WE'RE ALL BACKING BRITAIN, EXCEPT ME, OF COURSE...

In August of last year David Cameron urged everyone to help rebuild the economy by taking our holidays in the United Kingdom. He said that the £115 billion tourist industry was fundamental to rebuilding the country.

That’s not an unreasonable request to make. Not only would this support the British hotel industry, it would also reduce the amount of UK money going abroad.

There is some excellent accommodation available in Britain and there are some interesting sites to see. The downside is that it is pretty expensive, but if you don’t mind splashing out on yourself it can be worth it.

I’ve always found holidaying in the UK to be too expensive. I can have a week in Paris for about half the price of a week in London. It is better suited, probably, to the likes of Cameron, who won’t have to count the pennies.

So Mr Cameron duly took a summer holiday in Kernow, where his child was born. Perhaps, mind, he was persuaded in his decision by the fact that it might have been unwise for Mrs C to fly when she was close to giving birth.

There was further proof that Mr Cameron was heeding his own advice when he cancelled his plans to spend his Christmas holiday with an old school friend, the prime minister of Thailand, on, it is believed, the advice of Mr Coulson, who thought it might look a bit elitist. The advice didn’t get as far as Mr Osborne next door, who took his break at Davos!

However, it seems that Mr Cameron has decided that, after all the English tourist trade can do without him for just now, because twice this year, although there were, I have no doubt, perfectly good accommodations in his native land, Mr Cameron has decided to fly out to Spain. Maybe their tourist industry is in an even worse state than England’s and in the spirit of generosity which Cameron clearly has (see the UK’s commitment to give a bigger proportion of GDP than any other country in the whole wide world), he has decided to support it instead of the home-grown one.

It could also be that the food is better and the weather better.

As a footnote to this, I’d also like to say that trying to look as if he is in sympathy with the “squeezed middle”, by taking the most uncomfortable and unpleasant flights with Easyjet or Ryanair, he just looks just plain silly. It’s good that he is not flashy about his wealth, but it is daft him trying to hide that he has it.

He reminds me of a guy who talks terribly posh, getting all guttural because he is in the company of common people. It’s false. And no one buys it.

We all know both the Camerons are rolling in money and that they could hire a Lear jet to take them on holiday and never notice the bill. And it’s not even that they don’t like luxury; they just spent £30,000 of ours doing up the Downing Street flat. My advice to him would be to take a mid range flight, business class. Or maybe even to be true to his word and take his holidays at Bognor!

Pics: David and Mrs C on a yacht off Turkey; George in Davos with a scarf that cost more than my whole holiday; and David with a saggy tummy and man boobs, ouch!

BORIS MIGHT BE BETTER TO SAY VERY LITTLE BETWEEN NOW AND THE ELECTIONS

Sometimes Boris Johnson comes over as a bit of a fool, but a relatively inoffensive English eccentric in the “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” mould; an Eton, Oxford toff who speaks Latin rather more fluently than he speaks English.

And as a backbench Conservative MP that is more or less what he was. A relic of England’s past, but a relatively amusing one.

However, having found himself propelled to a measure of importance as the Mayor of London, he has a more prominent role in the life of the English nation. And Boris, it seems, is not really cut out for that kind of scrutiny.

A few months ago, the English and possibly some Scots, Irish and Welsh descended upon London in mighty numbers to demonstrate about cuts in ...well, just about everything. There was a wide range of people from all sorts of backgrounds, including some of Boris’s own class. Most of them were peaceful and marched, as is their right, through London on a route agreed, until they massed in Hyde Park for a series of speeches by politicians and union leaders, countryside and student campaigners.

Before they got to Hyde Park, some of them branched off and headed for Oxford Street and Piccadilly where, disassociated from the bulk of the march, they engaged in various degrees of more direct action.

One group decided to have a sit-in in toff’s store, Fortnum & Masons in Piccadilly. TV cameras were allowed in, and the coverage I saw was peaceful. Mr Johnson, however, stated on ‘Question Time’ that the protestors had done 'tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage'.

Unfortunately for Mr Johnson a member of the Fortnum staff has said that the damage was minimal and he (Johnson) was asked by a London Assembly member to justify his remarks, which he did thus:

“The point that I was making was that the occupation of Fortnum & Mason was pure vandalism … The fact that Fortnum and Mason is owned by a charitable foundation, provides many jobs and pays its taxes was clearly lost on these ‘activists’.”

Not much of a justification for a tale of 'tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage' which actually was not done.

Boris maybe should be quiet about vandalism in any case. The people I saw sitting in in Fortnum’s were late teen/early twenties, student types, not unlike Bullingdon Club members David Cameron, George Osborne and ……yes, Boris Johnston, 20 something years ago, whose pleasure it was to get drunk and trash restaurants in Oxford and elsewhere.

Boris himself wrote in his autobiography: "We got drunk, trashed the Ritz and then went down Piccadilly to loot a few items from Fortnum's".

I wonder how it was OK for them to steal from Fortnums while drunk, and it wasn’t OK for a group of peaceful protestors of the same age to occupy the store for an hour or so 20 odd years later.

Incidentally, the Charitable trust which owns Fortnum’s, the Garfield Weston Foundation, was found by the Charitity Commission to have broken the law in its donations of over £1 million to the Conservative party. Could the moral indignation, not to mention hypocrisy, stem from that?

Pics: Boris on Bike using phone (probably illegal), and Boris before he got fat, when he was young, beautiful and shop lifting from Fortnum's.

SOME PEOPLE LOOK BEHIND THE SKIRTING BOARD FOR SOMETHING TO COMPAIN ABOUT

Flicking through some of the comics the other day, I came upon this hilarious story in the Mail, which I’m sure you will all enjoy.

It relates to a scene in the soap opera “Emmerdale”, a programme about which I know nothing, except that its opening music was written by Tony Hatch, a really great bloke whom I’ve met on several occasions, and who, of course, is the composer of so many international pop music successes for, amongst others, Petula Clark.

It appears that one of the families in the soap, shall we say, lacks any measure of sophistication, and on their shopping list, written on a blackboard in the kitchen, they have included along with rice, eggs and biscuits, the fact that they need to buy “pile cream” and a commonly used alternative name for ladies’ sanitary wear.

It’s interesting that the people who ‘stage’ the show, in characterising the working class characters have chosen this particular way to emphasise their background, and I'm torn about whether it was or was not necessary. I honestly don’t know if the average modern working class family would write that kind of thing on their shopping list. I’m not good with shopping lists myslef, and on the board in my kitchen I forget to write what I want, and I forget to look before I go out, rendering it a great big ‘white elephant’ rather than a ‘white board’.

What’s funny is the reaction to this particular piece of characterization. People are up in arms, because they might have to explain to their children the meaning of the said articles....

This is a programme where, as I understand it, there is bed hopping, incest, sexual impropriety, homosexuality, murder, theft, murky business dealings, etc, etc, etc.... and they let their kids watch it and worry that they have to explain pile (sic) cream.

Some people must spend their lives looking for something to complain about.

WHAT'S GOOD FOR PRIESTS ISN'T GOOD FOR FCO JUNIORS

The hypocrisy of the Vatican!

I feel I should apologise for blogging on the same subject twice in succession, but I had a quick glance at the papers this evening and I really began to wonder if we’d stepped back in time to All Fools’ Day.

It seems that the Vatican has taken the insulting proposals for the Pope’s visit very seriously and mutterings in Holy See are that the Pope may cancel his state visit to Scotland and England. Apparently the British Ambassador to the Vatican City State was summoned this afternoon to see the Secretary of State, the man in the Vatican who deals with Foreign Affairs and is the de facto Deputy Pope. The matter will now be discussed with the Pope himself.

It appears that this, on top of other matters such as Richard Dawkins’ threat to have the Pope arrested, persuaded officials at the Vatican, that acceptance of the invitation delivered by Jim Murphy on behalf of the Queen was a big mistake.

The Daily Telegraph reports that Senior Papal aides suggested the Foreign Office had not taken strong enough disciplinary action against those responsible for the document.

Now I’m not making excuses for the idiot employee who wrote this rubbish, but what was it that the FCO did to the guy? Oh yes. He was reprimanded and transferred to other duties.

Now then, what was it that these bishops did, sometimes with the good Cardinal Ratzinger’s knowledge when they discovered a priest had been abusing people in his care? Oh yes. They reprimanded him and transferred him to other duties.


See the connection there?

The only conclusion that I can draw from this is that a stupid, childish and disrespectful prank is, in the eyes of the Vatican, on the same level of severity as the hideous crime of child abuse. Would that be about right?

Or is it, to be totally honest, that anticipating an embarrassingly hostile reception when he landed in Edinburgh, and realising that he had only been invited as part of a pre election publicity stunt by the Labour Party, the Pope was desperately looking for a good excuse not to make the visit? And we handed him one on a plate.

Whatever, it’s not looking good for Spud.

Pics: Foreign Office and The Vatican

....AND (you wouldn't believe it, but) THERE'S MORE........

I normally wouldn’t post twice on the same subject on consecutive days, but events have left yesterday’s post so far behind that I feel obliged, in the interests of accuracy, to add to what I said in the post about Mrs Robinson.

A BBC programme “Spotlight” has come up with more details about Iris Robinson and her husband Peter, and how between them they have broken the law and the code of conduct for councillors, MPs, MLAs and Ministers.

In short they have broken more or less every code that there is, and the law to boot.

Mrs Robinson’s lover, in some sort of grotesque re-enactment of her namesake in the film 'The Graduate', was a 19 year old boy. Just for once in the Robinson story there's nothing actually illegal about that, but it's pretty weird for a religious fanatic given to quoting selectively from the Bible on morality, to have a ‘boy’ friend 40 years her junior. The details of their business transactions et al can be read here on the BBC website. They are rather complex so I won't repeat them here, but, as I said seem to have broken every code in the book, including the legal one.

Apart from the revelation that this pensioner had a sexual relationship with a teenage lad young enough to be her grandson, and that she later asked the boy for £5,000 for herself (the sex wasn't enough apparently, she needed cash too), we learn from the programme that her husband, the First Minister of the Province of Northern Ireland, knowlingly concealed information about her illegal financial activities from the authorities. A silly thing for a First Minister to do.

His position is now totally untenable. He has brought his party and the Northern Ireland Assembly into disrepute. He must resign immediately. She has made such an almighty fool of herself that whatever dignity she might once have had has been swept away. She has become a comic figure.

She has brought shame on her party, on her council, on the Assembly, on Parliament, on her family, on the boy she used, and on her religion and her church. This evil, nasty, hypocritical little tart really is finished.

Update: Despite the fact that the Northern Irish Assembly and the UK Parliament are both in session, Mrs Robinson is reported by the Belfast Irish News newspaper this morning to be heading for a week’s holiday in the ski resort of Chamonix in the next few days. Last night Spotlight said that Mrs Robinson was too unwell to respond to its questions, according to her solicitor.

Nice work if you can get it.

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HERE'S TO YOU MRS ROBINSON, JESUS LOVES YOU MORE THAT YOU WILL KNOW. HO HO HO

Iris Robinson MP, MLA, and wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister, has admitted that she tried to kill herself after confessing that she had had an affair. Mr Robinson said he was determined to save his marriage and insisted that he would stay on as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.

Nine days ago Mrs Robinson declared that she was quitting politics because of a battle with depression. Speculation has been rife since then about further revelations. Mr Robinson has not been at his office since Christmas, sparking anger when he failed to comment on the death of Cardinal Daly and failed to attend his funeral.

During a period of mental illness Mrs Robinson said that she lost control of her life and did the worst thing that she had ever done. She said that the affair had no emotional or lasting meaning. She said: “Psychiatrists may suggest that my mental illness was a significant factor explaining my irrational behaviour. I do not in any way question or doubt their judgment. But in order to master my life I do not want to dilute the blame or resist taking full responsibility for my actions. I am completely ashamed and deeply embarrassed.”

She disclosed how at midnight on March 1 last year she tried to take her own life when she confessed to the affair because of the guilt that she felt. Hours later her husband was at the dispatch box answering questions at the Northern Ireland Assembly.

In 2008 Mrs Robinson courted controversy when she claimed in the House of Commons, that homosexuality was an abomination and it made her feel sick and nauseous. In a subsequent interview she defended her views saying that "just as a murderer can be redeemed by the blood of Christ, so can a homosexual.... If anyone takes issue, they're taking issue with the word of God.” She added: “There can be no viler act, (apart from homosexuality and sodomy) than sexually abusing innocent children.”* So, she said that homosexuality was worse than paedophilia? That’s some statement to make.

In June 2009 Mrs Robinson and her husband were criticised when it became known that they had between them salaries and expenses of £571,939.41 with a further £150,000 going in salaries to members of their families.

Now I respect people’s religious views and I even respect the right of an MP to express these personal views in a public way, although it must have been a pretty embarrassing moment for her husband. However, as Mrs Robinson’s life is so clearly directed by the teachings of the Bible, could I remind her that adultery is a sin. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” is, if I remember aright, the seventh commandment. And aren’t there numerous referenced in the Bible to riches and their incompatibility with godliness? For example, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Matthew 19:24. Further could I just remind her that attempted suicide is against the "natural order" and thus interferes with God's master plan for the world? Those who succeed in killing themselves can not be buried in consecrated ground.

I wonder if Mrs Robinson has a clear idea of what the word hypocrite means?

* Information from Wikipedia