Ed Balls went to Oxbridge, thus making him eminently eligible to lead ‘New’ Labour through its next incarnation as the Pinochio Party. Then again, so did all the other ‘contenders’ as did most of the Coalition cabinet, but let’s stick with Balls for a minute . . . .
Tag Archives: UK politics
Conclusive evidence that Oxbridge produces financially illiterate, lying sociopaths.
May 24, 2010 – 8:40 pm
All things considered, Labour is finished. Next question?
July 25, 2009 – 11:35 pm
The Tories overturned a 5459 Labour majority by 7,348 votes in the Norwich by-election on Thursday in a decisive and pivotal victory. Their turnout was 6% lower than expected, but 70% of the Labour constituency stayed at home watching Big Brother. The Lib Dems came third as usual, giving the lie to those who perennially hope that [...]
Now Gordon has spun off to Afghanistan – make that Pakistan (see above)
December 13, 2008 – 5:16 pm
. . . . “I’ll put a girdle about the earth in forty minutes” Puck, Midsummer Night’s Dream
We heard this morning that UK Gordon Brown has broken off his constructive discussions with EU leaders to appear in Afghanistan to mourn the death of four British soldiers, killed in two bomb incidents, one where a 13 [...]
Update: Police held no warrant to raid Tory MP's office.
December 3, 2008 – 8:41 pm
The good news is that Jacqui Smith didn’t issue a warrant. The bad news is that Plod didn’t ask for one. Michael Martin, aka Gorbals Mick, embattled Speaker of the UK House of Commons, admitted today that the Police had no warrant to search the office of Tory MP Damian Green. Jill Pay (the [...]
Political correctness stayed the hand of the nanny state
December 2, 2008 – 10:37 pm
Baby P’s face is now so familiar to me I could sketch it blind. But his face now represents much more than a story about the tragic death of a baby, an abusive family or the failure of one local authority. It says something about our national approach to children, social care and families. By Julia [...]
UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith walks backwards to 1984
December 1, 2008 – 12:19 am
The awful events in Mumbai overshadowed a serious breach in democratic principles in the UK on 29 November, 2008. Nine counter terrorist police stormed the Kent home and Westminster offices of Conservative Shadow Minister Damian Green, searched his home, constituency and Westminster offices and detained him under the Official Secrets Act. The MP was bailed [...]
Send in the snatch squads
November 28, 2008 – 9:50 am
Last week the government claimed that ‘over 80%’ of sex workers were slaves, a claim hotly denied by the English Collective of Prostitutes. Harriet Harman, Deputy PM, spoke on Woman’s Hour urging Womens’ Institute (WI) members to report newspapers carrying escort advertisements, since the oriental and East European escorts on offer may be the victims of trafficking. [...]
Set tasers to stun, Jacqui
November 24, 2008 – 10:53 pm
My earlier advice about recruiting Pikey police has clearly fallen on deaf ears. The nation was stunned – not literally, yet – by today’s news from our own Sarah Palin, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, that 10,000 tasers would be issued and 30,000 police trained in their use. Amnesty International report that 300 people have died [...]
Fiscal scriscal, fiddle-dee dee, Europe's suddenly OK with me
November 21, 2008 – 6:17 pm
Before spreadsheets enabled geeks to assume they could manipulate the economic weather, we knew that if we spent too much, we’d run out of money. If we ran out of things to sell or do in return for more money, we’d be in trouble. If we borrowed money at unrealistic interest rates, we’d be in [...]
Trouble at t'mill: I've just agreed with a Tory
November 20, 2008 – 7:40 pm
Julia Hobsbawm, the persuasive daughter of the world’s most celebrated Marxist historian invited me to get up very early today for an Editorial Intelligence Briefing. We heard a thoughtful homily from Yasmin Alibhai-Brown about Baby P and what this told us about our expectations of the nanny state. We are generally on the [...]