an MP's wife airs their opinions re the expenses row...

...we're all nasty horrible bullies apparently for taking MP's to task re their expenses.
and apparently 'rightwing commentators hate Labour governments, and they were ready to risk undermining public confidence in the entire political system to discredit the Labour party.'

(and once again the implication that if you dont support Labour, the BNP will get in. ergo, if you're not with us, you're standing slightly to the right of Himmler.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/mps-expenses-democracy?showallcomments=true

unsurprisingly, it's in the Grauniad... equally unsurprisingly, but pleasant to see, is her getting almost unanimously told where to get off in the comments section.

they dont like it up em mr mannering

mark thomas - who I dont always agree with, but his intentions always seem well founded - has been taking it to The Man again -

'How many constituents feel that their MP is simply not up to the job unless they have a chandelier? And now Elliot Morley has claimed £16,000 for a mortgage that had already been repaid and he didn't notice. What planet do you live on when you don't notice £800 turning up in your bank account each month? Quite clearly, the rules have been broken.
Quite simply, none of us one of us could get away it. When benefit cheats get caught working and signing on, they get punished. They don't form a committee made up of other benefit claimants to debate how they might make new rules to prevent themselves from doing it again. They certainly don't appear on BBC News barking that "they work extremely hard and made a simple mistake."
Nor can an exposed tax dodger offer to pay back money because they are "concerned about how it looks to the outside world", and then walk away with no repercussion.
It is unfair, unjust and profoundly undemocratic. Which is why lawyers acting on my behalf have served legal papers on Speaker Martin this morning. As the chair for the House of Commons Commission, he should take urgent steps to commence a review of the department's actions in dealing with MPs' applications for expenses. These should include an independent audit of expenses and the forced repayment of wrongly claimed expenses; and in cases of fraudulent claims, the police should be called in. Speaker Martin has 14 days to respond. If he does not, I will instigate a judicial review of Speaker Martin's decision, on the legal grounds that public law should be consistent. MPs should not be allowed to be above the law and what is good enough for us is good enough for them.
I'll keep you posted on how I get on.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/14/mps-expenses-mark-thomas

this is going to be good...

FUCK OFF ABOUT THE BNP

you lying, troughing authoritarian control freak BITCH.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6252030.ece

'In an interview with The Times, Harriet Harman said that revelations about politicians’ claims would damage trust in the mainstream parties and could benefit the extremists. “It does create an anti-politics mood,” she said.
“It undermines confidence in Parliament and fuels a climate of cynicism. The BNP portray themselves as the anti-politics group and the outsiders, and we have to say we are taking action and sorting this out.” '

heres a novel idea - clear your party of expense fiddlers, eliminate bullshit quangos where you take MY money and piss it up the wall so your friends dont have to do any real work, STOP trying to control our every fucking move and dictating what we can and cant say and then, MAYBE, I will consider voting for you again.

but until you do, stop waving the boogeyman of the fucking BNP at us. havent you EVER stopped to think WHY people are turning to them? people are turning to them because you are giving them very little choice. you are not addressing what matters most to them -can you blame the average person for going to the one party that does appear to listen to what they need?

you cretinous shower of bastards.

you contemptuous shower of bastards

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8016173.stm

you'll let any fucker into this country and let them commit any number of crimes, but these poor sods? this government has gone beyond contempt.

top 5 albums

as suggested by OH - http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2009/04/top-5-albums.html

here are mine for the time being -

1. The Sundays - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic
2. Depeche Mode - Black Celebration
3. Kraftwerk - Computer World
4. Orbital - The Middle Of Nowhere
5. Lamb - What Sound

honorable mentions go to Low by David Bowie, Among My Swan by Mazzy Star, and the eponymous (and only) album by Temple Of The Dog.

todays letter is c

jacqui smith = cunt
harriet harman = cunt
mandelson = cunt
darling = cunt
brown = fat lying unelected cunt

http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2009/04/clear-your-throats-and-shout.html

with thanks to OH.

and I would have got away with it...

meanwhile, in the bunker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNrBqrNhdGU&feature=player_embedded

with thanks to Old Holborn for the original

a great aviation meme

with thanks to Counting Cats in Zanzibar ( http://www.countingcats.com/?p=2242 ) for the original and Landed Underclass for the pointer to it ( http://landedunderclass.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/aviation-meme/#comments ) - here are mine, for what it's worth -

Best fighter (pre-jet) – Hawker Hurricane

Not the most obvious, I would agree. But the Hurricane did the lion’s share of the work during the Battle Of Britain – capable of holding it’s own against the early marks of the Bf-109 and being easier to repair in the field than the Spitfire, with it’s semi-wood and fabric construction lending itself to both easier fixes than it’s all-metal counterpart and also making it in some ways harder to knock down – depending where it was hit, cannon shells could on occasion go straight through without their fuses being set off, not always the case with the metal skinned Supermarine product.
Unfairly eclipsed by the Spitfire, in my opinion. And if the Battle Of Britain had not been won, then would the 8th Army Air Force have had anywhere to fly their P-51s from?

Best fighter (jet) – McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II

The second most numerous jet fighter ever built, it could (and has) done it all (and still does on a front line basis in several countries) – dogfighter, interceptor, bomber, CAS, recon – and bears the distinction of being the only aircraft to be used by both the USAF Thunderbirds and the US Navy Blue Angels aerobatic display teams. Of course, we had to screw things up by insisting the FAA versions used the Spey (great idea on paper – not so good in practice – see here - http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/phantom/history.html )

Best Bomber – Blackburn Buccaneer

Eh? Well, for several reasons – in service with the FAA and RAF for over thirty years in total, in some ways still having a better performance than the aircraft that replaced it in the maritime strike role ( it could carry more anti-ship missiles further than the Tornado ). Legend had it that at the annual Red Flag exercises held in the US, it was the only NATO plane that the much more modern F-15’s and 16’s couldn’t even begin to get close to – and by the time they had, the pursuits usually had to be broken off due to lack of fuel. It was said in the RAF that the best replacement for the Buccaneer would be ‘another Buccaneer, with better electronics’.

Pure Sex – Supermarine Spitfire

You can keep your Blackbirds and your Concordes, this is it. Especially the late-mark 22s and 24s with the Griffon engine needing that bulged engine cowling – it’s the aeronautical equivalent of a classic American muscle car, to the point I’m always put in mind of the Ford Mustang car when I look at the Spitfire. To my mind, there’s the same kind of family resemblance when you look at the early and late versions of both machines – the clean lines of the mk.1 and the ’67 coupe, to the look of sheer brutish power of the late war teardrop canopied versions and the Mach 1 – unmistakably the same lineage, but at the same time very different. And then there’s that engine noise…

one down

and it couldnt have happened to a nicer guy. dont let the door hit you in the arse on the way out, damian...
however, as satisfying as seeing the back of this odious little man is, and made all the sweeter by the fact that he's been neatly hoist on his own petard by Guido, you cant help but think Labour apparatchiks are like cockroaches - stamp on one today, tomorrow there will be dozens of the buggers running round your kitchen.
will cyclops take the hint? will he hell. and as for the fact that he apparently had 'no idea'... yeah right. no idea in general almost certainly, but he's regarded as such a control freak that the idea that one of his right hand people would be doing this without Pissypant's knowledge is a bit of a stretch to say the least... now if Dolly Draper can be made to walk the gangplank between now and tuesday it'll be like christmas has come early.

http://www.order-order.com/

and it seems like I may have got my wish already...

when two tribes go to war...

http://www.order-order.com/2009/04/mcbride-spinning-for-his-career/

things are going to get even messier...

stop. just stop.

you're embarassing us, and you're embarassing yourself.

www.guardian.co.uk/pol...strasbourg

' "Gordon has invested an extraordinary amount of time and energy in the G20 - he really did travel to the ends of the earth," said one government source of the prime minister's trip to Chile. "But it was worth the effort because it was part of a single process - his mission to save the world and, in the process, to save the British economy." '

less charitable folk might think someone had delusions of grandeur... elsewhere -

blogs.ft.com/westminst...0-billion/

'When all the sums are added together, rather than $1,100bn, the new commitments appear to be below $100bn and most of those were in train without the G20 summit.'

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/..._giant_con

'The PM is gravely announcing a $1trillion "stimulus" for the global economy. But it's not the kind of stimulus which Brown has been wandering the world demanding - ie a further co-ordinated boost, involving increased spending or tax cuts by the major economies, to get demand going.'

so why have we just paid however many millions for this g20 thing again?

the depressing truth...

...as presented by the always superb Nightjack - http://nightjack.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/counting-the-cracks-in-the-pavement/

we're truly screwed.

common sense breaks out in the UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/7969629.stm

a newfoundland lifeguard dog has been reinstated over the objections of H&S - good.

ridiculous bloody jobsworths.

I'm reminded of the line used by Douglas Adams regarding the marketing department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation when speaking about health and safety types - 'a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes.'

pigs on the wing

Employment minister Tony McNulty has said he did nothing wrong by claiming second-home expenses on a London house where his parents live.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7957555.stm

FFS, when will these troughing cunts ever stop??
is there even enough piano wire in London?

I wish I had that amount of brass neck, I can tell you.