Andy “Anyone but England” Murray has progressed to the fourth round of the Australian Open and looks dangerously close to winning his first ever grand slam.
Don’t worry though, there’s still time to make your very own Andy “Anyone but England” Murray voodoo doll by following these simple instructions.
Technorati Tags: Andy Murray
As suggested by Gareth, I wrote to my MP and asked him to vote against the attempt to change the Freedom of Information Act so that MPs can hide their expenses. He actually replied to me for a change – normally he doesn’t bother, this time he might as well not have.
Dear Stuart Parr
Thank you for your recent email relating to members’ expenses.
I have to say I do not know how much more information needs to be published considering that the order to be put to the vote on Thursday means that the following categories of expenses will be reported:
(a) Administrative and Office Expenditure:
(i) Accommodation costs for offices, surgeries, etc;
(ii) office equipment and supplies;
(iii) telephones and other telecommunications;
(iv) professional fees and charges;
(v) agency and other staff costs;
(vi) travel costs;
(vii) utilities;
(b) Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure:
(i) mortgage interest;
(ii) rent;
(iii) hotel costs;
(iv) council tax;
(v) fixtures, fitings and furnishings;
(vi) subsistence;
(vii) other household costs, including service charges, utilities, telecommunications, maintenance and repairs;
(c) Communications Expenditure:
(i) websites;
(ii) reports and surveys;
(iii) delivery charges, postage and stationery;
(iv) advertising;
(v) equipment;
(d) Staffing Expenditure;
(e) Travel Expenditure in relation to travel by Members:
(i) car, including third party vehicle rental and mileage;
(ii) rail;
(iii) air;
(iv) other UK and European travel;
(f) Resettlement Grant;
(g) Winding-up Expenditure.
A committee is also to be put in place to review these headings.
I am sure you will agree that this is reasonable.
Yours sincerely
David Wright
None of this is new information, it’s the same information packaged up in a different way. What MPs have been ordered by the High Court to disclose and what they are proposing to change the law to avoid is the disclosure of their receipts so that we – the people who are paying their expenses – can see exactly what they’re spending our money on. I know my employer wouldn’t be satisfied with me putting in an expenses claim without receipts so why should we, the MPs’ employers, be satisfied with it? I’m not satisfied and I don’t think it’s reasonable so I sent this in reply:
Dear David,
I am disappointed but hardly surprised that you support your government’s attempt to keep MPs expenses secret from the people who pay for them.
Breaking down MPs expenses into categories doesn’t do anything to improve transparency – that information is already supposed to be available but without the headings. If I want to know, for instance, how much taxpayers money you have spent on taxi’s or restaurants, why shouldn’t I be entitled to that information? If I wanted to know how much taxpayers money you spent in the off-licence in Oakengates why shouldn’t I be able to find that out? I can find it out for any other public servant under the Freedom of Information Act so why should you be treated any differently just because you’re an MP?
The High Court ruled last year that it was unlawful for MPs to hide their expenses from the taxpayer so rather than comply with the ruling, you and your colleagues are instead conspiring to change the law so that the judge’s ruling is no longer valid. That is not improving transparency, that is an outright abuse of power and totally unacceptable.
I would strongly urge you to reconsider your support for this assault on democracy and accountability. Or is your desire to hide your expenses, perhaps, because you have something to hide?
Stuart
I fully expect him to ignore me for the next 3 months which is what normally happens when he doesn’t like what I say.
Technorati Tags: Freedom of Information, David Wright
It was #2’s birthday today so, as I do with all the kids’ birthdays, I took the day off work.
I’ve been off work ill this week – some stomach bug I picked up at the weekend – and took advantage of a marked improvement today by going out shopping with Mrs Sane and #4 (aka “Daddy’s little princess”) this morning. And then again this afternoon with Mrs Sane after dropping #4 off at nursery which is where we found the bargain of the century – a Blu Ray DVD player for £129!
If you’ve not experienced the joy of High Definition then get yourself down to your local Currys or Comet and take a look at the big plasma’s playing a DVD. You’ll know it’s playing in HD because it looks like it’s playing on a computer monitor but on a grander scale. Once you’ve seen a HD film there’s no going back – we watched Star Wars Clone Wars in Blu Ray tonight and even a cartoon looks stunning. I even got the Wii hooked up to the surround sound system so it was a thoroughly productive day.
The only downer on the whole day was stupidly lifting the TV unit, complete with TV and all the other kit that goes with it, to move it back to the right place on my own and, I think, pulling a muscle in my stomach. If I haven’t pulled the muscle, I’ve at least given it a good tug – it bloody hurts whenever I bend or straighten up.
Technorati Tags: Blu Ray
In May last year, the High Court ruled that MPs must release details of their expenses under the Freedom of Information Act.
It is now approaching the deadline for releasing those expenses and guess what? Because MPs couldn’t lawfully hide their expenses, they are planning to change the law so that their expenses are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. Morally corrupt bunch of thieving bastards.
Little Man in a Toque has some suggestions for things to do if you’re as pissed off about it as he is. I’ve written to my MP, the thoroughly useless David Whip Wright MP:
Dear David,
As you are no doubt aware, the High Court ruled on the 16th of May last year that MPs expenses must be published under the Freedom of Information Act. You are also no doubt aware that your government is now planning to introduce a change to the Freedom of Information Act to allow MPs to hide their expenses claims from the public.
I would urge you to vote against this disgraceful and unjustifiable attempt to avoid proper scrutiny of MPs expenses. If you don’t think the people who pay your expenses should be allowed to see what they’re paying for, please explain why.
Stuart
No doubt he’ll ignore this email like he does with every other one I’ve sent him in the last few months.
Technorati Tags: Freedom of Information, MP Expenses, David Wright MP
Three weeks after illegally invading, Israel has begun to pull out of Gaza, leaving behind a humanitarian disaster and a very happy Hamas.
Israel says that it has achieved what it wanted to achieve but this is only partly true. What Israel wanted to achieve was to terrorise Palestinians into withdrawing support for Hamas, to destroy infrastructure so the Palestinians can’t support themselves and to cause as much “collateral damage” as they could get away with.
Israel managed to destroy Palestinian infrastructure – half a million Palestinians in Gaza are without water, 4,000 homes have been destroyed, tens of thousands of people are homeless and schools and hospitals have been destroyed. They managed to cause “collateral damage” – over 1,300 dead Palestinians so far and bodies are still being found. But what they failed to achieve – and this was their stated aim – was to defeat Hamas, to take away Hamas’ ability to attack Israel and to turn people away from Hamas.
Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire, Hamas responded with a temporary ceasefire for a week to let Israel withdraw its troops. Does that sound like the actions of a defeated Hamas or a Hamas that is taking the piss, rubbing the IDF’s noses in it? Hamas is far from defeated and the indiscriminate attacks on Gaza and the deliberate targeting of civilians have done nothing to terrorise people into abandoning support for Hamas.
I went to Birmingham yesterday for a meeting of the National Council of the Campaign for an English Parliament.
Parking in Birmingham is a nightmare at the best of times, especially in the city centre where the National Council meets, so I catch the train. This was the first time I’ve caught the train since Arriva finally added an extra pair of carriages to the train into Birmingham and it made all the difference.
I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve stood all the way from Telford to Birmingham and again all the way back. It’s not fun and when they charge nearly £8 for the privelege, it takes the piss. But gone are the days of cattle class travel that wouldn’t look out of place in India – I had the luxury of sitting all the way there and all the way back in reasonable comfort. There was no internet access and no power socket for my laptop but they don’t do first class on that route and I wouldn’t pay for it anyway!
The only complaints I had about my journey were, at Birmingham New Street station they had 8 members of staff at the ticket desk which nobody was using and only 2 on the enquiries desk where people were queueing to be served and the train on the way back was having some sort of mechanical problem, probably a dodgy clutch or gearbox, which meant that the thing kept juddering along before dropping down a gear for a while and then back up a gear and into juddering mode again.
Oh yeah and having all the safety signs on one side of the carriage written only in Welsh probably isn’t the best or safest way of doing things for a train that spends most of its journey in England.
Technorati Tags: Arriva, Trains, Telford, Birmingham, Birmingham New Street
The walking, talking man-made disaster, El Gordo, has struck again.
On the 9th of January he visited Media Wales, part of Trinity Mirror, and was given a guided tour around the facilities by Managing Director, Keith Dye. On the 13th of January Keith Dye was made redundant in a cost-cutting exercise.
Still, it could have been worse – remember John MacDougal?
The One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan is visiting the site of the Olympic village in London today. We may as well write off 2012 now.
Technorati Tags: Gordon Brown, Media Wales, Keith Dye, John MacDougal, Olympics
The One Eyed Wonder of Wankistan has abused the honours system again to appoint another unelected minister to his cabinet of all the talentless.
Mervyn Davies, the Chairman of the Standard Chartered Bank, will be given a peerage so that he can join the British government without the inconvenience of having to get elected. Davies will join Paul Myners, who was also given a peerage so he could be appointed to the cabinet without being elected, in the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) where he will be serving under Peter Mandelson who was also given a peerage so he could join the British government without having to get elected.
Setting aside, for a moment, the fact that El Gordo – supposedly a socialist and diametrically opposed to the class system – is abusing the honours system to circumvent the democratic process, what it does tell us is that even El Gordo has no faith in his own MPs to weather the economic storm he was instrumental in creating which is why he’s having to cheat the system and bring in unelected outsiders. Mandelson’s appointment shows just how inadequate the talent inside Liebour’s own ranks is – bringing back a failed communist politician who’s had to twice resign from government because of dodgy financial dealings smacks of desperation.
Technorati Tags: Gordon Brown, BERR, Peter Mandelson, Mervyn Davies, Peerages, Corruption
Israel took a break from blowing up schools today and decided to bomb the UN’s headquarters in Gaza instead, destroying supplies stored in the compound.
The reason? Israel claims its terrorists came under fire from inside the compound. That’s right, Israel is now accusing the UN of harbouring militants and facilitating terrorism. They really have got to get a grip on reality and realise they can’t just blow the shit out of anything they feel like.
Technorati Tags: Israel, United Nations, Terrorism
The hand-wringing liberals are at it again, this time demanding Prince Charles apologise for calling his friend Sooty.
The friend in question, Kolin Dhillon, said “I enjoy being called Sooty by my friends” but that hasn’t stopped the PC fascists from wailing hysterical about how insensitive and offensive Prince Charles has been.
Someone from Give Racism the Red Card, the unequal rights pressure group that started plying its trade at football matches, said “In our view there is no friendly banter where racism is concerned”. Well clearly there fucking is you muppet, as evidenced by “Sooty” saying “I enjoy being called Sooty”.
Even the campaign manager of the anti-monarchy campaign, Republic, has got in on the act saying it shows how out of touch the royals are. Which it doesn’t. What it shows is how out of fucking touch people like Republic and Give Racism the Red Card are. Has Prince Harry’s former colleague, the one he called “paki” three years ago, taken offence at being called “paki”? No. Has Kolin Dhillon complained about being called “Sooty”? No. Not every black or asian person is obsessed with being a victim. Not every black or asian person sees racism in everything that is said or done to them. It’s only the gobshite professional whingers, hand-wringing liberals and spineless politicians that blow things like this out of all proportion and they’re the ones creating this climate of fear where ordinary people are scared to speak their mind in case they get accused of racism.
But, strictly speaking, the jobsworth from Give Racism the Red Card is right. There is no friendly banter where racism is concerned. Racism is a hatred or intolerance of another race or other races or a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others. Did Prince Charles demonstrate a hatred or intolerance of Kolin Dhillon because of his race? No. Did Prince Charles express the idea that he was superior to Kolin Dhillon because of his race? No. So was Prince Charles being racist? NO!
Publicity is the oxygen of the fascist groups “anti-racism” that are driving a wedge between the natives of these islands and rest of society. Every time a newspaper quotes them it gives them an unhelpful and undeserved legitimacy. They are the ones you can thank for the kind of society we now have where groups like the Muslim Council of Britain and Reach receive taxpayers money and have a seat at the decision making table but the Steadfast Trust, a charity dedicated to promoting English culture, is denounced as racist.
Technorati Tags: Racism, Prince Charles
When you speak out on a subject with a different viewpoint to what is presented by the media, the government or your peers as the “right” opinion to have, it often feels like you’re beating your head against a brick wall. This is the case with Israel – the government sides with Israel, the media tries to come across as impartial but overcompensates in favour of Israel and the majority of my right of centre peers in the blogging world most definitely side with Israel.
That’s why it was a relief to read this article by Avi Shlaim, a former Israel soldier turned professor of international relations at Oxford University which says pretty much what I’ve been saying for the last few years. I won’t reproduce the article because it’s too long but, as much as I dislike driving traffic to the Guardian, I would encourage you to go and read it.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestine, Avi Shlaim
The Millibeast didn’t reply to my email the other day so I sent him another one this evening:
Dear Millibeast,
I wrote to you a few days ago as you can see below but I haven’t received a reply as yet. Perhaps your secretaries didn’t forward the email on or you’ve been too busy.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what’s happening in Gaza at the moment although you may not have seen the latest fatality figures. According to the paper I read tonight the death toll is somewhere in the region of 13 of Gods Chosen People (3 of which self-defenced themselves loading one of their Weapons of Mass Self-Defence) compared to 870 Arabs.
The other day, some of Gods Chosen Soldiers rounded up some civilian terrorists and put them in a house for their own safety and then the next day they self-defenced the house, killing quite a few of the civilian terrorists, three of which were children. After this the international community, through the UN, expressed its will by way of another UN resolution calling on Israel to stop self-defencing Gaza. Israel has ignored the will of the international community again, when will you be taking the same hard stance that the British and American governments did with Iraq for the same offence?
Vive La Revolution!
Wonko
I reckon trying to get a reply from government ministers should be made an Olympic sport, it’d be a perfect addition to the list of Olympic sports we’re no good at.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Terrorism, David Millibeast
Islamic pressure groups, newspapers and David Camoron have lined up to express mock outrage at Prince Harry calling one of his asian army friends a paki another, a raghead.
The Torygraph has a copy of the mobile phone videos recorded by Harry three years ago, courtesy of the News of the World, in its article about the mock outrage of the father of the soldier Harry calls a paki. The videos confirm my immediate thoughts – that it was friendly banter between friends. At the end of the video an asian asks Harry if he has ginger pubes, to which Harry replies “yes”. Where is the mock outrage at the gingerism?
David Camoron was the first politician to express his mock outrage, saying it was “a completely unacceptable thing to say” while Nick Cleggover was hot on his heels, saying it would have caused “considerable offence”. He didn’t look offended.
What people like Camoron and Cleggover don’t realise is that asians call each other names all the time, including paki and raghead. In one of my previous jobs the Indians called the Pakistani’s “paki” all the time and the Pakistani’s called the Indians “paki” to wind them up. All harmless banter and nobody took offence as, I suspect, is the case with the asians in Prince Harry’s videos.
Technorati Tags: Prince Harry
The LabourList website is being relaunched with a new design. Don’t worry though, it’s still a waste of bandwidth populated by the same tired old sycophant party officials, failed politicians and corrupt communists.
Of course, with the website being hosted on Planet Labour, you can expect the usual bizarre version of reality that Labour supporters and politicians inhabit. There are some amusing comments on the home page, such as:
This is a challenging but exciting time for Labour. Twelve years in office have brought huge advances to Britain, and we continue to be the party of ideas and innovation.
… and …
The distinction between the major parties has rarely been clearer
The blogroll in particular made me laugh. There’s the “A-List” of blogs, a small selection of other sycophant Labour-supporting blogs and the “Z-List” of blogs, comprising the two most popular blogs in the UK – Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes – and ConservativeHome, the Tory grassroots website that the likes of LabourList can only look at with envy.
As well as the entertaining alternate reality stuff, there’s a bit of naughtiness – a link to FixMyStreet in amongst other Labour buttons with the clear implication that the site, which was set up by the same charity behind the petitions.pm.gov.uk website, is a Labour initiative.
We’re under no illusions as to how popular Bloggers4UKIP is likely to be – UKIP is a minor party and we wouldn’t expect to compete directly with the likes of ConservativeHome but if the best “grass roots” website the Labour Party can come up is LabourList then we’re pretty happy with what we’ve managed to achieve in our spare time with a budget of zero and without any help from UKIP.
Just a quick note to LabourList before I finish though: ministers and paid employees aren’t “grass roots“. Ordinary members giving up their spare time without being paid or otherwise rewarded – like us here at Bloggers4UKIP – are the grass roots of a party.
Just done the mini-wonko’s a sandwich and gave them the choice of the extensive cheese collection.
Two orders for a Red Leicester cheese sandwich, one for a white Lancashire cheese sandwich and one for a Chive and Onion cheese, Tuna & Mayonnaise and Cucumber sandwich.
Where on earth does that child get his tastes from? Certainly not me!
I have a hotmail account which I only use for MSN Messenger but from time to time I do check Hotmail because some of my MSN contacts send emails to my Hotmail account.
For instance, I received an invitation today to contribute to a blog and it was sent to my Hotmail account. MSN Messenger notified me of the new mail and I clicked on the clicked on the notification which launched Internet Explorer, despite the fact that my default browser is Flock.
Internet Explorer 7 is reasonable stable, it has tabbed browsing but it’s not a patch on Firefox or other Mozilla-based browsers such as the aforementioned Flock. The latest browsers using the Mozilla engine have excellent support for CSS2 and half-decent support for CSS3 (even though it’s not a ratified standard yet). Internet Explorer is a nightmare for anyone who does any web design with its terrible support for CSS and its dodgy implementation of some of the most basic CSS. That and the extra functionality is why I use Flock instead of Internet Explorer. Making MSN Messenger launch web pages in Internet Explorer instead of the default browser is unnecessary and arrogant.
Technorati Tags: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, Flock, Browsers, Microsoft
The UN released a statement last night claiming that Israeli soldiers evacuated 110 Palestinian civilians, half of them children, into a single home telling them it was for their safety. The brave Israeli military then deliberately self-defenced the house with their American bombs the following day killing 30 people, 3 of which were children.
This latest act of Israeli terrorism was obviously a step too far because the US Ambassador to the UN sat next to his Israeli counterpart and abstained on a vote for a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, Israel to withdraw its troops from Gaza, the cessation of smuggling weapons into Gaza and the re-opening of border crossings.
The terrorist appeasing Americans were never going to vote in favour of a resolution against Israel – they could have bombed the Vatican and the Americans would claim the Pope was a terrorist – but an abstention, whilst morally reprehensible, is a serious rebuke for the Israeli’s.
All that remains to be seen is whether Israel complies with the UN resolution or whether they continue to defy the will of the international community.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Terrorism, United Nations
My father-in-law is disabled because of an über-rare disorder caused by a brain tumor when he was a child. He is now deaf, has no balance and has no short-term memory. My mother-in-law is his carer – he can’t go out without a wheelchair any more, he doesn’t feel pain and if left to his own devices he would either eat 10 times in a day or not eat at all because he can’t remember if he’s eaten even a few minutes after doing so.
My father-in-law has fallen over 4 times today and cut his head open which required stitches. Caring for an adult is hard work as I’m sure you’ll apppreciate and it’s important she gets a break once in a while. Last year she didn’t get one but this month it’s her 50th birthday so she’s booked to go away to a hotel for a weekend with my wife and some friends and relatives.
She booked my father-in-law in for a couple of days of respite care months ago at the only respite care room in the whole of Telford that will take under-60’s. One room for a town with a population of around 160,000 people. This morning social services phoned her to say they had cancelled the booking because the hospital in Telford is full and they’re sending their patients to the care home that the respite room is in and they’re going to use the respite room.
The reason why the hospital in Telford is full is because the hospital in nearby Shrewsbury has closed three wards because of an outbreak of norovirus. This wouldn’t be a problem if Telford hospital wasn’t already full because it’s winter and there’s been a minor flu epidemic in the county. So Shrewsbury hospital are paying Telford hospital to look after their patients while Telford hospital is paying private care homes in Telford to look after their patients. But what really takes the piss is that social services in Telford have offered to put my father-in-law into respite for the same dates that they’ve just cancelled in Telford – in a home on the other side of Shrewsbury!
If Shrewsbury hospital is full and Telford hospital is full but the care homes in Shrewsbury aren’t then why is the hospital in Shrewsbury sending their patients to Telford instead of sending them to the care homes in Shrewsbury? And why aren’t they cancelling elective surgery in Oswestry hospital which is run by the hospital in Shrewsbury and sending their patients there? The hospital in Oswestry no longer has an A&E department, a sizeable proportion of their patients aren’t emergency cases and could wait a few weeks – as inconvenient as that is – while the current crisis is dealt with.
This is the problem when a service is run like a business – people lose out when there’s a profit to be made. I wouldn’t mind so much if Telford and Shrewsbury hospitals weren’t run by the same Primary Care Trust.
Technorati Tags: Telford, Shrewsbury, Hospital
The head of the UN has again called for Israel to cease its military action in Palestine and Israel has again ignored him. Just like they have when every other president, prime minister and foreign minister (apart from the Americans of course) has called on them to stop.
I’ve just sent the following email to David the Millibeast:
Dear Mr Millibeast,
Israel has ignored calls by the UN, the ICRC, presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers (including yourself) to cease military in action in Palestine. Up until 2006, despite the constant use of the American veto, the UN made 101 resolutions against Israel for its aggression against Palestine and its other neighbours. This is more than any other country in history.
As they are clearly defying the will of the international community and are in possession of weapons of mass destruction – the reasons given for invading Iraq – can you please advise why Israel is not being dealt with in the same manner?
Regards,
Wonko
Technorati Tags: Israel, Gaza, David Millibeast
