Diana Watch

“So can I ask you why you are applying for asylum in this country Mr John?”

“Well, I am a Gay man and in my country that is illegal. If I am caught being gay then I will imprisoned or worse, I could be put to death in a series of excruciatingly painful ways.” 

“Well, that is very interesting. So if you are a caught being gay in your country the government of that country may kill you.”

“Yes, that is exactly what could happen. Your England is a reasonably tolerant place. For instance you give Graham Norton his own TV series and he's rubbish.”

“Oh right, ummm...ok..., this is slightly indelicate but can you prove that you are gay?”

“Prove it? How do you mean?”

“Well you could just be saying that you are gay in order to claim asylum here.”

“How exactly should I prove to you that I am gay? Whoa, wait a minute, is that a come-on? Are you coming on to me? Is that how you want me to “prove it” to you? I'm flattered obviously but you’re not my type.”

 No, god no, that's not what I meant at all. I meant, oh actually I don't know. Well, ummm, do you like Rufus Wainwright? How about show tunes? Kylie? How about funny coloured cocktails with little umbrellas in? Judy Garland perhaps?”

 “I'm sorry? Those seem to be very crudely drawn stereotypes. Do you work for a tabloid?”

 “Well, that is a good point but I have one question,”

“Yes,”

“In your own country, have you tried not being gay? Have you considered not standing out so much and doing more, less gay things? Have you thought about not going out so much, staying indoors a little more? In short, have you tried not being gay?”

 Up until the middle of this week this was pretty much how interviews with the UK's Border Agency were like. It was actual policy to advice people to go home and try and be less gay. 98% of those who applied for asylum on the grounds of sexuality were turned down at he first attempt.

 The Supreme Court has ruled that 2 gay men, one from Cameroon and one from Iran, have the right to stay in the UK.

 Lord Hope, who read out the judgement, said: "To compel a homosexual person to pretend that his sexuality does not exist or suppress the behaviour by which to manifest itself is to deny his fundamental right to be who he is.

"Homosexuals are as much entitled to freedom of association with others who are of the same sexual orientation as people who are straight." That, my friends, is a beautiful judgement.

 The response to this case has shown again that the coalition Government seems to be considerably more liberal than it's predecessor.

 Home Secretary Theresa May said the judgement is in line with the Governments stance (although probably not hers as is not the most Gay friendly MP you have ever come across), adding “We have already promised to stop the removal of asylum seekers who have had to leave particular countries because their sexual orientation or gender identification puts them at proven risk of imprisonment, torture or execution.”

 Of course not everyone was happy with the decision, can you guess who they might be? Why yes, it was the Daily Express,

oh and the Mail and the Star and most of the other papers to be honest but to be honest I don't care. They are uncaring, unpleasant bastards, everyone. I understand that this subject is like a dog whistle for these idiots, it has the words Asylum and Gay in it thus combining two of their least favourite things, but never the less, their response was rabid and incredibly unpleasant. I assume that no one who works for these papers or knows anyone who works for these papers is Gay because if you did know someone and yet you still wrote that shit, what sort of bastard would you be?

 Why should the reason that your country wants to kill you make any difference to how we treat you? Politics, sexuality, hair colour, religion, ethnicity, what difference does it make?  They want to kill them, that is all that matters.

To be honest the reaction of the press to this story of equality has made me really very angry and upset so I think we should move on to the awards, that and we need to get on because there is a Grand Prix and some football match or other on and (depending on what time you read this) you may want to watch it, I however will be at a fucking Christening. I mean, how bad is their timing? Significant Other has posh friends who care not for such things as sport, bugger.

 Oh and as an Atheist can I be a God Parent? Well I am about to find out. If I am still on twitter at about 8 o'clock Sunday evening there is no God.  I will have stood up in a church and said that I will, should it's parents have died in a tragic Pimms based accident (they are very posh), look after the child and teach it about God. Teach it about how he's real and not made up by people. If I can do all that whilst being and atheist so obviously lying in a church about God and haven't been struck down then there is no God.

 The Award for Very Sensible Decision of the Week,

Some people have really, really bad hair. I believe that the law should be changed so that hairdressers have the right to say “No, that will make you look rubbish”.

 It seems, for the first time that I am aware of, that my ideas mesh completely with that of the Iranian Government. They have introduced government sanctioned hairstyles.

They seem to have taken against, what you may describe as, flamboyant “Western” hair cuts. I will be watching President Ahmadinejad locks very closely from now on to make sure he is sticking to the chart.

The Award for Back down of the Week,

To be honest I am going to try and mention President GoodLuck Jonathan every week simply because he has a cracking name.

 Last week we heard that he had banned his countries football team for international competition for 2 years after their poor performance in the World Cup but this week it seems he has changed his mind. This is basically because of threats from FIFA to remove funding for Nigeria’s football association and stop that countries referees working outside Nigeria.

The Award for Failing to Understand What a Word Means,

To be honest it happens quite a lot but this week it annoyed me. If you are a newspaper and you have a story that no one else has then, and only then, can you use the word “Exclusive”. If another paper has the story as well then you can’t use it and, obviously, nor can they.

 At least the Sun were good enough to admit that others had this story by not using that word,

The Award for Trying to Make Ends Meet (That is a bad pun by the way),

So you type in “large tits” and “nurse” into your favourite porn based search engine and find what looks like a satisfactory piece of film to watch (is critique the wrong word?) and you click on play. That is quite a good set you think to yourself, suddenly distracted from the stilted dialogue and hackneyed plot, they have spent some money on that. You mind is suddenly back on the action when the woman offers to do something that no one that you have ever met (or are likely to meet) has ever admitted to liking or confirm that it is physically possible.

 Those little touches on the set draw your eye into the background of the shot again, really they have worked hard on that, it almost looks like…… No wait, it can’t be, can it? There is no way it could be but it does look at little like that London hospital that I stayed in. I can’t imagine that they would rent out a closed ward to a production company not knowing fully what sort of film that they intended to make, could they?

The Award for Pot Calling the Kettle Black of the Week,

Eric Pickles has launched an irony free attack on “Non-Jobs” that some Britain's councils advertise. This man is Communities Secretary. 

The Award for Being A Bit of A Dufus,

You remember last week when it was pointed out that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley had not seen/ignored evidence that Jamie Oliver's healthy school lunch thing had actually done some good, well he also said that the number of pupils having the meals had gone down. He was wrong. Again.

 The School Food Trust carried out a survey that showed that the number of pupils having schools meals was up 2.1% in Primary Schools and 0.8% in Secondaries. Whilst that isn't a massive rise it is still a rise, the exact opposite of what Mr Lansley said.

 Whilst we are on about the lovely Government, what do you think is the best way to fund advertising for anti-obesity drives? The last Government thought it was a good idea to pay for them themselves with public money as it is a public health issue. This way you get no interference from fat food floggers. This is not the way that the new Government goes about things.

 Andrew Rapidly-becoming-a-twat Lansley has cut the Governments budget and hopes that the short fall will be made up by companies whose products make you fat. 

 If there was ever a doubt that the Tories weren't as right wing as they used to be I believe that this one thing has cleared that up. You make people fat and we'll clear up the mess but we won't try and damage your profits by telling people not to eat your products. We were wondering would you do that?

 The Government seem to expect Mars to advertise the Mars bar on one hand and then voluntarily pay for some adverts that say that Mars bars are bad for you. I'm sure that Cadbury want to pay for something that tells you not to eat Cadbury products because they are not good for you.

 Can I just make it clear that I don't like Andrew Lansley.

I'm sure you are wondering “Is there still oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico somewhere between 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day?”. Why yes, yes it is but BP, or British Petroleum as the Daily Mail and Express really hate hearing them called, are really, really trying to stop it now. As long as the weather holds. And the new top fits.

 I'm not saying that I am overly influenced by popular culture but every time I hear someone saying “Spy Swap” I have an image in my head very similar to this,

If it doesn't take place on a foggy bridge it doesn't count.

The sun is still out so let's make the most of it, take the week off week. If we are really honest with ourselves we will realise that most of us won't be missed, not really.

 Have a fun week.

Diana Watch

“So, I hear your a racist, anti-Semitic, misogynist, homophobe now Mel.”

And so England lost to Germany last Sunday, not by putting up a decent fight but by rolling over and letting the Germans tickle their bellies. They were embarrassingly poor and after the game the National discussion turned to whom or what was to blame.

 We, as a nation, like to blame simple things, we don’t like complex or nuanced arguments, so we usually end up blaming the manager and firing him. It is a system that has worked well for us for the last 40 years (it has helped keep us from lifting anything shiny and cup shaped since 1966) and we are not going to start changing it now.

 Other countries deal with the national humiliation that is an early exit in different ways. The French for instance, who looked like a team made up of 17 year old boys who had been forced to go on one last family holiday to the seaside, have taken their very early exit extremely badly and the Government have decided that, whilst denying that they are interfering, they need to have an inquiry. The manager and the Ex-head of the French Football Federation (he resigned after their defeat) have already been called into see Nicolas Sarkozy, a man who is not in the greatest of moods anyway as  the annual Presidential hunt will be cancelled this year. More will follow.

 English scapegoating and French investigations and sulking are nothing compared to the reaction in Nigeria and it's brilliantly named President Goodluck Jonathan.  

 They, like the French, came home after the group stage much to the disgust of the Nigerian people. Their new President reacted in way that I think may have taken a few people by surprise, he banned the team from International competition for 2 years.

 The Presidents special advisor has said that this will “enable Nigeria to reorganise its football” and they have also dissolved the Nigerian Football Federation. An interim board will appointed.

 Now that is a punishment.

After a couple of weeks of silence (well they did Excommunicate a Nun who sat on the Ethics committee at a hospital that approved an abortion for a woman who had a real chance of dying if the pregnancy continued, nothing happened to the men though, curious) the Catholic Church strikes back.

 The offices of the Church in Leuven, central Belgium, were raided last week and Police Officers seized nearly 500 files and a computer. Prosecutors said that the raids concerned alleged "abuse of minors committed by a certain number of Church figures". They also searched the Church's headquarters.

 The raids happened whilst Bishops were having a meeting and the Police refused to let them leave and they were also not allowed to communicate with the outside world. This is all normal procedure according to Belgium's justice minister Stefaan De Clerck.

 This has not gone down well inside the Vatican who alleged that during the 9 hours that the Bishops were held they were not allowed any food or water, a charge that has been strongly denied by Belgian authorities.

 Now at this point you would think that the Vatican may had learnt from it's previous PR mistakes and it would just say that they were helping the Police with their inquiries. I mean that would be the sensible thing to do, just keep your head down and maybe no one will notice. Did they do this? Did they bollocks. It’s paint yourself as the victim time in the Vatican again.

 The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said that the raids were “serious and unbelievable" and that "There are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes," ooh nice touch. It worse here than under the communist, stop picking on us, it’s not like we have systematically covered up years of sexual abuse is it? Why should we be investigated under the same laws and rules as other people? Our leader is infallible!

 Speaking of the Pope, do you think that he stayed out of it? Did he use this moment to distance himself from his loud-mouth Cardinal? No, no he didn’t. He described events as “deplorable". No, the deplorable thing here is the covering up and sexual abuse, I thought we’d been through this.

 He sent a message to the Bishops Conference of Belgium that said “I want to express, dear brother in the Episcopate, as well as to all the Bishops of Belgium, my closeness and solidarity in this moment of sadness, in which, with certain surprising and deplorable methods, searches were carried out." How dare they search us, don't they not know who we are?

 Mr De Clerck (Justice Minister) said the Vatican's reaction had been excessive and it was based on false information. Is he accusing the Vatican of lying? Oh please let him be doing that. It must make Belgians proud to be Belgian; it would if I was one of them. No deferential treatment of the arrogant, justice obstructing Church.

I’m a bit confused now. After a few weeks of 80’s style, and by that I mean things that would make Thatcher proud, Tory policy announcements, the Government seem to have gone a bit, well.. ummmmm…… liberal.

 Firstly they seem to have announced that there will be an inquiry into whether Britain played any part in torturing terror suspects, mostly in other countries.

 Now, they may just be doing this just so that they can discredit the last Government which would make it a little cynical but does the motivation behind the announcement undermine the significance and potential impact of it? I don’t think so. As long as the inquiry is independent who cares why it has been called.

 I’m sure that there are a lot a people in the country that think that it is ok to torture people “if it helps National Security” but it really doesn't. The information you receive from the torturee is rarely helpful (they have a tendency to tell you what they think you want to hear or just plain make things up) and it undermines your moral authority.

 And then Wednesday saw Ken Clarke (one of the few Tories I actually quite like. He likes Europe a bit, single malts and has done several series for Radio4 on jazz. He seems to understand that life is for enjoying but not at the expense of others. Yes he does/did sit on the board of British American tobacco but he has some redeeming features unlike most Tories) announced that there were too many people in prison and that short sentences don’t work. He said that we should focus more on rehabilitation.

 I’m scared now Mummy, what has happened to them?

 During the election campaign the Tory party criticised the Labour Government for early release scheme and the Liberal Democrats pointed out that both parties polices were mostly a who can lock the most people up dick-swinging contest, I’m paraphrasing there but the point stands. Now, however,  the new Government seems to have come round to the LibDem way of thinking.  Or have they?

 Have they become more liberal because it will probably be cheaper? Did this “Road to Damascus” moment strike the eyes of Ken Clarke before or after he was told that he had to make budget savings of 25%? But again, does it matter what the motivation behind the announcement is? Well maybe. If there is a lack of belief will enough effort be put in?

 Usually it is people in other parties or in the press that deliberately “misinterpret” what a politician says but this happened to Ken Clarke when he was attacked by the very scary Michael Howard.

 Mr Howard is a proper, lock 'em up and throw away the key, type of Tory who famously said to conference, whilst sounding like he had just spotted the neck of a very tasty virgin in the front row, “Prison Works”.

 After Mr Clarke's speech he announced that he wasn't convinced by it and that “Serious and persistent criminals need to be put in prison,". Yes, I think we all agree on that point but that was not what Ken was saying, did you not listen or was this just a prepared, trotted out, half thought through response?

 Or was it more cunning than that? Was the whole, rather underplayed by the press, statement aimed deliberately at the Tory base? Was it pre-approved by the Party? Was it allowed because it was all part of a plan, look a bit liberal by talking about rehabilitation and community sentences but then point out that serious offences will be punished?

There are spies amongst us people! Well there are in the US anyway. I have to admit that I was surprised by people who were surprised about this. We have MI6 and the US has the CIA, what do you think they are doing, crochet?

 Anyway, back to my point. The English press reacted in the only way that it knows, find out if one of the people involved was a woman and if a woman is implicated in anyway the next question is, is she hot? If so then plaster her on every front page and seem surprised that an attractive woman can do anything but appear in FHM with very little on (unless you are the Daily Mail where you offended that FHM exists but you print the pictures anyway saying how terrible they are. “Look at them! There are awful! See this woman with virtually nothing on, it’s dreadful!”). For another example of this there is also the murder of Meredith Kercher in which we were treated to pictures of Amanda Knox whose crime was somewhat diminished by the press nicknaming here “Foxy Knoxy”.

Right, let’s do the awards as there is some tennis on soon (unless you are reading this after Sunday afternoon) and I want to watch it,

The Award for A Great Film’s Anniversary of the Week,

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Airplane! Happy birthday to you.

 I know it’s silly and I know it’s childish but Airplane! is one of my favourite films and it is 30 years old this weekend. It is film that is so gag heavy that I am still finding new sight gags in it now. It's always possible that I am still finding new gags in it because I haven’t really concentrated that hard enough on it the innumerable times I have watched it before but I like to think that it is because it is so well written. It isn’t, it’s because I haven’t really concentrated that hard on it when I’ve watched it before.

The Award for Just Being A Much Cooler Country Than Ours of the Week

Iceland may have had a bit of an effect on World finance but they are still are very, very cool country. I don’t think that in comparison to Iceland David Cameron government look even slightly progressive.

 Iceland have elected a woman Prime Minster, Johanna Sigurdardottir, ok we’ve done that, once. She is Gay; ok they are moving ahead of now. She was in a Civil Partnership, ok we have them (but we don’t have Gay marriage is beyond me.)

 Now if she had taken advantage of a recent change in Icelandic law and married her partner then that would be cooler than the soles of a bare footed Bjork standing on a glacier.

 What’s that you say? She has now married her partner, oooh, I think that is a level of progression and coolness that we will never ever get close too.

The Award for Scary Video of The Week,

I genuinely try not to get involved in the politics of other countries (no, honest I do) as it has very little to do with me but when the lovely @waccachica linked to this on twitter I couldn’t really ignore it now could I,

Now I assumed that it was some sort of well crafted joke as it hits all the Republican stereotypes that you can think of (If she had been yellow and had only 3 fingers on each hand I would have assumed that she was drawn by Matt Groening) but it seems it isn’t. This Pamela Gorman really is standing and this really is a campaign advert. Still don’t believe me? Well there is a website for her if you want to see, it’s here.

 Sort of makes me grateful to live in England really, I mean we my have our own problems but it really could be much worse.

 So Andrew Lansley, Health Secretary, told the BMA conference that lecturing people on their health and diets doesn't work (we don't lecture people, we tell them what is health as I can assure you that they really, really don't know) and has sighted Jamie Oliver's healthy school lunch thing because less people have school lunches then before.

 A number of things wrong with this, 1) So? If the children wanted Crack should the school provide that? If the children want really unhealthy food should the school provide that? I don't think so, they should be setting an example and 2) Jamie's little crusade has had a positive effect, you can read about it here on Tim Harford's blog (Yes he is the bloke who presents Radio4's More or Less but I'm not obsessed).

 It seems the a Government Minister is either ignoring or unaware of evidence that disproves their ideology.

 I think that that will do for now, have a super fun week, it seems that the sun will continue to shine.

Diana Watch

Hello to you all. How are you today? Let's start with a joke, Nick Griffin of the BNP was deeply annoyed about the egg throwing in the week, “The bastards could have separated the whites first.”

OK, so it wasn't the best joke you will ever hear but it's quite funny. As I said in the week, he does have the right to speak but we also have the right to protest. Throwing stuff is, technically, assault so don't do that, no matter how funny it is. Significant Other suggested that there should be mass silent protests. Every time the little tosser opens his mouth in public there will be a small group of quiet banner holders. He can't complain about that and there is no chance of him casting himself as a victim as he tried after the flying raw omelette the other day.
He tried to claim that it was orchestrated by the main political parties trying to silence him. Has he not seen 24 or Spooks? Has he not read 1984? If that is his paranoid understanding of how the State silences it's critics I think it can be best described as quaint.
The election of the BNP MEP's was used by David Cameron to argue against Proportional Representation when Gordon Brown talked about electoral reform, because 65% of the population DIDN'T vote but of those that did, a largish proportion voted for Fascists. No,no Mr Cameron, you miss the point. The BNP got in because most people didn't vote. None of you got a popular mandate because most people stayed at home.
The challenge with PR is to motivate people to vote. As it stands many feel disconnected from politics, I don't why, surely these hard times should get more people engaged, anyway, so they don't vote and the minor parties whose only policies seem to be about focusing anger on people who aren't them, motivate their supporters really well. Your task is to get your people out to vote

The cliché is that a week is a long time in politics but look at the turn around, sort of, in Gordon Brown. We had the crushing defeat of both the Local and Elections and then the fun of the reshuffle. Various Ministers stropping out, some to spend more time with there families, some to spend more time with their stylists (although I really shouldn't mock Caroline Flint because I thought she looked great in her photos and she did her job well, can a woman not be clever and attractive?), others left thinking that many others would follow them out only to hear the sound of a slamming door and some giggling. I'm assuming that James Purnell feels a little silly now.
This week, however, the tide may have started to turn. There has been some quite good news on the economy, you remember that I assume? Worst economic crisis in living memory? Gordon Brown did well at the G20, could be said to have saved Western banking. This week we had manufacturing figures that showed that production was up 0.2% last month and the month before. There were figures regarding mortgage lending, up by between 14 to 17% on the month before. And then the slip that Gordon had been waiting for.
On Radio 4's Today programme the Shadow Health Minister, Andrew Landsbury, was being interviewed by professional interrupter John Humphries when he let it slip that the Tories would protect the NHS, schools and International Development but apart from that there would be 10% cuts in spending. A couple of hours before Prime Ministers questions and an open goal was presented to the PM. I would imagine that the smile on his face looked really rather sincere that day.
PMQ's was super fun. Watching anyone land, metaphoric, punches on David Cameron is always fun. I am not a Labour supporter but I am a Tory hater so anyone getting the upper hand on them will always get my support. Go Gordon, Go Gordon.

The Government did have one little problem this week in the form of the Law Lords. They ruled that Control Orders, the fantastic piece of law that says, ok we think your guilty but can't prove it but we will lock you up in your own house, where illegal. The part that they decided was illegal is the bit where you can be charged with something but not told what. Or told the evidence against you. But they believe that you did or might do something illegal, probably terrorist related, and the evidence was gained in a way that disclosure of it might endanger national security. You don't think locking people up with no charge or disclosed evidence against them might annoy them a little? And their friends? And family? Do you think that these injustices may help radicalise those who were getting moulded that way?

The Awards for the Week I think now,

The Award for not knowing what a song is about but using it on an advert anyway,

One of the best examples of this up to now was the BBC advertising itself using Lou Reed's Perfect Day. A song about heroin abuse I believe. That's how I want to see my national broadcaster. Oh and then they released it for Children in Need.
The winner is the new Heinz Baked Beans advert for their new little packs designed for microwave use. The song they have chosen to use is Ring my Bell. See, microwave finishes, little bell rings. What was that song, oh yes, You can ring my bell. I don't wish to come across as a joy-spoiler or that I take the music thing to seriously but it isn't about a bell. It's a euphemism. It's about rude things not baked beans from a microwave, unless of course Heinz are aiming at people who really like baked beans, I mean really like baked beans.

The Award for a bit late now of the week,

You may have noticed that the British aren't too fussed about their privacy are civil liberties. We love a CCTV camera because we have been told that it will make us safer. We love to be told by a Government that curtailing our freedoms and civil liberties with ID cards and databases and spying and holding on to email and phone information will completely stamp out terrorism, it will never happen. You can not be 100% safe and have any freedom. But, sorry to start a sentence with a “but”, I want to start my book with a “but” just to annoy people, you tell BBC viewers and listeners that there is a new 118 info service that is a mobile phone directory and they will be up in arms. Oh my, the vitriol aimed at this company via the medium of stroppy email and text to the BBC was immense. “it's an invasion of my privacy” was the major complaint. It really isn't. You can remove your number from the system and if someone wants to know your number the company will text you first and ask if they can pass on your number. Oh and there is the point that they got all the numbers from various websites that we had all used, entered our mobile phone numbers and then not read the small print when they ticked that they had read the terms and conditions. IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT PEOPLE! Only yourselves to blame.

I think that that will do for this week. Now I promised last week that we would all be back to normal and there would be a Sunday blog each week again. A small problem there because next Sunday is my first wedding anniversary and we will be in the Lake District, in a tent, not my idea. Significant Other wanted to go camping so camping we will go but I'm sure I will enjoy it. Will Twitter though.
Right off to Wimborne Folk Festival this afternoon and have been told by my friend that I'm not allowed to laugh at Morris Dancers, despite the fact that they are funny, and I must celebrate a life with bells on. Have a good week.

Diana Watch

It’s mostly Gypsy children. Oh my God, they’ve killed Batman! Well Bruce Wayne anyway. He leaps on to a helicopter in which some bloke who claims to be his father, despite his father being murdered when Bruce was only a child, the trauma setting him on the road to cloaked vengeance, is trying to get away after shooting Batman. The helicopter is brought down and in the final frame we see a fallen, crushed and splattered body of a Batman. The writer says Bruce will suffer “a fate worse than death”, ooh, enigmatic, well no not really, I’m pretty sure he means that Bruce will be left disabled. Is this the end of Batman? No, probably not but who will take over? Is it time for me to reveal my secret identity? My penchant for rubber suits? And I have a basement, not as big as the bat cave I admit, but it is a basement.

Always up to date and on the pulse of the modern world The Vatican has said that has “forgiven” John Lennon for his “more popular than Jesus” outburst sometime during the 60’s. Well, yes it has taken 40 something years to make themselves sound important and as if they matter but this is remarkable speed when you compare it to the really rather sluggish 400 years they took to say sorry to Galileo after he discovered that the earth went round the sun. He was forced by the Church to withdraw his claims and the work based on them and then spent the rest of his life under house arrest, luckily he was right and was proved so and the heliocentric view of the universe has been excepted for, well if we’re honest, 400 years, about 5 minutes after he told someone about his idea.
Speaking of over reaction, some Tory bloke called Andrew Lansley, he might be a health spokesman, wrote on his blog that recession might actually be good for us, health wise. As we tighten our belts, so his argument goes, we spend less money on smoking and drinking by doing it less and we walk more to save money on petrol. Oh the out-cry. Oh the ridiculousness of the arguments. The man was making a good point I think but he was forced to take the blog down because of the fuss that was being made be the sorts who like being offended so that they can get into a lather and bash a political opponent. Not only do I think that he was making I good point, hard as it is for me to agree with a Tory, but I would go a little further, not only is it good for our health it’s good for our souls. It makes us focus on what we have and what we need, on what makes us feel good and not on things that we would like. Not those transient things that make us feel good for a few minutes, like shopping. If you are interested, yesterday, Saturday, was “buy nothing day”, how did you do? I bought 2 tickets for a National Trust property and a nice lunch so I didn’t do that well, ah well. Oh and I bought some sherbet fruits, umm sherbet fruits.

And so we came to the Pre-Budget Report (PBR). A quick summary of the situation, the banks have no money, you have no money. You have no money because you got a mortgage that you couldn’t afford a couple of years ago and your bank sold your debt to another bank and now you can’t afford your mortgage, the bank that bought your debt will loose up to 10 times as much, why we will never know. Now, consumers, you and me, have too much debt, about 1 trillion pounds, and at the beginning of 2007 the banks were lending irrationally to people who couldn’t afford it. So how does the government want to counteract the looming recession? For you and me to spend more and for the banks to get back too lending at 2007 levels. Oh dear, not really thought though this plan is it?
The PBR was a missed opportunity. Some have claimed that it was bold. If it was bold I am made of chocolate and, having just bitten my thumb nail, I can confirm that I am not. The lack of boldness in the speech meant that the headlines on the papers the next day could focus on the tax rises in 2011 on not the things that will happen now, the reduction in VAT to 15%, oh gee thanks, or the section about small businesses getting longer to pay their tax bill etc, now that is a good idea but really, when all things are considered, not that much to talk about. Government money for insulating homes, good green thing, and more government money for building roads, bad green thing.
Quite clearly in the statement was a commitment from Alistair Darling on how the rather weak tax changes were to be paid for but the Tories seemed to have missed that bit because that’s all they went on about, well for a day or 2 anyway. All they went on about was the “tax bombshell” that we were supposed to be surprised about, no, I listened to the speech and it was quite clear, some tax cuts now and then a rise to 45% on income tax on the top 1% of earners and a small rise in National Insurance contributions. I seem to have got it, why hasn’t George “what a nice yacht” Osborne? But my favourite part of the Tory attack was the “they thought about raising VAT to 18.5%” thing. What happened was a document was accidentally published on a government website that showed that discussions had been had an how to raise some money in 2011 and one of the ways considered was a rise in VAT to 18.5% but then discounted but the Tories went on and on and on about it. Why on earth was this an angle of attack? Really, it was pathetic and unhelpful to the necessary level of debate.

Just quickly I want to mention the American Governments decision to bail out some of the major car makers in the U.S. Now, in most reports about this story they have run a quick history of the car manufactures and most of them said that the car companies were making cars that people didn’t want to buy. Why then does the government bail them out? Is this not the why of the market? The Darwinian survival of the fittest companies. Has this not been the policy of the world for the last 30 years? Your company makes things that no one wants to buy than you go under, I’m very confused Charlie Brown.

And now to the awards,

The Award For Just Not Giving Up, For Trying And Trying And Trying Again,

This goes to Anthony Knott. This is a man who lives near here, in Sturminster Newton, and is a farmer. This is irrelevant to the story really but it’s all nice detail. In 1980 rode a horse in his first race. This week he finally won a race. It has taken him 28 years but he has finally done it. He is now planning on retirement.

Only the one award this week. Hopefully we will be going to see the comedian Mark Steel this week, which will be nice. Please keep thinking about the list of good people because so far I have had nothing from you lot. Have a good week xx