Top Stories and News Review Sunday 3rd May
Nationwide
MoD under fire for all-male toy soldiers
Whatever happened to Thatcher’s children?
Criminals to face easier deportation
UK swine flu cases rise to 15
International
Hungarian Roma take to streets in defence
The rise and rise of Russian nationalism
How Lehman Brothers got its real estate fix
Hundreds isolated in Hong Kong hotel
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Jennie Rigg
SignTube has a video with advice about Swine Flu in BSL.
Meral Ece is a bit annoyed that her cousin, Tracey Emin, is being touted as a Tory.
Mr Quist has a look at how Gordon Brown is getting on with supplying all the things he promised in his mansion house speech in 2007.
Helen on LDV is picking on a poor, dear, sweet, innocent Labour peer who is ONLY claiming £100,000 for an empty flat…
Mark on LDV has the right idea, though, informing us about 6 Tories going to jail for electoral fraud. MUCH more important than Labour misbehaviour.
And finally SugarStacks has pictorial evidence of how much sugar is in lots of foodstuffs (with a USian slant); or if that’s too scary, you can browse through previous Netcasts
Osborne isn’t as thrifty as he claims
George Osborne announced an “age of austerity” at this week’s Conservative spring conference: “We need a government of thrift,” he said, adding: “David Cameron and I have earned the right to be heard on this.”
Has George Osborne earned this right? His personal record on expenses seems if not frugal, then certainly not extravagant. Last year George’s office – minus any housing and personal claims – cost the tax payer roughly £110,000. The bulk of this – £79,000 – went on staff costs. Sounds like value for money for a busy shadow chancellor.
Except that in the same year, George also accepted donations, earmarked by donors for staffing his office, of nearly half a million pounds. Suddenly George looks a bit of a spend-thrift.
continue reading… »
Top Stories – Sunday 3rd May
Nationwide
MoD under fire for all-male toy soldiers
Whatever happened to Thatcher’s children?
Criminals to face easier deportation
UK swine flu cases rise to 15
International
Hungarian Roma take to streets in defence
The rise and rise of Russian nationalism
How Lehman Brothers got its real estate fix
Hundreds isolated in Hong Kong hotel
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / coming later
Jarvis Cocker and New Labour
In the world of popular music, being called a Tory remains as hurtful as having your band compared to Ocean Colour Scene. Just leaving aside the number of songs strummed against Thatcher or pop’s role in movements against war and racism, the word ‘conservative’ isn’t just laden with assumptions about your politics, but about the music you make. For decades now, the word’s been used to infer that the art you produce is corporate, pro-establishment, staid, formulaic and conformist. In short, if you’re a Tory, you definitely don’t rock.
So when Jarvis Cocker gave an interview to GQ magazine where he seemed to say that a Conservative government wasn’t just inevitable but ‘necessary’, it wouldn’t be long before it was followed by a carefully-worded clarification. “In no way am I supporting or suggesting that a Conservative government is a good thing, far from it,” Cocker states. “Rather, what I intended to get across was that, in the absence of any real alternative, a Conservative government at this point unfortunately seems inevitable.” I think it’s safe to assume that he isn’t turning into Bryan Ferry.
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Top Stories – Saturday 2nd May
Nationwide
Swine flu cases rise to 13 across UK
Life term for acid attack rapist
Six jailed for using ghost votes to rig poll
More stay-at-home British tourists expected
International
Unions & anarchists link arms for May Day
English village cricket comes to Kabul
Swine flue turns Mexico City silent
In Pakistan, US courts leader of opposition
SATURDAY VIDEO / by Sunny
The Daily Mail and the ‘antichrist’ car
This week the Daily Mail’s “Foreign Service” breathlessly reported that a car with the number-plate 666 went up in flames – perhaps because it carried “the number that identifies the Antichrist”. Perhaps it was a slow news day – the newspaper caught up with the story two years after it actually happened. Who says journalism is dying?
(via Richard)
The Met must stop spinning its actions
by Guy Aitchison and Andy May
The Metropolitan Police Authority met yesterday for the first time since the policing of the G20 protests. Defend Peaceful Protest put its questions directly to Boris Johnson. The Met were represented by acting deputy commissioner Tim Godwin (standing in for Sir Paul Stephenson) and temporary assistant commissioner Chris Allison.
The good news is that the MPA, which is made up of 11 independent members and 12 London Assembly members, were largely supportive of the protestors’ rights and had critical things to say about the G20 policing – see Anna Bragga on OK for a full report. The bad news is that we were not satisfied with the Met’s response which, when not actively misleading, amounted to “we’re conducting an enquiry, so we’re not going to answer any of your questions yet.”
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Private Eye on McBride / Guido saga
This piece was published in the latest fortnightly edition of Private Eye. I thought it was too interesting and delicious to pass up and wrote it up since it’s not available to link online. It does a great job of capturing the hypocrisy of all involved. Those bored by this saga look away now….
——-
Blog Standard (1 – 14 May 2009, page 5)
Congratulations to blogger Paul Staines on his spectacular scoop with the McBride/Draper emails. Congratulations too for his belated realisation of the superiority of the “dead tree press” in choosing to print not a word from them on his own “Guido Fawkes” website and hand them over instead to the Sunday Times and News of the World.
That allowed Rupert Murdoch’s lawyers to take on the legal risks and the potential costs over which the fearless Fawkes had been fretting for some time as well as allowing for the addition of a good dose of the hypocrisy and humbug against which his blog is dedicated.
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Swine flu: the threat is real
My usual response when some sickness hits the news is to roll my eyes and change the channel, telling myself it has little to do with me and will probably amount to nothing and it’s not worth worrying about. Earlier this week I decided to crawl out of my “epidemic scare stories are boring exercises in mass hysteria” hole in the ground and educate myself.
I started paying attention to what people were saying – and by ‘people’, I don’t mean the mainstream media, who as always are screaming loudly for no other reason than that announcing the new apocalypse is more fun than talking about money or whether or not we should prosecute confirmed warcrimes.
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Markets can also serve the poorest
A guest post by Tom Stratton
There is an increasing body of literature emanating from the British left which characterise the current recession as an opportunity to redress the balance in society to allow those at the bottom a fair chance at a decent livelihood and quality of life.
Without doubt there is a gap between the super-rich and those at the bottom of society which is both unsustainable and damaging. Increasingly, however, the argument involves proclaiming the death of free-market capitalism and painting markets as the root of all evil.
continue reading… »
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