Equality for some

A few weeks back, the LibDems stated that they would provide a compromise on plans to raise the pensionable age for women.

Changes in retirement rules will not unfairly penalise women in their fifties, Steve Webb, the pensions minister, said yesterday.

Mr Webb told the Liberal Democrat conference that he would compromise on changes in the retirement rules to equalise the pension age for men and women.

Campaigners say the proposals for a universal state pension age of 66 by 2020—six years earlier than was planned—mean many women face an unfairly sharp rise in their retirement age.

Currently, women can claim their state pension at 60, whilst men must wait until 65.

What possible justification—given the plethora of equality laws now in the workplace—can the government have for this situation still existing?

It's very simple: if women want to take their pension five years before men, they should get a reduced payout (since they have paid less in). Or the pension ages should be equalised now.

Oh, and before anyone starts up with "but, Devil, but you can't break contract law", please remember that there is no contract with the state—did you sign anything? No. Were you given a mandatory "cooling-off" period? No—which is why the bastard government can keep changing the tax rates.

If draconian equality laws is the way that we are going to go, I demand total equality of pension rights: raise the pension age for women right now, or pay them less.

We will then be one step closer to A Fair And Just Society*.

* A.K.A. "Utopia", "The Progressive's Dream", or "Hell".

The party of the poor

Who would have thought that she would say anything interesting at all...?

@charlotteahenry tweets a rather excellent quote from the hitherto undistinguished LibDem munchkin known as Sarah Teather...

"Labour claims to be the party of the poor, but that just gives them a reason to keep people that way."

Once has to admit that this is a pithy and rather accurate summing up...

The Patron Politician of Lost Causes

A recent report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that the 50p top tax rate is—from the point of view of raising money—worse than useless.

The 50p rate of income tax is costing the Treasury up to £500 million a year as high earners shelter their money abroad, a leading think tank has warned.

Yes, the Laffer Curve really does exist. Naturally, Timmy elaborates...

The argument is that this rate is increasing the use of (entirely legal) tax mitigation strategies plus some people are buggering off.

Yes, I know, there are those who insist that we should just make it illegal for people to bugger off out of the tax system but we’ve signed a number of international treaties that say we cannot do that.

But here we have it, at least some independent and non-politically partisan experts state that 50 p on income tax is over the peak of the Laffer Curve: even in this short term.

Not much point in having it then really, is there?

Quite so. The 50p tax rate decreases the amount of money that the Treasury gets and—as an extra special Fuck-up The Country bonus—it drives capital abroad rather than it being spent or invested in the British economy.

All of the above was reported on the 14^th September: so, as a follow-up, what was reported today (the 17^th September)? Yes, that's right...

Nick Clegg has said axing the 50p top income tax rate too early could "destroy" public support, as the Lib Dems gather for their conference.

So, despite the fact that the 50p rate of tax is costing the Treasury some half a billion quid a year, Nick Clegg supports it because he thinks the British people are entirely motivated by spite. Well, he may be right but...

The coalition agreement drawn up between the Conservatives and Mr Clegg's party says the government will work towards increasing the tax-free personal allowance to £10,000 - a Lib Dem policy - and that would be prioritised "over other tax cuts".

Yes, fine. Except that if you abolished the 50p rate of tax, you fucking moron, you would have another half a billion quid to put towards your—admittedly, very worthy and entirely correct—policy of letting the poor keep a little more of their cash.

Casting himself more and more in the role of the Patron Politician of Lost Causes, Nick Clegg really is a silly sod, is he not...?

UPDATE: JohnB presents an alternative view (or, rather, an additional view)...

The Telegraph piece is bullshit laundering, and it's at least as bad as anything you've had a go at climate journalists for.

Here's some digging into the source of the data—the new IFS report says nothing about effects of the 50p rate at all. Rather, the Telegraph has dug up the IFS's *projections* about the effects of the 50p rate *from before it was introduced*, and presented them as if they were an assessment of what's actually happened.

Which is shoddy journalism. It'll be an interesting test of the IFS's integrity to see whether it complains to the Telegraph about being misrepresented in this way...

Who cares about the purpose?

Ugh.

Whilst I tend to think that George Osborne looks like a particularly unpleasant fucking demon, it is good news that our rat-nibbled Chancellor is looking at the 50p tax rate to see whether it, you know, actually raises any more fucking tax.

Chancellor George Osborne has asked the Inland Revenue to check whether the 50p top rate of income tax is actually making money for the government.

Some economists have claimed that tax avoidance and evasion mean the rate is raising less income than expected.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Osborne hinted that the 50p rate remained under review.

He added: "There's not much point in having taxes that are very economically inefficient."

You would have thought that this would be a good move, and welcomed by a very cash-strapped government that is attempting to squeeze every last penny from its citizens whilst also relying on economic growth to slash its debt-to-GDP ratio.

Sorry—did I say "government"? I meant, of course, that the Tories were trying to bring some common sense to bear, whilst baby-faced wanker Nick Clegg and his tedious bunch of sandal-wearing, tofu-munching Green zealots have a rather different agenda.

Nick Clegg ruled out any cut in the 50p top rate of tax yesterday until Lib Dem demands to give tax cuts to the poor are completed.

In a blow for Tory demands to slash the highest income tax band, the Deputy Prime Minister said he would not sanction a cut for the rich unless the limit at which people beginning to pay income tax is raised to £10,000.

But Mr Clegg did suggest he would accept the abolition of the 50p rate in exchange for a so-called 'mansion tax' on those with expensive properties and fresh moves to crackdown on tax avoidance.

Nick Clegg really is a fucking moron, isn't he?

Look, Nick, this isn't an either-or situation, OK? Famously, when Lawson dropped the top rate of income tax from 60p to 40p, the total tax take went up. If—as all the data seems to indicate—the 50p tax rate is harming Treasury receipts, then dropping it will facilitate your £10,000 tax limit (which I applaud, even if it does not go nearly far enough).

How about you actually wait until the data is in before you start your piss-poor posturing?

Quote of the month...

... comes from Nick Clegg, in his Grauniad interview on the Protection of Freedoms Bill (a tip of the horns to Guido). [Emphasis mine.]

"I need to say this—you shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government—full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good."

The only pity is that Nick actually needs to say it...

There's many a slip...

Just spotted this gorgeously appropriate typo on the BBC story about the Gobblin' King's resignation (of which more in a second)...



It's so true though, eh? Of all the three main parties, it is the split in the LibDems that has always been the most apparent. On one side you have the (mostly) classical liberal Orange Bookers and, on the other, the completely hatstand, socialist, sandal-wearing element.

I am sure that the Labour Party is just gearing up for a massive internal punch-up but, in the meantime, I suspect that it is the LibDem ferrets who are fighting in that sack...

Reading City AM this morning...

... and I was wondering—is Nick Clegg the stupidest man on the face of the planet?

In announcing a whole raft of "ideas" that are designed to punish bankers—but will, in actualité, punish anyone vaguely successful—this parasitical non-entity has spelled out just what a pathetic, vicious little cunt he is.

Your humble Devil has concentrated most of his fire on Labour and the Tories because they are the two largest collections of shits in the country.

This may have been unfair to the LibDims who might be, after all, kingmakers in hung Parliament.

I used to think that these cints were a harmless but mildly amusing irritant. But no more—it is ever more obvious that Clegg's LibDims are vicious, stupid, economically illiterate morons whose intentions and actions are just as evil and crap as those of NuLabour.

It's time to fuck the LibDims into the irrelevance that they so richly deserve.

Lib Dems - What are they good for?

Is it just me, or is Lembit Öpik a twat?

Clegg: same old, same old...

The Big Three have a message for you fucking moron voters: "hand over the cash and shut the fuck up."

Oooh, Nick Clegg's taking his gloves off—the world struggles to notice...

Nick Clegg will accuse Labour and the Conservatives of election campaigns based on "playground politics and make-believe economics" in a speech later.

The Lib Dem leader will say the "game's up for the old politics" as he sets out his approach to the election campaign...

... using the same old tactic of leaking his speech to the MSM before he actually makes it. Wow!—that's so "new" politics, Nicky.

But Mr Clegg will use his speech to try to set his party apart. He will promise to treat voters "like grown-ups" by being clear about the difficult spending and tax decisions that need to be taken.

Yeah, right.

Nick won't, I guarantee, allow you and me—the actual voters—to take those decisions by, say, giving us our money back. Oh no.

No, when Clegg says that he wants to treat the voters "like grown-ups", what he actually means is that he would like the voters to elect the LibDems so that the LibDems can make those terribly difficult decisions for us.

We voters, you see, are far too fucking stupid and child-like to make our own decisions: we are far too ignorant and feckless to use our money as we see fit.

We need to elect the LibDems, who will assure us that we are being treated like "like grown-ups", whilst they ensure—as is the case with Conservatives and Labour—that we are kept as far away from making decisions as is humanly possible.

The LibDems: just another patronising party of holier-than-thou cunts.

Fuck off, Clegg, you wanker, and take your mealy-mouthed shit-eaters with you.

At last, some good news!

Is it just me, or is this absolutely fucking hilarious?

Labour’s cash-strapped party machine is quietly abandoning up to 60 vulnerable seats to divert resources to defend constituencies in its heartlands, according to MPs.

It is the first sign that some senior Labour figures accept that defeat is inevitable and are switching resources to defend seats with larger majorities to prevent a rout next year.

Plans for targeted mailshots in marginal seats have been scaled back dramatically because of a lack of resources. Some MPs say Labour’s HQ is refusing to help seats with majorities of less than 3,000 — about 60 — as it retrenches in the face of the Tory advance.

A member of the National Executive Committee denied that it had set a bar but acknowledged that the party was being forced to make “difficult decisions” about which seats to defend.

Aaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahaha! Ah haha hah ha. Ha.

Although it has fended off bankruptcy Labour’s national party remains in a precarious financial position.

In the past year the party has “raised” £18 million compared with the Conservatives’ £25 million. However, £2 million was a loan converted to a donation and £15 million is in borrowing and credit facilities.

Oh dear, oh dear: what a pity, how sad.

On a less amusing note, Labour's financial problems are indicative of how they have run the country—as Charlotte Gore pointed out a few days ago.

A pet theory of mine, as yet untested, is that the way parties run themselves internally is probably one of the best indicators we have about what a Government run by that party will be like. I base this on the idea that parties can run their parties however they like so, in effect, it exposes how they view authority, organisation, hierarchy, democracy etc. In addition we can see how they manage their communications, how they manage their own internal processes in drawing up policies, making announcements and finally—and crucially—we can see how they run their finances.

Is it reasonable to believe that an undemocratic, highly centralised, tightly disciplined party with strict processes and chains of command and rules about what people can and can’t say to whom would somehow then produce a decentralised, open, democratic government that values civil liberties? The very idea seems absurd, and in practice—in reality—Labour’s approach to Government appears to mirror their approach to their own internal organisation.

More relevant and important—can you believe that a party with a well documented “spend now, worry later—nothing must get in the way of winning” reckless, scorched earth attitude to funding election campaigns, landing them in serious debt would run the public finances with prudence, care and diligence?

Time has told on this one—Labour have run the public finances with the same ‘whatever it takes to win’ attitude, and has left our public finances mirroring their own.

Quite. And, like the country, Labour are not quite bankrupt—not yet. But you can bet that it is getting more and more expensive to service their debts.

Why would you trust the morally-bankrupt leader of a near financially-bankrupt party to run your country—and your life?

To coin an old phrase, would you buy a used car off Gordon Brown? No? Then why, in the name of all that's unholy, would you vote for the cunt?

P.S. It's worth noting (last I heard, anyway) that all of the Big Three parties are in considerable amounts of debt. The Tories and the LibDims aren't in quite the same position as Labour, but I wouldn't expect either of them to run the public finances particularly responsibly...

Lynne Featherstone: liberal, no. Moron, yes.

Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone is most certainly not a liberal. Today she is wittering on about the hideous intrusions into the lives of home-schoolers—and, incredibly—trying to justify them. [Emphasis mine.]

So–a really interesting conundrum–where everyone is trying to do their best by the children - but the state feels it isn't safe to leave them to their parents alone and the parents think the state should butt out.

No, Lynne, there is no fucking conundrum here. At all. As Bishop Hill points out most eloquently...

You see, this kind of issue is easy for a liberal. This is first principles stuff: the state needs to prove reasonable grounds before it can enter someone's home; it has to get a warrant first; you are innocent until proven guilty. That kind of thing.

These are simple concepts that have been the bedrock of British freedoms for centuries. These are fundamentals. I'm therefore struggling with the idea of a Liberal Democrat MP–a Liberal Democrat MP–in a quandry over whether warrantless searches should be permitted or not. Imagine that–an MP who declares themselves a liberal can't work out whether a fundamental civil liberty, fought and died for over the centuries, is a good thing or not!

His Ecclesiastical Eminence then asks the same question that we all do...

What is the point of the Liberal Democrats if not to speak up for liberalism?

Good fucking question.

The illiberality continues...

Your humble Devil cannot even really summon up any anger at this entirely predictable development—only a sense of weary resignation.

Ban on drinking in the street: Entire towns and cities to become public alcohol-free zones

Drinking in streets and parks will be banned in a fightback against 'Binge Britain'.

Look, my smokey colleague has endlessly highlighted the fact that the British population is drinking less than twenty years ago—not more. So where the fuck is this 'Binge Britain' narrative coming from? Apart from the fucking Mail itself, I mean.

Town halls are drafting new laws to introduce the first blanket bans on public drinking applying to entire towns.

Why the fuck do these authoritarian cunts think that it is in any way acceptable (and I grow tired of repeating this) to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty?

I am starting to suspect that it is because our government is one that recognises no innocents—everyone is guilty of something and should be punished.

The move comes after Labour finally admitted that the 24-hour drinking it introduced—which the Mail campaigned against—was 'not working'.

I'm sorry but how, precisely, does one say that a law that allows pubs to open for 24 hours, if they wish to, is not working? How the fuck? Sure, drink-induced violence has not dropped, but it hasn't risen either, but so what?

Nottingham intends to be the first city to implement the ban. It is taking advantage of new legislation which, for the first time, will allow bylaws to be passed without needing approval by a Cabinet minister.

Nottingham said other town halls were also keen to introduce blanket bans - potentially outlawing street drinking across huge swathes of the country.

Council leader Jon Collins said: 'People understand clear messages. There's no confusion in alcohol-free zones. I do not think it's a civil liberties issue. It's about saying we do not want people drinking in the street.'

Of course it's a civil liberties issue, you disgusting little shit: how could it not be? You are removing people's freedom to do what they like, where they like, as long as they harm no one else! It is most definitely a civil liberties issue, no matter what you might "think" about it, Jon.

And who is this "we", Paleface? You and your fellow councillors? Were you elected on such a pledge? I bet you weren't. Have you actually asked anyone? I bet you haven't.

I don't care what your personal fucking morals or opinions are, Jon: you have no moral authority to force people to live under the tyranny of your personal mores.

If people are fighting in the streets, as you claim, or being drunk and disorderly then get your lazy fucking police force to arrest them—and then leave everyone else the fuck alone.

Do you see, Jon? The way that society is supposed to work is that you punish the guilty and you leave the innocent to go about their law-abiding business, you cunt.

Oh, and just in case you were still clinging to the delusion that the Tories are going to be any better, some twat from Spam's front bench weighs in...

The Tories backed Nottingham and said it was 'absolutely right' they should get tough on binge drinking on the streets.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'We've also got to deal with the huge flaws in our licensing system and in particular with the proliferation of late night offlicences which are adding to the very real problem of drink and anti-social behaviour.'

Take note, Jackart and others: these bastards are going to be just as bad as NuLabour.

What a choice we have next year, eh? What do you think—will you vote for the Blue viciously-statist, endemically-corrupt authoritarians, the Yellow viciously-statist, endemically-corrupt authoritarians or the Red viciously-statist, endemically-corrupt authoritarians?

Whichever one of these hideous collection of cunts gets in next year, will the last free man in Britain please turn out the lights...

Fucking hellski.

UPDATE: Leg-Iron is typically excellent on this too.

Fuck me—I am so tired of being pushed around by totalitarian scum. Does anyone else feel the same...?

LPUK Press Release: Gavin Webb crosses the floor

COUNCILLOR GAVIN WEBB OF STOKE ON TRENT CITY COUNCIL RESIGNS FROM THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AND JOINS THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY (LPUK)

Gavin Webb, who was selected as the Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Burton in 2008 and elected as a Lib Dem councillor on Stoke-on-Trent City Council in 2007, has today announced that he has resigned from the Liberal Democrats.

He says:

"I have made a good many friends in my fourteen years of activism in the Liberal Democrats and I hope that those friendships will continue, but regretfully I have decided to resign from the Liberal Democrats.

"The party, like the Conservative and Labour parties, has become a party of the establishment.  It has unfortunately firmly wedded itself to the belief that there are primarily government solutions to the problems facing our country, and in the process, they are adopting policies that undermine our rights and freedoms as individuals.

"As far as I can see, most political parties in the UK appear to trust individuals when it comes to voting for councillors, MPs and MEPs, but once comfortably in power they are reluctant to trust individuals when it comes to them making choices about their own lives.

"There is however one political party—the Libertarian Party—that believes in giving responsibility back to individuals over their own lives and their own finances; and it is this party that I have now decided to join.

"We are on the road of authoritarianism, where government is our ruler rather than us being the ruler of our government. It is time for each and every single one of us to make a stand against government and those who feed off it, and demand the reduction of its size and scope.

"From what I've seen from many Lib Dem parliamentarians and councillors I don't believe the Liberal Democrat Party has the inclination to argue for smaller government in defence of our individual rights.

"Though there are some good classical liberal and libertarian types in the party, with whom I hope to continue to have a good relationship, their voices are crowded out by people who believe it perfectly okay to dictate to people how they should live their lives. I don't wish any longer to be a part of that.

"As an active member of the Libertarian Party, I will campaign to inform people that there are more voluntary, rather than coercive ways in which to influence positive outcomes for themselves, their families and the wider community.  I hope to impress upon people that though there may be a need for government of some sort, it doesn't have to be government of the size and expense we see today.

Libertarian Party Leader Ian Parker-Joseph said:

"It has been a pleasure over the past months to speak with Gavin on numerous occasions, and following a meeting with him last month can attest to his personal commitment to the libertarian values on which he was elected, a man of honour, integrity and a passion for doing the right thing for his constituents.

"I am therefore very pleased on behalf of The Libertarian Party to welcome Gavin Webb into the only party that wholly and uniquely stands for libertarian ideals in the UK.

"I know that there is a great sadness from Gavin that the Liberal Democrat leadership were unable to rise to the challenge of veering away from the belief that the State has the answers to all our ills.  It is a sadness shared by many.

"In that light I hope that there are many more who now see the time as right to make the same changes that Gavin Webb has undertaken, not just from the Lib Dems but also those in the Conservative Libertarian wing who are unsuccessfully looking for reforms that will never come, and instead to look to a party that believes in libertarianism as a way of life, rather than one which merely gives lip service to it.

"The Libertarian Party is here to stay, and new members such as Gavin Webb can only enhance the message that his constituents so clearly wanted to hear, and that Gavin Webb is living on their behalf."

Libertarian Party Chairman Andrew Withers said:

"Whilst we have a number of Parish and Town Councillors, Gavin is the first City Councillor that has crossed the floor to a truly Radical Party, one that wants to change the relationship between State and the Individual to the point where the State is subordinate to the will of the people, not the people subordinate to the will of the State. 

"Furthermore, the Libertarian Party argues that State should be small and accountable.

"We welcome Gavin, and hope that his decision will galvanise other Libertarians in other parties to join with us on the long march back to individual Liberty."

Gavin has been a stoutly libertarian—and often controversial—figure. It is good to see that Gavin does have the courage to declare, publically, that his convictions lie other than with the LibDems.

There are many LibDems who are fundamentally libertarian and they have not been well-served by their leadership—in a number of ways (I'm looking at you in paticular, Lord Rennard. Amongst others).

I do hope that Gavin's example may galvanise other libertarians into realising that the Establishment parties have no interest in doing anything other than tinkering at the edges of the status quo—the Big Three will never serve the interests of libertarians.

As the parties collude with their fake charities and corporatist interests—picking the pockets of hard-working people so that they might use that same money to conspire against the interests of those same individuals whose power they have usurped—it is time for libertarians to take a stand—I, personally, am glad that Gavin Webb has had the courage to do so.

The Libertarian Party UK now has over a thousand members—why not join us?

... and now Darling's at it too.

Yes, the man who is in charge of the public finances, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has also been deliberately defrauding the taxpayer. Whilst the Treasury and HMRC hound the people of Britain for every last penny in tax, the man nominally in charge has been using his position as an MP to steal from those same taxpayers.

Alistair Darling's Commons expenses are under scrutiny after it emerged that he has lavished £70,000 on his family home in Edinburgh.

The Chancellor claimed thousands of pounds in taxpayer-funded mortgage payments, household bills and goods by classing the £1.2million townhouse as his ‘second home'.

Before he became Chancellor, Mr Darling claimed that a small London flat - worth only around £150-a-week in rent - was his 'main home'.
...

Before becoming Chancellor in 2007, Mr Darling lodged with Labour Lord Lewis Moonie in a flat in south London.

Mr Darling, 55, lived at the understated £260,000 property in Lambeth from around 2003 until January 2005. According to Commons rules at the time, Mr Darling listed the flat as his 'main' home.

This enabled him to claim a total of £45,954 on his 'second home' - the family home he bought with his wife Maggie in 1998 for £570,000.

The large imposing building in the heart of Edinburgh’s most desirable areas is now estimated to be worth £1.2million.

Even after the Commons rules changed in 2004, he continued to claim that his flat share in London was his 'main home'.

In 2004/05, he claimed a further £15,341 to spend on his Scottish home. The next financial year he claimed a further £19,436 in second home allowance.

Over a five year period, the Chancellor claimed around £70,000 in second home allowance on his Edinburgh home.

Designating which home is your ‘main’ and ‘second’ residence can allow MPs to claim higher sums in expenses.

If Mr Darling had designated his Edinburgh family home as his main residence, he would only have been able to claim the potentially lucrative second home allowance for the rooms he rented in London.

This could have limited him to claiming only for rent, and the share of any bills.

However, the generous second home allowance — currently set at a tax-free £24,006 a year — can provide much bigger claims on larger, family properties.

They include the interest on any mortgage repayments, including mortgage interest payments increases on extra loans to pay for improvements or extensions.

They also include utility charges for heat, light and water, council tax, phone bills, maintenance and decoration.

Your humble Devil has not failed to notice the Tories' reticence in attacking Jacqui Smith for her disgusting behaviour, and I am pretty sure that they will keep schtum as far as Darling is concerned too. Why?

Because they are all at it. They are all buying second homes with our money; they are all using our money to redecorate and make improvements; they are all shovelling our hard-earned cash into their pockets just as quickly as they can.

It has to stop. We have tolerated MPs' perks up until now, because we hoped that they could be trusted not to abuse the system. But it seems that they cannot be trusted and so they should lose these privileges.

Because these are not expenses: they are benefits in kind. If your work were to buy you a second home, then you would be taxed on it; it is not necessary for you to have that home, it is not an expense incurred in carrying out your job.

Whilst I can claim back expenses when I go to visit a client, I cannot claim the money that I expend travelling to work: that would be a benefit in kind, and thus taxable.

Were you or your employer to try to conceal these benefits from the government's tax-collecting agents, you would be taken to court. How very different it is for our lords and masters: it is, in fact, almost the very definition of the concept of "one rule for us and another for them". Our rules dictate that we are taxed on benefits; they, on the other hand, have an exemption.

And not only have they got an exemption from taxation on such benefits, they are abusing the system to the very hilt. It is disgusting, absolutely fucking disgusting.

And there is only one solution: prosecution. Until these fuckers realise that defrauding the taxpayer can land them in a jail cell, being ritually and roughly sodomised, on a daily basis, by Big-Cocked Bubba The Phantom Bugger, they will continue to steal our money, abuse our trust and drag the reputation of our Parliament through the fucking dirt.

Perhaps we should start a campaign: I, for one, would like to hear a tape of Darling being called "darling" by a sex-starved, giant-cocked convict who has already used up his monthly lube ration...

Lib Dem look-alikes

So Jenny Randerson has thrown her hat into the ring, challenging Kirsty Williams for the leadership of the Welsh Liberal Democrats.

In a contest like this one (ie a Lib Dem one), there's no point asking about the candidates' policies. Lib Dems, after all, will promise anything and everything to anyone and everyone. Instead, let's concentrate on what they look like. Or rather, who they look like.

According to this website which allows users to find out which celebrities they resemble, Kirsty is a 76% ringer for Rachel McAdams, 73% similar to Michelle Pfeiffer, 72% alike to LeeAnn Rimes, 71% akin to Miriam Yeung, a 70% doppelganger of Holly Marie Combs and Liza Minelli, 68% similar to Judy Garland, and a 67% look-alike of Jane Birkin, Mischa Barton and Amanda Seyfried.

Jenny on the other hand is 73% Judi Dench, 54% Ruth Rendell, 52% Barbara Walters and 48% Kathleen Turner.

This is just about as interesting as the Welsh Lib Dem leadership contest is going to get.

Posted originally on ORDOVICIUS

Cicero's Wrongs

The author of this post is not The Devil's Kitchen

Cicero is widely believed to have been one of the greatest thinkers of ancient Rome. However, if his latest post is anything to go by, the Liberal Democrat blogger going by that handle falls far short of living up to his name!

The post attacks Telegraph journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who wrote a story for last Friday's paper suggesting that some Germans are rejecting Euro banknotes from certain countries, and preferring German Euros.

Ordinary Germans have begun to reject euro bank notes with serial numbers from Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal, raising concerns that public support for monetary union may be waning in the eurozone's anchor country.

In the article, Evans-Pritchard cited the source for this story as being the German financial newspaper Handelsblatt. Despite this, Cicero complained that he could find "no other reference" to the story, and suggested that Evans-Pritchard had, in effect, made it up.

In an update to his post, Cicero went even further:

UPDATE: I have continued to look, and there is no evidence at all, nor any source for Ambrose Evans Pritchard's story.

It is fiction, plain and simple.

This is a disgrace, and shows the depths that the anti Europeans are prepared to go to spread completely untrue stories.

Well, Cicero can't have tried very hard to find it. The source was, after all, mentioned in the article. Perhaps because it was (unsurprisingly enough) in German, a swift Google didn't pick it up - but it took me just a couple of minutes to dig up the story on the relevant newspaper's website. Did it not occur to him that a story about Germany might be in German?

Roughly translated, part of the linked article from Handelsblatt reads:

Bankers report that once in a while customers make an unusual request. When taking out cash they ask for the notes with German markings...

Cicero, if you are reading this, your post regarding Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is disgraceful. I can only assume you were so eager to land a punch on a Eurosceptic that honesty took a back seat. To accuse a journalist of peddling fiction on the basis of what has clearly been no research whatsoever is contemptible.

Novocaine for the soul

One of the people who signed the awful, evil Early Day Motion praising Castro was LibDem Paul Holmes, who has elaborated upon his admiration for the dictator.

Among the Lefties who signed a Commons motion paying tribute to dictator Fidel Castro was Lib Dem Paul Holmes.

"It is true Cuba has political prisoners and no free elections," said Holmes, "but it has very good dentistry."

Paul Holmes, I might remind you, is a Liberal Democrat MP: apparently the words "liberal" and "democrat" mean nothing, unless you have good dentistry (and even that is a lie if you are an ordinary Cuban).

England Expects has written a letter to Nick Clegg: perhaps you should too. Oh, and if you voted for Holmes, might I recommend that you either kill yourself, fuck off to Cuba. Forever.

Climate change debate: hotting up

Being a vain man, your humble Devil does love to be praised but, more even than that, he just loves being fucking right. And your humble Devil is going to be proven absolutely correct on this whole anthropogenic climate change nonsense.

EU Referendum happily sums up some of the more recent stories.

"Polar bears set to join US at-risk list", says The Sunday Times - despite an increase in population from from about 10,000 in the 1970s to 25,000 today.

This, ostensibly, is on the back of a US Geological Survey prediction that it will fall by two-thirds by 2050 "if the Arctic ice where the animals live continues to shrink". But the real story is about environmentalists using concern for these animals as a means of blocking oil and gas exploration rights off the Alaskan coast. To that extent, polar bears are to American Greenies as newts are to ours - an excuse to close down vital development, irrespective of the consequences.

This is interesting because, as Global Warming Politics notes, many polar bears are starting to encroach on human populations because there is too much sea ice.

Apparently, according to a report [...], Svend Erik Hendriksen, a certified weather observer in the Kangerlussuaq Greenland MET Office, who is responsible for all the weather observations at Kangerlussuaq Airport (near to Sisimiut), says that the cause is too much sea ice:

“Several polar bears located (at least 6) close to Sisimiut town on the West coast ...Too much sea ice, so they are very hungry...Error number 36 in the movie An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore says the polar bear need more ice to survive... Now we have a lot of ice, but the polar bear is starving and find their food at the garbage dumps in towns. It's also influence the local community, polar bear alerts, keep kids away from the schools and so on.... The first one was shot at February 1st.”

Indeed, far from the Greenland ice-sheet melting, it is at immensely high levels (hence the encroachment of the bears).

The ice between Canada and southwestern Greenland has reached its highest level in 15 years.

Minus 30 degrees Celsius. That's how cold it's been in large parts of western Greenland where the population has been bundling up in hats and scarves. At the same time, Denmark's Meteorological Institute states that the ice between Canada and southwest Greenland right now has reached its greatest extent in 15 years.

'Satellite pictures show that the ice expansion has extended farther south this year. In fact, it's a bit past the Nuuk area. We have to go back 15 years to find ice expansion so far south. On the eastern coast it hasn't been colder than normal, but there has been a good amount of snow.'

Coupled with record ice thickness in Antartica, I really cannot see any of Al Gore's ridiculous assertions even coming anywhere near being true: we certainly aren't looking at a rise in sea level of 20 metres, as claimed in An Inconvenient Truth.

And what might be the cause of all of this cold weather? Well, once more we turn to EU Referendum, who have highlighted a few problems with that big, old ball of fusion in the sky.

Invisible sun?

... you have the whatsupwiththat site telling us that the sun has gone quiet. Really quiet. There is almost no significant solar activity - we've seen months and months of next to nothing, and the start of Solar cycle 24 seems to have materialised then abruptly disappeared.

Given the current quietness of the sun and its magnetic field, combined with the late start to cycle 24 with even possibly a false start, it appears that the sun has slowed its internal dynamo to a similar level such as was seen during the Dalton Minimum.

No wonder there is so much talk recently about global cooling. Some say it is no coincidence that 2008 has seen a drop in global temperature compared to 2007.

Naturally, the "climate experts"—no doubt fearing for their research grants—are becoming a little desperate, informing us that this cold snap won't last and, even if it did, it's caused by AGW anyway so, please, don't take our money away—pretty please.

In the meantime, all of this seems to have rather passed by our politicians, who are still eagerly dreaming up new ways to curb our lives and destroy our economy. The lastest piece of stupid, knee-jerk authoritarianism is from Phil Woolas, to whom I have not turned my attention before but who obviously deserves a fucking kicking of the very hardest and most sustained type.

Drinking bottled water should be made as unfashionable as smoking, according to a government adviser.

"We have to make people think that it's unfashionable just as we have with smoking. We need a similar campaign to convince people that this is wrong," said Tim Lang, the Government's naural resources commissioner.

Phil Woolas, the environment minister, added that the amount of money spent on mineral water "borders on being morally unacceptable".

Do politicians seriously lack such self-knowledge? That any politician might lecture anyone else on morality is, frankly, hypocrisy of the very first (bottled) water. That any politician should attempt to force his personal morality onto everyone else is merely indicative of the evil inherent in this statist government.

And don't even get me started on Prince Charles; I'll turn you over to Harry Haddock for a suitable rant.

One of the alleged benefits of the Monarchy is that they provide a non-partisan head of state, aloof from the tribal nature of politics. To achieve this aim, and thus to be held in reverence as a monarch, they need to steer clear of making political statements.

A case in point is the fuss over UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who refused to stand and clap Prince Charles after he gave a speech in Brussels. By making a political statement, one cannot stand and applaud if you disagree, or you are a hypocrite. By being partisan, you can no longer be held in reverence as a monarch (to be), lest you are arguing a return to a feudal system where the King has his say and no discussion can take place.

Quite so. Still, where one stupid heir to the throne can look like a jug-eared arsehole, there is always a LibDem waiting in the wings to make even more of a tit of himself.

UKIP seem to have shot themselves in the foot (again) today by refusing to stand at the end of Prince Charles speech to British MEP's [sic] in Brussels.

Apparently UKIP's refusal to stand was because the Prince was apparently advocating a widening of EU powers. UKIP apparnelty [sic] missed that this was in order to protect the environment, but hey, to hell with the environment, UKIP care little for that.

I should point out that I will often correct spelling mistakes in pieces that I quote; I have highlighted this spelling mistake and the egregious misuse of an apostrophe because Nich Starling is, according to his profile, a teacher.

Unfortunately, he is also a fucking idiot who is, apparently, unable to see that it is utterly inappropriate for the heir to a constitutional monarchy to get involved in politics. It is certainly inappropriate for the heir to the throne of Great Britain to demand that this country cede yet more powers to an unelected bureaucracy in a foreign country.

Still, maybe Nich and Charles could start a double-act: perhaps they could call themselves The Totally Fucking Ignorant Duo?

And, in the meantime, whilst the Green religionists bury their heads in the ample amounts of snow— when they aren't planning a totalitarian regime, that is—the death toll continues to spiral in China, Aghanistan, Iraq and many other places, as the snow continues to fall.

Global warming—my big, red, pointy-tailed arse...!

Proportionately stupid

James Cleverly points out that the LibDims don't seem to know what the hell they want. No changes there, then.

Annabel Goldie, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has won a number of major consessions in return for supporting the SNP's budget.
...

The thing which strikes me is the Lib Dem reaction to these negotiations. They are calling it "back room dealings" and seem genuinely upset that a minority party (us) are negotiating with the government (SNP).

Well that is how PR government works! If you don't like it, stop calling for it.

I'm not sure why this should come as a surprise.

LibDim policy is made on one principle and one principle alone: what will gain us any measure of power? This attitude is well-known in campaigning circles, where the LibDim candidates will switch policies depending on what they think their audience wants to hear. This is why the other parties loathe LibDim campaigners.

The LibDims are simply irritated that it is the Scottish Conservatives who the SNP have decided to treat with, and not the LibDims.

What is the point of PMQs?

Via ConservativeHome, here's a brief Sky precis of a section of PMQs.

Mr Brown then began listing Government achievements in education, and their plans to keep children in education until 18, before saying that a decision would be taken on A-levels in 2012.

That is not an answer. I want them to stay, does the PM? shouted the Opposition leader.

Do you believe in education till 18? the PM responded.

Do you want A-levels in the long term? asked Cameron.

Do you believe in education till 18? said the PM.

Why won't you give me a straight answer?! from DC.

It's somewhat strange, I thought that the point was that the Prime Minister answered some damn questions, not ask them.

Before this, Cameron's first question was to do with the government's reviews: after the Monocular Fuckwit's lack of answer, Cameron then pointed out there had been 52 reviews—fifty-fucking-two!—since Brown took over.

The Gobblin' King then pointed out that NuLabour had created 3 million jobs. No, you fucking haven't, you cunt. Private businesses create the jobs in spite of your high-taxing fucking government, you fucking little shit.

Good question on the "surveillance state" by Clegg though.

As usual, Brown dodged it. Whilst Clegg asked why we do not remove the DNA of innocent people from the police database, Brown concentrated on surveillance cameras.

God, but I hate that monocular cunt so very, very much.

UPDATE: via Timmy, this Coffee House piece is an excellent assessment of the meat (such as there was) of today's PMQs.

When they didn’t mention MPs expenses last week, it was odd. This time it was downright embarrassing – and adds to the impression that they all have something to hide. Which, of course, they all do.

Yes, they do. The dishonest little shits.

Brown finished off in a mess, He claimed that he was going to give every child the “right” to education until 18 and claims that’s the “biggest change to the education system in 60 years”. In his dreams. This “right” already exists: he wants to force them to stay in school to 18.

Yes, I noticed this too.

Clegg had a new angry facial expression, and a good LibDem theme – the surveillance state and bugging MPs. “Only 1,500 intercepts have been commissioned by ministers” – only? Clegg could have hit back here. Added to the 253,000 data requests made by police and 1,088 people spied on in “error” it’s some total. All the ammo is here (pdf) from the Interception of Communications Commissioner. Clegg should memorise it, and have another go at this ripe subject next time. He must learn to do a second question on the hoof, and turning Brown’s statistics back onto him.

Quite. And is it just me but isn't this an outright lie by Brown? Why does no one call him on it?

You know, I would like to be an MP simply so I that could call Brown "a miserable fucking liar." Yes, I might get banned from the House for a while, but it'd be worth it. In fact, calling Brown a miserable fucking liar might actually be the best thing that has been done under that roof for a century.

No PMQs next week, due to recess. Which is a good thing. I came across a copy of The Spectator from 1868 the other day and the political column opened saying “Parliament is taking a long-overdue recess. Politicians are tired, and so are the public.” Five weeks into the new year, and I fully agree.

Agreed. I fucking hate them all.

Anyway, go and read the whole thing.