Speaker Bercow

So there we are then. Speaker Bercow.

For what it's worth, in a totally lacklustre competition - a sort of rather dull 'land of the little people' - my comments:

Bercow - pompous little prat, voted by NuLab to piss off the Tories
Young - actually the best speech and probably the best candidate
Beith - sooooo dull
Beckett - absolutely underwhelming
Widdecombe -as ever, totally nutty
Haselhurst - technically good but uninspiring
Dhanda - sooooo weak it was pitiful
Sheppard - boring
McCormack - lovely 1850s throwback, but in 2009, really?
Lord - last ditch attempt at getting a peerage

But is the new Speaker fit for the job? What do we actually need from the Speaker in any case? Simple. Three things:

1. To chair the House in an independent way, helping backbenchers and the opposition hold the executive to account.

2. To run the House effectively.

3. To steal back power for the House from the executive.

Well, first of all we can see how crap Michael Martin was. He failed all three tests tragically. But I struggle to believe that our new Speaker is going to measure up.

The Speaker Show

The British: "Lions led by donkeys".

I'll comment at the end. None of them inspire me.

Crass Stupidity

What an arrogantly patronising, nanny state, pointless waste of taxpayers' money.

My anger is only just subsiding.

No, in fact it's not. I am absolutely incandescently fucked off.

Yesterday, La Famillie Cragsbury had a visit from our health visitor. One of those milestone check ups for very young children. Now she is a nice lady; a sprightly 50-60, sparky, lively, originally Canadian. Full of good advice and reassurance. All good so far.

But what has gripped my shit is what she gave us: a purple 'conference giveaway' style plastic briefcase, containing:

2 children's books - Owl Babies, Elmer's Friends
3 handout leaflets
2 posters
1 sheet of stickers

This apparently is part of a Government funded project called 'Bookstart'. I have now looked into it. The facts (such as they are):

Bookstart is a project which you and I, the taxpayer, has thrown cash at for some years now, funding 25% of the project. The basic idea is as follows: "Bookstart aims to provide a free pack of books to every baby in the UK, to inspire, stimulate and create a love of reading that will give children a flying start in life. But most of all we want to show that books are fun."

PC, lefty, 'right on' laudable stuff you might think. But hold on, is that really what taxpayers should be throwing their hard earned cash at? Isn't learning to read at the 0-3 age group a parental responsibility? Why should the taxpayer fund this at all? Nice to do if the money is free, but it's not. It is hard earned cash, ripped out of the pay packets of normal, everyday average men and women whom earn around £25k pa on average. Not Fred the Shed. He's in the top o.1%. No, normal hard working ordinary people, desperately trying to afford books for their own kids. WTF should they be forced to fund other people's lack of application as parents?

As ever an initiative like this has some solid junk science behind it. Here it is, straight from the Bookstart website:

"Wade & Moore undertook an observational study, where parents shared a book with their children, of two to three years, and compared Bookstart families with a non-Bookstart sample.

83% of Bookstart parents read the whole text compared with 34% of non-Bookstart parents. 64% talked about the story, compared with only 24%. 43% encouraged the child to join in, compared with 17%. 68% encouraged the child to make predictions, compared with 38%
68% of Bookstart children looked at books as one of their favourite activities 21% for children who had not received Bookstart. 75% of Bookstart parents said they usually bought books as presents for their children compared with 10% for parents who had not received Bookstart. 43% of Bookstart parents took their children to the library at least once a month compared with 17% for parents who had not received Bookstart. "

Brilliant so, actually we are training the parents, rather than the children. Isn't that what we should be doing at school? Instead of stalactites and stalagmites, instead of oxbow lakes and Venn diagrams, how about teaching the 16 year old girls who will shortly be getting up the duff several times by various itinerant job seekers, how to parent properly as they are likely to have had appalling parenting example up till this point no doubt.

How screwed up is our society? Instead of addressing the disease, we throw charitable and taxpayer resources at the symptoms.

As I said at the beginning, this initiative is arrogantly patronising, nanny state bollocks at its worst and a pointless waste of taxpayers' money. God save us.

Don't Do It, Dave

So the poster boy of all the gay, media luvvie Tories is back, read it here.

Dave: don't be fooled. Don't let this intellectually hollow, attention seeking, vain, conceited prat get on the candidates list, for God's sake. Being gay, rich, good looking and able to employ a good PR does not make someone a worthy candidate, even in this lightweight style over substance world in which we live.

Massow is a fraud. He has flip flopped back and forth from Con to Lab to Ind to Barcelona to 'find himself' and back. He is a liability.

Chipmunk Update

So the Chipmunk lives, surviving her vote of no confidence by her local Labour constituency party. The Great Iain Dale will be happy, but will her local electorate?

Afternote: The Appalling Strangeness has a brilliant post on Her Chipmunkness.

The Tipping Point

OK, so we now know that Iran's Supreme Leader is backing I'm-a-Dinner-Jacket. The next 48 hrs will tell us where all this is going.

Do the various police organisations crack down, mass arrests, bloodshed on the streets, viz Buma, China etc?

Does the popular protest just continue to gather apace and finally force a change, viz Czech Republic, Ukraine?

We wait with bated breath.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

...or to translate the words of Juvenal, the famous Roman poet and satirist: who will guard the guards?

We have an absolutely fundamental problem in our democracy. The mission creep of the executive, started by Thatcher, accelerated massively by Blair and topped off with supreme disdainful arrogance by Brown, is now the rotten core of our governance system. Examples from just the last 24 hrs alone:

Yesterday's PMQs - A set piece, weekly moment in holding the executive to account has been transformed into the PM refusing to answer any direct question and lying on the record about the executive's own policies.

The Chancellor's Mansion House speech - Despite the banking regulation system created by the executive being demonstrably inadequate, with the Governor of the Bank calling for it to be changed, with the US Government strengthening their system, because it would seem to be admitting incompetence, the executive toughs it out and refuse to change things.

The fake Iraq war inquiry - A chorus of disapproval, now joined by Lords Butler and Hutton - both past chairmen of war-related public inquiries - reigns down on the executive and its cover up operation of what has been without doubt the most outrageous and expensive (in terms of human life) botch up during NuLab's period in power. The executive just arrogantly ignore the criticism.

MPs expenses - Today the feeding frenzy begins all over again. Standby for days of more coverage. There will be more scalps; NuLab minister Shahid Malik is clinging on by his finger nails and will surely go soon but there will be more. The whole legislature, including the executive, are sullied. And the response of the executive has been pitiful, more interested in covering up the detail and using distraction techniques (even today, funny that Fred the Shred's pension deal should be leaked today, huh?) than shedding light and promoting openness.

All these demonstrate the fundamental problem of our democracy: we have an executive that is so powerful that it now listens to no one, has no shame, and does exactly what it wants.

To answer Juvenal's question, no one is guarding the guards. They are out of control.

Iranian Prediction

Yup, I'm at it again. It's prediction time. Emboldened by my last prediction - that Gordy was going nowhere - which proved correct in the face of much media hype and blogosphere 'irrational exuberance' to the contrary (still waiting to hear from you, Mr Dale), I am up for my next one.

Mrs C, as you will recall, is a dodgy foreigner: Middle Eastern type, all long eyelashes, designer shoes and overly excitable behaviour. Thus, we follow the ups and down of Middle Eastern politics closely. What's going on in Iran right now has major ramifications for the global community, because:

1. If Mahmoud 'I'm-a-Dinner-Jacket' stays in power, bang goes any chance of stemming the flow of arms and cash to Hammas, which in turn keeps Hammas in power, which in turn means that Fatah will not get back into power, which in turn means that no deal between Israel and the Palestinians is possible, thus fucking over any chance of St Obama solving the Middle East crisis. Not good.

2. If Dinner-Jacket is propped up by the Supreme Leader and the Council of Guardians, then things are likely to get worse, which could push the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to topple the clerics and seize control. Not good either.

3. So the best outcome for world peace and all that, is for the Supreme Leader to dump Dinner-Jacket by saying the election result was miscounted, appoint Mir Hossein Mousavi as President and away we go.

Now, contrary to the usual portrayal in all the Western media about mad mullahs burning US flags etc, Iranian politics is always very tactical and cute. They have always been a very rational geopolitical player. Thus, boldly, I am going for option 3 above.

BTW, brilliant article on all this here.

Gotcha

As regulars will know, I am implacably opposed to ID cards. Here's my reasoning. But this is a good day for freedom, democracy and privacy. Testament to how out of control Gordy's inept Government is, can be found in this wonderful story.

Today Chris Grayling, the Tory Shadow Home Secretary, has changed our national policy on ID cards by effectively pulling the rug from underneath the Government's scheme, rendering it incapable of coming into existence. By writing to the five bidders for the contract, telling them clearly that whatever is agreed this side on the General Election will be ripped up straight after it. These bids cost millions, and what company is going to engage in the bidding process when the overwhelming likelihood is that it will be scrapped almost immediately.

Heads in the Political Sand

Don't you just love this. Tonight the Chancellor makes his Mansion House speech. Here's the BBC headline:

BANKING REGULATION NOT TO BLAME

So Captain Eyebrows will witter on about how brilliant Gordy's tripartite system is. (Pause). That would be the one that did not spot the greatest recession since the 1930s, right? And also the one that did not have the ability to deal with the recession quickly when it belatedly noticed it, right? Good work Gordy. Good work NuLab.

And the BBC headline from America today:

US PLAN FOR TIGHTER (BANKING) REGULATION

Time for the stupid little trolls in No10 and No11 to admit we have a problem of their own making methinks.