Boris should scrap 2012

Instead of saying that the 2012 London Olympics will be on budget and 'cosier' than Beijing, Boris should just scrap the entire debacle.

£9bn for a 2 week jamboree with plenty of politicians and dignitaries with their noses in the trough.

Not even Boris has the cojones to cancel it or scale it back. It is a nonsense spending £9bn when we are in a financial mess.

Sports no-one cares about and no-one will care about in the future except for when some obscure obsessive wins a gold at under-water basket weaving.

Build schools and hospitals, or try buying our troops weapons and equipment that works - typical self-serving MPs & Lords, an Olympics for their egos, not for London.

FTSE down 7.85%

Worst single day since 1987 stock market crash.

The MPC has to cut rates at the next meeting. But given the disconnect between libor and the base rate, it might not be enough.

Hang onto your hats and your hard cash - we still haven't reached the bottom.

The Mandy returns

Like Lazarus, Peter Mandelson has risen from the dead.... for the third time!! Has there ever been an example of someone returning to the Cabinet after resigning not once, but twice for corruption!

I can't quite work out whether it is a bad political move or a really bad political move. The Left hate him as the Goebbels to Blair & founder of New Labour. Everyone else hates him because he was at the forefront of the spin & deceit culture heralded & honed by New Labour.

At least he can bring his Brazilian boyfriend over to London safe in the knowledge that now Sir Ian Blair has resigned, a young (rent) boy from Brazil can ride the tube without having his brains blown out.

With Campbell, Mandelson, Whelan and Draper all back on board, Brown is going back to the old spin meisters.

He is wasting his time as he is proper fooked and no amount of spin is going to help him.

Back to the 70s.... don't say i didn't warn you

The Times front page makes grim reading

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4860551.ece

4 day week at Ford, manufacturing output through the floor, warnings about power blackouts this winter, coal back in fashion (albeit 'clean' coal to salve the enviro-loons), Russia flexing its muscles, a ridicuously inexperienced Carter-esque President about to take power in the US..... back to the 70s indeed.

Oh well, at least we aren't bust like in 1976 going cap in hand to the IMF (well not quite yet), and that nice Mr Gay Gordo assure us he has paid the national debt down - honest guv..........

Net Debt £545bn
Northern Rock £87bn (save the geordie jobs for our friends in the north)
B&B £40bn (not even Santander would touch it)
Public Sector Pensions £1,000bn (poor old hard done to work shy public sector)
Future PFI payments £110bn - (even Enron would cringe at this off-balance sheet trick)

Grand Total £1,782bn

or £67,327 per household in the UK oooops. And the US Congress got shitty about a mere $700bn of bail-out ($5,000 per household)!

the next scapegoat

After railing at greedy bankers and traders the politicians are now after fair-value accounting. May sound dull, but this is one way for banks to manipulate their results & deceive investors.

Sarkozy, the EU, and even David Cameron have started criticising fair value rules saying that they have made the current credit crisis worse.

Errr, no. The fair value rules ensure that businesses, in particular banks, value their positions at the prevailing market rates. This allows investors to see the true p&l on a position.

Without fv rule, the banks know their real prices, competitors can work out the real prices, but investors are left in the dark.

This is just a diversion tactic to try and shift some blame for the current fiasco.

Keith Vaz & Geoff Hoon are corrupt idiots

The lying Leicester MP Keith Vaz has once again been caught out in his less than ethical dealings. This time the idiot that is Geoff Hoon has dropped them both right in the shit.

Keith Vaz miraculously changed his view on the 42 day detention without trial vote & supported the government. Along with the equally venal DUP, Vaz was among the handful of MPs who swung the vote in the government's favour.

Geoff Hoon then writes him a note saying that Vaz would be 'appropriately rewarded' for his actions. Which is more shocking - that Vaz would sell his vote for 40 pieces of silver, or that Hoon would be such a complete idiot as to write the deal down in black and white?!?

Amazing. There really aren't enough lamp posts to string up this lot. Lets erode civil liberties further, and in return Vaz gets a knighthood and the DUP get a pot of cash.

Well screw the DUP - Ulster is nothing but a medieval drain on mainland Britain anyway. And Vaz ain't got no chance of his knighthood now that the stink is out.

It would be even funnier if Hoon has deliberately leaked the letter to stitch Vaz up & deny him his spoils.

Inflation to top 4%, Strikes Galore - back to the 70s

Mervyn King the Governor of the Bank of England has told the Chancellor that inflation could well top 4% by the end of the year. This as he wrote to the Chancellor, Oh my Darling, to explain how he was to combat the rise in inflation to 3.3%.

Welcome to the start of Stagflation! Hold on to your hats we are going back to the 70s.

Inflation on the up, the economy stagnating, the unions flexing their muscles on pay disputes. Sounds like a newsreel from 1974!

The next year or so is not going to be pretty - anyone want a bet on $200 oil and 3m unemployed?

David Bentley - the ego has landed

As expected David Bentley has asked for a transfer, believing he should be plying his trade at a top 4 club. Little old Blackburn Rovers are no longer big enough for his talent and ego.

Bentley is a fine player. But I fail to see which of the top 4 English sides would want him. Also, if he was that good why can't he permanently dislodge a rapidly ageing, unfit David Beckham who plays the equivalent of 2nd division football in the USA from England's right wing?

Bentley is a classic case of self-delusion and self-aggrandisement. A decent footballer who cannot keep his mouth shut. Thinks he is a far better player than he really is - think positional discipline, pace, consistency for starters - never mind his disruptive ego which Arsene Wenger spotted straight away.

Rovers saved him from obscurity when he was languishing as a loan signing at Norwich. We have taken him to the edge of the England side. He plays every week, is well paid and gets picked for England. But that isn't enough.

Wenger won't have him back at Arsenal, he doesn't have enough pace for ManU, Chelski can afford much better - so that leaves Liverpool at best. Most likely he will end up at Villa or Man City, or on the bench at Anfield.

But he'll get a fatter pay check and a boost to his already over-inflated ego

Irish vote down Lisbon Treaty - what happens next?

As the dust settles on the Irish 'No' vote in last week's referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon it is becoming increasingly clear that the EU will try and force the issue in the coming months.

Whether this is by ignoring Ireland & carrying on with the Treaty or other means, I see no potential for the EU to reign itself in. More likely Ireland will be offered the chance to 'reflect' and then either asked to vote again (the 'correct' way) or will be presented with a tweaked treaty - i.e. much the same but the spin will be different.

You couldn't make it up. Marxists used to bang on about 'false consciousness' preventing revolution. Now the EU is saying a similar thing to Ireland - the Irish are misguided, have false consciousness & should now be led by other means to the Euro-Nirvana federal state.

The elites won't put the EU to a referendum unless they are forced to as they know the outcome in most countries would be No to a federal super-state.

Does Cameron have the cojones to open this box of worms if/when he is PM after the next election - maybe, watch this space and cross your fingers if you are a democrat & exponent of the nation-state.

Obama...... don't count your chickens

Truly historic news from the US - the first black man to ever stand as a major candidate in the Presidential election. Potentially the first ever black US President. It is only a few decades ago that the civil rights movement tore much of US society to shreds in the '60s, early '70s and now Obama is running for President.

There seems to be a consensus developing in the UK media, and in excitable elements of the US media, that Obama is bound to win. He is change. He is a new dawn. I was in the US a month ago and even sane, cynical New Yorkers were gushing over Obama.

I'm not so sure. I have a feeling that John McCain is going to prove far more formidable than many give him credit. He appeals to the Right, but not the mentalist Right. He is a strong man, decorated war hero who also disagreed with many of Dubya's decisions on post-war Iraq & domestic issues.

Like most Brits, I am an outsider to US politics who picks up his news & views from the media & regular business trips to the East Coast. But, Obama strikes me as shallow & inexperienced. He has dubious friends. His wife plays racial politics, never mind his pastor.

I think he will be found out. The Republicans are going to destroy not only his politics but his personality in the ferocious election propaganda that will ensue.

Finally - Obama has been compared to JFK - that saint-like figure in modern US mythology. Well JFK first committed serious troops & resources to Vietnam (that ended well). He dithered over the Cuba/Russian relationship in the early stages resulting in the missile crisis taking the world nearer to nuclear holocaust than ever before or since. And he said he was a donught in Berlin.

The omens for Obama are not good. The omens for the world whoever wins are equally poor. McCain would confront Iran. Obama will be a disaster like the real JFK & won't be the break with the past as in the wet dreams of European liberals.

Hughes out Big Sam in - arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh

Save us from Big Sam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We should have seen this coming. Mark Hughes did nothing to squash the rumours when Newcastle came sniffing around him after sacking Allardyce. Similarly he has made some interesting comments about wanting to get to the top - i.e. a bigger club than little old Blackburn.

I don't really understand why he would go to Man City. They are no better than the Rovers. They may have £50m to spend, but they also have a deluded owner who has sacked Sven after a relatively good first season.

Every Rovers fan is hoping we don't get Big Sam. We are a decent footballing side right now, hard but fair & with a good slug of flair thrown in. We don't need the long ball, set piece per-centage football that Allardyce brings - we are better than that.

My vote would be for a Mike Newell, Alan Shearer partnership. Two Ewood legends who would have the big-name draw a club like Blackburn needs to attract talent. They would both be hungry for success at their first big clubs - come on the Board take a punt on Big Al!

Oil prices & delusional Brown

I had to laugh at Gay Gordo's assertion that the high cost of petrol was all due to rising global prices and therefore he can't do anything.

The one-eyed psycologically flawed jock stated "The cause of rising prices is clear: growing demand and too little supply". This is probably true, although George Soros' assertion that speculation is driving prices is very interesting & we do appear to be approaching something like a bubble.

It doesn't really matter whether it is supply, demand or speculation. Gay Gordo is living in fantasy land if he thinks he can buck the market & force opec or anyone else to change track. It is just a PR stunt - look at me I'm doing something - honest.

In reality the only way Brown can impact fuel prices is by lowering fuel tax which is 20% higher than in 2000. This would of course in itself be a welcome move.

However, first the 10p tax debacle and now U-turns on fuel tax. You can hear the trade unions and the loony Left licking their lips. A wounded, floundering, flip-flopping government who will bend to pressure. Anyone for a new Winter of Discontent????

New Labour really is dead.

Crewe goes blue - amazing result

Last night's Tory victory in Crewe and Nantwich was amazing - 26yrs since the last Tory by-election victory & with a 17% swing!!

That would leave a Conservative majority after the next election of over 300!!! Everyone seems very quick to write off Labour & say that Gay Gordo is a dead duck. Maybe. I truly hope so.

But - Thatcher got slaughtered in by-elections & then stormed to victory in '83 after the Falklands ('"events dear boy, events"). Major routinely got battered in by-elections but scrapped a win in '92.

The best thing that can happen is that Brown hangs on to the Labour leadership & stays PM. He then goes down to an almighty defeat at the next general election. The Labour movement will then lurch to the left under some barmy Michael Foot/IDS style disaster & stay out of government for at least a decade.

Hopefully cue Cameron reeking creative destruction on the bloated debt laden state & public sector.

If I were Cameron I'd be courting the New Labourite MPs. They have very little in common with the Labour Left. Splitting the Labour party & having MPs cross the floor would be the best way to ensure the Conservatives dominate 21st Century politics as the party did for the 20th.

We just need a big issue to get them to walk after the next GE - think the Liberal Unionists of the 1880s.

John Terry crying like a baby

Ha ha ha - please stop it, my sides are splitting. Big bad John Terry whimpering like a big baby after losing the Champions League final last night. I can't usually stand ManUre but was rooting for them last night.

We had Chelsea - big strong bullies who grind out results by boring everyone to death & then pinching a winner vs ManUre, who exemplify the best of the modern game - fluid football, great pace & creativity, uber-modern lack of a centre forward in their inter-changeable system.

ManU do lack a Keane, Ince or Robson figure - i.e. someone to scare the shit out of the oppo when the going gets tough - just like in last night's second half. But in Rooney, Tevez & Ronaldo they have the holy trinity of an attack.

Well done the Mancs - but you are still not a patch on The Mighty Blackburn Rovers!

No need for Dad anymore

What an utter bunch of pc leftie bollocks - MPs have voted down an amendment that aimed to ensure the continued consideration in IVF treatment of the need for a father and a mother.

Now we are left with the suitably vague focus on 'supportive parenting' - i.e. a bunch of lesbos and man-hating singletons having IVF without the need for a father figure.

It seems that there is a complete lack of joined up government (again!). The lack of father-figures is cited by many researchers and supported by anecdotal evidence as key to the cause of feral youths & crime in some of the UK's most deprived areas.

The home affairs select committee reported in 2007 that in the absence of a positive male role models many young black men chose to emulate negative and violent lifestyles - the report was supported by the CRE.

But this is a problem for all sections of society. While I disagree with the now popular but excessive notion that Britain has a 'broken society' I'm pretty certain that society is at least very dysfunctional.

Weakening family bonds & removing the hugely positive impact of male role models can only serve to weaken society further & give further credence to the 'broken society' argument

Tugay Kerimoglu - is a legend

The Turkish delight that is Tugay has agreed a new deal to stay at the Rovers for his 8th year. A true legend - one of the greatest playmakers ever to be seen in the Premier League.

Robbie Savage might be a prick but he was spot on when he said Tugay was the best player he had ever appeared alongside - praise indeed from a product of the Man United youth team at the time of the golden generation of Scholes, Butt, Beckham & the Nevilles.

94 caps for Turkey, appearances at the World Cup and Euros, 6 Turkish league titles & 4 cups with Galatasaray. Legend. It mystifies me why none of the 'bigger' clubs took him when he left Turkey.

He will be the oldest outfield player in the Premier League at 37 years old - not bad for someone who reputedly gets through a 40 a day fag habit!

Sick note Britain

The Beeb are showing a Panorama programme tonight about sick note Britain. Basically there are over 2.6 million people in the UK claiming Incapacity Benefit at a cost of around £16 bn.

Many of these people could easily work - if opportunities were available. The real issue is that most of these people are concentrated in towns & regions where unemployment and under-employment are endemic.

There are now generations of people in places like Merthyr Tydfil who are on the sick. Doctors, faced with middle aged men with no job prospects, quickly sign them off as sick so they can get better benefits.

There is no culture of work in these de-industrialised areas. Until there are new job opportunities & new industry attracted to these areas, they will continue to be sink towns sucking in dole money and sucking the life out of their populations.

A sad state of affairs - The key issue is no longer the North/South divide, it is the pockets of unbelievable deprivation in places such as South Wales & the North-East. An almost intractable problem.

Taxpayer to take £90bn of risky bank assets

So the government increases the tax on the poorest in society via the 10p debacle. Then allows lots of rich bankers to hive off up to £90bn of risky assets to the Treasury in return for gold plated Bank of England bills.

Well done Gay Gordo and Oh my Darling - a fantastic piece of fuck up.

So we bail out bankers who took ridiculously risky positions, who sold mortgages to a whole load of poor people they should never have touched, wrapped them all up in some asset securitisation, and made big book profits & bonuses.

Then it all goes tits up and we (i.e. the taxpayer) bails them out. Northern Rock was the best example of a fubar high risk business model - Alliance & Leicester and a host of other institutions have similar problems.

You couldn't make it up - and people are surprised when it appears that the banks are wrapping up low rated assets as collateral for the Treasury bills. For the banks its a no-brainer.

The other Blair gets it wrong..... again

London police chief Sir Ian Blair reckons that murder rates in the capital are not out of control.

Try telling that to the 70 young people killed in the city in the last 18mths.

At least the police have now started proper stop & search activities looking for weapons. But the do-gooder brigade have started their chorus of disapproval - London Assembly Green Party member Jenny Jones said stop-and-search "disproportionately targets young people from ethnic minority communities."

No shit sherlock. If you want to stop financial & corporate fraud, arrest & investigate middle class white men in pinstripe suits. If you want to stop knife & gun crime stop & search young feral yoofs who will be disproportionately non-white & poor.

I found a pic of Jenny Jones - looks just like you would expect - Silly enviro-loon lesbo.

The Rovers for Europe

Final day of the season tomorrow. Blackburn need to go and beat Birmingham, then cross our fingers in the hope that we make the Intertoto Cup. If we make it and come 6th in the league it has to be seen as a fantastic result.


With the exception of David Moyes at Everton, Mark Hughes is easily the best manager outside the top 4. When you include financial clout, he is the best & the Rovers punch above their weight - consistently.


Come on Bentley & Santa Cruz! Hopefully we can win, get into Europe & keep hold of our best players. If we do sell Bentley we should be looking for £15-£20m. If Benetiz can ask for £15m for Crouch, Bents is worth far more.


And good luck Fulham - your owner Al Fayed is a conspiracy theory believing nutter, but Roy Hodgson is a good manager, so I hope you stay up.

Yougov polls Tories 26% ahead!!!!!!!!!!

Is it premature to start chilling the bubbly after the latest yougov poll putting the Conservatives 26% ahead? This on top of Boris' victory & the local council gains.

I might think Cameron is a horrendous toff & PR man but anything is better than Brown and the Labour party. Hopefully Cameron will really roll back the state in favour of small government.

Bring on the general election - and Boris for Foreign Secretary in 4 yrs time! Hurrah!

bye bye lassy

So Wendy Alexander has blown another hole in Gay Gordo's government. She is now actively encouraging a quick referendum on Scottish independence. Given the unpopularity of Labour a referendum now would hasten the break up of the UK.

Well I think that is excellent news. Bring it on. I'll help build the border check points the day after we float the whinging Barnett formula fed Jocks off towards independence.

If the Scots & the Welsh can have a parliament and even Ulster has its own body, why not the English? When Tam Dayell proposed the West Lothian question in the 1970s it was a theoretical question. Not anymore. Now it is very real.

I'm cheered up no end by thinking of the day we wave bye to Scotland & all those Scottish Labour MPs, just like Mr Brown!

New York New York

Been away on business in the Big Apple so no blogging for a couple of weeks.

Poor show I know.

But I am back again!

Public Sector Pay - the great lie

The graphic above is all the proof you need that the public sector is bloated, out of control and its unionised staff out of touch.

Public sector pay awards have easily outstripped the private sector since 1997. Teachers are on strike today demanding higher pay awards to keep pace with other graduate professions (their words not mine).

Reality check pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease! In the private sector you are pretty lucky to get even an inflationary rise every year, if you have polished your boss' turds enough over the previous year. Public sector workers get automatic increases on top of the significant % rises since 1997.

The teachers really need a reality check. They want parity with other 'graduate' professions. Firstly, how do you define 'graduate' in this age of degree proliferation from sub-standard polys. Secondly, no other graduate job I know of gets well over 10 weeks a year holiday!!!! More like 20 to 25 days if you are lucky!

So, teachers get paid accordingly. Lots of holidays, not long hours (go on moan about all your marking zzzzzzzzzzzz) & therefore they are paid the going rate, which is far more than the national average wage.

The market decides these things, even in a state funded area such as education. Teachers at independent schools don't get paid much more than their state colleagues.

Reality check needed - along with a concerted campaign against public sector statist unions and their unreformed commie activists.

St George's Day - answer the West Lothian question

Happy St George's Day! If the Irish can drink the black stuff & celebrate St Patrick's Day across the world in honour of someone who certainly wasn't Irish, the English should be equally allowed to celebrate our Greek/Turkish saint (!).

There is a bigger issue which is starting to be discussed this year. A growing English consciousness. A growing realisation that England subsidises the dole loving Celts who are protected by the client state created by Scottish & Welsh Labour MPs.

The arbitrary Barnett formula & dole money pouring north ensures over £11bn of extra spending in Jock land than in England.

The Scots are ungrateful. They have banged on for years about hating the English & grumbled about independence.

Well here is a suggestion. The English vote for independence from the Scots! Rebuild something like Hadrian's Wall along the modern border. Or, even better, line the border with explosives and float Jockland off towards Greenland.

I'll be drinking a few pints of good warm English ale tonight. And, I'll be praying that the SNP get their way. The sooner we get rid of the Jocks the better. They can take their share of the national debt with them - calculated, of course, on the basis of their large share of public spending thanks to the aforementioned Barnett formula!!

Cry God for Harry, England and St George!

Lembit & his Cheeky Girl - strange world of the Lib Dems

What is it with Lib Dems nowadays. There was a time when you could fit them all into a phone box & they had crazy leaders such as Jeremy 'murder, what murder' Thorpe.

Now they are stuffed full of celeb wannabe MPs. First came Charlie 'mines a double' Kennedy, then Sarah 'I haven't been shagged for years' Teather, then Cleggover, and now Lembit Opik marrying his Cheeky Girl bird.

Oh dear. Think of the children. She is a proper minger and he looks like he has been hit by the ugly stick. Repeatedly.

Olympic gravy train continues - £9bn budget!!

Surprise Surprise the Olympics are now forecast to cost more than double the original budget of £4bn. So that is a whopping £9.3bn at latest estimates and we are still 4yrs away from the event.

The whole idea is a nonsense. Sports which hardly anyone plays get millions of pounds worth of funding. Steroid induced athletes (can we really trust anyone who says they are clean after so many scandals!) will parade round a huge stadium that will be pretty much redundant after 2 weeks of use.

Politicians will prance around talking about regeneration. Nonsense. Name me one city that has reaped long term benefits from staging the Olympics (Barcelona at a push) and I'll give you numerous examples of cities burdened by debt & decaying stadiums

Montreal (1976) only paid off the final chunk of its debt in 2006. Sydney (2000) is still forking out some A$40m (£17m) a year to maintain its sporting venues. Londoners will have to find £20 per person per year for 12 years based on the original (!) budget!

Like the millennium dome the Olympics are a plaything for egotistical politicians and welcomed by people who partake in sports that no-one really cares about when compared to football, cricket & even that rubbish game called rugby.

The government will continue to throw money at the Olympics until it is deemed a 'success'. But at what cost? £3bn would buy 158 new primary schools, 6 new 'super'-hospitals. £9bn is a disgrace and a total waste of public funds by the state sector gravy train.

10p tax rate - Darling & Cameron get it wrong

The uproar over the abolition of the 10p starting tax rate continues to gather pace. Quite rightly Labour MPs are giving Brown & Darling a good kicking over this. The problem is that they just don't get it. They think it is OK to take with one hand because they will just give it back by sticking more people on benefits & tax credits.

If Brown has achieved anything since 1997 it is to ensure that lots of tax accountants are getting richer. The tax system is ten times more complicated now than it was in 1997 thanks to tinkering and tax credits.

But I worry that Cameron doesn't get it either. The Chancellor is not actually wrong to abolish the 10% rate. He is wrong not to do so as part of a wider tax cutting agenda aimed at low and middle earners.

Abolishing the 10% rate simplifies the system. If it was accompanied by a hike in personal allowances to £10k no-one would complain. The Labour government has increased tax by the back door. No need to put up headline rates, when you can just stop the higher rate band level rising in the face of wage inflation. So thousands more people are now paying 40% tax compared to 1997 just due to the top band not being raised at a fair rate.

Cameron should say clearly that getting rid of the 10% band is correct but that it must be accompanied by a wider re-think of the tax burden. Just hitting the hard-working families and individuals is wrong wrong wrong & has nothing to do with social justice.

40 Year legacy of Enoch Powell

Lots of coverage for the 40Yr anniversary of Enoch Powell's infamous 'Rivers of Blood' speech which he gave on 20th April 1968.

There are several great travesties with this episode & Powell's career. Firstly a talented politician ruined himself with one ill-advised speech and will forever more be remembered for it rather than for any other contribution he made.

Secondly, his words were seized upon by racists & the far right giving them oxygen and support in some areas. Life was regrettably made very uncomfortable and threatening for thousands of immigrants who had arrived in the UK.

Thirdly, Powell's speech meant that the whole immigration, national identity and race-relations debate has been toxic for the last 40 years. Many people over-look this impact of Enoch's speech. The right of British politics has been petrified of discussing such issues after Powell. This allowed the left to propagate the idea of a multi-cultural society where Britishness (never mind the notion of patriotism) was seen as distasteful.

The result - a society with ghettos of racial groups in many northern & midland towns. Limited integration on the part of many immigrants in these areas and a society which has no idea what it stands for. Even Trevor Phillips the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality agrees that multi-culturalism has been a disaster.

This is the real horrid legacy of Powell.

Just as the West begins to face the threat from radical Islam to its very existence and the ideas & principles at its very roots, we remain hampered as a nation, unable to unite behind any notion of what Britain is or stands for.

Thankyou very much Enoch - your speech ensured that the very scenario you most feared came true.

Mara Carfagna - well done Berlusconi

Hurrah for Silvio. This is likely to be his new Minster for the Family. The old dog was spot on - right-wing women are far superior to mono-browed lefties like Ruth Kelly (urrrgh).

Ms Carfagna I am in lurve - almost as good as Bruni

Robocop soldiers - casualty rates, the expense of war

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7351314.stm

So the US military is pioneering robotic soldiers - the age of robocop gets nearer. Apparently these proto-type robotic suits enable soldiers to lift heavier weights & run faster with little extra effort, and presumably eventually to kill better.

In one sense this is a nice bit of 'lite news'. But it does have connections to a wider issue. Advances in weaponry & technology have vastly improved the ability of the military in terms of firepower. Alongside this, advances in battlefield medicine have reduced mortality rates among infantry. Therefore, conflicts such as Iraq & Afghanistan appear less expensive to the public & spinning politicians

For example, in World War II, 30 percent of wounds proved deadly. In Korea, Vietnam, and the first Gulf War, this rate hovered between 24 percent and 25 percent. But due to better medical technology, doctrinal changes that push surgical teams closer to the front lines, and individual armour protection for soldiers, this rate has dropped to 10 percent for Operation Iraqi Freedom for all wounds. For serious wounds that keep a soldier away from duty for more than 72 hours, the mortality rate is now 16 percent. Simply, a soldier was nearly 1.5 times more likely to die from his wounds in Vietnam than in Iraq today

Anecdotal evidence supports this. A friend of mine is a Lieutenant in the infantry & has served in Basra & Helmand. He took shrapnel which blew a big hole in his body armour. In previous conflicts he would have been dead or seriously wounded. As it was he walked away with bruising & thanks for his luck.

Full respect to the soldiers out on the front line. The wars may appear less expensive or deadly than previous conflicts if you look at mortality rates. A closer look at the figures shows that today's soldier is in as much danger as our fathers & grandfathers in Vietnam, Korea or on the battlefields of Europe.

In the Brown and in the USA

Gay Gordo is off to the USA on an official trip. I wonder if Broon will pray with Dubya just like Blair?

As he arrived in the US he was telling everyone who would listen that the economy is fine, and that people shouldn't be worried about their homes & cash over the coming months.

The delusional spinning of Brown & Darling on the state of the UK economy is getting silly. Brown is doing a good impression of an ostrich sticking his head in the sand while Darling does an impression of Corporal Jones and runs around shouting 'Don't Panic!'

Hopefully Bush will realise that Brown is on his way out, is a yellow belly over Iraq (key member of the Cabinet to vote for war, now running away in southern Iraq), delusional on the debt pile mess of the UK economy, and has most Labour MPs in marginals saying come back Tony all is forgiven!

Shadow Cabinet reshuffles

It is looking likely that there is going to be some form of Shadow Cabinet reshuffle over the summer. Cameron needs to ensure that he surrounds himself with individuals capable of effecting real change as government ministers. Otherwise the first year of a Cameron government will be wasted (just like Blair's first term!).

As ever my concern is the lack of real quality at the top level of our political parties. When Cameron surveys his team he will see lots of people just like him - i.e. with little experience of the business world or the world outside Westminster. Just like old Daveo himself.

I can think of a handful of up and coming Tory MPs with real experience outside of politics. Shadow ministers like Justine Greening have real world & business experience and will be excellent in government. Others are ad men, lightweights, and the usual collection of political nerds who have gone from university, to working for the party, to parliament.

Please Mr C, lets have substance in your appointments and not a bunch of camera loving lightweights.

Euro dreams over for Rovers

Bit of a disaster at Anfield on Sunday. The Rovers were out played & Liverpool deservedly romped home 3-1 winners. I hate to say it but we are a million miles away from them in terms of quality.

Next week we have ManUre so not much chance of any points there either. I'm pretty sure that after Saturday we will be ruled out of the race for a spot in the UEFA cup.

Some of our better players must be looking to move onwards & upwards. Bentley & Santa Cruz being the obvious 2.

The big worry is how long Hughes will stick around. We have over-performed for the last 3 seasons, but with little money in the kitty it is only a matter of time before Hughes decamps to a bigger club who can match his ambition.

Then we are in the brown stuff!

Stevie G & gangsters

Anyone else find the Steven Gerrard and Liverpool gangsters story a bit strange? There have been rumours for years about the relationship between Gerrard, his WAG Alex Curran, and various shady people in the north-west.

It turns out that Gerrard was being threatened with knee-capping by a notorious Liverpool gangster (i.e. criminal thug). So, he turned to John Kinsella, another Scouse thug, for protection.

All very strange.

The key question is why a gangster would have such beef with Stevie G. The best example of a box-to-box midfield dynamo in Europe when playing for Liverpool. Underwhelming bottler when playing for England.

Are those football chants about Curran, prang, parentage and gangsters all a bit close to reality?

Of course Mr Rover would never insinuate such a thing, or believe idle gossip, and puts the word allegedly after all such sentences.

Immigration Amnesty & London

Lots of comment around today on the support shown by all 3 Mayoral candidates in London for an immigrant amnesty. Guido has a convincing piece here http://www.order-order.com/2008/04/boris-is-right-tories-are-wrong-london.html

I'm unconvinced but persuadable. I agree that it seems unfair to penalise hard working migrant families just because they don't have a scrap of paper. But an amnesty would just encourage more illegals to try and enter. It screams 'Don't worry old chappy from Romania, in a few years time you'll get an amnesty and bingo!'.

People are using Reagan as a model, given his amnesty. But his legislation has not stopped mass attempts by Latin Americans to get into the States. So much so that McCain & others support another amnesty.

I could be convinced to support this if we denied all newcomers access to the welfare state until they had worked for a set period of time; mandatory deportation for all migrants breaking the law irrespective of how many children they have here or how many years they have been settled; and a significant reduction in people allowed to legally arrive.

We are a small island. It doesn't take a genius to work out that we cannot keep accepting thousands more immigrants every month for ever. Yes, those who come to fill gaps in the workforce are welcome, as are genuine political refugees.

Everyone else really isn't.

Oh my Darling - in denial again

Alistair Darling is deluded. He says that the UK economy gives him "grounds for optimism". I nearly choked on my 11am chocolate biscuit when I read that.

We have the highest debt levels across Western Europe. Gay Gordo & now Darling have used the boom years to flush billions of pounds down the drain. Most sensible people would say that in the good times, pay off debt & create a surplus to see you through the bad times, then invest.

This lot of cretins have spent like money was going out of fashion. We now have huge national & personal debt & a huge deficit. If the USA looks shaky in the current climate, then the UK outlook must be very poor indeed.

What do we have to show for 10 years of huge investment in public services? Not much. The NHS admits that most of the extra cash they have had has gone to fund pay rises for Doctors & Nurses. Schools continue to decline with grade inflation and horrendous pupil behaviour. Local councils are struggling under the burden of gold plated public service pension liabilities.

The sound of chickens coming home to roost gets louder.

And FFS what are going on with Darling's eyebrows????

Diana Inquest and Nutters like Loughrey

This sad individual called John Loughrey has sat through every single minute of the Diana Inquest. Everyday for over half a year he has sat in the gallery - he gave up his job & home to do this.

Is it just me, or does anyone else not get this Diana mania? Even in 1997 I didn't get it. People who had never met her wailing and throwing themselves around in distress. It brought out all the mentalists.

I don't particularly like the royals - I believe in meritocracy - but if I had power I could find a million and one things to legislate on rather than getting rid of the blood sucking greek/german house of Saxe-Coburg (lately Windsor).

So I really don't get why anyone cares about the death 10 years ago of a publicity seeking, minor aristocrat who married a prince then shagged half of London, who died while on holiday with her latest boyf after leaving her children in some god-awful buggery loving boarding school.

I definitely don't get why Royalists care about her - she took the House of Windsor to the brink.

Total mentalists - lets all cry and hug in public & feel each others pain - bollocks.

Tibet, China and the tarnished Olympics

What a great photo. Here we have protesters being man-handled by the London police force as track-suited Chinese goons look on. So much for human rights and freedom of speech. Whatever happened to the 'ethical foreign policy'?

Brown and his New Labour cronies (and Bliar before him) bang on about human rights. We removed Saddam because he was very bad and did horrid things to his own people (good excuse after we couldn't find WMDs).

Yet we invite Chinese diplomats to London, court party officials in Beijing and celebrate (!) the Olympics being given to them to host.

Let us not forget the Chinese regime is authoritarian, brutal, Communist in name, anti-democratic, and border-line genocidal in many of its dealings with ethnic groups within China (such as Tibet).

Yet we welcome them with open arms, while we bomb the shit out of Saddam's regime and have him hung.

Guess that is Realpolitik - one has a huge army & nuclear weapons, the other just pretended to have them.

Shame on those ministers (such as Jowell) trying to justify this debacle

Livingstone's family life

I can't stand King Newt Mr Ken Livingstone. He is useless. A self-publicist, an unreformed 70s socialist who thinks Chavez and Castro are role models. He is the worst type of populist leftie.

But - all this newspaper focus on his private life is wrong. His personal life should be private as long as he isn't being a hypocrite. As far as I am aware he has never run the 'family man' type of election campaigns. If he had - then he deserves all the scorn. I can't stand hypocritical politicians.

As far as I am concerned he can be gay or straight, family man or player it is irrelevant. Churchill was a border-line drunk, MacMillian probably a repressed gay just to name 2 decent PMs of the 20th Century (well one great one and one half decent one!)

Many of our past & present leaders have had or still have less than perfect private lives. It is irrelevant.

What matters is that Livingstone is a useless piss poor Mayor.

Blair gets it wrong... again (this time on religion)

Tory Blur, or plain old Bliar, as I like to call him has gone and got it wrong again. Tonight he is going to make a speech at Westminster Cathedral on his Faith Foundation. The old Bush cock slurper is going to say that 'failure to engage with religious groups will drive believers to apathy or fundamentalism'.

Utter bollocks.

Mr Rover is no fan of organised religion despite his parents best efforts to have him indoctrinated (shurely shome mishtake... don't you mean educated) in the christian tradition. Mr Rover reserves particular wrath for the Catholic church (don't use a condom even if not doing so means you might get HIV all you Africans who are dying in your millions from AIDS , just abstain - FFS), but he also can't stand puritanical Prods and defo not nutter Islamists.

Look at all the suffering in terms of war, conflict, abuse of women, abuse of non-believers, persecution of alternative lifestyles all done in the name of religion.

Bliar has form on talking to the religo-nutters. Not only was he taking a length from 'born again' Bush, but his government funded (and they continue to fund) various dubious Muslim groups such as the 'moderate' (don't make me laugh) Muslim Council of Britain.

He also thought nothing of chatting away to the IRA/Sinn Fein/Loyalist leaderships in Northern Ireland like they were old buddies & then releasing all the odious little murdering shites from prison.

The man was a disaster in sooooo many ways, and he still remains a grade one prick.

Bentley on the move???

Noooooooooooooooooo! Bentley has made it quite clear that if the Rovers don't make Europe this season, he will be off to one of the Big Four. I suppose it was always on the cards. He is the best player outside of those 4 very rich teams.

It just shows that while the leading 4 teams are the equal of the great European sides, the rest of the Premier League cannot compete. We will end up like the Scottish league with the title revolving between a couple of teams.

A few years back players like Bentley would stay at lesser teams & they could then build a side to challenge for trophies. No longer. Just look at how quickly Rooney decamped from a side as big as Everton to ManUre at the first opportunity.

Oh well - if we get £15m it'll soften the blow

golden oldies

So not only do the OAP's get lots of final salary pension schemes, state pensions & winter fuel allowances, now they get free bus travel anywhere in the UK!

So who pays for it.... you guessed the working age population like me. Yes, not only do we fund the OAPs income & cushy lifestyle, now they are going to be swarming all over public transport.

By the time us youngsters get to OAPdom there will be nothing left. No final salary schemes, little state pension. Why? Because we have our demographic timebomb of an ageing population in which OAPs will very soon outnumber those of working age - meaning we can't afford to support them.

Of course the politicians don't have the cojones to deal with the problem & just tinker with small rises in the retirement age.

When the UK & Western Europe are full of the blue-rinse brigade, then watch the vibrant young states of China, India, Brazil et al storm forward to take dominant positions in the 21st Century - we have been warned!

Breaking up the Beeb

So the Tories are suggesting that the TV licence fee should be split between the BBC, ITV & C4. This is either a half-baked idea, or the starting point for a real shake up of how we run public sector broadcasting.


If this is the only suggestion from the Cameroons, then it ain't very good. Michael Grade said that ITV didn't want a share of the licence fee (too much hassle with extra govt targets). And this ignores the real problem - which is the dominance of the BBC in communications.


Just take regional news. The BBC website pretty much precludes any local sites being set up to service local news needs. A local business just couldn't compete with the bbc web site.


Similarly children's TV - few independent producers can compete or even try to nowadays.


What we need is the BBC slimming down to its core remit, with the add-ons being sold off. They get £1bn a year from the public in a compulsory tax (i.e. licence fee). In the digital age with multi-channel platforms, this is an anachronism.


Wow - I've written about the Beeb without once mentioning that they are also a bunch of leftie bollinger Bolsheviks.

Boris or Ken or Camp Copper

Nominations are due today for the London Mayoral elections on 1st May. Ken is looking like he is going to be kicked out by bumbling Boris. Which is a good thing in itself - Livingstone is a great self-publicist but an incompetent socialist who thinks that Chavez and Castro are great role models for democracy and human rights (!!!!!!!).

Being the Mayor is a strange job. Not enough power to attract really serious heavyweight politicians (just look at the choices on offer for 2008!), but enough power to be a real menace to London boroughs & Londoners who pay the Mayor's council tax precept.

Livingstone's charge has gone up 150% over the past few years - so much for a streamlined Mayoralty & GLA.

Mr Rover will definitely be drinking a bottle of the good stuff when Ken loses on 1st May. But I have a nagging feeling that Boris can't get away from being a joke politician. Maybe the joke is on us and he is supremely intelligent, tapping into the popular cynicism towards politicians to be the ultimate anti-politician..... hmmm

Capello and the false dawn?

Not the most pulsating international game last night between France & England, but I thought it was pretty important for the development of Capello's reign as England manager. England were pedestrian to say the least. Total lack of pace, Rooney isolated up front, little imagination and no cutting edge.

France were solid but not spectacular. Ribery showed England how to play international football. With pace on the counter-attack. Slowly build, keep possession, then hit the opponents quickly & hard.

This is exactly how Anelka got the penalty. Build the attack, draw the English defence which lost concentration (Terry is not having his best patch of form) and bang, Anelka showed great pace which James couldn't deal with - penalty, one-nil, au revoir.

I like Capello's formations but he lacks the players to get the best out of such a set up. Rooney needs a partner up front, or a Ronaldo type quick winger behind him as he has at ManUre. England have neither.

And when piss-poor mr. average Downing comes on and looks half decent, you know that the rest of the England team have had a 'mare.

Back to the drawing board for Fabio.

Oh my Darling.... barring is too good for you

very funny - Guido has linked to the story about banning The Chancellor from all his local pubs in retaliation for the tax rises on alcohol.

Personally I'd just hang him from the nearest lamppost for being a mono-browed socialist incompetent cock.


http://www.order-order.com/2008/03/barred-by-blogosphere-from-bars-and.html

oooooooo la la

Well done Nicolas! President Sarkozy starts his state visit to Britain today. And he is bringing his new wife the top totty, total fittie Carla Bruni.

Looking at this photo, you can see what attracted the wannabe Napoleon to Ms Bruni. I wonder what attracted Bruni to the President of France! I'm sure it was his sparkling conversation and had nothing to do with the extravagant trappings of power that goes with being President!

I can just imagine Prince Philip sleazing up to her calling her a damn fine filly.

You would though........

That Bloke's a nutter........... Oi NUTTER

Is this guy for real?!? Bill Greenshields, President of the National Union of Teachers - what a muppet.

First he takes an oh so boring student politics stereotypical lefty view on the armed forces & their attempts to recruit 16-18 yr olds in schools. At least the delinquent little shits won't be robbing old grannies if they are marching up and down Dartmoor.

Then he calls for the nationalisation of private & independent schools.

So governments of all colours since the 1960s with their incompetent educational advisers have ruined state education, helped create a society in which social mobility is happening less than 50yrs ago, and have cheated several generations of children.... so I know what, lets give them the private sector to ruin as well!!

Teachers & their militant unions are a sham stuck in the 70s. There is a good article by Charles Moore in the Speccie this week which touches on the militants of the 70s and 80s. They spouted all sorts of extreme drivel, but in reality had very little support among their members. How many teachers vote in union elections - I bet not very many. My brother & 2 sister-in-laws are teachers and they never vote in union ballots. They say it encourages the loonies. I say, it is the only way to take back the union from the quasi-communists.

Just shows - the real challenge of the next decade is root & branch reform & slimming back of our bloated public sector.

I suppose we should be grateful, at least the teachers aren't moaning about all their marking, or how hard done to they are with gold plated final salary pension schemes and 51 weeks a year holiday.

Up the revolution!

Fingers Crossed on Bents

Romped home vs Wigan yesterday. Bentley ran the show and destroyed them. Lets hope we tie him into a new extanded contract to ward off the big 4. And if Beckham plays instead of Bents for England - there is no justice!

Reforming the Lords

The BBC is reporting that a cross-party group of peers is proposing to slash the number of peers in the Lords by 400 as part of a package of reform. How about abolishing the lot?

We have the cheek to lecture the world on democracy, we invade Iraq to free the people & introduce democracy (plus get some oil!), we attack Putin for election fixing in Russia, while all along no one mentions the elephant in the room - the unelected House of Lords.

Having it full of inbred hereditary peers who got their titles after their ancestors were the mistresses of Kings was bad enough. But after Labour's half-arsed reforms, it is now stuffed with Tony & Dave's cronies! A banana republic would be ashamed! This is the upper chamber. The revising & reviewing chamber of parliament. But it is full of unelected cronies!!!!

A fully elected Lords is the only justifiable solution to the dogs dinner that Blair made of constitutional reform.

Re: Beckham - whhhhhhhhat

So goldenballs is back - at the behest of the FA's commercial department or of the new Boss? There is no way that Becks can be up to the fitness standard of his premier league colleagues when he is playing semi-pro US footy vs celebs.

MLS footy is rubbish.

There is a rumour going round that one MLS star is putting his tackle about with a Hollywood star - I'm sure Goldenballs would advise against such a thing

I am back

So I have been missing since December - I flounced off and was getting bummed at work so didn't think I had time for all this blogging malarky - well I've flounced right back in hurrah!