The problem with pointing out that Polish MEP Michal Kaminski has a splinter in his eye when he doesn’t is that as well as damaging Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s credibility; it also causes attention to be drawn to the plank in Labour’s own.

This is yet more proof that Labour cannot even run an effective smear campaign anymore.

Accusing Euro-sceptics of anti-Semitism is the most shameful tactic yet

As should be expected, the “progressive” Media has roundly condemned the removal of Professor David Nutt from his position at the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.  In essence, the pro legalisation of “recreational drugs” lobby approve of what Professor Nutt has to say, so it is outraged by his treatment by Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

As an adviser who has suffered the rejection of sound advice, I can commiserate to a small degree with the Professor but at the end of the day he is paid to give an opinion and his “client” is entitled to accept or reject it, notwithstanding that he is a high and mighty academic.  It is the Professor’s paroxysm at the rejection of his advice and reaction that shows, to my mind, that the Home Secretary was right to ask for his resignation.

Sacked drugs adviser accuses Gordon Brown of meddling in cannabis decision

Sacked – for telling the truth about drugs

Sacked adviser criticises Brown

Do you really want to help Labour divide and conquer?

“David Cameron could find old regime partisans sniping at him from the hills; the people who sit on boards and commissions, hold chairs and run reviews: the whole well-intentioned infrastructure of progressive society that, almost like royalty, remains in place from one government to the next.”

Julian Glover

Labour’s fifth columnists

The Conservatives winning the next General Election is not the half of it

So, Gordon Brown says that the British economy will be growing again by the turn of the year, according to his podcast yesterday.  Taking into account that the next quarter will include the Christmas trading period and the figures for the most recent quarter showed a slowing contraction of the British economy, I suppose he might be proved right, technically.  In any event, one “good” quarter would not make a recovery, especially if it is followed by indifferent figures, let alone figures showing further albeit small, contractions of the economy. A weak recovery is little better than no recovery at all, except for the purpose of temporarily boosting moral, unless prolonged.  In fact, the prospects for real sustainable growth in 2010 are not good.  A stall of “the recovery” in the first quarter of 2010 is more likely than not, notwithstanding the Labour Government’s attempts to engineer a phoney uplift in the economy during the months preceding the next General Election.

This recession is unfortunately, another struggle that will not “be over by Christmas”.

This is the crux of the issue, isn’t it?

“They feel [uncontrolled immigration] diminishes their chances in life.

 

It threatens their jobs, they believe. Ten years ago, a self-employed painter and decorator in, say, Barking might have earned £120 a day, enough to get a reasonable mortgage and sustain a modestly secure family life. Today, after the Government underestimated the number of Eastern Europeans likely to come here by almost 20 times, he would get £70 or £80. If his ailing father pays regular visits to hospital, he may be denied a bed because so many foreign women are giving birth. If his child has special needs, he may find the local school neglects them because it is desperately trying to teach English to children who do not speak it at home. If his brother is a soldier, he may return from risking his life to be insulted on the streets of his country by people who hate it.

 

…If they complain, they are told they are racist. It is not surprising that they say things like “My country is being taken away from me”. They are not completely mistaken.”

 

Charles Moore

 

“It should have been laughably straightforward for the panellists to debate with and destroy Griffin’s arguments. Instead, inflated by their outrage, the other speakers repeatedly interrupted, spoke over and cut short the BNP leader. They could have given him all the rope he needed to hang himself. By treating him as a pariah not even granted the liberty of finishing many of his sentences, never mind a particular proposition he was beginning to elaborate, they showed precisely the disregard for others and their views that they condemn in Griffin’s party.

Nearly one million people voted for the BNP in the Euro-elections. Whatever one thinks of their party’s platform, they have a right to be heard. Some parties cannot be more “legal” than others. That is a consequence of living in a democracy and it is part of cherishing the right to free speech. You persuade such people that they are wrong by discussion of what they say; and that means exactly what they say, not what it can be distorted into sounding like...”

Sholto Byrnes

________________

“Was there nobody to restate, with the relaxed confidence that philosophical certitude should bring, the only available position for a modern British liberal: that this is a free country in which a range of highly diverse opinions may be held and, if held, published, subject to the law? Full stop. Yes, full stop; for heaven’s sake, full stop.”

Matthew Parris

“The Foreign Secretary accused the public yesterday of lacking a sense of urgency in the face of the potentially devastating consequences of climate change.”

We don’t pay much attention to religious cults when they tell us the world is going to end next week, either.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband accuses public of climate change apathy

 “Economists today cast doubt on official data showing that British gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 0.4 per cent between July and September, claiming the surprise fall is far worse than economic reality.

The shock figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that the country remained mired in recession during the third quarter — the sixth consecutive quarter of contraction, signalling the country’s longest downturn since records began in 1955.

Economists had widely expected that the country had emerged from recession between July and September.”

Oh dear.

Economists revolt over surprise recession data

This morning The Daily Telegraph's  Benedict Brogan provides another reason why the Conservatives are not as far ahead in the opinion polls as certain (Labour supporting) media commentators believe they should be at this stage of the game.

“From the beginning, when [David Cameron’s] leadership campaign struggled to attract the support of commentators, he learnt to do without…

 

....He is more at ease in the media salons of London than Mr Brown. But he has so far managed to resist the pressure to trade policies for headlines. That may explain why he has yet to secure the kind of fawning coverage from the press that Tony Blair enjoyed in 1996.”

 

And you can cut the bunkum about “Tony Blair having had a more substantial opinion poll lead than David Cameron at the same point in the electoral cycle”, too

Enough of this nonsense about David Cameron not having “sealed the deal”

They're at it again