stuff

April 15th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

Margret Thatcher was a important leader. She won three general elections and completely changed the political, industrial, financial and, some may say the social, landscape of the country. She also had a big influence within international affairs too. Whether all that was for the good or otherwise depends entirely on what colour tint the spectacles you’re currently wearing have – rose or shit.

Because of this, I don’t really begrudge her a big flashy funeral. For the right or wrong reasons, she was important. For some reason though, this little nugget from The Speaker, John Bercow, has irked me. It’s trivial, doesn’t cost anything but is a step too far… for some unfathomable reason.

The Speaker told MPs: “I have received a number of representations, direct and indirect, formal and informal, concerning how the house and parliament as an institution might best mark this occasion. I have considered all of these, but concluded that the most appropriate means of indicating our sentiments would be for the chimes of Big Ben and for the chimes of the Great Clock to be silent for the duration of the funeral proceedings.

“I have therefore made the necessary arrangements to achieve this. I believe that there can be a profound dignity and deep respect expressed in and through silence and I’m sure that the house will agree.”

I think the house is showing profound enough dignity and respect by spending fuck-loads of cash on a ceremonial funeral, one step down from the state funeral the Queen will get, in a time when people with bugger all are being told they’re on their own because the state has no cash.

Which brings me on to this little turd of a man, Francis Maude…

Maude told Radio 4’s Any Questions programme on Friday that reports that the funeral will cost £10m had mistakenly included the costs of police and soldiers who would be working anyway. “There are costs which are people doing their ordinary jobs which are costs which are being borne in any event. We have not hired more soldiers, we haven’t hired more police. There is no one who has been hired who would not be doing their ordinary jobs which they would not be doing in any event. We are not hiring more police.”

Maude wouldn’t let on how much the funeral is costing as he didn’t know. Apparently nobody knew, which is unusual as there would’ve been at least a rough plan, and so cost, prepared before Mrs Thatchers death. y’know, just in case.

To say that the soldiers and police costs shouldn’t be included in the final figure is ridiculous. It is weasly words to try and not admit the full cost. And it’s a pretty shitty attempt to minimise the shock if I can spot it.

Of course there won’t be anymore police or military hired for the event. You can’t draft in and train coppers and soldiers to a proper standard to be able to call them coppers and soldiers in about a week, like you could for private security firms.

In the statement above is Maude saying that all the coppers that will be policing the route the coffin will take will only be policed by coppers that would be on duty that day anyway? OK, cancel a few copper’s leave and there may be enough police to do the job, but there’ll be sod all police anywhere else in London. Is Maude saying that there will be no overtime paid? And if they are policing Thatchers’ funeral they are not doing their ‘ordinary’ job, which is a cost. The cost of policing of this funeral is not going to be covered in the bill for an ordinary days policing. That’s just fantasy.

As usual, it’s not the event itself that’s starting to piss me off, it’s all the shit that people come out with.

Nadine Dorries: Champion of Standards

January 3rd, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Nothing like upholding standards. If you start letting standards slide, god knows where we’ll end up.

Iain makes a point, a valid one, about Nadine Dorries sounding off about Catherine Tates’ Christmas special and it being inapropriate for a family audience, even though it was shown at 10:30 and was nothing unexpected from Catherine (so I’m told, I don’t actually think Catherine is funny, so didn’t watch).

But I think that Nadine should also keep to certain standards herself, like apologising for or retracting/correcting false accusations.
After all, if politicians can’t keep certain standards what hope has the rest of us?

Nick Robinson-Fuck Off

November 21st, 2007 § 0 comments § permalink

Re: The discs of personal information of 25 million people that the fuckwits in the government lost.

The Daily Politics 21/11/07

watch the video.

At 9:20 Andrew Neil asks Nick what the mood is in government.

Nick answers that it is glum, and after some preamble he say ‘but a senior figure in government said (and all this is paraphrased) ‘it’s not like Westland, or the Conservatives disaster in 92, with black Monday, the miners, ministers found in bed, corruption etc’, to which Nick adds, ‘and I think that’s right’

All those things that happened before never left 25,000,000 people open to identity theft, that’s a completly different scale to a little bit of corruption, or sticking the junior minister in the oppositions cabinet.

So just fuck right off, I’m trying to consolidate my labels and you’ve gone and made me add another now, just for you.

Afterthought: The Daily Politics is a daily show (obviously) so the link might not work after tomorrows show. If it doesn’t, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Update 22/11/07: Link disabled as the video it points to is the most recent one.

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