RANDOM THOUGHTS

At 54 Clarkson is showing  the
effects of  living close to Eton Boy.

I've been trying to work out if I give a damn about Jeremy Clarkson and his thuggish fracas.

In the normal way I really wouldn't give a damn. After all I don't watch tv, and if I did I doubt if I'd watch him. As I don't pay a tv licence, I can also be relatively ambivalent about his reportedly keeping a helicopter (paid for by the BBC) on standby for three hours, while he sat in the pub and did what he does well... got plastered.

What kinda bothers me though, is that, by all accounts, he turned up at work drunk, insulted and assaulted a colleague leaving him in a state where he required medical treatment, and that our unlovely prime minister, Eton Boy, decided that that was Ok because he thought Clarkson immensely talented, and his (Cameron's) daughters liked him.

I'm mindful of the fact that most people turning up very late and drunk in a work situation, and putting a colleague in hospital, would be at the tender mercy of Mr Duncan Smith and his odious assistant, McVile, the very next day, in between getting himself along to the local nick and answering a few of Plods's questions.

Is it not dangerous to set precedents like this?
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It will stick like that if the wind changes...
Oh, it already did?

I see that Nigel Farage has decided that likening an elected and hugely respected, MSP and minister of the Scottish government to a hugely disrespected convicted terrorist is just 'a joke in bad taste'. 

Well, I suppose he reckons that Humza is only a jock, so it's no big deal.

Well, it's a mistake, Nigel. This is pretty much the first time that all the leaders of the Scottish parties have been of one voice on any subject. 

Weird though, that Mrs Curran, who cheered his election with such glee, should now refuse to share a platform with him in London. Bandwagon jump?

By the way, do either Curran or Coburn ever come anywhere near Scotland?

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Move back a bit Tone.
It'll look better if you get a bit closer to the smoke.
Oooops, maybe not that close.
Too late. Oh well, bye then.

Tony Blair has stood down as the representative of the odd grouping known as The Quartet... It's odd, incidentally, because it comprises the USA, the EU and Russia, together with the UN. As the USA, UK and Russia are all members of the UN, why is the UN separately involved?

Anyway, he, Blair the Warmonger, was supposed to be some sort of peace envoy to the Middle East, which would have been funny if it hadn't involved so much misery for so many people adn he'd not spent most of the time he was supposed to be doing it making more and more money from advising tin pot dictators, whom presumably he had met whilst being HM's prime minister. I don't know what he got paid for not doing the job. I imagine it was a vast amount, but he seems to have achieved absolutely nothing.

It is being made out that he resigned, but it sounds very much like someone tumbled to the fact that he was useless and sacked him. Doubtless, knowing Blair, his compensation package will be more that I've ever earned or will ever earn if I live to be 1000. 

I wish him no joy of it.
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I wish I could be bothered to write something interesting about Grant Shapps, or whatever his name is. But he's the Tory Party Chairman and, as such a complete nonentity in my country, so I think that I'll just summarise it thus.

He has sworn for years now that he gave up his other job of web page designer and marketer when he went into parliament. Indeed he has given interviews stating this categorically. He even went so far as to threaten a constituent with legal action for stating it on Facebook.

Trouble is, he's been lying, or as he calls it "overstating".

Jeez, why is it that people like him don't ever "lie" like the rest of us do. They invariably "over state" or "misspeak".

Anyway, whatever happens to him now is of no interest. I would imagine if his boss thinks it's OK to get pissed at work and bop a bloke so hard you put him in hospital that a wee bit of misspeaking is of little consequence, so I expect the Rt Honourable (don't they make you laugh?) Grant Green, or Michael Shapps or whatever, will be safe this time next week.

CAMERON...AND THE BIG SOCIETY'S DRAINS

Comedian Bill Bailey has a nice turn of phrase.

The Labour supporting politician pretty much sums up the UK political leaders for the Huffington Post.

Of the Liberals he says that soon all that will be left of them is some flowers tied to a fence. David Cameron, he describes as "congealed laminated weasel".

He thinks UKIP are a troupe of sozzled berks who want an electric fence at Dover and a a "no women in the bar" rule.

And of Ed he says... "He's like a plastic bag in a tree. No one knows how it got up there and no one can be bothered to get it down".

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Michael Fabricant has been sacked as a deputy chairman of the Conservative Party for tweeting "about time" over the demise of the ex-culture secretary, Maria Miller. He says he was asked to resign, refused and so Greg Shapps sacked him.

In further gossip from the Tory party, it is rumoured that George Osborne was behind Miller's decision to "resign" as she was dominating the news, when he wished to dominate it. 

(Of course when I say dominate and Tory in the same sentence some of you may be the idea that there was something sexual behind it, but as far as Minguin can make out no such deviation occurred...not that they'd tell him anything!

What I thought was interesting about this situation was that Michael was sacked for a tweet, and Maria had the confidence of the prime  minister after stealing tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money. Funny old party... funny old country.
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David Cameron appears to have lost the plot, In his Easter message to religious leaders at Downing Street, he claimed that he is carrying out the work of Christ. Jesus invented the Big Society 2000 years ago, he told them, and he was simply carrying on the good work.

Meanwhile down at the food bank there were volunteers thinking that it might have been a better idea if he hadn't bothered, and wondering how it was that you fed 5000 out of 5 loaves and 2 tins of supermarket own brand tuna.

Then, having likened himself to Christ, he went on to compare himself to a drain cleaner. (He's versatile; you have to give him that.)

He urged church leaders to do more to serve Jesus's Big Society (Jesus/Cameron...whatever) and indicated that if they encountered any problems with that, they should think of him as a giant dyno-rod.

I'm sure you'll agree that the less said about that, the better.
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Click to enlarge

Meanwhile Anas Sarwar's brilliant scheme to involve blue blooded Labour in the campaign, and Lord Robertson of Gaelic Doesn't Exist's part in it, continue to attract press coverage. Unfortunately for Anas, not the kind that he is accustomed to.

YOU SOMETIMES ASK YOURSELF ABOUT THE SANITY OF POLITICIANS

Grant Shapps wants us to believe that the Tories are suffering just as much as
we are. I guess that means that he reckons that there are parts of the country where over 45%
of them are sending their kids to school hungry.

Just how stupid does he think ordinary common people are? Or has he never met any?

Michael Gove, in some people's books a contender for leader of the Tory Party when they ditch the failure they have at the moment, has condemned  Mr Nash, one of his own junior ministers in the House of Lords, as a man who has no experience in education.

Why then, you might be inclined to ask yourself, are we, the taxpayer,  funding his ministerial salary on top of  the £300 a day plus expenses (all tax free) which he's entitled to anyway  (being an aristo) to be a minister at the English Department for Education?

It wouldn't be anything to do with his large donations to the Tories would it?  The thing is, he probably is a waste of space. But here's a wee bit of advice, Michael: don't let on to the public that you are paying him a BIG salary despite the fact that he's useless.

That's like Mr Cameron saying that you are a useless bag of wind. True, but injudicious in the extreme.

There is this thing about wee Willies, if you'll pardon the rather obvious double entendre.  First off there is Willie Hague, a silly little man from Yorkshire pretending to be a statesman, but we all know he wears a baseball cap backwards on his head and had ten pints before lunch when he was nowt but a lad. (This explains much.)  Anyway, he's under the delusion that Mad Vlad has even heard of him, much less gives a toss what he says.

Then there's Willie Rennie, about whom probably the least said the better. Suffice it to say he's even less popular than Ruth Davidson, by quite a long way, and that's no mean feat. I'm scratching my head trying to think of something he's much that was sensible. The sad thing is that, of all the parties, the Liberals are the ones who could distance themselves from what their moronic colleagues in London are doing, but Wee Willie has resolutely backed Clegg all the way... to oblivion.

 And now there's this wee Willie from Aberdeen who seems to have exceeded his authority. He is determined to have the government banned from Aberdeen council property, which is the property of the people of Aberdeen, and not of Wee Willie. His somewhat embarrassed boss says it was a slip of the tongue. He says it wasn't.  I wonder what will happen to him.

FOTOS ON FRIDAY... 'PRIVATISATION OF POST' AND 'BEDROOM TAX'

SO FIRST THERE IS THIS ODIOUS ANNOUNCEMENT FROM SAINT VINCE...

...and Labour needn't get bent out of shape about it. Peter Mandelson did his damnedest to do exactly what Vince the Tory is doing.

http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-royal-mail-from-privatisation-1

So, it's all looking positive and popular there...

Scotland won't do it

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AND THEN THERE'S GRANT SCHWEPPES or something...

 ...who apparently intends writing to the Secretary General of the UN, demanding an apology from him about "some Brazilian" having the temerity to lecture British ministers, the insufferably pompous little arse. 

OK, I know it isn't directly to do with either of today's topics, but I thought it was hilarious

As ever, click on pics for a larger image...

SIT DOWN BEFORE YOU READ THIS

Council chief who took £420,000 pay-out gets new six-figure government job...cutting waste in Whitehall.

No...Honest! You couldn't make it up...you wouldn't dare.

THERE IS NO PLAN B...

....But...


like the Royal Wedding, the Japanese Tsunami and the fact that Mrs McGinty's cat got stuck up a tree, the Eurozone crisis has proved too much for the faltering British economy and something has to be done.

So it's been confirmed that Mr Osborne (left) will announce that the rail fares increase that put a huge strain on the finances of the commuting public (mainly in the South East of England) will not be as great as had been previously announced, at a cost of some £130 million to you and me. And for the rest of us, talks are under way to try to delay, cancel or at least reduce the 3p extra on a litre of petrol. A much more expensive ploy and by no means signed, sealed and delivered yet.


And now we hear that the Westminster government is going to underwrite loans to businesses that the banks feel would be too risky to make. 


How good of the banksters to be prudent about that. They are doubtless worried that if they had to be bailed out again, the bonuses really would be under threat. But why should they take the risk when George will do all the hard work for them, leaving them to sit back and count their money? Well, that's what you get for funding the Tory party, I guess. 


It was recently announced, too, that the Westminster government intends to lend money to first time buyers in order that they should get their feet on to the all important "an Englishman's home is his castle" property ladder.


That sounds decidedly to me like the Westminster mob underwriting sub-prime mortgages. People who can't afford a deposit for the admittedly VASTLY overpriced British home, will be able to borrow the extra, underwritten by you and me. 


Now, call me spoil sport, but didn't we recently prove that there was a flaw in this "owner occupier status for all" ointment? Particularly at a time when "ordinary" people, no, "families" "up and down the country" are losing their jobs, unable to get new ones and therefore unable to pay their mortgages, is this not just a little on the silly side?

Added to this, despite the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face evidence to show that it was a hare-brained idea in the first place, the English part of the UK government is now going to sell off its council housing, leaving social housing even more stretched. (Although the dangerously stupid sounding English housing minister,  Gregg Schapps (right), insists that they will build a new house for every one sold off [just how, we're not sure].) 


Fortunately the Scottish government has stopped all sales of council houses and is building up the stock once more.


It seems to me that the Westminster executive is doing all the things that it  (with hindsight) criticised Labour for doing; things that contributed massively to the financial breakdown in the first place. 


And still no claw back of the bankers' bonuses.

WHAT'S IN STORE FOR THE NEXT WEEK?

What can we expect to hear from the Tories at this week’s conference in Manchester...?

Well Francis Maude, you’ll remember him doubtless as the guy who was wanted every single man, woman, child and dog, to do something for the Big Society, but actually couldn't pinpoint one single thing that HE did for it, well, he is going to announce a restriction on the Civil Servants’ entitlement to take part in Trades Union activity whilst at work. Doubtless because the government in London expects there to be a considerable amount of disruption in the next year and want to make it as difficult as possible for them to organise it. So, some might think, a good thing, but probably not if you’re department staffing is being cut and you are expected, for the same money, to take on a number of new duties.

Tessie Kinky Boots May, is looking at the repeal of the Human Rights Act. (I’m not clear whether this will apply in Scotland, as, as I understand it, HR legislation was introduced in the Scotland Act). Again, I suspect that many people will be happy with that announcement. Of course, once you give a government carte blanche to ride roughshod over their human rights who knows what they will do. What Tess needs to do is to bring in legislation that stops lawyers making so much money from the cases. And the courts could try being a bit more sensible. Interestingly Ken Clarke recently said that it was inconceivable that the government would repeal the HR act; and the Liberals made it clear that it was here to stay, only last week. A huge plus from my point of view is that it would surely be out of the question for a country which had repealed legislation which it wrote and which was adopted by all of Europe, to go to war to enforce human rights elsewhere. So, we should save a few quid that way.

We’ve all heard that Plan B to restart the economy is to allow 80mph on motorways. I don’t know about that, but it should bring in a lot more money in petrol taxes, and car repairs. Yes, I know there is no limit on most German motorways, but then they don’t have potholes big enough to swallow a small European country.

It’s been a little unfortunate for Cammy that a couple of experts have poured scorn on some of the policies and personalities, just as conference is beginning. Mike Slade, chairman of the Conservative Property Forum, and a developer himself, has said that he is shocked by the naivety of ministers because they have never been in the real world, and describes Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, as ‘a kid who doesn’t understand planning’. Oops. Then the Commons Treasury chairman said that Osborne was pursuing a strategy better suited to times of abundance rather than austerity. Oops again.

I’m left without a great deal of confidence in what this coalition is up to. 

TORY POLICY ON PLANNING IN ENGLAND SEEMS CONFUSED

I’m glad that the Calman Commission rejected any calls from whichever quarters to repatriate Scottish Planning decisions to England.

I suspect that nuclear power stations were our biggest worry at the time. But now, of course, we would have reason to worry about the relaxation of planning regulations, and the instruction to local planning authorities that there should be a “presumption in favour of sustainable developments” when looking at building permits.

Well... of course, only if you don’t have a minister as your MP.

Because, unbeknownst to us, there are ministers who fight tooth and nail against developments in their own constituencies while advocating the laissez faire policy elsewhere.

The Telegraph, no less, that bastion of Torydom has blown the whistle on a few of them.

Eric Pickles criticised the previous government’s attempts to relax planning regulations, fearing “sprawling housing estates dumped by Whitehall on green land”. Clearly, as he is so closely involved with this project, these sprawling estates are now a good, rather than a bad thing.

Gideon signed a petition against the development of an energy plant in his constituency.

Joan Hanham, the ex Tory leader of Kensington & Chelsea Council, and now a junior minister in the Communities Dept, even objected to a memorial garden for Diana in her constituency, but is pushing this legislation from her place on the red benches.

Justine Greening (Putney) is a supporter of the Thames Super Sewer project, but she doesn't want it tunnelled from her own constituency. Michael Fabricant has objected to a development in his own constituency but, as a Whip will be pushing people through the lobby to support the government and Grant Shapps, the housing minister, has also opposed plans for thousands of new houses in his Welwyn Hatfield constituency.

But the pièce de résistance has to be the cities minister Greg Clark (above), the person responsible for the legislation, who fought a development in his own constituency warning that it would cause "yet more pressure on our precious green spaces". Clark has now, in an incredible volte face unbelievably accused those who criticise his legislation of displaying “nihilistic selfishness” for trying to stop people getting on the housing ladder.

Sheesh! You couldn’t make these people up.

With every day I am more relieved that this awful coalition have little remit in Scotland. Life must be getting day by day more impossible in England.

PS: I have a great idea for a massive housing estate of affordable houses and houses for rent. I'm going to propose it for the space right behind, at the side of and in front of this nice family mansion in Oxfordshire (top pic). I can see no reason why it should be turned down, and if it is I will go straight to the local MP.