituents, but isn't opposed...

Of course, this situation is helped by the use of safe seats, but as safe seats are already an insult to democracy as it is, I don't feel this improves the situation, just makes it tolerable

So yes, we should look at changing the situation, but not to protect your own arse, Mr. Bercow, but to give 70,000 people a member of Parliament who can actually talk and vote

I refer you to this uttering:

If the tradition [of unopposed speakers] ended, said Mr Bercow, it could be hard for any Speaker to survive for more than one parliamentary term.

and the problem is? Why exactly should we return the speaker at an election? If every Parliament is sovereign then surely they should pick their own speaker each session - this is particularly obvious now as we are facing an election that will see over a hundred current MPs resign, let alone be booted out by the electorate, there will probably be several hundred brand new MPs chosen within the next 6 months, and they have to put up with the decision a disgraced Parliament made less than a year before why exactly?

Anne Widdecombe had it right - the speaker should be going with the rest of them, a clean break - I don't see why this shouldn't be repeated at every election, in all likelihood the speaker will be returned easily - if they aren't, then the public have spoken - they have a right to kick out their own MP, and indeed pass judgement on the speaker, who is a well known figure nowadays

Of course, perhaps one little constituency shouldn't decide the fate of the speaker for the whole house, so he should be removed from the election process all together

That's where Bercow's idea of a special constituency for MPs comes in - except I see a slight logistical problem with that - if only MPs are eligible does that mean they have to be elected as an MP, and then elected as Speaker, and then trigger a by-election immediately after the GE? And when do they vote? Can't be during the general election as there are no MPs after a dissolution, you can't give special precedence to them if they aren't technically MPs, and then what happens when the speaker seeks re-election? He wouldn't be an MP, so he would have no legitimacy over 'normal' people, and would only be a former MP/speaker - giving any former MP legitimacy in the election

The idea is a complete muddle

However, he's got the jist of it right - it's just the bit where he wants to gerrymander the situation so he can keep the job for a decade that's off - all you need to do is create a ceremonial office that allows the holder to speak in the house, the house elects an MP to the role, there's a by-election for the seat, then at the new session MPs vote to keep the chair, if not he's out, then they elect a new one

This is very similar to Bercow's idea - but without the rotten borough and technical flaws and with a bit more fairness

All Parliaments should get the chance to choose their own speaker - the time when it was honourable, non-partisan position for chairing debates is over, as the past two selections have shown, there's no reason to tie down a future Parliament with the petty, childish decision of a former Parliament, that's a fundamental basic of Parliamentary sovereignty

Get a sense of humour

2009-12-15T02:46:00.001Z

A card has been removed from a Tesco store's shelves because a redhead found it offensive

'The card shows a child with ginger hair sitting on the lap of SantaClaus, and the words: "Santa loves all kids. Even ginger ones."

Davinia Philips, of York was 'disgusted'

Right, first things first - this is not specifically a Tesco issue - this wasn't marketing or an advert, it was just one of the thousand Christmas cards they happen to stock, the company 'Quitting Hollywood' made the card

So essentially she has picked out one of those funny cards, and had a right strop about it - had it actually been marketing I'd agree with her, but it was just a silly card, have you never seen a humourous card that was 'offensive' before? They take the mick out of all sorts - women, men, fat people, old age and a lot are laden with innuendo

What this effectively means that if a card makes a blonde joke, or a fat joke, or a birthday card implies something negative about ageing, then it's offensive to someone and should be banned - great

2/1 it was written by a carrot-top