“Yet many [Whitehall] officials are ideologically, as well as self-interestedly, committed to the apparatus of control, prescription, excessive laws and targets that has so let down the country, even when the rest of us recognise that cutting such things is not only necessary, but desirable.”

 

Andrew Gilligan

A cull of unsympathetic elements would be a good start.

Ripe for “surgical” removal

Labour’s fifth columnists

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

Those of a leftist disposition are almost uniformly completely bereft of any self awareness of their true position in the political spectrum.  Remarks one of the contributors to Insight Guides latest edition of its travel guide entitled England,

“Although free from state control and financially independent of political parties, many nationals do have pronounced political leanings.  Of the quality dailies The Times and The Daily Telegraph are on the right, The Guardian and The Independent in the middle.  On Sunday The Observer leans slightly left of centre, while the Independent on Sunday stands in the middle and The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph are on the right.

 

The Financial Times is renowned for the clearest, most unbiased headlines in its general news pages plus exhaustive financial coverage.”

I am sure that The Times will be irked to learn that it is “of the right” given its pretence of being a newspaper of record and having openly supported the Labour Party in the General Elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005.   As everyone else seems to be aware, The Guardian is the newspaper of choice of the centre-left and left because… it is of the centre-left, as is The Independent, which tried unsuccessfully to usurp The Guardian as the Left’s newspaper of choice.  As for The Financial Times well, until the 2010 General Election it had been a steadfast cheerleader for the Labour Party (and steadily lost market share amongst its core business readership as a result) since well before the 1997 election.

Those engaged in journalism, publishing and The Arts generally are largely of a “progressive”, centre-left and left persuasion. Surrounded almost exclusively by like-minded individuals, they suffer a red-shift in perception as to their true position in the political Universe.

“Mr Brown's act of hypnosis is to make us ignore the facts about what will become of Britain should he be left in charge for much longer: economically relegated, permanently crippled with debt, addicted to public spending and big state interference, reliant on ever higher taxes and ruled by the trade unions.”

Gordon Brown has voters in a trance - it's time for a wake-up call – Benedict Brogan

In The Sunday Times on 1^st November 2009, Andrew Sullivan wrote,

 “And my bet is that in a decade’s time, the banning of cannabis will seem as strange as the banning of alcohol.”

This is not the first time I’ve heard that sentiment expressed.  Indeed, it was a common view at my school.  In 1971.

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

As usual, someone else expresses my thoughts better than I ever could, so today I quote Dominic Lawson (with my emphasis),

“People seldom seem more pointlessly pompous than when they declare a joke to be "not funny"; and as for [Jimmy] Carr's career being at an end, I suspect he will still be doing successful stand-up long after everyone has forgotten who Patrick Mercer is – assuming that they knew in the first place.

 

Above all, I am certain that Jimmy Carr will be much more popular with the squaddies out in Iraq and Afghanistan than any of the politicians who sent them out there into harm's way. This is not least because Carr, unlike Ainsworth apparently, has been a regular visitor to the Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham and the neighbouring rehabilitation unit Headley Court, where maimed British soldiers – hundreds each year – are treated within the NHS.  He will have witnessed for himself the amazing moral and physical strength required to recover from appalling injuries and trauma – and also the remarkable skills of the medical teams giving the hope of some sort of tolerable life to men who in previous wars would have had little possibility even of survival.”

 

“…in the past six years, I have risen several hours earlier than I used to in my innocent bachelor days and, in consequence, I now go to bed at the hour I used to start going out….”

Michael Gove

In The Times yesterday Carol Midgley, a High Priestess of Vegetarianism and self confessed proselytiser for the Cause, was remarking upon the story of Marcus, a lamb that was raised and finally slaughtered as part of a school project. It was her view that,

 “many of those weeping for this sheep across the country are carnivores who seldom give serious thought to animal welfare standards as they throw another bacon vacuum pack in the trolley”.

The term “carnivorous” is applied to  animals who naturally prey on other animals, the carnivora most readily coming to mind being cats, dogs and bears. Humans are not carnivores, they are omnivores. Omnivores feed on all kinds of food.  The average meat-eating individual will consume more fruit and vegetables than meat.   It is as wrong to call meat-eating humans carnivore, as it would be for vegetarians to be described as herbivore.  Perhaps the vegetarian lobby should consider choosing their nomenclature for the rest of humanity a little more carefully.

“Alan Clark was not wonderful. He was sleazy, vindictive, greedy, callous and cruel. He was also a thorough-going admirer of Adolf Hitler, although his sycophants persisted in thinking that his expressions of reverence for the Fuhrer were not meant seriously. They absolutely were.”

 

Dominic Lawson

It is my considered opinion that Clark’s account of the struggle between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany Barbarossa: The Russian German Conflict, 1941-45 is overrated, too.

Professional photographer Andy Craddock caused a furore by taking photographs of semi-naked models at St Michael Penkivel Church in Cornwall. One photograph showed a model reclining on an altar.  The Diocese of Truro threatened to launch a legal action against him for trespass and not having permission to take photographs, as it was perfectly entitled to do.  Sensibly, the Church has decided not to press the matter any further.

Mr Craddock apparently takes erotic fetish snaps during secret photo shoots at churches across the United Kingdom. He ignored the Diocese's solicitor’s letter before action, claiming that they were powerless to stop him, defending his photographs as “art”.  He admits that his photographs could cause offence, but only to a minority of people.

It is implausible that Mr Craddock could have been unaware that had he informed the church authorities of his proposed photo shoot and the nature of that shoot, he would not have been granted permission. He trespassed upon property the sole purpose of which was for worship.  He must also have known that the compositions he arranged would universally offend the people who would frequent such an establishment. To them, “a sacred place was profaned”.  For Mr Craddock, the pursuit of Art trumps all.

In my book, it all comes down to a lack of respect for others and their beliefs.

Sky News    The Daily Mail   Run that past me again

Says Paul Waugh,

“…Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley got into hot water this year for musing idly that “the recession can be good for us”. He was pointing out that people smoked and drank less and spent more time with their families — but that didn't stop the Prime Minister ridiculing his online gaffe…”

 In a slightly different context Daniel Hannan wrote recently,

“Then, around about 40 years ago, journalists began to develop the idea that if Person X disagreed, on the record, with Person Y, it was a “gaffe” (a word that exists only in newspapers, never in ordinary conversations).”

Can it be right to describe a comment as a gaffe when it resonates with the public as being true or eminently reasonable?  Patently not, I think.

“A 2008 federal-funded survey conducted in New Jersey, where Megan’s Law¹ originated, concluded it had done nothing to deter the repeat offenders it is designed to target. It only made them easier to track down when they had reoffended….But a register is a knee- jerk response to the cry of “something must be done,” and that done, we are all too happy to do nothing more.”

Catherine Philp

___________________________________

¹ A law requiring information to be made public concerning registered sex offenders.

“One in three teenage girls has suffered sexual abuse from a boyfriend and one in four has experienced violence in a relationship, according to an in-depth study published today”

reports The Guardian.

The research was undertaken on behalf of the NSPCC at the Centre for Family Policy and Child Welfare, University of Bristol.  The Centre describes itself as “one of the leading national and international research centres on child welfare and child safety issues.”

The survey of 1,353 teenage girls and boys from across the United Kingdom found that nearly ninety per cent of these teenagers aged 13 to 17 had been in an intimate relationship. A quarter of the girls claimed to have suffered physical violence, including being slapped, punched or beaten by their boyfriends. Ninety-one teenagers were questioned at length and of these, one in six of the girls claimed that they had been pressured into having sex and one in sixteen claimed to have been raped.

A previous report from Bristol University published in late August 2009 concerning domestic violence declared amongst other things that,

“men abuse more than women do but women are three times more likely to be arrested” (my emphasis).

Having been involved in a professional capacity at the sharp end of domestic violence for a sufficient number of years, it was my experience that the overwhelming majority of individuals arrested were male.

It makes you ponder how representative of the general population were the samples relied upon for this latest research.  If sample data is not sound then neither is the conclusion drawn from that data; or as a computer bod would say, garbage in, garbage out.

“The reality is people are bored with it.  Even at Channel 4 the vibe among staff is that if you like Big Brother you're not cool.”

Big Brother “to be scrapped”

Whilst some inaccuracies in films are understandable, for example there were two bridges at Arnhem but just a road bridge in A Bridge Too Far and others are pure Robin Hood style fiction from start to finish (such as Braveheart, The Patriot and Gallipoli) it is always disturbing when falsehoods are unnecessary to the plot, such as Lord Burghley’s (formerly Sir William Cecil) political demise in Shekhar Kapur's 1998 film Elizabeth.  Why do cinema and TV film script writers do it?  What purpose does it serve?

Hollywood’s distortion of the truth

Under the headline,

“Almost 400 dentists earn more than £300,000 a year, NHS figures reveal”,

explains The Times,

“Almost 400 dentists working in England and Wales earn more than £300,000 a year, according to the latest pay and expenses figures.

 

Data released by the NHS Information Centre showed that 6 per cent of the 19,000 dentists earned a taxable income of more than £200,000 last year. Of these 1,172 dentists, 392 were in the top bracket of at least £300,000.”

The Times report continues,

“In England average salaries were calculated at £126,527, once average expenses of £218,843 for building hire, staff and other running costs were deducted. Dentists without a contract with the local primary care trust or health board earned £66,259 on average.”

 According to the NHS Information Centre in its report Dental Earnings and Expenses, England and Wales, 2007/08 published on 4^th August 2009 and referred to by The Times,

“As is to be expected, [the tables] show that average gross earnings, expenses and taxable income increased [as dentists] increased the average time per week they devoted to dentistry.”

and

“For all self-employed primary care dentists, taxable income for those dentists who worked an average of more than 45 hours per week was £147,283, compared to £69,330 for those who worked an average of less than 35 hours.”

The really useful information disclosed by this NHS report shows that depending upon the number of hours worked, the average dentist’s taxable income varied between £69,330 and £147,283.  These figures are not excessive given the professional qualifications that have to be secured by an individual in order to practise as a dentist and the number of hours worked by those earning the highest income.

Undoubtedly some people will be outraged that a very small percentage of dentists earn so much money, but the NHS report is hardly evidence of an overpaid profession.

Much has been made of the BBC practising ageism by dispatching older females from its programmes, only to replace them with “younger models”.  Notwithstanding the glaring clues, the point overlooked is that the BBC’s core objective is to ditch its audience.  In the main, particularly on a Saturday night, the BBC’s light entertainment audience is largely middle aged or older, with conservative tastes.

As reports  The Daily Mail,

 “BBC insiders have revealed that Strictly Come Dancing is undergoing an overhaul before the next series, to give it a ‘sexier’ feel and attract a younger audience” (my italics).

What more needs to be said?

“A publicly funded exhibition is encouraging people to deface the Bible in the name of art — and visitors have responded with abuse and obscenity”

reported The Times on 23rd July 2009.

 The exhibition, Made in God’s Image, at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, is part of the Sh(out) project, which we are told, aims to celebrate and raise awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.  The work Untitled 2009, by the Rev Jane Clarke of the Metropolitan Community Church, a Church that celebrates “racial, cultural, linguistic, sexual, gender and theological diversity”, urged the public to “write themselves in” to the Bible if they felt excluded.  Perhaps predictably considering the target audience of the exhibition, some of the comments written into the Bible were not entirely thought provoking or uplifting.

Rev Clarke made it plain that she regretted the insults that had appeared.  This has not prevented Mark O’Neill, the Director of Art and Museums at Culture and Sport Glasgow, lambasting critics of the Bible exhibit as being motivated by an opposition to homosexuality and “[trying] to divert attention from the issue that the artwork aims to highlight: how religion marginalises homosexuals.”  Adds Mr O’Neill,

“If they want to condemn homosexuals, that’s up to them but using the Gallery of Modern Art as a vehicle for that condemnation, I don’t think is legitimate.”

Or perhaps Christians just don’t like their holy book being so deliberately and provocatively defaced no matter who is the perpetrator, Mr O’Neill.

 The Sunday Times

Notwithstanding Daniel Hannan’s ruthlessly effective debunking of the “progressive” media’s recent attempts to smear Michal Kaminski, the Polish head of the new Eurosceptic Conservative and Reformist (ECR) bloc in the current European Parliament, The Daily Telegraph is seeking to breath life into the proverbial flogged dead horse.

Given that the Conservatives have contributed to the formation of an effective Eurosceptic bloc in the European Parliament, one might have thought that the rabidly Europhobic Telegraph would have been ecstatic but patently not, given sympathetic reports it has published concerning the European Union appreciative, former Conservative MEP, Mr McMillan-Scott’s criticism of the much maligned Mr Kaminski.

The Telegraph's thin veneer of columnists and commentators of moderate conservative persuasion  is insufficient to hide the fact that it has long since given up any pretence of being a newspaper which broadly supports the Conservative Party. For too long, too often the slant of reporting is indistinguishable from that of the BBC or The Guardian.  I have never subscribed to the Telegraph, ironically because in the past I had considered it to be “too Tory”.  Thus I am now denied the considerable delight of cancelling any subscription.

“Organic food is no healthier and provides no significant nutritional benefit compared with conventionally produced food, according to a new, independent study funded by the Food Standards Agency”

reports The Guardian.

I’m sorry, but I thought the whole point of organically grown food was that it was environmentally friendlier, not “healthier”.

The Times reports today that,

“[Jay Hunt, BBC One’s Controller] confirmed that Bruce Forsyth, [Strictly Come Dancing’s] octogenarian host, would be returning to the show, albeit after agreeing to take an unspecified pay cut as part of the corporation’s drive to slim presenters’ fees.”

“....after agreeing to take an unspecified pay cut.” Good.  The BBC has taken on board public disquiet over the payment of highly inflated presenters’ salaries funded by the annual licence fee.  So can we expect all the other presenters’ salaries and fees being renegotiated downwards soon, then?

So, Labour politicians and their helpers in the Media think that as Andy Coulson had been a bad boy in the past, David Cameron should now dismiss him in the light of The Guardian’s latest “revelations”.

First let us remind ourselves that Mr Coulson was a bad boy in the sense that as Editor of  the News of the World, he accepted that the buck stopped with him concerning the criminal conduct of one of his journalists even though he knew nothing of that journalist's errant activities. Second, the events leading to Mr Coulson's principled resignation as editor took place long before he was appointed as the director of communications for the Conservatives.  More importantly, and forgive me for asking, but where is the evidence of Mr Coulson’s wrongdoing in relation this current story?

At least this episode will assist the Conservatives to determine who are their real friends in the Media.

Andy Coulson trusted member of Cameron’s inner circle – Terry Kirby

The concept of bull fighting makes me feel very uncomfortable, but everyone to his own.  Giles Coren’s article in The Times this morning did amuse me however, particularly this passage,

 “You who are so quick to anthropomorphise the bull and weepily to share its pain, try reversing the process. Imagine not that the bull is a man, but that you are the bull. Imagine that you are given the choice between living to, say, 35 years of age, mostly in a shed, in massive single-sex groups, feeding on silage (prison is a fair comparison) and then queuing with your mates to die at the hand of a shaven-headed thug with a bolt gun . . .

 

Or then again, imagine living free in thousands of acres of land, eating whatever you want, shagging who you like, and then, when you are perhaps 70, being asked to fight to the death against a Spaniard in pink tights.”

To quote Nigel Huddleston, the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for Luton South,

“[Esther Rantzen’s] involvement could split the anti-Moran vote and help Labour to win again”.

What do these prospective “independent” candidates really wish to achieve, other than to deny the electorate the chance of representation by a genuine, Conservative MP?

MPs' expenses: Simon Heffer still considering opposing Alan Haselhurst

Esther Rantzen should stick to Strictly Come Dancing

Speaking of the phenomenal response on the internet to his speech at the European Parliament on the 24^th March 2009, says Daniel Hannan MEP in The Daily Telegraph today,

“The episode serves to show how utterly and irretrievably the internet has changed politics. In 24 hours, 380,000 people had watched a video before a word appeared on the BBC or in any newspaper.  The Daily Telegraph was the first. The days when political journalists got to decide what was news are over. Ten or even five years ago, a dozen lobby correspondents would dictate the next day's headlines. Now, millions of bloggers and commentators come to an aggregate view.”

Quite.

Let me say from the outset, that I have never considered as racist, the comments concerning Shilpa Shetty made by Jade Goody during her second stint as a Big Brother housemate.  Though I had not watched a single episode of Big Brother, when the furore broke I did take the time to view the offending scenes.  It was patently clear to me that the cause of Jade Goody’s antagonism was nothing to do with race, but everything to do with Shilpa Shetty’s natural grace and intelligence.  It was entirely a class issue, with the ill educated Miss Goody responding to the cultured, educated and so obviously top drawer Miss Shetty in the only way she knew – with disparaging comments (the worst of which, I seem to recall, was referring to her as “Shilpa Poppadom”).  The politically correct mainstream media did not see it that way of course, with the result that Miss Goody was pilloried and relentlessly bullied for being racist.

Even Paul Routledge, a hammer of anything even vaguely suspected of being middle class or Conservative supporting, felt constrained to annunciate,

“Shilpa Shetty was slagged off by slatternly morons who are unfit to kiss the hem of her sari. Their illiterate grunting had no place on prime-time TV. By contrast, the Bollywood star bears herself with remarkable dignity. She showed a calm alien to the other “housemates”, especially Jane Baddy. I think that's her name.”

How times and tunes change.  Now in the eyes of Mr Routledge Mrs Jack Tweed is a heroine.

“Jade Goody, 27, has probably filmed her last TV appearance. The shades of eternity are gathering round her….Jade sought stardom as an escape from the hell of a broken home and dead-end jobs.  She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, becoming rich, a household name and controversial.  She has loved living in the limelight… But poor Jade never had the start in life that Gail [Trimble]’s parents gave her. She had to do it all herself, so I think her achievement is the greater. To break out of that deprived background and do what she did - including her indiscretions - took courage. I respect her for that”

avers Mr Routledge, continuing elsewhere,

“Meanwhile gorgeous, pouting Gail Trimble, Corpus Christi's famous know-all team captain, is inconsolable at losing the [University Challenge] trophy. “Too upset to comment,” say friends. There, there, luv. It's only a game.  Try imagining you're Jade Goody, still talking to the media on the brink of death.  That’ll restore your sense of reality.”

Inconsistency, incoherence and large servings of hypocrisy are to be expected of a newspaper suffering a significant fall in circulation, and as such perhaps it is not surprising that a gifted young lady who had not sought publicity other than by being a member of a successful team appearing on University Challenge, is now so meanly used to venerate an individual who herself was so cruelly abused by the tabloid press.

No matter how you look at it, Gail Trimble and her Corpus Christi College, Oxford team won the 2009 University Challenge competition.  That the BBC stripped the champions of the official title and physical trophy is neither here nor there.  It is not surprising that the Manchester University team was reluctant to accept the champion's mantle, because its members knew that they had not earned that accolade.

The rules contrived an unfair outcome, the disqualification of the winning team, as a direct result of the competition now being run across two academic years, in effect barring final year students and one year course postgraduates from taking part.  Everyone save the BBC and its acolytes saw the strict application of the rules as being grossly unfair and wrong.  In the light of the latest revelations that earlier winning teams also comprised disqualified members, the BBC’s decision to disqualify Corpus Christi appears increasingly perverse as well as ridiculous.

As with another great champion who was stripped of his title on trumped up and dubious grounds, Gail Trimble and her Corpus Christi team remain the people’s champions.

Says Eamonn Butler in The Times today, about the latest TV licence advertisement,

“It's time we citizens stood up against this state-sponsored intimidation, particularly now that anti-terror legislation is being used to spy on whether our dogs are fouling the pavement and that we're closing our wheelie-bin properly. And it's time we told our unelected officials that we don't much like “our town, our street, our home” being in their database - given their ability to lose it in the mail or leave it on laptops that they forget in the pub.”

It is more than fair comment to say that in recent years government has sought to criminalise an ever greater number of rule breaking activities and impose increasingly draconian penalties for “crimes” which though seen by the majority of the public as being worthy of some punishment are still considered by that same public as relatively  minor.  There is too much stick and not enough carrot.

In seeking to defend his colleague and mentor Gordon Brown yesterday, Ed Balls explained,

“You have had sporting stars who have been heroes and then become villains... and then built their way back”.

One such hero who comes to mind committed no more heinous a crime than kick an Argentinian opponent.  Mr Brown’s equivalent act was to jump into the stands and start kicking his supporters.

“…Corruption tends to flourish the longer an incumbent is able to hold on to power”

said Ken Livingstone in 1998, as Simon Jenkins reminds us.

I had always felt that there was something unwholesome about the Clintons.  In fact, my unease was not caused in any way by the stream of allegations concerning sexual and financial improprieties made over the years by political opponents, many of whom it should be said, had an axe to grind.  Rather, it was the relentless, unnatural thirst for power that I found and still find, repulsive.

Hillary Clinton in particular presents as being a ruthless, purely political being, devoid of common, ordinary humanity who displays emotion only when it is politically expedient to do so.  Andrew Sullivan of The Sunday Times sums up more colourfully.

“The Clintons have always had a touch of the zombies about them: unkillable, they move relentlessly forward, propelled by a bloodlust  for Republicans or uppity Democrats who dare to question their supremacy.  You can't escape; you can't hide; and you can't win.”

And,

“For the Clintons, all Democrats who oppose them are . . . Republicans.  And all Republicans are evil.   And evil means that anything the Clintons do in self-defence is excusable - even playing the race card, and the Muslim card, and the gender card, and every sleazy gambit that the politics of fear can come up with.  This is how they have arrested the Obama juggernaut.  It's the only game they know how to play.”