SO, WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING THIS WEEK?

Repugnant creep though Mitchell is, the police who stitched him
up are even more so. If they can get away with stitching up a
 cabinet member, no matter how vile,
what can they do to the ordinary Englishman?

Oh yeah, one of the reasons we didn't protest when
all the rest of Europe was protesting...
Theresa has been up a telegraph pole

Why not? The Chinese have access to the nuclear plants

 in England. They might as well build the warships

Phew... got away with it...AGAIN

Iain Doughnut Smith has for the last year happily made lifeunbearable for anyone claiming benefit or working tax credits and has beenbellowing how much money he has saved the taxpayer.

Today he was revealed as the snivelling useless little creep he most certainly is, and that his department has spent so far £450 million which now most certainly will be written off, his department has been described by today's report as a shambles and chaotic and there are further accusations that Smith is up to his old tricks of trying to bully fellow ministers and staff into blaming the civil servants working on the project.

Smith the spineless yellow bellied bully pulled the same stunt with his personal Secretary while being investigated for fraud in which she said in her sworn statement that ''Iain Duncan Smith and his friends put unbearable pressure on me to see things their way''.

 Smith is a stain on this country and one of the vilest, most deceitful and just plain stupid parasites ever to hold a ministerial position. It is nothing but a national shame that others will now take the fall for this serial idiot’s total incompetence and utter uselessness at his job. This man is nothing more than a fool with a rich wife and a suit who's father in law set him up to be an MP for his own ends.

David Cameron said today ''Iain Duncan Smith has my full support'' Says it all really.

But now I have to face the civil servants I blamed....eeek

I've wanted to do this to yer smary face for years,
 because you're so much cleverer than I am and I hate you for it

SNAPS FOR SATURDAY: PRIVILEGE

Will there be any yoghurt today, Mr O?

First Class Photograph

Lots of Love...hmmmm

Dave wants us all to be privileged. Not sure how that works...

Gideon's been thinking....well, that's a start.

Bless him...look at the Tony Blair hands.

You probably won't Andrew; In a few weeks most of us will have forgotten you exist.

ROLL ON THE DAY WHEN WE DON'T HAVE TWITS LIKE THIS IN OUR GOVERNMENT

There are times when you wonder at the sheer incompetence of members of Cameron's government.

The English police have come in for some well deserved stick recently. (I only mention that they are English, because in fact the are, and the Scottish police are an entirely separate organisation, who have not had any more bad press than usual.)

They Met, in particular has lost several senior officers over its close relationship with the press; over brutality of its officers at student protests and the G8 protests where a totally uninvolved member of the public was killed, and of course the Yorkshire police cover up over Hillsborough.

But, earlier this week, two police officers in Manchester were shot and there was a considerable outpouring of sympathy for them and their families and colleagues. Noticeably more coverage was given than is ever allowed for members of the armed forces who are killed in the line of duty.

Clearly it is of vital importance to the government that the public has confidence in the police. The alternative is unthinkable, and Cameron will surely have been concerned that all the bad publicity will have eroded that. He, after all, may need the police to be onside at some stage in the next 2 1/2 years.

And so, out he came to make a solemn speech about two brave officers killed by a ruthless criminal, with all the expected "fine body of men" type quotes.

It must have been somewhat of a blow to him then when a man he has just promoted from a very junior cabinet position to be his chief whip in an increasingly fractious Tory Party, decided to have a rant at the police in Downing Street, in front of members of the public and the press.

Andrew Mitchell (Rugby and Cambridge) managed to say (or allegedly say) just about everything that reinforces the stereotype image that we all have of a Tory Cabinet Minister.

Having been stopped at the gate of Downing Street and directed to use the pedestrian gate at the side, the immediately unlike-able Mitchell launched into a rant, in which he allegedly (although he denies this) called the police "f*king plebs", and told then that they should "learn your place", and pointed out that they did not run the government (erm, neither does he)... although I'm sure that even the most arrogant of the police would not claim to do so.

Iain Martin, a Daily Telegraph political correspondent thinks he will be unlikely to be in his job by the end of the weekend.  

But these people have more front than Rothsay, so I reckon he will hold out in the hopes that the press will find something more significant to report than a posh privileged muppet abusing someone who has a little bit of authority over him. 

Isn't it, though, quite scary that the governance of the country is in the hands of people who have such poor judgement. 

Update

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2206484/Police-say-Andrew-Mitchell-yelled-Ill-job-officer-stopped-riding-bike.html

According to the Mail (dubious) Mitchell threatened to have the officer's job for this.  ‘I’ll have your ****ing job for this.’ along with...‘I’m the chief whip. I’m telling you open this gate. I’m the chief whip and I’m coming through these gates. Best you learn your ****ing place. You don’t run this ****ing government. You’re ****ing plebs.’

Oops, if it's true, it's worse than I thought and he's toast by Sunday!

But there's the dilemma. You have:

1. The Met ...

2. A Westminster Tory Cabinet Minister

3. The Press, in particular the Daily Mail.

So who is telling the truth. Probably none of them, I suspect!

DO YOU FANCY A HOT BRIDIE, GRANNY?

Just a week or so ago it was all so different. There he was being tucked up in bed by one of  the world's most important men, in a flying palace beyond even his none too modest means. He must surely have felt that he was, in every sense "on top" of the world. This, he must have thought, was what life was supposed to be about for people of his class, with his education.


And now...?


Well, he's come down to Earth in more ways than one.


The headlines even in his chumiest of papers, the Telegraph and the Mail are anything but friendly.


First, I suppose, we're in recession. Even if Georgie boy says we are not (which he did, only last week in his Budget), the OECD says we are. This international organisation has been supportive of Osbo's strategy so far, and the Mail is an adoring Tory paper, so we can't really accuse them of an "anti" bias.


Of course it's everyone's fault but George's. And the EU and Euro crisis comes in for a lot of stick, but at the end of the day, it is the chancellor's responsibility to foresee all the issues that might effect the economy when making predictions.


And then the news broke that RWE and Eon have pulled out of the English/Welsh government's multi-billion plans to build a new generation of nuclear power stations in the two countries. Effectively this appears to have rendered their governments' energy plans in tatters. This is embarrassing for Cameron as he has talked them up presumably in the hopes of scaring Scots whose government refuses to build nuclear power stations.

Furthermore, the country's roads are in chaos too because of cack-handed handling of the possible, but not certain, industrial action that might or might not come about if talks with tanker drivers' representatives fail. This possible action may or may not take place over the Easter weekend (which is an important holiday in England), when millions of families make a mad dash for the coast, and spend most of their holiday sitting in traffic jams). So rather unfortunately for them, in an attempt to blacken the unions involved they let Cameron and  Foot & Mouth, sorry Francis Maude make statements, in which they said, in their own little way, "PANIC". 


Today traffic jams are building up outside petrol stations, even in Scotland, where there is no holiday and no mad rush for the coast. In Dorset police were forced to close petrol stations in order to get the traffic flowing.


This is not a crisis, but the government's handling of it has led to this mess. And even when they are deep in it, they keep on making blunders. Ed Davey suggested that drivers should top up when tanks are half empty, but hours later, said they should when tanks are two thirds full.


Can you imagine this lot handling a REAL crisis?


And lastly (for this post anyway), the Times has reported that Andrew Mitchell, who, according to the Channel Four "Despatches" programme has money salted away in the British Virgin Islands in a tax avoidance measure, also was involved with a company which used a legal loophole to avoid stamp duty worth £2.6 million in 2006. This is the very practice that Gideon says he will clamp down on... 


...and that's not even mentioning Pastygate (or as we call it in Scotland "Bridiegate"), and the Granny tax... or dinnergate...

Yes, how Mr Cameron must long for a good night's sleep clutching Mr Obama's teddy...


(I'm hoping today is one of the days that 'somepapfaedundee' is lurking. The Osbo picture is just for him). The second one is of Ed Davey who has managed to arrange his features to make himself look  soft in the head. His ever-changing advice to motorists gives the same impression!


PS:THE Government's approval rating last night plummeted to the biggest low in its two-year history.

Just 25% of Brits gave the thumbs up to how ministers were doing. And a new high of 61% disapproved, found a YouGov poll for The Sun. Just 34% would vote Tory, compared to 44% for Labour. The Lib Dems flatlined on 10%.

The Budget, the cash-for-access donor scandal and unhappiness over fuel may be to blame...

PLEEEASE TAKE THE MONEY... OH PLEEEEASE

You are really going to love this.


Many people, including some readers of the Republic, have been asking for some years why we give aid to India.


Now I'm a believer in international aid. Without labouring the point, I believe that while we should make sure that our own people are looked after, even  our poorest are comfortable compared to the misery of starvation, pestilence and natural disaster that afflicts some parts of the world.


We constantly make it clear that we don't want and can't afford to accept economic migrants here. So, if we had intelligent and well planned aid programmes, we might be able to help people to make lives for themselves and their families at home, their home. It's not just charitable; it makes sound economic sense too.


So, back to India. I know that there is grinding poverty in India. My brother is not long back from there, having visited the slums on Mumbai. But India is a rich country with economic growth running at over 10%, something like 100 times the UK's. 


India can afford nuclear weapons, and a space programme. Slowly, but surely, India is working to alleviate its poverty. It has, for example, doubled spending on health in the last 8 years. To pull it from third world status will take a long time. It could be done faster if so much of the cake was not taken by the rich. But that is how things are, not just in India, but everywhere, including the UK where the gap between rich and poor is the greatest in the developed world.

While we have been saying that India doesn't need money from this poor little island, so has India. Pranab Mukherjee, India's Finance Minister, last year asked the British to stop sending aid.


And Britain (wait for it) begged India to continue to accept it. 



A leaked memo from Mr Mukherjee shows that he wished to terminate aid from Britain because it was portraying a negative image of the poverty in his country. Although in our terms it was a large amount, it was a trickle in the overall budget of India and it was more damaging than helpful. Furthermore, most of the aid was either being syphoned off by corrupt officials in India, or was inappropriate or unneeded because the the administration in the Department For International Development (DFID) send televisions to schools that don't have electricity, or satellite tracking for buses which already have the system.


DFID, having made a considerable effort to persuade the British public that aid was vital to India, said that it would be embarrassing if the country rejected the aid on the basis that it didn't need the money. Alan Duncan, a junior minister, had told the UK public that hundreds of thousands if not millions would die without our aid. This was clearly a total fabrication.


And now, despite having been told publicly that the money is not wanted, Andrew Mitchell Secretary of State at DFID, seems determined to continue to throw money at the country with a revamped programme which will target the states rather than the Federal Government, at the same time as he is cutting money to some African states desperately in need of it.

Last week the Indian government decided to purchase a French fighter plane, rejecting the British Typhoon in the process.  Mitchell, who according to a Despatches programme keeps his own money in the British Virgin Islands, is livid. Seemingly another reason for the aid was "to sell Typhoon".


Oops Mr Stupid, err Mitchell. International aid isn't supposed to be about selling stuff! You'd have thought that as the SoS you might have grasped that basic fact, and even if your department is as incompetent as the century is long, you might have made an effort to keep it quiet.


I wouldn't put Andrew Mitchell in charge of the office tea fund, never mind a multi billion spending department. What a bloody fool.

PAY YOUR TAXES, GEORGE

Further to the Dispatches Programme which Cynical Highlander highlighted last week on this blog, I came across this petition.

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/osborne-pay-your-taxes#petition

It is a ridiculous state of affairs that the people at the top of government, and in particular those who are responsible for, for whatever reasons good or bad, showering utter misery on large numbers of the population, to be taking advantage of tax loopholes to save themselves millions in taxes. Taxes which would otherwise be helping to pay down the massive deficit left to the government by the previous administration.

The petition text is as follows:

George Osborne, pay your fair share of taxes!

Stop using loopholes to avoid millions in tax. Start closing tax loopholes and make a real effort to get everyone to pay their fair share.

George Osborne likes to say "we're all in this together." But last week, Channel 4 revealed that he's avoiding paying tax. He pays accountants to help him find loopholes which Channel 4 reckons will help him dodge £1.6million. These kind of "legal tax dodges" cost the rest of us billions.

How can we trust George Osborne to do all he can to close tax loopholes when he uses the loopholes himself?

The government doesn't want to tackle tax dodging, but together we can embarrass them into action. Let's build a huge petition against George Osborne's tax dodges. We can prove that as long as he's not paying his fair share of tax, the public won't buy his claims that "we're all in this together".

I’m seriously incredulous that there are members of the Cabinet who are engaged in this kind of thing...just as the last lot were, except in the last parliament they put their tax accountants on expenses.

Tax loopholes are legal. I’m not suggesting that Osborne, Hammond and Mitchell are doing anything illegal, just immoral, and decidedly two faced when they spout that “we’re all in this together”

Until they plug the tax loopholes they should really be saying “YOU’RE all in this together”.

Pics: Osborne in the drinking uniform of the Bullingdon Club; Mitchell and Hammond. All of them Right Honourables!