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And so on
I’ve just listened to Osborne’s Budget speech, and seen the embarrassing performance of the Shadow Chancellor, and the back-bench clowns on both sides. My interpretation is that there was stuff there to encourage both the aspirational and the least well off in our society. Here are the key points.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21851965
I’ve also just read some of Ed Milliband’s sound-bites. I’m not a card-carrying Tory, not any moe, but equally I’m not quite sure what’s so bad about putting 600,000 more jobs into the economy, or taking people out of tax, or helping employment by cutting the NI burden on small businesses.
Loss
Sad day in Gullane. I can’t speak about it yet, but I will, in time.
Taxi for McCluskey
The Minister for Truth
Way back in the 70s, just after the SNP had enjoyed its first significant success at a general election, two of its members were heard to joke that come the first Scottish government, one would be the Minister for Truth, and the other the Minister for Jails. John Herbert McCluskey QC must have been listening. He was Solicitor General then, a post he held for five years, without ever ascending to the higher office of Lord Advocate. Today, in his 80’s he’s a legal big gun of sorts. Unfortunately he seems to be loaded with grapeshot, to maximise the casualties.
If you have any interest in personal freedom, please read this, and applaud.
I suspect that Alex Salmond is too polite to tell Lord McCluskey to his face that his report on the shackling of the public press does a disservice to him and to every person on his panel. I can’t believe that he concurs with it. If these proposals were ever enacted, there would not be a single journalist in Scotland, and among their number I include online magazine proprietors and even bloggers like my not so humble self, who would be able to speak their mind without wondering when His Lordship’s heavy hand would bang on their door.
Eventually, we can expect much less draconian proposals to emerge from the Scottish Government, but I agree with Kenneth Roy. This terrible document should be repudiated at once.
Fibre-optic-al illusion
For everyone in Gullane. It seems we’re not going to get superfast broadband any time soon unless we ask for it. So, if you live in the EH31 2 postcode area, please go to this link
http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/
and register interest, even if you don’t want it.
If you don’t live here but know someone who does, please pass this to them.
Odds off
I believe that the Cheltenham Gold Cup was run today. That gives me a topical excuse to say something that’s been bothering me for a while now.
As a frequent watcher of TV sport, I am becoming more and more disturbed by the prevalence of betting ads and event sponsorship. Only the BBC is free from Kris Kamara and that fucking little Italian idiot. They’re on every commercial channel, along with those intellectually offensive Paddy Power ads, the unintelligible ravings of the guys in the William Hill commercials, the real Victor Chandler and his imaginary friend Maurice, the Liz Hurley re-modelled, liposuctioned and face-lifted Shane Warne encouraging us all to play poker, and, maybe worst of all, Ray Winstone, besmirching a fine acting career by putting on his best nasal Cockney, and thrusting ‘Live odds now!’ at us in every break. when I was a boy, off-course betting was legal, but only just. The bookie’s in Motherwell was known locally as ‘The Shovel’, a term that went back to the days and when it wasn’t, and the odds were chalked on the back of a shovel or something similar so that the evidence could be wiped off should the polis happen by. The internet has changed all that. It has liberated the gambling industry and given it free rein to pander to one of the most insidious of the seven deadly sins. Greed.
Don’t imagine this is simply a British phenomenon. Spanish TV football is also accompanied by its Bet365 ads, with their Winstone equivalent. Real Madrid’s shirt sponsor is an on-line bookie.
In British society, all forms of cigarette advertising are banned, and the promotion of alcohol is regulated, although not as tightly as once it was. Fags and booze are addictive and can be family wreckers. The same is true of gambling, yet we have reached a point where we seem to be celebrating it.
Not laughing
I am not ungenerous by nature, or so I like to think. I put my spare change in various collection boxes, and I make donations to good causes. Against that background, what I’m about to say now makes me feel guilty, but it’s true nonetheless; I don’t like telethon fund-raisers in general, and I positively dislike Comic Relief. No, it’s not simply because the awful Miranda Hart is usually all over it; fact is I’ve found it a turn-off for most of its 25 years. The concept of ‘Do something funny for money’ just doesn’t work for me. All they need to say is ‘Pledge a wedge’ and I will. I don’t need spoiled celebs shedding crocodile tears on the telly to make me aware that there are appalling things taking place in the same time zone as me, give or take an hour or two. Nor do I need them monopolising a whole evening’s telly doing things which are unlikely to bring me, and many other sentient people, even close to laughter.
No, I won’t give any more because Jack Dee and a few others go white-water rifting down the Zambesi rapids, but I won’t give any less either.
Alien spy in UK Cabinet!!!
Question. Which is the impostor?
Answer: The Sontaran is disguised in spectacles and a blue tie. The other one is Eric Pickles, MP.
Fitting the crime?
Before the judge pronounces ‘for doom’, a question. What will society gain by putting Chris Huhne and his woman scorned in jail, to be heated , fed and watered by the state for however long it is. Wouldn’t seriously exemplary fines be a better deal for the taxpayer, and as effective a punishment for them?
The blonde one is back
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21687897
Great news for us mature gentlemen.
Sons of Anarchy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21722377
When this point is reached, evil has won.
Question
If the Jordanian government were to drop all charges against Qatada, then could he be deported?
Greenhorns
One for Scottish visitors. Click on this link, read the page carefully and then work out why I will not be calling this company for advice.
http://www.greendealorb.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=132&assessor_id=93
Vince Jong-un
I had a breakfast brainwave this morning, while watching the news, headed by North Korea and the LibDem conference. Why not send Vince Cable to negotiate a treaty with Kim Jong-un?
However it wasn’t long before I saw the flaw in the idea. Given that in his time Vince has been a member of four political parties, he’d probably join him.
Holding out for a journo
I have just misread a headline on the BBC News home page. It said ‘Bonnie Tyler selected for Eurovision‘, but to my first fleeting glance it came across as ‘Brian Taylor selected for Eurovision‘.
For all I know, my good friend BBC Scotland’s Political Editor is a dab hand at the karaoke, but even if he’s tone deaf, he’d have a better chance of success in Malmo than our official entry.
Distraught
I’m still almost speechless after the twilight robbery at Old Trafford last night. The Champions League is meant to be the world’s premier football club competitionl, yet the probable outcome of last night’s match was changed by one decision by a man who would wind up being lynched refereeing in the Scottish Division Three. Anyone who has ever played football (Apart from Roy Keane whose alienation from Man U has developed into open bias) knows that the collision between the two players was completely accidental. It was completely mystifying . . . until I followed a link this morning that took me to the following
Okay, it’s the Daily Star, but even that newspaper has been known not to make things up from time to time. If that story is true, United have a case for going to UEFA and demanding a replay.
Buyer beware
I read this morning that 2,000 new claims are lodged every day for compensation in respect of improperly sold payment protection insurance. PPI has become a huge industry. It’s a dripping roast for ambulance chasing lawyers. It’s costing banks billions at the very time when they are supposed to be rebuilding after the crisis.
Why?
I have no trouble in accepting that in cases where borrowers were pressured aggressively or coerced into signing up for such insurance, payback is due. But in others, where the punters simply didn’t know that PPI was included in their package, I’m sceptical. I don’t see why people should be compensated for their own failure to read the small print. I did Latin at school; I know what caveat emptor means.
Why do I give a toss about this? Because I am seriously pissed off by unsolicited text messages from con-men telling me that I am due two or three grand in compensation for missold PPI when I know for sure that I have never had that sort of cover.
A sensible Westminster government would put a statutory time limits on PPI claims. Unfortunately we don’t have one.
Graven image
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21665179
I’m giving a lot away here, but what exactly is a ‘Justin Beiber’? I’m assuming that he’s some sort of living idol. if so, I prefer the inanimate sort. They don’t treat their followers with contempt, or rip them off for a few hundred of their hard earned bank-notes.
Stock Exchange Blues
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-21652353
Another couple of years of this, and it could be back to square one. Hope not.
Cardinal Sin
In the wake of the O’Brien affair, I may be splitting hairs here, but are priests allowed to have any sort of ‘sexual conduct’? Can we expect more compromised clerics to beat the gun and ‘fess up before potential accusers come forward? Or can we expect that the Catholic church will re-examine the discipline that it imposes on its ordained priests? Many of us will remember the scandal of Roddy Wright. Indeed I believe I met him once, at a family gathering. He was guilty of love; for that he was disgraced, and was lucky there was no tar or feathers handy. But what is the basis of priestly celibacy? It’s church law not God’s. It makes clergy stand apart from their congregations. I wonder if it might not be better if they stood closer to them, sharing all the situations of their everyday lives, so that they might better understand their problems?
Quintin Jardine's blog 