tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76332662362814551632024-02-19T15:20:42.671+00:00semi-coherenceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger115125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-74769737688062260052013-04-10T13:17:00.000+01:002013-04-10T13:17:44.397+01:00Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013My tribute to a great Prime Minister.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-81700602769126316212012-09-21T00:32:00.002+01:002012-09-21T09:43:08.460+01:00Uninspiring party politics isn't the only reason party membership is in freefallIn his article for Friday's Telegraph, Fraser Nelson repeats a previously-made claim that Britain is interested in being members of political causes, just not the main parties, using the following examples:
Britain is an intensely
political country, and there is no shortage of support (or donations) for
the right causes. Over the past two decades, while the Tory party’s
membership has Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-37331161215118153362012-06-01T13:34:00.000+01:002012-06-03T01:31:37.684+01:00The Whimpering Voice
Danny O'Donoghue in his Victorian busker years
I've been on a bit of a rollercoaster ride with The Voice UK. When it was first announced that the BBC had paid a mouth-watering £22 million for the rights to show what is technically a Dutch* import but ostensibly a US one (bidding for the UK version only came into life following the massive Stateside hit featuring Christina Aguilera), all that Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-55867406009024277712012-05-30T14:19:00.000+01:002012-06-03T01:31:54.988+01:00Where's the Beef?So the "Pasty Tax" U-Turn comes (or as I call it, the Sausage Roll). Rather too late to help the Tories through their little local election difficulties.
Paul Goodman has written a powerful piece giving a number of excellent reasons why the government shouldn't be u-turning - it would have raised much-needed revenue that the government will now have to find elsewhere, it makes ministers lookUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-74990649672530380362012-05-14T18:21:00.000+01:002012-06-03T01:32:02.162+01:00Stranger ThingsFor a long time now I have struggled in any kind of public situation. I feel especially uncomfortable in the presence of anyone I don't already know, usually regarding them with a degree of suspicion that pervades far beyond those initial encounters. This is a profound issue which has created all sorts of problems that have seriously hindered my life since childhood. On the other hand, one of my Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-65284447309683997422012-05-06T17:52:00.000+01:002012-06-03T01:32:13.417+01:00Mid-Term Blues: Ignore Them At Your Peril
Given Bruce Anderson's apparent proximity to Downing Street, this is an extremely depressing piece. If Labour had stuck their heads in the sand
about dreadful council results like this, complacently accepting their losses as "mid-term blues" rather than evidence of a wider problem, they wouldn't have adjusted their activities in order to win their
second or third terms, and they wouldn't Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-11358049051179039742012-04-15T16:46:00.001+01:002012-05-16T14:05:05.888+01:00Arm-Wrestling to HorrifyThe Cabin in the Woods is one of those films where the less
you know about it beforehand, the more you will get out of your first
viewing. (I’m not actually inclined to believe there is any other kind
of film, or any other kind of story-oriented experience – but it’s
particularly true in this case.) So if you haven’t already seen it –
stop reading at this point, and go and see it!
I’ll be Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-14867799190295300682012-04-10T23:47:00.001+01:002012-05-16T14:28:29.679+01:00Alan Moore on HardTalkThe BBC's interview with Alan Moore this week is surprisingly revealing for a mainstream news network. Moore is asked seriously probing questions of a sort that are rarely put to him: he is rigorously challenged about the more controversial elements in his work (particularly on whether Lost Girls constitutes child pornography), his own attitude towards the comics industry in general (and what he Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-83869720317920867812012-03-19T00:50:00.001+00:002012-06-03T01:32:29.229+01:00Quick response to Donal Blaney on wealth taxesJust in case this doesn't get through comment moderation.
The campaign that is being led by Big Government Conservatives for a wealth tax (be it in the form of higher council tax for larger homes or a property tax on homes worth over £2m) is distinctly unconservative.
No country has ever taxed itself into prosperity and no economy can properly grow if its wealth creators are strangled Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-53144036579929392512012-02-07T16:10:00.000+00:002012-09-19T16:12:45.665+01:00Selection of my Huffington Post articles
Jacob Rees-Mogg Wants Somerset Clocks Turned Back Fifteen Minutes
Chris Huhne's Political Career In Pictures
Rebels With A Cause: The Biggest House Of Lords Rebellions
Honours Controversies: The Big Names That Snubbed The Queen
MPs Call Scrap Metal Dealers 'Weak Link' In Railway Theft Crackdown
Lord Malloch-Brown Attacks Foreign Office For Not Forseeing Arab Spring
Britain's Best and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-82102972115675682002012-01-05T01:48:00.000+00:002012-06-03T01:32:35.510+01:00Not a follow-up to Iron Man
Should a film detailing Margaret Thatcher's dementia be released while she is still alive?
"The Iron Lady" seems, as a piece, to be making the point that the greatest minds succumb to the ravages of time. I can think of no worthier subject. By differentiating those points in her life so distinctly it becomes a portrayal that both strengthens her stature as a political icon and humanisesUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-41838944998804106012012-01-01T19:02:00.000+00:002012-06-03T01:32:49.309+01:00Comics I've Written
Decap Attack
Good Luck Chuck
Sonic the Hedgehog
The Elephant In The Room
Many Happy Returns
The Tale of Cream the Rabbit
Robotnikat's Sunday Funnies
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-4345859338522838412011-11-15T11:29:00.001+00:002012-06-03T01:33:07.747+01:00Riposte IIIs this a spoof?
Regarding your four reasons for trusting Cameron, Osborne and Hague:
I will concede that the first reason, that they have sound judgement. (Albeit, as Iain Martin reminded us yesterday, this sound judgement usually arises only after a three year delay.)
I suppose I cannot deny your second reason, that they are courageous. (The most feeble election campaign in history, the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-45057525284684098542011-11-14T15:08:00.001+00:002012-06-03T01:33:24.225+01:00A riposteBruce Anderson:
"In response to such an account of Mr Cameron's electoral difficulties, some of the belly-achers become positively Bennite. David Cameron lost because he was not offering proper Toryism. He should have campaigned on scrapping the 50p rate and no ring-fencing for the NHS. If that had been the Tory platform, it is just possible that Gordon Brown might still be Prime Minister."
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-26561205841321481882011-10-09T23:45:00.000+01:002012-06-03T01:33:37.332+01:00Squashed Easter Eggs
Don’t read this article unless you’ve seen the last three minutes of Doctor Who series 6 as reading this article would otherwise completely ruin all of it.
And indeed be sure to watch it first as nothing in this will otherwise make a lick of sense to you.
(Continued in full at Bleeding Cool.)
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-10849036835571513442011-10-06T23:16:00.002+01:002012-06-03T01:33:07.744+01:00The folly of talking about cuts
Why do politicians, journalists, lobbyists, activists and just about everyone talk about every kind of public spending alteration in the terms of "cuts" and "increases"? Totally in relativistic terms? I'm not even going to go into the debate about why these groups are relentlessly focussed on these inputs over what really matters, the outcomes. Why can't anyone in Britain have a genuine, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-78970452696282771012011-10-06T09:26:00.000+01:002012-06-03T01:33:07.749+01:00Cameron's speech
Photo by Nick Pickles
I think there's scope for saying that Cameron's speech as a whole, while not containing many passages about growth specifically, encapsulated what it actually takes for Britain's economy to grow. This was very much more a speech about the British public than it was the British government. And ultimately, it is the public that makes the economy run at all, not the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-27420722550842134232011-09-30T14:00:00.003+01:002011-10-01T14:03:01.371+01:00750words - the anti-TwitterIt's my birthday today. And almost like a new year's resolution, I've decided to make a point of making resolutions for my birthday and then sticking to them. So this, for example, would be one of them - writing 750 words every day.
Of course as of writing this I have only written 54 words and am concerned I may not be able to persist with it for a very long as the well runs dry. Still, it is Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-48708511245292199682011-09-23T14:11:00.005+01:002012-10-22T12:26:47.087+01:00Me on Question Time
My bit is midway through part 2, where I call Harriet Harman on something she said toward the end of part 1. I remember seeing her physically recoil like a jack-in-the-box! (The camera doesn't quite capture this.) Watch the whole thing through if you'd like to see it in context. You can see me gawping throughout.
Choice twitter comments (using the #bbcqt hashtag):
[<a href="Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-52242724842043820252011-09-14T01:21:00.002+01:002011-09-14T01:21:51.927+01:00George Osborne, 50p tax etcWestminster needs to stop looking at any 50p tax abolition as a tax cut and start looking at it as the end of a tax hike. At 40% high earners would still be paying a higher proportion of their income than everyone else and it is to Osborne's shame that he's never put it in these terms.
George Osborne is extremely wealthy and yet does not suffer from the 50% rate as his wealth is derived from Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-10155656746495696372011-05-25T00:01:00.004+01:002011-06-06T13:54:03.994+01:00X-Men First ClassMy semi-coherent advance review with Rich Johnston for Bleeding Cool.
Film out on 1 June 2011!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-32752648736182063542011-02-07T00:55:00.003+00:002011-02-07T01:25:58.768+00:0010 O'Clock LiveJust out of mindless curiosity I filled in a survey about Channel 4's new satirical offering, 10 O'Clock Live. (The survey at one point includes a revealing list of the show's regular contents, evidently cribbed from the run-sheet.) Unsurprisingly I got a bit carried away with the "additional feedback" form, which apparently is shared with Channel 4 executives. Given they are likely to balk at Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-37552882403620746602010-12-29T10:00:00.000+00:002010-12-30T21:13:14.835+00:00Dire StraightsThe Coalition government has appointed Simon Hughes to be its "Advocate for Access to Higher Education". This entails selling the recent tuition fees reforms to young people in order to encourage them to attend university.
Simon Hughes is, of course, a man who couldn't even persuade himself that these reforms are worthwhile enough to vote for them. He abstained.
This is surely the coalition's Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-39704551807582292612010-12-13T10:50:00.000+00:002010-12-13T10:50:13.093+00:00EMA protests kick offGood grief. Educational Maintenance Allowance was only introduced a couple of years ago. And now it's seemingly introduced teenagers to welfare dependency. These protesters need to get a grip. Bribing these youngsters won't educate them, if they had any interest in further study they would just go anyway. Anyone who's attending college purely to receive EMA is just having their time wasted by theUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7633266236281455163.post-25793814818202001622010-11-10T21:30:00.002+00:002012-06-03T00:57:46.020+01:00Demo-lition!It's been fascinating to watch the news all day. We saw people smashing up windows and the reception area to the 30 Millbank building (or was it Millbank Tower, the journalists couldn't quite make their minds up) - all in the name of protesting against increased student fees (although oddly I don't recall anyone doing anything like this when Labour introduced them in the first place, nor when Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1