The Aged P

So, within a few hours the long saga of the US Presidential election will be over. Compared to our own bursts of six week frenetic electioneering, the American process is a long drawn out affair which began in the early autumn of 2011 when Republican hopefuls started throwing their hats into the ring.

I have never been a great fan of Mitt Romney. He has a well deserved reputation for shifting his political stances according to prevailing winds and he always distanced himself from the Tea Party revolution that emerged, unbidden, from the wreckage of the 2006 and 2008 GOP defeats.

His problem with many conservative Republicans, at present submerged beneath the soundbites and overblown rhetoric of whistlestop campaigning, is that once in the White House he would revert to type and pursue a don’t rock the boat, steady as she goes establishment pleasing Bush style governance that would kick the can of America’s dysfunctional indebtedness further down the road for Willow Palin’s generation to sort out.

Nevertheless, since the alternative is allowing Obama and his seedy gang of hacks an opportunity to set in concrete their goal of turning America into John Lennon Imagine World, it seems to me that Romney is the least worst alternative.

The other solid reason for enjoying a Romney victory would be the delights of relishing the deflated balloons at the BBC which, throughout the campaign, has scarcely deigned, via the wretched duo of Mark Mardell and Jonny Dymond, to conceal a sneering disregard for the views of flyover USA. Throw in the tears of Obama’s wealthy groupies in Hollywood and his mainstream media palace guard and it would be a repeat of that glorious November in 2004 when GWB confounded the elite and won his second term fair and square with the bonus of congressional control.

Unfortunately the GOP establishment threw that magnificent moment away in subsequent years. Would Romney do the same?

Perhaps.

But remember, during Bush’s second term, there was no figure who symbolised the spirit of conservative resistance. With President Romney he and his advisers would always be aware of the presence of Sarah Palin, always ready with a red hot poker near the presidential derriere to keep him on the straight and narrow……

Since God clearly speaks English it is good to hear that Debenhams coffee shops will be knocking Johnny Foreigner down a peg or two by letting us order our caffeine buzz in the greatest language in the world.

A caffe latte is now called a “really, really milky coffee”, while a cappuccino has become a “frothy coffee”, and a caffe mocha has been changed to a “chocolate flavoured coffee”. Black coffee has been replaced with “simple coffee, with or without milk”, while an espresso is labelled “a shot of strong coffee”.

No more fancy names like grande or venti either – it’ll be those simple three letter words mug and cup.

I am so pleased. The arty farty Italian words were used to create a false air of sophistication – and keep out the poor who simply didn’t have time to learn a poncey foreign language. To me those words always conjured up someone a little greasy and over excited and not to be trusted….

God Save the Queen!!!!!!!!

Helen Boaden, Director of BBC News, gets paid £340,000 per annum. Every penny of that comes out of our pockets and purses via the poll tax (aka TV Licence). In 2006 she authorised a meeting of “climate change experts”. As a result of this meeting the BBC decided to abandon its golden rule of impartiality on the issue of climate change. Now that must have been some meeting so what was said and who were the people who said it?

Strangely, despite the fact that the meeting was partly financed by the taxpayer via the BBC, it has proved incredibly difficult to find out because Helen Boaden doesn’t want us to know. She thinks it is sufficient for us be aware that she and the rest of the BBC elite found the discussions at the 2006 meeting so convincing that they decided to classify the critics of AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) as unworthy of equal consideration.

However, for six years the BBC has been fighting a Freedom of Information request to name the 28 people who so impressed Helen Boaden at the 2006 meeting. Currently lawyers for the BBC are trousering wads of taxpayer’s cash defending this stance at an Information Rights Tribunal. The person requesting the information, Tony Newbery, is merely represented by himself. Fortunately for Ms Boaden the presiding tribunal judge appears to have disallowed many of Mr Newbery’s questions.

I wonder how Ms Boaden would have reported such stonewalling when she was named “Radio Industrial Journalist and Campaigning Industrial Journalist of the Year by the Industrial Society in 1990 for her investigation into safety standards in the oil industry.”

How ironic that the BBC, which ferociously attacked the Blair government for being economical with the truth over the reasons for joining in with the American attack on Iraq, should now be unwilling to provide us with any hard evidence concerning an event which led them to break its longstanding tradition of impartiality.

The key fact, of course, is that much of the “evidence” for AGW has, in the years since 2006, has been undermined by some inconvenient truths. So much so, perhaps, that Helen Boaden would prefer to keep her own “dodgy dossier” safely under lock and key in the bowels of the BBC…..

Don’t get me wrong – the concept behind the annual Pride of Britain Awards is worthwhile.

The Pride of Britain Awards is an annual event in the United Kingdom, honouring Britons people who have acted bravely or extraordinarily in challenging situations.

Who can fail to be moved by the stories behind the recipients, young and old, as they come up to receive their award. Their actions are a refreshing antidote to the tawdry and shallow world routinely presented to us by the media – the world of “celebrities”. Indeed the Daily Mirror, sponsors of the event, makes a great play on this

In a celebrity-obsessed world, these are the only awards that get it right.
Yes, there is always an impressive array of celebrated names involved.But this is the one awards where they are presenting, not receiving……And it is reassuring to see that even our reverred stars become mere everyday mortals alongside the extraordinary acts of these ordinary people.

But if that’s the case – why the hell are these” celebrities” there at all? Why are they brought on stage, stealing the limelight from the recipients? Why is the camera forever cutting into the audience to focus on the famous faces in the audience?

Here’s a clue

Hosted by Carol Vorderman, our Awards attract an audience of around seven million viewers every year in a primetime slot on the ITV1 network in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – making it the highest rated awards show of its kind on British television.
It also receives huge coverage on Daybreak, the ITV1 network, the national press, national and regional radio and national magazines.
Many of the biggest names in showbusiness, sport and politics attend the glittering annual ceremony at the London Television Centre

You can hear the agent pointing out those words to the has-been pop singer planning his latest comeback, to the cynical comedian who got into trouble making jokes about “retards”, to the chat show regular recently filmed staggering drunkenly out of some nightclub……make certain you get some exposure on here…and for goodness sake stay sobre and look appropriately serious or tearful when the camera catches you.

Wherever we look on TV there are “celebrities” selling a book, pimping a show/film or pushing an album and the papers are full of their dysfunctional antics. Like showbiz people everywhere they are insanely jealous of anyone else competing in their genre yet, on screen they have to pretend to love each other.

Please, Daily Mirror and ITV, if the POB Awards are supposed to be a counter balance to “our celebrity-obsessed world” then why not produce a programme that focuses entirely on these extraordinary people themselves and GET RID OF THE CELEBRITIES ALTOGETHER!!!!

He wore the uniform of the media class – tieless shirts, dark suits, closely shaved head and a permanent three-day beard – and was quite incapable of thinking outside the liberal mindset.

Such creatures are, of course, very expensive to run – but at least he will not be trousering money from UK taxpayers as he was at the BBC. Sounds like he is the perfect fit for the New York Times

Nobody wants to visit Ted Heath’s house any more. The charity that runs it is closing it to the public….the official line is because the memory of the man who was Tory Prime Minister 1970-74 is “receding into history”….

Could it be, however, that within a short while there will be a lot more interest in places that Ted Heath visited?

Who can tell…….

The bastion of the left at the UK Guardian appears totally nonplussed at the result of a poll which discovers that working class voters are not particularly enamoured of those policies so much favoured by the chattering classes at their North London dinner parties – uncontrolled immigration and massive transfers of taxpayers money into overseas aid.

Could that possibly be because it is the working class areas of the big cities and small market towns that that find their schools, social services and social housing overwhelmed by the influx of immigrants and never the comfortable middle class suburbs or cosy commuter villages wherein dwell the self perpetuating political, media and academic elite? An elite which constantly lauds the glories of “cultural diversity” and “community integration” while maintaining a convenient distance from the realities of their guilt induced dreamworld.

One reason why the left elite hated Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher so much is that they connected with vast swathes of working class opinion and were not afraid of courting the disdain of that elite – unlike the current Tory leadership which deliberately jettisoned that legacy and paid the price with their failure to win unadulterated power in 2010.

Until the Tories have the courage to cease yearning for the approval of the BBC/Guardian chattering classes they might find themselves withering on the political vine and possibly being edged out by alternatives – UKIP, anyone?

The times they are a changing…..

So Brighton City Council goes beyond parody and proposes to abolish titles like Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms on all official forms and messages because they upset “the Transgender community”

Green Party deputy leader Coun MacCafferty said: ‘Trans people aren’t necessarily male or female and sometimes they don’t want to be defined by their gender.
‘Putting Mr and Mrs on a form is completely useless.

As a fully paid up member of “the Gender community” if I lived in Brighton I think I would immediately be “upset” by this bizarre proposal. However, in the spirit of moderation, I would suggest the following compromise.

Keep the four accepted conventions of “gender” address and add a fifth for the “Trans people”…….Tr……then everyone could be happy….

Result!!!!!

From the inimitable Benedict Brogan’s Morning Briefing e mail….

The Tories are also worried about how they can legitimately exclude UKIP if the party wins the 2014 European elections, and over an extended series of debates “sucking the Oxygen” from the rest of the election campaign.

..lol…

During their public discourse messrs Cameron, Clegg and Milliband dismiss UKIP and their leader Nigel Farage as an opportunist one trick pony better suited to the circus ring than the serious arena of political debate. But in private they also watch BBC Question Time and not only recognise how articulate and persuasive Farage can be on a whole range of issues but must also note how he CONNECTS with such a large cross section of the audience.

Those three empty suits, none of whom has really had a long term proper job before entering politics, would be messing their pants at the prospect of facing Farage in a TV debate….

In Chapter VIII of “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame, Mr Toad is in prison, steeped in despair when the gaoler’s daughter brings him…..toast….

When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries. Toad sat up on end once more, dried his eyes, sipped his tea and munched his toast….

mmmmm….heading for the bread bin and the toaster right now……