The Aged P

That The Political Class Is Puzzled By The Rise Of UKIP Is Proof They Have Lost Touch With The Real World..

Quote of the day re the emergence of Ukip as an important political player

The fact that some voters don’t seem to believe that voting Conservative leads to Conservative outcomes suggests something rather deeper and more significant here, a fundamental problem of trust.
The same logic applies to the argument the Ukip is a protest against Coalition, economic hardship and the rest. The current party system offers voters a mechanism for registering discontent with the governing party/parties: it’s called the Official Opposition, the Labour Party. The fact that some anti-Government voters don’t believe that voting Labour is the best way to hurt the Government again points to a deeper problem.
If the Conservatives – or any of the main parties, come to that – are going to be reconciled with Ukip voters, they’re going to have to do something more substantial than promising to “listen” and tweak a few of their own policies.

Last night observing Michaell Portillo’s discomfort in having to share a studio discussion with Nigel Farage was rather like watching a debt ridden aristocrat having to sell his estate to the self made millionaire who used to be one of his gardeners. I’m afraid many members of our political, media and cultural elite will be equally uncomfortable this morning….

Cameron’s Last Minute EU Referendum Hint…Is It Really “My lips make promises but I have the heart of a whore”?

“My lips make promises but I have the heart of a whore”

Meet David Cameron

There are indications that UKIP, whose supporters were once characterised by David Cameron as “fruitcakes and loonies” might do well in today’s local elections at the expense of Cameron’s Conservative Party.

On the day before these elections Cameron has hinted that there might be a possibility that in certain circumstances there could be a chance that the promise of an in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU would be enshrined by legislation

In an interview, Mr Cameron said the Conservatives needed to “demonstrate absolutely that we are serious about this referendum”.

Is this the action of a man you can trust?

Be My Baby (The Ronettes)…..Half A Century Ago But It Still Sets My Pulse Racing…..

Recorded half a century ago – and it still knocks the socks off most of the stuff being pumped out today. Phil Spector might not be the person you would want to spend the night with but he was a musical genius – as for the Ronettes – wow – they…smouldered…..

Ronnie was the lead, backed by her older sister Estelle and her cousin Nedra….the beehives, the dark eye shadow, the tight dresses – they weren’t the girls you would take home to your mum (well, that was the image)

DP: The Ronettes have been described as the first bad girls of rock. How did you get that reputation?

NTR: It wasn’t that we were bad, it was just that we were the ones with the big beehives. We developed our hairstyle, the beehive, the dark eye makeup … We set the mode for the big hair, we set the mode for the dark eye makeup. Then, we were dancers, too. So we wore a lot of dresses that had a slit on the side. In the ’60s, a lot of the dresses were very tapered down at the leg. We had to have a slit for dancing. We were the first to do the shaking, with the fringe. We had the outfits that had the fringe. Also, our songs sang to boys, where other girl groups sang about boys.

Fame didn’t bring happiness to Estelle or, initially, to Ronnie. Nedra was more fortunate and looks back on those days with perspective. In 2007 the girls were reunited on stage for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame though Estelle was too fragile to sing and only came on afterwards to thank the audience. Just two years later she died in tragic circumstances.

But, whatever the highs and lows of life we can still lock into our memories that magical moment in 1963 when the world was ours….

The Ronettes – Nedra, Ronnie & Estelle

Storm Warning…..

Looks like rain….

How To Be A Highly Skilled Investigative Political Journalist Reporting On UKIP At The Daily Telegraph…#236:Rowena Mason

Interviewer: So, Rowena, as the Daily Telegraph’s highly trained ace political journalist, tell us how you got the UKIP story?

Rowena Mason: Someone from Conservative Party HQ sent me an e mail which I cut and pasted…….ermmmm, that’s it…

Interviewer: Thank you, Rowena Mason, the Daily Telegraph’s highly trained ace political journalist…

“Let’s Face It, Chaps, This UKIP Business Is All A Bit Of A Fantasy…..I Say, Could You Pass Me An Olive?”

One of those clever young chaps at The UK Spectator has poured some cold water over speculation that UKIP could do well, even win, should a by election be held at in the Portsmouth South constituency of beleaguered Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock.
Young Mr Jones points out that the Portsmouth South demographics indicate a younger population and, as we all know, only old people, hankering over a Britain that never really existed, support UKIP.

But we can expect the average Portsmouth South voter to be at least slightly younger — and therefore less likely to vote Ukip — than the average Eastleigh voter.

Moreover the Lib Dems are deeply entrenched locally, as they were in Eastleigh

And, like in Eastleigh, the Liberal Democrats dominate at a local government level — they hold 17 of the 18 City Council seats in the constituency (the Tories have one).

Therefore, he implies, let’s stop fantasising over UKIP and get down to good old fashioned traditional three way party politics…..it’s all a bit of a fairy story.

What he conveniently ignores, of course, is that the Lib Dems only won Eastleigh through the rather dubious organising of postal votes. On the day real time voters went massively UKIP because, during the actual campaign, voters were impressed by the party’s actual messaging (as distinct from the usual media inspired caricature) and the quality of the UKIP candidate.

Eastleigh has given the party a tremendous boost by proving that voting purple no longer a Raving Monster Loony Party moment. The media has begun to take the party a little more seriously, Nigel Farage’s Common Sense tour has played to packed halls and the national polls has shown UKIP pushing ahead of the Lib Dems.

This is not to say that the party would win in Portsmouth but the fact that a high tory outlet like the Spectator is engaging in a little agitprop shows that Cameron & Co are worried..

And so they should be…..membership is growing fast and a lot of these are from the younger demographic. Moreover they are not all disillusioned former Conservative voters. Some are from other parties and a number are people who were previously apolitical and who see the party as giving a voice to ordinary folk outside the metropolitan cultural elite.

Instead of pontificating from his media perch why doesn’t Jonathan Jones get down to some real journalism and get out and about to find out why so many people are joining UKIP – and what they are doing to bring it closer to the corridors of power…

But then that would take expenditure of shoeleather and chatting with the great unwashed – and that would never do…..might miss a few cocktail parties….

Gay Labour MP Not Too Keen On Estonian Barmaids…..

Chris Bryant, a gay Labour MP who is a tireless crusader against homophobia and who once made his underpants famous,  is clearly not a fan of Estonians barmaids.….

‘It would be nice sometimes when you go into a British hotel if the receptionist was British. ‘We need to give our young people to have the skills and the opportunities to get those jobs. ‘There is a hotel in my constituency quite often it’s not been able to employ locally, it has ended up employing people from Estonia and Latvia, often people from Estonia and Latvia have so much get up and go they’ve got up and gone.’

That’s not only true about hotels around Bryant’s Welsh constituency – hotels and pubs around West Sussex and Surrey are often staffed by Estonians and other East Europeans. But it’s not about low wages as some of the comments at the DM piece have opined. The key is in Bryant’s last few words

“people from Estonia and Latvia have so much get up and go”

Fact is Estonians and other East Europeans are not afraid of hard work and are also cheerful and helpful whereas some Brits…….

Sorry, Mr Bryant, I’d rather be served by an Estonian barmaid any day……

h/t for barmaid here…

New President Of China Hails A Taxi…..Too Good To be True – And It Wasn’t….LOL..

So the great Xi Jinping taxi story (new President of China jumps into a cab to show he’s just an ordinary bloke) proved to be a hoax…..

Red faced media big cheeses in China issued grovelling apologies and, natch, airbrushed the original story from their sites.

But one of the reasons the hoax gained legs was because it sounded exactly like the type of fairy story fantasy “man of the people” pumped out by the agitprop churners of every party based dictatorship.

Beloved Leader “suddenly” decides to leave office, go out onto the street and hail a taxi. A few minutes later the cab deposits said leader outside his humble abode where Mrs Leader is in the midst of cooking noodles…..and, astonishingly, media hacks are present throughout the whole journey.

Fact is these characters are as distant from the great unwashed as any medieval monarch. China, Cuba, North Korea and the jolly old USSR – any communist regime – is based on dynastic rivalries not on any truly democratic process. The party is a divine vanguard whose members know the needs of ordinary people much better than the ordinary people themselves. But, because they claim to rule in the name of the masses, unlike a medieval king whose power came from a hotline to heaven, They have to pretend to be “just like us”…..

Maybe next time his PR guys should suggest a swim……

Margaret Thatcher’s Funeral…”I have done the state some service, and they know’t”

“Soft you; a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know’t”

Othello Act V Sc II

An estimated quarter of a million people lined the streets to St Paul’s to bid farewell to Margaret Thatcher. We turned up mainly, of course, to pay our final respects to one of the greatest political leaders of the western world. But we came also, I am sure, to demonstrate how  the tiny minority of bile spewing ersatz “revolutionaries”, eagerly  sought out by the well heeled chattering class hacks from planet BBC/Guardian did not speak for the ordinary folk of all ages and from every walk of life who came into London today.

A grey, damp day…

It was grey and damp as I walked from Southwark Cathedral along the bank of the Thames to the Millennium Bridge. When I reached St Paul’s at 8.00am the pavements were already crowded. I managed to thread my way through to get a reasonable position – and watched and waited.

The mood was quiet and restrained as fitted for the occasion. We watched the police as they went about their business and checked the arrival of the great and the good as they arrived in buses – the limos were only for a handful of the very top brass.

The one big cheer that rang out had me puzzled until my neighbour laughed and just said the one word  “Boris”  - and true enough there was London’s Mayor being interviewed by some hack. At the end of the interview he walked back to St Paul’s on his own with more cheers echoing round the streets….how our other politicians must grind their teeth in fury at the man’s popularity….

Later we cheered the service men and women as they took up their positions lining the route of the procession – and an even louder cheer and applause for the red coats of the Chelsea Pensioners, the old soldiers who took position on the cathedral steps, ready to act as guard of honour for the flag draped coffin as it entered the great doors.

Then finally we heard the muffled drums of the military band as the cathedral’s bells tolled their own doleful knell….and there it was, borne on a gun carriage drawn by horses and accompanied by an honour guard from all branches of the services.  Draped in the Union flag, covered by white flowers, the coffin of Margaret Thatcher passed before us and was greeted by the crowd with applause and cheers of warmth – not a protestor in sight or in sound.

We watched as the honour guard bore the coffin up the steps – and then the cathedral doors closed.

Some stayed on but I left with the intention of coming home and watching a repeat of the actual service on TV. But as I passed a nearby pub, The Rising Sun, I saw a big crowd inside – they were watching the service on the big screens usually reserved for football or cricket. So I joined them and there we stood, with our beers, the pub packed and silent as we watched the whole service –  the biggest tribute of all from men (it was mainly men) who probably haven’t seen the inside of a church for years, if ever. Only when the service was over did the pub revert to the usual noise of chatter, laughter and glasses being collected.

The Rising Sun

That’s the way we mourned and saluted Margaret Thatcher, the grocer’s daughter who brought a demoralised and divided country back off its knees and told us to stand tall….