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ITEM: A spokesman for George Osborne’s deputy assistant sommelier denies the Chancellor is blasé about the impact of government cuts on society’s most vulnerable.

ITEM: Tony Blair denies plagiarising passages of his memoirs from the film The Queen. ‘I am not a plagiarist,’ said the former Prime Minister, ‘and if anyone says I am I will fight on the beaches, I shall fight on the landing grounds, I will fight in the fields and in the streets, I will fight in the hills; I will never surrender.’

ITEM: On the eve of the Liberal Democrat party conference, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has given an exclusive interview to The Times about how his government is hammering the poor and the vulnerable. Fortunately for Clegg the article is behind The Times’s paywall and so only a small number of people are able to witness his depravity for themselves. By neat coincidence, the number of people who have paid to have online access to The Times (27,500) is the same as the number of voters the Lib Dems can rely on at the next election.

ITEM: Susan Boyle is to sing for the Pope during the Pontiff’s state visit to Britain. In tribute to the work of many of the Catholic Church’s priests, she will perform a version of Nino Tempo’s (Hooked On) Young Stuff.

ITEM: In his 12th unmanned drone strike this month, the current holder of the Nobel Peace Prize killed 12 people and injured many more. His officials ‘declined to comment on the identity of those killed and wounded’. Oh, and he’s flogging $60 billion worth of weaponry to Saudi Arabia.

Or so they say. That being the case, what foul kind of collective evil did we commit to deserve Phil Woolas?

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

ITEM: That strange sound you can hear is the female population of Britain ovulating at the thought of Chris Moyles being back on the market. Get in there quick, ladies.

ITEM: Isn’t the world a nicer place with The Times behind its paywall? If nothing else now only a few thousand hardcore masochists are having their mornings spoiled (either directly or indirectly) by David Aaronovitch’s brainfaeces. Once Rupert Murdoch finishes shovelling the rest of his offal behind the paywall we can get on with finally founding Utopia. In fact, in the last few weeks I’ve been conducting an experiment by erecting my own mental paywall. The results have been astounding. Imagine a world without Richard Littlejohn, Nick Robinson, Victoria Derbyshire, Jon Sopel, Nicky Campbell, Justin Webb, Stephen Nolan, John Rentoul, Guido Fawkes banging on incessantly about gays, Adam Boulton, Peter Allen, John Humphrys, Kay Burley, Nick Cohen and Richard Bacon. I’ve been there. It’s beautiful.

ITEM: The man who killed the otter with his spade at the end of Ring of Bright Water is to advise David Cameron on animal welfare issues.

ITEM: Dear media dickheads, if you’d spend five minutes with a Shakespeare study guide (obviously I’m not expecting you to read and understand the actual plays), you’d know a winter of discontent is a good thing. Try and find another tired cliche to milk to death, eh?

ITEM: What should a Strictly Come Dancing widower do on the long Saturday evenings between now and Christmas? The drop in the stairwell isn’t deep enough to hang myself.

Jesus Christ, was any of it real?

Sometimes, Blair explains, deception is justified for reasons that any Metternich would understand… like pretending a non-existent friendship, buying ice creams for himself and Gordon Brown from a van in order to seem “together and normal”, and then being told not to put a chocolate flake in his cone because he might appear “greedy”. Blair, we discover, does not like his soft ice cream without an accompanying chocolate bar, and boldly he describes himself putting truth before appearances, in that respect at least.

I remember smiling at the sight of Blair buying Brown an ice cream during that election campaign, the two laughing together in a seemingly spontaneous, unguarded moment. Unredeemingly cynical as I am, I took at it face value – evidence that Blair had an element of knowing humour to his makeup. At last, you thought, a small and rare flower blooms from the dark, stinking cow turd of his diseased sociopathy. Who guessed that Blair had got the flower arrangers in?

(Via Jamie)

Primark are selling some fantastic Star Wars underpants at the minute. They have a picture of an AT-AT across the back. If you put them on and jiggle your arse cheeks it looks like the AT-AT is walking. Seriously, I’ve never been happier.

ITEM: Tony Blair cancelled his victory party at the Tate Modern for fear it might be ‘frightening‘ for his guest to run the gauntlet of a few people shouting. Not exactly Shock and Awe though, is it Tony? If only he’d shown the same sensitivity to people’s fears back in 2003 he’d have been able to have his pretentious piss-up with no problems.

ITEM: On the cover of this week’s Radio Times – the one with Stephen Fry astride a motorbike – if the wind is blowing his tie why is his stupid haircut untouched?

ITEM: Politics is built on compromises. Nick Clegg’s personal road to Hell are paved with them. Did he ever dream, on that day in May as he offered his alabaster throat for Tory wolves to feed upon, that he would one day find himself standing in the House of Commons offering political cover for tabloid scum?

ITEM: More atrocity in Iraq as details of a finger-collecting US death squad come to light. No doubt these are just more ‘bad apples’. There have been so many of them though. Is it any wonder nobody wants to buy All New Iraqi Democracy Cider?

ITEM: I deleted my Twitter account. It just stopped being fun or useful.

ITEM: Congratulations to Tricky and Martina Topley-Bird for winning the 2010 Mercury Music Prize award with their album Maxinquaye. At least I think it was them. The lighting wasn’t great on the night so it might have been some lifeless, uncharismatic dopplegangers.

ITEM: Many, many congratulations and commiserations to America for taking Piers Morgan off our hands. A major drag-factor has been removed from Britain’s cultural progress. Our gain is America’s loss.

ITEM: I’m thinking of a change of direction. Up next on Chicken Yoghurt a 120,000 word thesis on why the Russell T Davies-era Doctor Who series are this country’s very own Star Wars prequels. And how the Steven Moffat era is even worse.

The people who can help make this go away know who they are.

His kids, for God’s sake. What does it take to attack them or stand by idle when you can help?

Can’t we find Liam Fox something to do? You know, like run a war or something?

Britain’s Defence Secretary Liam Fox has defended his comments calling on retailers to ban the forthcoming Medal of Honor video game from their stores. On Sunday, Mr Fox said he was “disgusted” by the game, which allows players to adopt the role of the Taliban in the Afghan war. [...] On Sunday, Dr Fox said that it was “shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban against British soldiers”. [...] An Electronic Arts spokesman said the game “does not allow players to kill British soldiers”.

“No British troops feature in the game,” he said.

So there we have it. The British defence secretary going off half-cocked and issuing factually incorrect, ill-informed bobbins about computer games while there’s a war on. Has anybody told him they’re not actually real soldiers? Presumably non-British virtual combatants are fair game. Sorry, computerised Americans, Liam just doesn’t care about you.

No mention either from Foxhole of any disgust about the civilians killed by NATO and attempts to cover those deaths up, but what are you going to do? What about the foul crimes of Henry Kissinger? Oh sorry, Liam’s a big fan actually.

Anyway, we now get an insight in to Fox’s character. Here’s his updated profile:

NAME: Dr Liam Fox
AGE: 48
LIKES: Proper killing
DISLIKES: Pretend killing

It’s not like me to kick a man when he’s down but I think today just might have been the day when my abject pity for Nick Clegg finally slipped over the border into contempt. He goes on Sky News and says that talk of benefit cuts is ‘speculation’. Ten minutes later, Downing Street is announcing that it is reviewing benefit cuts. His bosses clearly think he’s a dickhead, willing to soak up absolutely any and all humiliation.

Then, in the afternoon, he rocks up at the Shepherd’s Bush Village Hall to wax lyrical about Tory ‘plans’ for ‘social mobility’. The twist? Clegg and his entourage were completely ignorant of the fact that the Shepherd’s Bush Village Hall is targeted for closure thanks to the Tory-run council. Brave little Nicky Wicky – according to the Fulham Chronicle – despite being ‘given two cards made by children begging him to save their playgroup’ and ‘confronted by worried parents over the council’s plans’, didn’t even have the balls to answer questions about it.

When they come to make a satire of his time in office, they sure as shit ain’t going to call it ‘In The Loop‘. It’s starting to look pretty pathetic.

Nick’s first day in the big chair and he’s laying some morality:

Clegg refers to problems in Greece and Spain and says it is “morally wrong” to hand over debt from one generation to the next.

He might be right. The thing is, going by previous experience, when the Deputy Prime Minister talks of morality it’s time to turn on the bullshit detector. Nick is very good at slating the lack of morality in a given outrage but not very good at measuring the moral content of whatever replaces that travesty.

It’s like the war in Iraq (which Clegg was against, of course). Yes, Saddam Hussein was a bloodthirsty tyrant (you still have to say that out loud in case some passing knob thinks you supported him) but those who had a little grasp of history knew that the American military under the command of someone like George Bush Jnr wasn’t the trojan horse in which to smuggle liberal values in Iraq.

It’s the same with Tory policies drawn up to replace Nick’s moral wastelands. We’ve already seen that the moral outrage of child refugees being imprisoned is looking like it will be replaced by another.

It may be morally wrong to hand over debt from one generation to the next but look at what the Tories, with Clegg’s silent acquiescence, are doing in what they say is an attempt to stop that happening. The demonisation of the poor. An attack on vital public services (despite promising during the election campaign that this wouldn’t happen). And so on.

Those of us who didn’t support the war were asked often by those who did, ‘what would you instead?’ The answer was, generally and in the first instance, ‘don’t replace one atrocity with another’. In this current context of Tory government, the leader of the Liberal Democrats needs to decide which end of that argument he’s on.

Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has insisted the government is fully behind the opening of a new nuclear power station in eight years’ time.

‘My views on nuclear power have always much misunderstood,’ said the Energy Secretary. His views?

‘Ministers must stop the side-show of new nuclear power stations now. Nuclear is a tried, tested and failed technology and the Government must stop putting time, effort and subsidies into reviving this outdated industry.‘

‘The doubling of our electricity generation from wind in a little more than a year shows what renewables can do, and gives the lie to the need for a new generation of nuclear power.‘

‘Our message is clear, No to nuclear, as it is not a short cut, but a dead end. Yes to energy saving, yes to renewables, and yes to a sustainable energy future.‘

My favourite from Mr Huhne?

‘You cannot perform a U-turn on nuclear power, as Tony Blair did between the last two government statements on energy policy, without a proper debate and a full discussion of the options.‘

Yes, my mistake. I’ve clearly misunderstood Huhne’s views on nuclear power. There’s nothing in those pronouncements to make me think he wouldn’t back a new generation of nuclear reactors should he ever be made a figleaf in a Tory government with a 24% share of the vote. How silly of me. My faith in politics and politicians is restored.

Meanwhile, still no word from the Deputy Prime Minister on his government replacing one moral outrage with another.

At his appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions the other week, Nick Clegg said the imprisonment of child refugees was a ‘moral outrage’ and that he wanted to ‘restore a sense of decency and liberty to the way we conduct ourselves’.

So, thanks to leaked UK Border Agency documents this (via Freemovement) looks like what we’ll be getting instead…

Read the rest of this entry »

Defending David Cameron. May God forgive me for what I am about to do*.

Yesterday, Cameron said Iran has got a nuclear weapon. This was described as a ‘gaffe’ and New Labour accused Cameron of being a ‘foreign policy klutz’.

Excuse me?

This coming from a political party that lied about, spun and instigated two disastrous wars of choice in which millions have been killed, maimed and displaced. When Cameron reaches those levels of statesmanship, maybe then we can call him a klutz, eh? Some crap blurted at a public meeting doesn’t even come close.

Shadow Europe Minister Chris Bryant said, ‘this is less of a hiccup, more of a dangerous habit’. Yes, a bit like civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. No doubt as the missile rain down on the men, women and children of those countries, they sigh to themselves and say much the same.

The thing is, this criticism would have a little more pull if Gordon Brown hadn’t said something quite similar last year.

Iran has a clear choice to make: suspend its nuclear weapons programme and accept our offer of negotiations or face growing isolation and the collective response not of one nation but of many nations.

Was that a ‘gaffe’? Was Brown a ‘foreign policy klutz’ by New Labour standards? At the suggestion of a commenter on the blog, I even wrote to Number 10 asking if there was any proof to back up Brown’s assertion about an Iranian weapons programme (there was the terrible feeling we’d been here before).

The request for information was shunted to the Foreign Office who replied with what barely amounted to a fobbing off let alone anything that might justify ‘the collective response not of one nation but of many nations’. I wish I’d kept the letter for occasions such as these rather than tossing it out in disgust.

Cameron goes to Turkey and says Gaza is a prison camp. He goes to India and says Pakistan is producing terrorists. Instead of being hailed as bringing a drop of honesty to British Foreign policy, he’s accused of being an innocent abroad.

Former Foreign Secretary David Miliband went as far as to call Cameron a ‘loudmouth‘. ‘Loudmouth’? ‘Klutz’? They sure are elevating the debate at New Labour HQ.

Of course, when he was in power Miliband preferred a different approach. He preferred a policy of speaking quietly or, when it came to matters such as torture and rendition, not at all. Truly, Cameron has much to learn to match the New Labour greats.

* For avoidance of doubt, Cameron remains an idiot. Yesterday, when pulled up about his UK-were-the-WWII-junior-partner-in-1940 stupidity, he said: ‘We were on our own in 1940′. Which must come as a surprise to the likes of the No. 303 Polish Fighter Squadron among others.

After the massive leak of military documents about the war in Afghanistan, our illustrious Foreign Secretary William Hague said the leak could “poison the atmosphere in Afghanistan“.

Yes, because the litany of military incompetence, uncounted and unaccounted for civilian deaths, torture, war crimes and deals with corrupt monsters has been a gust of sweet mountain air through Afghanistan these last nine years, hasn’t it?

Right up until this week, you could take a deep breath anywhere in that country and savour the scent and taste of a job well done.

People are still in the Garden despite a second attempt at eviction today.

There’s a benefit gig tomorrow night (July 23) to raise money to help protect the community garden from the Tescos juggernaut with live music from Flat Stanley plus Ade sings Rosselsongs and DJ Gene Defekt.

Address: Hectors House, 52-54 Grand Parade, Brighton
Postcode: BN2 9QA | View Map
Time: 7.30pm-12
Price: £4 donation
Web: www.lewesroadcommunitygarden.org

You have to laugh*. Here’s another mark of the calibre of our current leadership caste. Wannabe Next Labour leader David ‘Brains‘ Miliband excoriates Tory Prime Minister David Cameron for a lamentable grasp of history by parading his own lamentable grasp of history…

David Cameron has been criticised after mistakenly saying the UK was the “junior partner” in the allied World War II fight against Germany in 1940.

So far, so predictable. A British Prime Minister goes to Washington and abases both himself and his country. The heir to Blair indeed. Miliband then weighs in with his own ill-educated response.

He said: “1940 was our finest hour. Millions of Britons stood up and gave their lives to defeat fascism. “We were not a junior partner. We stood alone against the Nazis. How can a British prime minister who bangs on about British history get that so wrong? It is a slight, not a slip.”

Millions of Britons gave their lives? We stood alone against the Nazis? Alone alongside France, Australia, India, New Zealand, South Africa. And who’s the ‘we’, desk jockey?

And so World War II, at a distance of 70 years, becomes a virtual reality fantasy playground for two Oxford educated political point-scoring pricks, the supposed cream of this generation. All those people did not die in vain.

Neither of the two modern political parties seem particularly interested or engaged with history. It is, after all, how they keep repeating the same horrible and bloody mistakes (as any cursory study of our Aghan and Iraqi campaigns will tell you). It’s how the likes of Ed Balls can describe himself as a Bevanite without dying of shame on the spot.

Still, as the first-hand voices leave us we can probably look forward to much more of this kind of fun. Sooner or later, a politician will be able to stand up and say thanks to Tory values the Russians were able to stand firm at Stalingrad. Hell, why not go for it? Thanks to the Jedi training school being given academy status, Luke Skywalker had the proper skills to destroy the Death Star.

* Or emigrate

David Cameron’s launching his Big Society today. If it works as it’s being spun it might just be a worthwhile contribution to fostering closer ties between neighbours. The cynic in me suspects its a cover for private enterprise to muscle in and strip community services to the bare minimum. For fun and profit.

That said, you can see the spirit of the Big Society in action if you know where to look. Take the Lewes Road Community Garden, for instance:

Once a bland outpost of the CARbon economy – an Esso garage – then a derelict site for over 5 years – transformed by the commitment, love and creativity of a random bunch of locals who dared ‘imagine a garden’ on the Lewes Road in Brighton.

During two days in May 2009 about a hundred people successfully created the Lewes Road Community Garden.

A place for meeting and greeting, reflection and relaxation and grubbying around in the wholesome earth.

Hundreds of plants were donated. Huge pots painted and planted. A circular lawn laid. Planters made from old tyres and scrap timber. A fresh new sign put up. Runner Beans and Sunflowers growing up the fences. A beautiful wooden bench specially made and donated.

The Garden would have stalls, gatherings and workshops. Yoga sessions every morning. Open air music gigs. Films in the dark open air. My kids learned about seedbombing and guerilla gardening there. They came home thrilled at the thought of being able to take flowers and colour to places that had none.

This is community is its real, unspun sense. Here, David Cameron could point at a very real example of people coming together and providing a service both the public and private sector can’t or won’t. So what does the future hold for the Lewes Road Community Garden?

Nothing.

In June, the Garden was evicted so developers can build a Tesco on the site.

Gordon was mad, bad, dangerous and beyond hope of redemption.

…said the man who told us his judgement to bomb Iraq was ‘made by God as well‘.