Just a reminder on the Worst Labour minister of the year so far.
I’ll announce the results this weekend and maybe send a certificate to the winner.
Archive for June 2007
Restoring the trust in politics
The Tartan Taxman, Prime Minister-designate and all-round nice guy, wants to restore trust in politics. That’s what he said a couple of weeks ago. So why isn’t he jumping up and down demanding the heads of whoever has instructed the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) to shred documents rather than release them under the FOI Act?
An FOI request was put in for copies of “gateway review reports” on the ID Cards and NHS computer systems but the OGC refused to provide them. A tribunal ruled that the documents had to be released so the OGC are going to the High Court to try and keep them secret. Now Computer Weekly Online has been leaked details of instructions to civil servants at the OGC to destroy the reports rather than make them public.
The leaked memo says “You must securely dispose of the [final gateway] report and all supporting documents immediately after delivery of the final report”.
The OGC is part of the Treasury.
Hat-tip: An Englishmans Castle
Am I missing something here?
John Prescott has been admitted to hospital for … a chest infection.
Yep, a chest infection. His condition isn’t thought to be life threatening but he was taken into hospital after feeling a bit poorly.
I’ve had chest infections for years. I get them every time I get a cold. I once had a chest infection so bad that I couldn’t talk. Was I taken into hospital? Nope, I went to the doctors and they gave me a course of steroids. I didn’t even get a sick note – my boss ended up sending me home from work!
I’d vote for him
Boris Johnson was interviewed for GQ Magazine by Piers “Sleaze Monkey” Morgan and Iain Dale has posted an exceprt.
Can you imagine Boris Johnson as Prime Minister? Yes! Politicians take themselves and politics far too seriously sometimes – Boris would be a breath of fresh air and amazingly popular Prime Minister. He’s a walking diplomatic incident but how can anyone genuinely take offence at anything he says? The fact that he’s a bumbling idiot is irrelevant – the United States is (any I use the term very loosely here) lead by a man who signs his name with a wax crayon and whose grip on reality is so tenuous that he once declared “I believe the human beings and fish can coexist peacefully”. So Boris has had to apologise to not only individual people but an entire city (Liverpool) and a country (Papua New Guinea) – so what?
This is just absolutely priceless:
Piers: I don’t really buy this buffoon thing. I think you play it up all to make money and charm the public, when underneath it all lurks a calculating, ambitious and very serious brain.
Boris: That’s very kind of you but you must consider the possibility that underneath it all there really may lurk a genuine buffoon.
Brilliant! Love you Boris.
Gurkha War Hero can come to UK
Tul Bahadur Pun, the Gurkha war hero refused permission to live in the UK, will now be allowed to move here permanently and immediately.
Liam Byrne and John Reid, the Immigration Minister and Home Secretary respectively, both intervened to revise the decision made by jobsworth traitors at the British Embassy in Nepal to deny Tul Bahadur Pun the right to live in the UK.
What kind of a country are we living in when a soldier who faught for this country in the Second World War can only get into the UK with the help of a lawyer, public protest and two British government ministers but we quite happily wave through any economic migrant from the EU regardless of whether they speak English, have a job or have any useful skills?
Time Travelling
It appears New Liebour have inadvertently proved the theory of time travel by slowly moving us back to 1984.
There was a joke email doing the rounds a couple of years ago saying that the estate of George Orwell were sueing the Labour Party for breach of copyright. It was funny at the time but I think someone at Liebour HQ must have taken it seriously and thought they’d better get their money’s worth if they were going to get sued.
Children as young as ten are being asked to complete a questionaire on their school and home life. The questionaire asks if they feel safe at home and school – sensible questions because a child that feels unsafe needs help. The questionaire also asks if they drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes – a bit intrusive but children that drink alcohol or smoke need to stop before they do themselves damage. Nothing to Orwellian so far but it gets better.
Children are asked if their mother or step-mother does paid work and if they feel the statement “my parents and family look out for me” is true. Pupils aren’t asked for their names but they are asked for their postcode and many schools have introduced biometric devices for logging into school computers. Parental consent isn’t being sought for this questionaire but there is an obvious malpurpose for this questionaire – the information could be used by the DWP to try and identify benefit cheats and as much as I approve of them cracking down on fraudsters stealing our taxes, using children to spy on parents is wrong.
Hat-tip: PJC Journal
Scout chapel de-christianised
According to the Daily Mail, an open-air chapel at Belchamps Scout Centre in Essex has been cleansed of christian symbols to make it more inclusive.
The chapel was built in woodland by volunteers between the two world wars and has been used by Scouts, Brownies, Guides and even couples getting married, regardless of their religion. However, sandal-wearing, lentil eating lefties have decided that the wooden cross, pews and altar were offensive to other religions and didn’t encourage inclusion of non-christians so they’ve been demolished and replaced with a campfire.
Nigel Ruse, the manager of the Scout Centre, said “The updating of the chapel was done to turn it into a place of worship for all faiths and not to exclude any one from Scouting. This is a case of taking Scouting-forward.”
Part of the Scouts’ pledge is to do their duty to God. It doesn’t say which God and the women who has been holding services there for the last 7 years said “It’s a really special place. We all make a promise to do our duty to God, whatever God that may be.”
I’m not religious and I’ve never been a Scout but I find this offensive. This is a christian country. The Church of England is the state religion – it’s part of our constitution. One of the clauses of Magna Carta establishes the Church of England as the state religion of England and forbids any other religion holding the same status. Not only are the Scouts being offensively politically correct but they are sticking up two fingers at one of the oldest laws on our statute books. This is disrespectful to our heritage, to our constitution, to the majority who follow the christian faith and to followers of other religions who are assumed to be so narrow-minded as to take offence at symbols of the christian faith. Do these englightened, progressive cretins not realise that the Old Testament of the christian bible is a holy book for muslims and jews and that Jesus is one of their holy men?
