Quote of the day

Lucy tells it like it was:

OMG! Right, so this bloke wrote this book saying that the prime minister like totally dissed his mate Alistair who's supposed to like look after all the country's money, yeah? And then Alistair said that this was, like, totally true. And it was because the prime minister wanted everyone to be all, like, "Oh, everything's brilliant, couldn't be better, I'm really happy and so is everyone else!, yeah?" But then Alistair went and told this newspaper that actually Britain's economy was, like, well bad, you know and the PM just went totally mental and everything and tried to take his job off him and give it to his other friend but Alistair was like, you just try it and I'll totally walk away from everything so he let him stay. So now Alistair thinks he can just say whatever he likes.

I think it is all well stupid.

Indeed.

Lazy thinking

The Guardian reports:

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg that contains enough fresh water to supply a third of the world's population for a year has broken off in the Antarctic continent ...

Likewise The Times (here), The Independent (here), The Sun (here) and The Daily Mail (here) all use the same Luxembourg analogy.

Why Luxembourg? Who in this world has any idea of what size Luxembourg is? I don't and I've actually been there.

Nice photo though.

Scunnered

Dateline 2012, SNP headquarters

It was all Salmond's fault of course. Instead of introducing the referendum bill in January 2010 as originally proposed, he had to play silly buggers by setting up a second consultation period in February 2010. As a result, the Scottish Government did not get around to introducing the referendum bill until June 2010. And although, to the amazement of the political pundits, it managed to survive its committee stage, it did not emerge from parliament as an act until January 2011. All that business of setting up the new electoral commission and the appointment of counting officers, as well as printing the ballot papers and arranging the accommodation, meant that there was no prospect of holding the referendum for at least 6 months after the bill became an act. When the SNP were crushed in the May 2011 general election, the new Labour administration - with the support of the other unionist parties - wasted no time in repealing the referendum act.

So there we are. Stuffed. We had a chance. But we turned down the first opportunity in 300 years of allowing the Scottish population to vote for independence. And for what? So Alex could play political games? And who knows when the next opportunity will come along. Given the current state of the parties, we can forget about the 2015 election. As in 2011, who would believe our promises?

Looking for the mot juste

Is this a successful simile in relation to our esteemed First Minister?

...bring it on, roared Eck, who was in his element now, soaring like a corpulent eagle above Labour’s cliff of seagulls and dropping constitutional excreta into the open mouths of the squawking creatures below.

Can a corpulent eagle soar? And, in recent months, has our Eck not given up soaring in favour of hedge-clipping?

Techie stuff

I grow tired of this. The Independent reports:

Virgin Media yesterday outlined plans to bring superfast broadband speeds of 100Mb to 12.6 million UK homes by the end of next year. The move was backed by both Labour and the Conservatives in what has become a hotly contested political issue in the run-up to the general election.

They can plan as much as they like, but I'm not going to get anywhere near 100Mb through the copper wires that constitute the telephone line that leads up to my top flat.

Nor is it simply a question of replacing the wire with fibre optic cable. It is some ten years ago that the cable tv companies installed cable in the street below. But as I live in a conservation area, they have yet to discover the means of replacing the copper wire with fibre optics without tearing the stair apart. The last time I enquired, they had no plans to do so.

So I am stuck with relatively slow broadband. Too bad, but I still wouldn't live anywhere else.

First thoughts

Look, I know it's tedious but do try to concentrate. And I accept that there is little chance that it will ever happen. But there is one little point of interest: it's all to do with the fact that the proposed two questions are not mutually exclusive.

As far as I understand what is proposed, the Scottish Government's new proposals involve a two-question referendum. The first question would ask for a yes or no to increased devolution (either of the Calman variety or of devolution max, but not both - the choice of option has yet to be determined); the second question would ask for a yes or no to full independence.

There's a sneaky little sentence on the ballot paper for the second question. It is this:

The Scottish Government proposes that, in addition to the extension of the powers and responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament set out in proposal 1, the Parliament's powers should also be extended to enable independence to be achieved.

I interpret this to mean that, regardless of how many voters opt for increased devolution, a simple majority on the second question (independence) would be seen as empowering the authorities to proceed towards independence. If 95% of the voters were to opt for increased devolution and 51% for independence, it is the latter which would take precedence. In other words, the option of increased devolution would only come into play if the independence option were turned down.

Does that seem fair? The Scottish Government would feel entitled to ignore the option favoured by most of the voters and proceed on a less popular course of action (assuming always that the latter option exceeded 50%)?

None of this is made clear in the associated papers, so perhaps I have it wrong. But I don't think so. No doubt those of my interlocutors who take a different view will correct me.

The non-denial denial

At question time yesterday, in answer to Cameron's probing on "the forces from hell", and continuing the line he has taken since the story broke, the Prime Minister said:

"I never instructed a briefing against the Chancellor."

But what if one of his attack dogs asked if he could give the Chancellor a kicking and the Prime Minister did not demur. Is that "instructing a briefing"? Probably not.

Or suppose the Prime Minister said in the presence of his afore-mentioned attack dogs that someone should take the Chancellor down a peg or two. Is that "instructing a briefing"? Probably not.

Cameron was obviously conscious of these distinctions, asking at one point:

Will the Prime Minister get to his feet and tell us that he knew absolutely nothing about the briefing against his Chancellor?

but, typically, he failed to press his attack home.

Those were the days

Captain Morgan or Bacardi? A false dichotomy.

Whenever I have been in the Caribbean (which has been regrettably seldom in recent years), I have favoured Havana Club - made in Cuba, the real home of rum - as the basis for my mojito.

Buenas suertes, amigos!

You couldn't make it up

A nationalised bank (RBS) makes a loss of about £3,600,000,000. Nevertheless, it proposes to pay 22,000 of its staff bonuses totalling £1,300,000,000, an average of about £60,000 per individual.

UKFI, the body established by the government to supervise the banks, is able to veto any bonuses payable by RBS. On this occasion, presumably with the agreement of HM Treasury, it chooses not to do so.

Why? Apparently, some of the investment bankers might seek their fortunes elsewhere. Are these masters of the universe, the guys who contributed so mightily to RBS' troubles, so good that the prospect of losing them (and where would they go anyway?) has the effect of forcing the bank to pay out £1.3 billion?

Pass the sick bag, Alice.

Music of the week

Happy birthday Denis

Denis Law is 70 today.

Don't that make you feel old?

Footballing neologisms

This season's fashion:

"to work the goalkeeper" - to force the goalkeeper to make a save.

(You didn't know that to work was a transitive verb? Well you learn something every day.)

"to put one's foot through the ball" - to have a shot at goal.

(No, it does not mean that the ball has burst.)


Now obsolescent (perhaps even obsolete):

"to have a great engine" - said of a player able to run up and down the field for the entire game (invariably to no great effect).

Oh Eric - what have you done?

Why would you do it? How could you do it? Turn down £2.3 million, I mean. There go the extra Lamborghini and the villa in the Bahamas.

And yes I know that some of your peers have done likewise. And yes the amount would be substantially diminished by income tax. And it was shares rather than cash. And you will continue to be handsomely remunerated, beyond the wildest dreams of we peasants. But still ...

I can only suppose that it illustrates the different world in which the top bankers live. To accept a bonus of £2.3 million might arouse envy, even fury, on the part of your fellow citizens; but we can understand it. Wouldn't we all like to be in that position? But to turn it down evokes only incomprehension - how can you be so rich that a couple of million plus can be tossed aside so lightly?

And the crucial questions: how did you tell your wife and what did she say?

The raging paranoid?

So the Prime Minister may sometimes be grumpy. He gets upset. He shouts and swears at the prima donnas of the No 10 staff. He throws papers and mobile phones about. Sometimes, he appears to threaten violence (although nobody is suggesting that he has actually thumped anyone). In short, he may not be a very nice person. Not the kind of boss you'd prefer if you had a choice.

But what's new? Where's the smoking gun? Is this a game-changing development? I rather doubt it.

I don't suppose that Alex Salmond is entirely angelic and forgiving when it comes to dealing with his staff. And Mrs Thatcher was renowned for treating her cabinet as the vegetables some of them undoubtedly were. Perhaps you prefer the sleekit approach of a Tony Blair who devolved his disciplinary duties to the thuggish Campbells of this world. Cameron? It remains to be seen, but Tories who get on his wrong side are already living to regret it.

You don't get to the top of the greasy political pole by being a nice guy.

Move along now.

Gone to valhalla in the sky

So farewell Al Haig, the cold war warrior's champion. Maybe you were not quite as frightening as you were painted - Dr Strangelove you were not. But it was terrifying enough to think that your finger was anywhere near the nuclear trigger.

(We used to worry about these sort of things in those days.)

Sloganising

"A future fair for all"

A touch of alliteration - perhaps a bit hackneyed but probably excusable in this context.

But should there not be some punctuation between "future" and "fair"; a semi-colon perhaps? Otherwise, it may imply that we are all going to a funfair at some future point in time.

Does it mean anything? How can the future be fair for all, while some of us will continue to have to scrimp and save in order to keep our heads above the incoming economic tides while others are permitted to retain their seven figure bonuses? And all this happened under the Labour watch of the last 12 years and will inevitably continue if they succeed at the general election. For that is the big question - we know that the Tories don't give a toss about fairness. Does Labour?

Winter Games

I have always regarded the pastime of sliding down icy hills - whether on sticks or tea trays - as suitable only for children under the age of eleven.

But, in a general spirit of patriotic benificence, I wish this tea tray lady well, even if there are those who would consider her to be daft as a brush.

Same old Tories (part 2)

Does anyone really believe that Davey Cameron watches darts on the telly while pulling on a can of guinness?

Thought not ...

Same old Tories

Cameron may have tried to convey the message that the Tories were human beings but he is constantly being let down by his backbenchers. The Guardian reports:

The veteran Tory MP Sir Nicholas Winterton was under fire tonight after arguing that MPs should be allowed to claim expenses for first-class tickets because standard coaches are for "a totally different type of people". After declaring himself "infuriated" with proposals from the new expenses watchdog to ban payments for first-class tickets during a magazine interview, the MP for Macclesfield told a radio interviewer that people travelling on standard tickets were "in a different walk of life" and their children might disturb an MP's work.

No indication that Winterton has any understanding that he owes his job and his first class ticket to those in cattle class.

Quote of the day

Locked together, the stately minuet continues; the US can't stop borrowing and China can't stop lending. As Heather Stewart in The Guardian points out:

"China is America's paymaster. But at the same time, as the saying goes, if you owe the bank $100, it's your problem; if you owe the bank $100m, it's the bank's problem. The US owes China more than $800bn.

Stability of a sort, I guess.