An Illogical Statistic?

During the 'circus' today that is supposed to be an opportunity to question the Prime Minister of the day and receive answers PMQ's and the exchange of insults figures and statistics about unemployment levels, Gordon Brown made a comment that 250,000 of newly unemployed youngsters were "full-time students looking for part-time work."

On occasions it has been known - and rightly so - that I am a tad 'slow on the uptake', but.......

 

If one is a 'full-time student' then how can one be unemployed........?

Just asking........

SOLACE Seeks Solace

David Clark, director-general of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE) bemoans the fact that a number of Chief Executives of local authorities will be quitting early due to increased scrutiny of their salaries and "people being told they earn too much"

And who has been responsible for increasing the pay of local authority Chief Executives? David Clark's 'protestations' can hardly be taken at face value considering that SOLACE is an organisation set up by serving council officials and which also operates a recruitment/consultancy company to advise on and recruit senior local authority staff.

Letters To The Press

Following my post on a response to a letter in the Daily Telegraph last week, that response was not selected for inclusion in the letters page on Monday, Tuesday or today.

However, all was not lost as a letter was published in the local paper, the Witney Gazette. Unfortunately it had been sent approximately 10 days earlier, consequently the part about 'not letting matters rest' is, today, not relevant.

It is indeed sad that a national newspaper seems unable to allow direct criticism of David Cameron, whilst a local paper does not seem so inhibited.

Will Our Media Report This?

Watts Up With That has YouTube footage of Finnish TV's interview with Dr. Richard Lindzen of MIT and Steven McIntyre of Climate Audi. Would suggest that if you don't speak Finnish you click on the transcript after the last YouTube screen.

The response, in the comments, from No10 to the petition to force the Climate Reseach Unit to release their source codes is revealing.

As with most WUWT posts, it is quite involved but well worth reading and storing for future reference.


Update: In response to the request in the comments, the link to the petition to force the Climate Reseach Unit to release their source codes is this.

Update 2: With great thanks to John Page, The Purple Scorpion for this link to the original Finnish programme, with English subtitles. 

Quote Of The Day

Reproduced from Samizdata:

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."

- George Orwell

Yet strangely I do not think Orwell actually knew David Cameron.

Brilliant Perry, if I may say so!

Hiring & Firing

The BBC is reporting that the next series of 'The Apprentice' has been delayed until after 3rd June, the last possible date for the General election, instead of starting in March.

It does beg the question that, were David Cameron to become the next Prime Minister, when dispensing with the services of an inherited business tsar, whether he would 'sugar' the pill - or just point a finger at the door accompanied by the words 'You're fired!'

Taken Out Of Context

Odd how sometimes something someone writes on one subject can be applied to another and an instance of this is Henry Porter, writing in the Guardian, on the subject of surveillance systems.

"... I don't believe the Conservatives can yet be trusted...... they hedge their bets, trim their language and finesse their stance......they are not worth voting for. Like those people who made the fall of the wall happen, at some stage the British will have to fight for their freedom. Let's not leave it until it's too late."

Henry Porter could well have been writing about Britain's membership of the EU!

Self-Delusion?

Two posts of differing views on Britain's membership of the European Union caught my eye, one by Ed West and the other by Alex Massie.

Ed West, discussing a post by Tim Montgomerie on Conservative Home, and suggestiing that if the term EUSSR is not acceptable then how about 'Euroslavia', writes:

"However, when we compare the EU with the Soviet Union we’re not talking about the era of Stalin, Beria, the gulags, and the mass murder of middle-class peasants, Balts, Kazakhs and Tartars – no, we think of the EU as being more like Andropov or Chernenko-era Russia, a decrepit, corrupt, bankrupt superstate run by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats with negative charisma. The only difference is that the Soviets didn’t have their military needs taken care of by the United States. And there are similarities – the EU’s propaganda aimed at children, for example, has totalitarian overtones, and EU government itself is institutionally undemocratic, and has created a class of politicians wildly remote from the public at large. But most of all the EUSSR tag works for one supreme reason:  we have never been given a vote on membership of the EU. Until that happens, we Eurosceptic fanatics who believe in mad, extreme ideas like the sovereignty of nation states are perfectly entitled to compare the EU to another undemocratic superstate of recent years."

Alex Massie, to whom Ed West links, writes in rebuttal to an article by Janet Daley:

"I say this because, at the moment, there doesn't seem to be a majority in favour of withdrawing from the EU. If euro-sceptics want that to change they should probably stop peddling nonsense that is contradicted by the evidence that people see for themselves. The EU really isn't very much like the USSR and it's most unlikely many people will be persuaded that, actually, it is and they're just too stupid to see the chains that bind them."

So there doesn't seem to be a majority in favour of withdrawing? Alex Massie obviously does not pay attention to opinion polls then.

Massie also states:

"Some of them might even find the comparison between totalitarian societies occupied by the Soviet Union and a peaceful association of democratic countries (which, remember anyone is free to leave) who agree to work together on issues of common interest to be either offensive or hilarious. Or both. It's certainly deluded."

Oh yes, anyone is free to leave, but at what cost? And there is a slight difference between agreeing to work together on issues of common interest and being politically ruled - is there not?

Who is suffering from self-delusion? You decide.

A Good Reason Financially To Get Out Of The EU

The EU budget is worth about €975 billion (£875 billion) between 2007-2013. According to the Treasury, the UK pays in almost £10 billion a year into the EU’s budget, on average (after the rebate), and gets back about £5.2 billion on average. Crucially, the UK’s net contribution will go from £3 billion in 2009-10 (gross contribution £7.6 billion) to £6.4 billion in 2011-12 (gross contribution £12 billion), according to the Treasury’s projection. The UK is also the EU country that receives the least back from the budget per head.

If the UK receives the least back per head, why the hell are we in it?

Again, just asking...............

Can You Smell A Rat Here?

In their Press Summary on 9th November, Open Europe reported that:

"The Sunday Times reported that EU fraud investigators are conducting an inquiry into UKIP over its MEPs’ use of expense allowances. The EU’s anti-fraud body, Olaf, has sent officers to the UK, who were last week interviewing potential witnesses."

On the basis it is reported today that, for the 15th year in succession, The EU's accounts have not been 'signed off' one would have thought that Olaf had far more important matters to which to attend. Also, cynic that I am, one wonders whether Olaf have had this investigation 'suggested' to them? It would after all mean that a certain party, if not all parties, had a problem conveniently 'negated' for them.

Just asking as it does seem that 'politics' has its 'murky' side................

'The Absurd Notion That Carbon Is A Pollutant Is Daily Promoted'.

The heading is taken from the conclusion of a guest post on Watts Up With That - quite technical and long, but worth reading. From the conclusion:

"If we can rid ourselves of the foolish mantra that surface temperature is governed by so called greenhouse gas, much unnecessary pain can be avoided. We are threatened by zealous governments keen to interfere in markets, raise taxation and redistribute incomes. The absurd notion that carbon is a pollutant is daily promoted.  ‘Will of the wisp’ schemes to generate renewable energy burden the public purse. Nothing is to be gained by these stratagems. Innovation has its own rewards and investment in all forms of innovation is already well enough subsidized and feverishly exploited. Man needs no urging to innovate and will do so quite happily in the absence of artificially inflated monetary incentives. The introduction of market distorting incentives and disincentives destroys rather than creates wealth. This is the tool of the central planner, the social activist, the miscreant. Distraction and absurdity are our unhappy lot, parading as morality and virtue. Snake oil salesmen multiply by the minute. These are unfortunate times. There are none so blind as those who will not see. The authority of ‘Science’ and the United Nations organization has been subverted to the activists cause. This is a sorry time for mankind. It is a time when belief is substituted for science and the two are irretrievably tangled and confused."

The Miliband 'Armlock' Or Local Choice?

Ed Miliband has announced the names of 10 sites suitable for a nuclear power station. The new super-quango, the Infrastructure Planning Commission will decide where these nuclear power stations will be built after 'consulting' the public.

In other words, with socialism the state picks the sites, the state decides what will be built where - All Hail The State.

However, what about this idea:

"Some US states have come up with an intriguing way of settling where to build unpopular installations, from incinerators to mobile phone masts. They ask each county what it would take to make them want the facility. Each county then submits a sealed bid, and the one with the lowest price is chosen. How the county authorities use the money is up to them: they can spend it, cut taxes or both."

How is that for an idea? You know, local authorities making local decisions in consultation with their electorate?

Monday 9th November 2009

A tad 'under the weather' today so other than posts already done - that is it for today.

See y'all tomorrow.

Alan Johnson Lives In La-La Land

Like others in the political world, wedded to EU membership, Alan Johnson continues to write and spout what can only be described as utter tosh on the subject of immigration.

"We don't have an open-door policy. It is misleading to say we have got one or that we have ever had one. We manage immigration."

The government well may 'manage immigration' from those outside the EU, but for anyone born in the EU this country does have an 'open-door' policy. From whatever country one arrives from to live and work here, they are still immigrants. Hence, yet again, we have an example of a politician being untruthful. 

Rather than attempt to write words of wisdom, perhaps Alan Johnson should revert to his previous 'day-job' and dcliver them!

How True

Melanie Phillips, writing in the Mail on the fall of the Berlin Wall, states:

" It was based on the understanding that what holds a society together are the pillars of its culture: the structures and institutions of education, family, law, media and religion. Transform the principles that these embody and you can thus destroy the society they have shaped." 

Is this not what Blair and Brown have accomplished? Is this not what the aim of the EU is? 'One size fits all' is one of the basic tenets of communism/socialism!

Second Fatality On Rememberance Sunday

So reports the BBC.

Politicians, are you listening? The people say get the troops out!

 

Oh bugger - forgot that whilst we employ you, unlike any normal employer/employee relationship, you don't have to do as we say!

You politicians really are dictatorial bastards!

PC's Subject To 'Queer' PC Rules

Inspector Gadget has an intriguing question in his post this evening and whilst generally mentioning losses suffered by the Police during war, asks:

"Why then, is it against Force Policy to attend Remembrance Day parades in police uniform if you happen to be off duty, but it is OK to wear it for the annual Gay Pride march?"

Come the revolution ACPO - and those like it - are for the 'hemp and lamp post' treatment, sentence to be passed by 'Peoples Councils', to which the ordinary and good will be elected.

Let us see how they like a bit of accountable PC for a change!

Oh Yes It Bloody Will!

Having been out all day, I have only just come across this story and if others have commented on it, apologies, but this really is sufficient to make 'one's blood boil'!

"After abandoning plans to hold a referendum on Europe, following last week’s ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, Mr Hague said the Tories accepted that constitutional reform would not be on the EU agenda for some years."

 Captain Ranty asks: "....are we ready to retaliate?"

You bet Cap'n - when does the revolution start?

Is This Conservative Planning To Neill At The Feet Of The EU?

The hyprocrasy of the Conservative Cameron Party obviously knows no limits and in so doing has thrown it's principles out of the proverbial window, but they really must be careful what form of words in the English language they choose to use and the context in which they do.

Bob Neill, Shadow Planning Minister, has a letter in today's Sunday Telegraph attacking Labour's new quango, the Infrastructure Planning Commission. Neill ends his letter with this paragraph:

"Abolishing democracy [in the planning system] is not way to reinvigorate our broken politics."

But abolish democracy is exactly what you have done, you numpty, by giving the right to dictate our laws to the biggest 'quango' of the bloody lot.

There Are Politicians And There Are Politicians

"Prime Minister, it was you who offered to subsidise improvident banks in the first place. Indeed, in the case of Lloyds, you more or less forced a solvent bank into a position of dependency. It really is a bit rich for you, of all people, to start complaining about the fact that the rest of us are paying for the failures of the financial sector. We never volunteered to bail-out the bankeers; you spent our money without asking us."

Some politicians have the power to use words in a manner that tranfixes the reader, or listener -  unfortunately it is often the the case that those who do not, then become the leader of their party!