SNAPS ON SATURDAY

I've never doubted that he was an inspiration to people in the Second World War. He was a spin doctor of extraordinary talents, suitable for the times, where people expected to be spoken down to by their "betters", but I've also always suspected that he liked nothing better than to play at soldiers. He seems to have confirmed it.

We all know not to believe what we read in the papers.

Note: Please add "Must have no compunction about sending people to an early grave".

Proof positive that you can succeed by being sneaky rather than clever, lying through your teeth and cheating as much as you can on expenses. It works. Give it a try. Or we'll sanction you and you'll starve to death.

"Get back in your box and shut up Kez" signed John.

Superb interview. Some people can carry off obfuscation with some measure of success. Some just look hopelessly out of their depth. Guess which she was.

You never really know whether he is deceitful or just plain dim.
Probably a mixture.

Good way to start September.

Let's have none of this Gaelic nonsense on our police vehicles.
Only 1% of the population understands it.
Latin, on the other hand, is taught at Independent Schools ...
So 33% of MPs can understand it.

And they told us it was by the grace of God.

Seems a sensible way to generate  membership 

...or maybe she likes calling people liars and cheats...

Oh Harriet...you bit off more than you could chew.

Isn't history lovely?

I always suspected this. Isn't Harriet Harman a cousin of some sort
 to David Cameron?

You shall be judged by the company you keep.
So, Mugabe, you just went down in my estimation!

Some surprises there....Switzerland? Germany? New Zealand?

Oh, and 100% in Northern Ireland didn't vote Tory!
Not to mention 100% who didn't vote for the dross
and dregs you elevated to the aristocracy, or the rest of that
House of Ill-repute.
And while we're on, remind me how many voted for the Saxe Coburgs?

IT'S MONDAY MONTAGE

You wouldn't want to make it up, 
unless you were writing a horror story.

Still, it's true to say that they seem to be doing a job of work on things that matter to people

And it the Queen can bother to turn up and read the drivel she did, the least that the MPs could do was turn up to the debates about it.

But don't let the truth get in the way of a bit of Jock bashing

Oh look, there they are again showing the place disrespect by turning up to work instead of sitting in the bars.

Well said. They will sink to any depths to make a hit show.

Here's a suggestion.
I noticed Airmiles was sporting one of these watches
 that cost something in the order of £12,000

But soon they will have got rid of the problems of the sick scrounger.
They can speed up the death rate now that the Liberals won't whine about it.

The difference is that he has class and knows the right people,
 and she...well... doesn't. Lovely country

A vast amount of the benefits in this country go straight to landlords in housing benefits...and indirectly to employers, who can get away with paying less in wages than the average rent in the area.

If you though McVile was a bitch,
I suspect you may be in for a surprise.
The Priti one looks like she is shaping up to
take home prizes in foulness.

Good old Professor Stephenson.
Thicker than a thick thing that has been covered in 190 coats of thickening paint.

The question is, who the hell would want that worm addressing their conference.  I'm proud to say that I once refused the opportunity to meet him, most insistently too.

At least thank goodness, he has resigned from the Middle East job Bush gave him for being a totally faithful little puppet
and plunging the region into utter chaos. Actually as peace envoy he kept at it and achieved much the same result but more of it.
 I hope he never has another night's sleep for all the blood he has on his hands.

Nope, he doesn't look any more sensible or statesmanlike standing on his head. I think they have chosen badly.
 Mundell maybe would make a reasonable councillor,
or even a back bench MP, but a Cabinet Minister he is not.
But then...who else was there? Oh yeah, no one!

I truly hope he bursts. Loudly.

They were always a loving lot, the Tories, although he may have been a Liberal when he said that. Who knows? He put himself about a bit.

This one was a Liberal.. or rather, a Whig.

Can't argue that.

What a pleasant man. Has he met IDS? They'd probably get on.

RANDOM PHOTOGRAPHS

Busy like crazy at the moment, so I hope you will enjoy some pics I found over the last week or so. As always click on the illustrations to make them bigger.

ADVICE TO LONDON GOVERNMENT AND ITS SUPPORTER

Stop bragging about giving the pensioners a "record £5.30" a week increase. 

Let's get it clear, it was the amount you were obliged to give them, given that it was the "official" inflation rate at the moment which, by law, these things are settled. 

We all know that the "official" inflation rate is unlikely to be the real inflation rate, especially for the poor who spend a disproportionate amount on food and heat. Given that gas increased by about 17% and electricity by 11%, and that food inflation has been running at around 10%, the £5,30 has not even brought the pensioners back to last year's income.  

You could add (because pensioners are) that to pay for the very rich receiving a reduction in tax on the money they earn OVER £150,000 a year, pensioners will no longer get that little extra tax relief that they have had since Mr Churchill introduced it in 1925. 

It's estimated that this will hit 5 million pensioners and cost them up to £250 a year.

While you are thinking about this "record £5,30", you might also like to remember that, with interest rates at their lowest ever level, pensioners get less and less money from their savings. I never hear that mentioned by the government.

Why not also mention that you reduced the winter fuel allowance by £50 and by a massive £100 for the over 80s. That's £1 and £2 a week respectively. Seemingly that has slipped your collective mind. Strange, given the promise Cameron made to keep all these benefits at the same level as he inherited.

You could, of course, brag instead that, because the law says you have to do this, you were also obliged to pay all the "dole  scroungers" and "sickness benefit cheats" (including the 500,000 that Mr Duncan Smith is going to have off that benefit and back to work in the next four years!!), exactly the same percentage increase? But that doesn't tug at the heart strings of the public, does it? And it's difficult to paint people who are sick or unemployed as demons while bragging that you gave them record level increases, isn't it?

And people might get to thinking that the only reason that there are "record" increases is that there is "record" inflation....

I only warn you out of the goodness of my heart because every pensioner I know gets so angry when they hear it trotted out again and again as if there is some sort of beneficence involved. Even Tory voting pensioners are sick of being used. I fear a rash of heart attacks and pensioner deaths if this bragging continues. And you wouldn't want that, would you?

MIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHO'S THE UGLIEST OF ALL?

I was having a titter this morning about yet another, albeit much less important, embarrassment for poor old Cameron.


I refer to the cat fight between Mary Portas, and the women of the cabinet, whom she referred to, not unreasonably in my opinion, as ugly.


Portas, who is Mr Cameron's advisor on regeneration of the High Street (and a fine job she's making of it, not surprisingly perhaps considering that her company, Yellow Door, promotes shopping centres such as Stratford's recently opened Westfield, said to be the biggest in the EU) is  also making a tv programme called "Mary, Queen of Frocks", which I assume is about women's fashion. This may be considered to make her an "expert".


So she had a go at the then four female Cabinet members Tessy May (Home), Cheryl Gillan (Wales), Caroline Spelman (Environment) and Sayeeda Warsi (Nothing). Enough said!


However, after a fuss being made by Warsi, who, with no portfolio seems to have time to rise to the bait, Portas has backed down saying that it was just her" naughty sense of humour" and that, in fact, she didn't even know who the women in the Cabinet were!!!!

So, if she makes that kind of comment about people she doesn't know, how useful and unbiased will her report on retail and the dying high street actually be, and is it worth what she has cost the taxpayer?


Warsi, however, makes rather a fool of herself too, in her indignation:

"In politics you expect people to scrutinise every aspect of your life. And I don't blame Ms Portas for chipping in. But what gets me is the double standards.

"You would never get the same kind of sniping about men in politics."

Well, that's just not true. Much has been written over the years about how ugly Robin Cook was, that Frank Dobson was fat and beardy, that Boris Johnson had hair like a haystack, that Tony Blair had (and I repeat had) a nice bum, and how wrinkled and old he had become, that Gordon Brown always looked like a corpse, and that Alex Salmond got fatter by the day; it must be all these curries... 

"No-one would have dreamt of giving fashion advice to any of the great men who led our country. Just imagine if someone had told Churchill what suits to wear.

"It's ridiculous to judge them [female politicians] on what they do or don't wear. "

What I would admit is that no one talks much about what men in politics wear, because they only wear dark suits, light shirts and ties. Even the most poisonous journo can't really make much of that. For all his money I've only ever seen David Cameron in a dark blue suit whilst at work.

As for Winston, I imagine his butler or maybe his wife laid out for him what he was to wear and helped him on with it. I find it difficult to imagine that he was preoccupied with clothes.
If women want to avoid comments about their clothes it might be an idea to apply the same standards that men in senior positions do. In short, a dark suit with a light shirt/blouse. That would leave the journalists little to criticise.

But if they insist on wearing clothes that would be more appropriate for a day's spring cleaning, a garden party, or in the case of Theresa May, some dubious nightclub, then they must expect to be ridiculed.

Incidentally, the £1.4 billion Westfield Centre was opened by Boris Johnson is a flurry of publicity. Embarrassingly a glass ceiling tile crashed to the floor only feet from where the mayor was standing during the ceremony. Doesn't sound too safe to me.