Archive for February 2010

Regionalisation putting lives at risk again

Yesterday I got a call from Mrs Sane who was out on the road asking me to phone the police for her and tell them that some clever person had lobbed a traffic cone off an island onto the dual carriageway below and that just after the cone was a broken down and the two were causing a danger.

I phoned West Mercia police and asked to be put through to the control room at Telford and they duly put me through to the communications centre in Worcester.  I explained which dual carriageway it was (the A442) in Telford and which interchange had the problem.

“Would you say it was Shifnal to Telford or Shifnal to Bridgnorth?”  Completely different bit of road, not a dual carriageway and miles away from where I said it was.  I explained, yet again, where it was and that it was only a quarter of the way from the police station and that the local police will know exactly where I’m talking about.

“What’s nearby, so I can tell them?” Arrrrgh! I told him to trust me, just to put down what I had told him and the local police who, as I’d just mentioned, were only a quarter of a mile away, would know where I was talking about.

He finally accepted it and after a couple of minutes taking my home address and phone number and asking me if I wanted a reference number for the call I managed to get him off the phone.  All in all it took me a good 10 minutes to report a dangerous obstruction on the main arterial route through a busy town at rush hour and all because it’s no longer possible to speak to your local police station thanks to pointless regionalisation of public services.

Say England, Gordon

The MP for Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath in Scotland standing in front of a British flag talking telling us his latest plan to balls up the English education system.

Brown Excellence In Education

Perverse.

And does No Mandate Brown mention the country he’s talking about once in his 30 minute election address speech? Of course not!  But he does talk about:

  • Teaching in Britain
  • National pride in our education system
  • Our country
  • Some that have concluded that Britain should follow the Swedish system
  • Our national challenge

In every place where you would expect the word “England” he said “this country” or “the country” or, bizarrely, “our country”.  What a wanker.

Twat of the Week: Gordon Brown

That’s right, he’s done it again.  Despite a strong performance from Herman van Rumpy-Pumpy, El Gordo managed to maintain a convincing lead from early on in the voting and finished up with 62% of the vote in a head-to-head contest with the Emperor of the European Commission.

No Mandate Brown was nominated for using the death of his daughter for political advantage on the Piers Morgan show and that, combined with his general twattishness, seems to have secured the award.

Gordon Brown, you are officially a twat.  Again.

Vote for English Votes on English Laws

Let’s get this straight right now – I do not support English Votes on English Laws.  It’s an insult to our nation and a constitutional fudge that is doomed to failure.

It is, however, a recognition of more than a decade of institutional discrimination against England at the hands of the British establishment and the need for English affairs to be managed by English politicians elected by, and accountable to, the people of England.  It will also inevitably lead to an English Parliament when the impracticality and inherent flaws in the system are shown up publicly.

To that end, I would encourage you to vote for the Power 2010 pledge on English Votes on English Laws.  It is currently in 4th place but it’s still too close for comfort.  Power 2010 and various other lobby groups associated with the Rowntree Trust will lobby every MP and PPC with the top 5 pledges as voted for by the public in the run-up to the election.

Twat of the Week Voting

A week late (still no reminders from the person who said he was going to remind me!) and here is the Twat of the Week voting for the last fortnight …

The first candidate, as ever, is El Presidente himself, Gordon “5 Pints” McBrown who was nominated by email for using his dead child for politicking.

The second candidate is Herman Van Rumpy-Pumpy, the President of the European Empire, for being an “Arrogant, unelected little mutant who acts like the heir to Caesar and Charlemagne. He looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book”.

A difficult choice between two very strong contestants this week.  On one hand there’s a gurning, ineffectual Scottish europhile and on the other hand there’s a gurning, ineffectual Belgian europhile.  It’s a tough one to call.

Where’s Wrighty?

Since the scum-sucking-pig-gate affair kicked off, David Wright MP has been a bit quiet not only on the Twitter front but I’m told his office telephone has been going unanswered when people are ringing for comments.

My spies tell me that David has been hauled over the coals but don’t worry, the Brownshirts haven’t sent him for “rehabilitation”, he’s been seen alive and well in the Cock Hotel in Wellington (no, that’s not a pun or a Freudian Slip).

I was sitting in the Cock last night having a quiet drink with a couple of fellow rabble rousers (one of which was the road pricing campaigner, Peter Roberts, but more on that later) when in wandered David Wright wearing a fetching Liebour-red jumper.  “I’ll get these” he said to his comrades (they’ll probably end up on his expenses as sundry items or subsistence allowance) then they had a good laugh about scum-sucking-climate-gate.

I did try to get a question or two for him out of some scum sucking pigs on Twitter but they were too slow and I had to leave so I wandered over, warned him that there was a hacker under his table and left as he had a laugh about it.

Scum Sucking Tories

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.  My MP (until May if he manages to hang on that long) David Wright has landed himself in a spot of bother with his inappropriate use of Twitter.  It was inevitable really, he’s been at it for some time now.

There’s been a bit of a tweetmeme going on throughout the day with people explaining why they’ve never voted Tory/Labour using #ivenevervotedtory and #ivenevervotedlabour hashtags.

But David Wright, a junior minister in the Treasury for a few years now, had to take it too far with the comment “#ivenevervotedtory because you can put lipstick on a scum-sucking pig, but it’s still a scum-sucking pig. And cos they would ruin Britain”.

I noticed the tweet earlier but I was out with my kids and so I didn’t make anything of it but it’s ok because Tory Radio noticed it and took a screenshot (above) and then Iain Dale picked up on it.

David deleted the tweet an hour after it was posted and apologised but then, bizarrely, subsequently claimed that his Twitter account had been tinkered with!  But here’s the funny thing: it’s exactly his normal style and exactly the sort of juvenile insult he comes out with aimed at the Tories all the time.

I’ve started favouriting some of his more interesting tweets such as this inciteful comment on George Osbourne in Parliament:

Georgey Porgey looks like he is holding in a big fart

Whether he looked like he was holding in a big fart I don’t know but is this an appropriate comment from an MP, let alone a Minister in the British government?  Since December he’s drunk-tweeted me, insulted me and even tried to intimidate me to stop me from asking him questions about Labour laundering taxpayers money through the unions to get state funding for the party and whether he’s a union-sponsored MP (he refuses to tell say).

But rather than take it on the chin after apologising, he quickly changed his story and said his Twitter account had been hacked.  Absolute nonsense if you ask me!  Iain Dale is now calling for support for the Tory PPC for David’s Telford constituency, Tom Biggins who already has a big advantage over David Wright in that he’s not Labour and he’s not David Wright but David does have some support still in the sinkhole housing estates that make up the bulk of his constituency.  I want David Wright out of office as much as the Tories do but I won’t be voting for Tom Biggins who’s been parachuted in from Whitchurch, still in the county but a good hours drive away.  I will be voting for – and actively supporting – the UKIP candidate, Councillor Denis Allen who has lived in Telford for years, has been a councillor in Telford for years, has served as Mayor of Wellington in Telford and is currently Deputy Mayor of Telford & Wrekin Borough.

I have a great deal of respect for David Wright for being an early adopter of Twitter amongst MPs and the fact that despite a mutual loathing he still talks to me on Twitter, even if trying to get him to answer a question is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.  But he really doesn’t help himself with his failure to understand what is and isn’t an acceptable thing to say and do as an MP.  Every day he tweets he says something inappropriate and people have warned him about his tweeting activities but he plods on regardless writing gaffe after gaffe and inevitably has attracted the attentions of the rabid Tory Twitterati and bloggers, some of whom have regular slots on national news channels and columns in newspapers, who will doubtless hound him until he resigns or something more exciting comes along.

David will be desperate for a proper politician to do something daft in the next day or two to take the heat off him, let’s hope they’re all on their best behaviour at least until the end of the week!

Bloggers4UKIP: Another cast iron guarantee from Devious Dave

According to ConservativeHome, “Cast Iron” Dave has given a cast iron guarantee that while he is Prime Minister the UK will never join the Euro.

Let’s hope this cast iron guarantee is more of a cast iron guarantee than the cast iron guarantee that we’d get a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Twat of the Week: Gordon Brown

The results of the second Twat of the Week vote of 2010 are in and it’s a predictable win for the One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan who, despite being nominated for no reason other reason than the fact that he’s Gordon Brown, still managed to secure 39% of the vote.

Thanks god this isn’t a general election!

Twat of the Week 08-02-2010

Remember to get your nominations in for this week’s Twat of the Week.  Either post your nomination, with a one-liner to explain why, in the comments or send your nomination by email.

Twat of the Week Voting

I should have posted this yesterday but I forgot again!  Time to cast your votes for this week’s Twat of the Week …

The nominations are:

  • John Terry – for cheating pale French on pale English
  • Gordon Brown for being Gordon Brown
  • David Cameron: Wussy toff of a political leader. He hasn’t done much to differentiate Tories from Labour and has no coherent or strong policies. Wants to emulate Obama instead of Thatcher
  • George Papandreou: Won’t leave the Euro, despite the pain his countrymen are feeling. Just another Euro-socialist waiting for trouble.
  • News of the World for trying to undermine the best England captain we had in a long time in world cup year.
  • The Sports Minister [John Sutcliffe] for putting pressure on the FA to sack the best captain we had in a long time, but said nothing when John Presscott shagged his secretary.
  • Prof Phil Jones for contributing to global warming by having his bum on fire.

Voting will close lunchtime tomorrow.

Bloggers4UKIP: Climate change religion is falling apart

A Populus poll conducted for BBC News has shown a marked increase in the number of people who don’t believe in the global warming climate change CO2 pollution religion.

Just 3 months ago 41% of people believed in man-made climate change, now only 26% believe.  38% believe that climate change is not proven to be man-made when 3 months ago only 32% held that opinion.  Three months ago 8% of people thought man-made climate change was environmentalist propaganda, that figure has now risen to 10%.

Worryingly, the number of people who think climate change is not happening at all has gone up from 15% three months ago to 25%.  I say worryingly because the climate is changing, just as it has for billions of years!

Overall, this is excellent news.  The wheels are falling off the global warming wagon as more and more people see through the lies, dishonesty and propaganda.

Euthanasia

Euthanasia and mercy killings are back in the news again, largely thanks to my favourite author, Terry Pratchett.

Terry Pratchett has a rare form of Alzheimers and wants to shuffle off the mortal coil on his own terms, in a chair in his garden listening to music taking an overdose of painkillers with alcohol.  And why not?

He said he detests the idea that the government can choose whether you live or die but accepts that they have a duty to protect vulnerable people and so he proposes a tribunal that will decide on whether a person can choose to die or not.

My uncle died a few years ago after cruelly being kept alive for about a decade.  He had Huntington’s which is superficially similar to alzheimers and parkinsons but it doesn’t cause dementia, it just renders the body useless.  By the time my uncle died he couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t eat, couldn’t drink, couldn’t control his bladder or bowels. He was kept alive for years in this state – his body didn’t work but his mind did.  He must have gone insane, there’s no way the human mind could cope.

If you kept an animal alive in that state you would probably be prosecuted by the RSPCA for animal cruelty so why is it not considered cruelty to do it to a human?

People should be allowed to make living wills while they are still of sound mind setting out the exact circumstances in which they would like to be put out of their misery.  The law needs to be changed to allow people to control their own ultimate destiny and to allow friends and relatives to help them do so.  The euthanasia tribunal idea is a good one and it should be coupled with a legal definition of quality of life, making it unequivocally clear when it is kinder to put someone down, to use the veterinary term.

My uncle shouldn’t have been kept alive for all those years with no quality of life and I would hope that someone would do the honourable thing and bump me off if ever I was in a similar position.

p.s. In case anyone is wondering, my dad didn’t get Huntingtons and it can’t skip a generation so I can’t get it.

Twat of the Week Nominations

Twat of the Week TrophyLast week’s Twat of the Week was very popular with the maximum number of votes being cast (there’s a limit of 50) in less than 2 days.

Send me your nominations for this week’s Twat of the Week award by Friday lunchtime, ready for voting on Saturday.

Either email me or leave a comment with your nomination.

A one-liner to explain your nomination would be useful.