Top Stories – 12th April 2009
… and six arrested
Nationwide
Tomlinson: man who was trying to get home
Pakistan pledges UK terror arrests help
Darling to offer £2,000 reward to scrap old cars
MPs earn rent while claiming home allowance
International
“I’m a successful Somali pirate”
Obama brings truce in culture war
U.N. Council may rebuke North Korea
Thailand cancels Summit after protests
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / coming later
Derek Draper is poisonous for the Labour party
If there’s one lesson for the Labour party to be learned from smeargate – it’s that if Derek Draper is leading your online operations then you may as well give up politics.
The antics of Damian McBride and Derek Draper, the latter now beyond redemption (again), epitomise all that has gone wrong with the Labour Party. That Alastair Campbell, John Prescott and others at cabinet level put their faith in Draper to bolster their online operations has now shown to be stupidity of near epic proportions.
But in case it isn’t already clear to the party why we are angry, it’s because we expect more of the left. We expect more of a party that claims to represent the left. We understand the need for pragmatism, for building narratives, and sometimes the need for discipline. But this episode serves to highlight all that has gone wrong with the Labour party.
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Thoughts on Damian McBride and Guido
Adam Bienkov / Tory Troll (on Twitter):
Manufactured outrage of the day: http://tinyurl.com/c39l75 A spin doctor trying to spin stories about his opponents? Shocking stuff.
…
Labour planning a smear campaign? Oh it’s terrible claims Staines. Absolutely shameful bleats Bright. “Absurd” claims Coulson.
Jamie Sport / Daily Quail (on Twitter)
It’s this kind of small-town gossiping and mock outrage that makes everyone think blogging about politics is stupid inconsequential shit.
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@derekdraper attracts shit like an industrial electromagnet in a swimming pool of iron filings. http://is.gd/rVxW Time to go Dolly
Poor Iain. The man who likes to think of himself as the Westminster insider, is definitely feeling left out. Late last night Paul Staines published his story about the McBride smear website. A desperate Dale tries to say… it is all about me, me me.
“It’s an important breakthrough,” said Gudio commentator IShaggedYourMum. “Far bigger than Watergate – there were no blogs in Watergate.”
Another commentator, GBrownSucksTheFatOne, agrees but added darkly, “I really hope They don’t get him before the next election. Be careful out there Guido, especially near protests.”
Conservative blogger and inventor of the internet, Iain Dale said of the surprising developments, “I’m available to all television networks for comment.”
The Public:
Who the fuck is this Damian McBride twat and why is news so boring and shit?
News journalists:
ZOMG! We love fellating Guido Fawkes because he disses us day in and day out and this proves how independent and cool we are! This is completely front-page news!
Does that sum everything up?
So what if religion is irrational?
This piece by Madeleine Bunting has attracted much criticism, but I suspect the outline of her argument can be revived.
Oliver Kamm provides the starting point: “religious faith is…a species of irrationalism.” This is not so much an insight as a tautology. Faith, by definition, is irrational. However – and here Bunting is right and the new atheists mistaken – irrationality is a ubiquitous and in some ways desirable aspect of life.
continue reading… »
Top Stories – 11th April 2009
Nationwide
How Ian Tomlinson footage spread worldwide shock
Police to review kettling strategy
Tamils plan weekend mass-march on London
‘Sharp rise’ in rural joblessness
International
Italy holds state funeral as quake toll hits 289
Queen of ‘untouchables’ becomes kingmaker
Cost of Iraq to surpass Vietnam by year end
Chinese bias for boys creates 32mil gap
LONG WEEKEND VIDEO / by Sunny
Spectator Business goes quarterly
Spectator Business magazine is doing as well as it hoped when it launched.
According to the Media Guardian:
Spectator Business magazine has become a quarterly title, less than a year after it launched as a monthly.
Writing in the latest edition, the magazine’s editor, Martin Vander Weyer, said that it would remain a four-times-a-year publication until the magazine market improved.
“We continue to look on the bright side wherever we can. Even the in-built optimism of Spectator Business cannot buck the bigger trend,” wrote Vander Weyer.
“Every business has to respond to today’s tough conditions – and we have decided to lead by example by switching to quarterly publication until we see an upturn in our own marketplace.
A closer examination of Daniel Hannan’s favourite think-tank
It is worth looking more closely at the work of ‘Progressive Vision‘, the “campaigning liberal think-tank” to which Daniel Hannan sources his questionable expertise on the NHS.
It has a great deal to advocate and likes to be heard. But it is very difficult to find the basis on which it is advocated.
continue reading… »
Who’s to blame for the accidental death?
Both Shuggy and Chris Dillow are right in pointing out that the police treatment of Ian Tomlinson was far from shocking, as some others have claimed.
If anything, the officer who violently pushed him over when there was no need whatsoever to do so was taking part in some of the less dangerous action with the protesters that day. As long as Tomlinson didn’t hit his head, and from the video it seems that he didn’t, a push like that is only likely to result in grazed or cut knees and hands, along with the temporary shock that comes from being bundled over when you’re not expecting it. The cracking of heads which other officers were engaged in all day, causes far more potential for concern.
continue reading… »
Top Stories – 10th April
Nationwide
G20 video officer not yet interviewed
How Met police tried to manage a death
Mayor Boris is a disaster on big issues
A fight to the death in Westminster
International
Berlusconi turns adversity to political advantage
Germany to buy Out Hypo Real Estate
Iran president ‘proud’ of nuclear progress
Video: U.S. – Cuba relations begin thaw
LONG WEEKEND VIDEO / by Sunny
Japanese take the big plunge
The New York Times reports:
Japan announced its biggest-ever economic stimulus plan Thursday, a $154 billion package of subsidies and tax breaks that aims to stem a deepening recession in the world’s second-largest economy. Prime Minister Taro Aso also outlined an ambitious long-term economic strategy that he said would make Japan a global leader in “green” technology like solar energy and electric cars.
…
The plan announced Thursday is the largest single such effort ever proposed in Japan, dwarfing any of the stimulus measures the country enacted during the 1990s, during its so-called lost decade of economic stagnation.
…
By 2020, Japan aims to increase its solar-generating capacities twentyfold, and raise the domestic sales of eco-friendly vehicles to one million vehicles a year. The plan would create four million new jobs in Japan, the prime minister said.
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