Cameron proves to be an embarrassment to us, again

I was amused the other day to read an advance declaration on Twitter from someone who said: "In the event of me being involved in a disaster I want to make it known that I do NOT want a visit from David Cameron". I couldn't help but agree. 

It's bad enough to have to put up with this smarmy individual on the tv, where there is an off button, and when you are feeling quite well. Imagine the horror of him standing at your bedside making political capital out of your misfortune.

So yesterday my heart went out to those poor people in a Lebanese refugee camp who had the misfortune to be alighted upon for that purpose, by the aforementioned prime minister.

Whilst he was there, and giving the locals a break from the dubious pleasure of his company, he took time to talk to the press and to berate other European countries for not doing enough in the circumstances, and demanding that they 'step up to the plate'.

This must have gone down well with the rest of Europe and in particular with Frau Merkel. Germany admittedly is now struggling and has had to temporarily close its borders to new refugees, but it should be remembered that last weekend it took 70% as many refugees as Cameron intends to accept in the next 5 years.

Other countries are doing sterling work. Even smaller states, including the very smallest, are taking some people.

At the same time Cameron and May, whilst accepting the scale of the crisis, refuse to do anything much but throw money at it. 

In fairness it is true to say that the UK has sent a great deal of money as part of it's overseas aid budget (with one eye on the added advantage that it secures their G8 membership requirements). 

But they want the refugees to stay ...well anywhere, as long as it isn't Europe. Despite the ridiculous overcrowding in terrible conditions of the camps in Lebanon and Jordan, they think that these countries  should take more, and that the countries of North Africa should set up holding camps. 

I'm not sure if I were a refugee that I'd particularly want to be in Egypt or Libya... and not even Tunisia since the Arab spring (so much supported by the UK government) and since the absolutely disastrous war in Libya, waged by the Brits and French at the behest of the Americans, which has left yet another state in complete lawless turmoil.

Of all the countries in Europe, France and Britain are most responsible for the instability in the Middle East (Britain more so than France, given France's refusal to take part in the illegal war in Iraq which left a huge part of the region in chaos and with no real effective government), so  thinking that it can tell other countries to step up to the plate is more than a little ridiculous.

I also think given the extreme nature of the legislation being debated in the Westminster parliament yesterday, the man behind it should have had the courage to turn up and listen to the discussions. (Craig Murray has an excellent analysis of the implications here.) 

If Cameron were half a man he'd have been there, not sliming (not slimming, as the pic above shows) his way across in the Middle East like the Spiv PR man he really is.

TORIES TAKE THE LOW ROAD...IN GERMANY

The Tory Campaign Poster

The General election campaign has started!

But the Tories appear to have taken a wrong turn already!

They have chosen the slogan... "Let's stay on the road to a strong economy", which would be more appropriate if any of us, outwith those people at the top, actually felt that there was even a modicum of truth in it. How many strong economies are £1.6 trillion in debt, and growing?

With a little adaptation

That aside, and who was expecting any truths in the campaign, of course any advertising for anything in the days of photoshopping is always open to a little adaptation so it's not surprising that some clever work from the keyboard satirists has been going on. Every party will experience that and the advertising companies employed to come up with poster ideas should take sabotage into consideration when presenting their ideas, as should the parties when selecting them!

...and some more adaptation

So some of these doctored posters must have been expected. However, the Tories' opponents couldn't have planned for the what comes next. 

It appears the road used in the advertisement is not in fact even in Britain.

The original photograph

It is claimed that the illustration is, in fact, from a photograph taken in 2008, by German photographer Alexander Burzik, not far from his home town of Weimar. 

Initially, when asked, Gideon insisted that the road was definitely in Britain, but then, after careful consideration, the Tories admitted that the road was a composite of several images, but added that they had been assured that all of the illustrations used were in Britain.

You should have checked, Gideon, because it does look remarkably like the whole thing, while doctored, was based or Herr Burzik's picture!

Stefan Drew  a marketing expert told the Mail: "When you first look at it it's just a grey road going into the distance. 

"But the more you look at it, the more you see that it's actually quite an evocative picture with a lot of hidden messages. 

"It taps into emotions – the green and pleasant land, (or should that be "grün und angenehm Land") the straight and narrow, blue skies and the patriotic Union flag."

Somewhere nearer the truth

I'm puzzled, though. 

For all the economic failures of this and previous governments, there are some very attractive roads in the UK. Some of them are reasonably straight, stretch off into the distance, and with a little bit of artistic licence could be made to look as if they were not full of pot holes.  So why complicate things by using a composite of images, whether or not they were elsewhere?
**********

Ah, that sounds just like our lovely UK

Added to all that, Gideon unveiled the poster on a government visit, seemingly violating the rules that government and party business must be kept separate.

THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS...

Told you so!

Couldn't happen to a nicer condom, I mean erm prime minister

And so it goes on

Ooops...probably shouldn't be driving with this condom on my head.

It wasn't exactly what he said.
He clearly said that they wouldn't act against Scotland
 until Scotland had rejected independence,
but the pic was too good to reject

He must have a hell of a  house

Don't get excited. He didn't choke laughing... Still...

So what do you say Mrs Nay, I mean May

And they already renationalised their grid in Hamburg

They must think we are real suckers, while we think that they are....
erm grasping MPs

Tut tut. One rule for the ruled and one rule for the rulers

Not that interested in what celebrities say,
 but Annie's always been political

How many times do we have to tell them?

Probably would have been better to deep fry them

Aye Justin, talking of miracles

But not if you are the head of the Bank of England,
or running the Tory party or the new head of RBS...

LOL

No stitch ups there then

We miss nothing!!

Told you...

Thousands and thousands of people
 will die because of greed

ARE WE TO BE PUNISHED FOR NOT VOTING TORY?

We didn’t vote Tory and we barely voted Liberal Democrat, so the government probably feels within its can dump the worst of its miserable policies on us, with no political fallout. And to prove it, they are to launch a pilot scheme to remove people from Incapacity Benefit and put them on to Employment Support in Aberdeen (another one will be trialled in Northern England). It’s strange that the Tories didn’t want to do anything like that in their heartlands of the south, where half the population lives and where there are plenty Incapacity benefit claimants.

With targets to reach the medics (for they are not necessarily doctors) of a private (for profit) company, will examine IB claimants and try to get them off the more expensive benefits, which are paid in recognition of long term illness and inability to work. Perhaps Camerclegg think that the resultant rise in unemployment in Scotland can be blamed on the Scottish Government? Labour had the same idea and had to admit that, although the medics were happy to deprive ill people of their money, the courts were not. On tribunal appeal more than half the cases were overturned by judges and doctors appointed by the English Ministry of Justice.

Now it has emerged, thanks to a parliamentary question in the London parliament, that some Scottish rail services may have to be reduced because the new rolling stock may not be able to run on lines North of Edinburgh.

Mike Weir, asked the English Transport Secretary about something that those of us north of Edinburgh are concerned about: the future of direct train services between London, Aberdeen and Inverness.

The reply from Theresa Villliers was that the future of these railways services would depend on decision, yet to be made, about the type of rolling stock. Clearly this is a question of electrification. Lines from England to Edinburgh and Glasgow are electric, but no one bothered to electrify the lines north of Edinburgh. If then the new trains are electric, then there can be no direct service.

So, it seems that if you have to make the long (well, it is in the UK) journey between Aberdeen and London, or Inverness and London, then you will have to rely on local trains to get you to Edinburgh, where you will be obliged to change for London and the south (including the continent).

Labour had proposed purchasing duel fuel trains for the Scottish lines, but the Coalition has put that on hold. I presume that this means that despite the railway companies being private, making profits and giving their directors huge bonuses, the government, or the public if you like, still has to pay for the trains. Nice business.

Long distance travel in the UK is already a misery in comparison to travel in France, Spain, Italy or Germany, and the cross border trains that ply the continent at half the price and twice the speed of UK ones. Scotland's railways are, even by comparison with Englands, a travesty. Is it necessary for us to be subjected to further inconveniences and train journeys be made longer?
.

Hurrah for strong government: We should be the best run country in the world

David Cameron says that Nick Clegg wants to “hold the country to ransom” over his party’s desire for a proportional voting system. This would lead to a “permanent hung parliament” he said.

The Tories seem to be absolutely determined to push the point that ‘strong’ government is the only form of government the UK can have. Without it we would go belly up. I even heard someone say yesterday, when faced with the fact that Germany has coalition government that they are ‘different’.

Different in what way, I thought. ‘Different’ like Mr Winterton pointed out people who travel ‘First’ were? What absolute rubbish.

Strong government can be a good thing, but not at the price of democracy.

Taken to its obvious conclusion ‘strong’ being equated with ‘good’ government implies that the previous regime in Iraq or the current regimes in Saudi Arabia or China are good. After all they do not come much stronger. Do we think of them as being good? We see that they produce a society with little crime; a society which is regimented and orderly. But is it one any of us would care to live in.

In the past, for as long as I can remember we have had ‘strong’ government. Strong in that it the governing party required no partner to command majority in the House of Commons and a large enough majority to pass their legislation without any help. Strong in that they had a whipping system which meant that even if their own members disliked the legislation, disobedience could mean the end of a promising career, the telling of tales to wives and families and disintegration of family life and perhaps disgrace and humiliation.

Strong in that the revising chamber had very limited powers to interfere with government legislation, and strong in that the head of state had only an advisory role in government. I’ve never known a weak government.

This government was often conducted away from the House of Commons. It was frequently conducted with people who had not been elected; in the ‘kitchen cabinet’ of Margaret Thatcher where decisions were well after midnight in Thatcher’s flat. The same thing with Blair and his mates, often nothing to do with people we’d elected.

So ‘Strong’ government has brought us to where exactly?

Well, roughly speaking, from statistics I’ve seen, or my own experience........we had the deepest recession, and came out of it more slowly than the rest of Europe; we have more criminals and recidivism; we go to war more often; we have among the biggest debts as a government and individually; our children can barely speak English never mind compete with foreign kids who learn 2 or 3 languages; our railways are the most expensive and worst in Europe; our health service is in the bottom half of the European tables; our children are amongst the least happy; our pensioners are amongst the poorest; our roads are the most pot holed; our troops are the worst supplied; we have the most old people’s homes; we have the most teenage pregnancies; we have the biggest drug problem; our houses are the smallest and the most expensive; our dental services are the worst; our petrol is the most expensive; we start paying income tax at around the lowest amount. Our cancer rates are horrific and we produce almost NOTHING

Jeez that’s depressing.

It’s not, in short, done much for us all this strong government. Whereas Germany, Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, etc, etc have coalition, balanced parliaments and........... better lives.

Don’t listen to the scare stories about weak government. It’s all lies. You wouldn’t call Angela Merkel weak would you?


Finnish 'Hung' Parliament Building in Helsinki: Nick Clegg who wants PR.

MINISTERS MAY HAVE TO LEARN TO COPE WITH MINORITY GOVERNMENT

I’m not at all sure why the British cannot cope with minority governments or hung parliaments or with coalitions. Mrs Thatcher apparently said that it resulted in weak and ineffectual government and people believed her. Now it seems Ken Clarke, a man I admire, has warned of market problems if there is not a strong government with a comfortable majority.

I’m dubious about this. Why should it be? Germany, the world’s 3rd largest and strongest economy is run by a coalition. Other European countries like Denmark and Holland have coalitions and yet are strong and well run. Scotland had a coalition for 8 years and now a minority government, but everything has gone well enough. Sure Bills have been lost, and compromises made, but that is the will of parliament and parliament is the will of the population.

That is what we, the people, voted for. So be it. It means of course that politicians have to work together for the good of the country. Live with it.

I was cheered then by the remarks in the “Caledonian Mercury” of a reader J R Tomlin, who points out that the experience of Canada also suggests that coalition government may not necessarily be weak government.

She points out that Canada for the past 3 years has been run by a minority government with a hung Parliament. They have exactly the same voting system as the UK.

She goes on to say that the country recovered from the recession fastest, that no Canadian banks had to be bailed out and that the predicted growth rate for the economy is greater than any other G7 country this year. The Canadian $, she points out, has reached parity with the US$ and is still going up. Additionally unemployment is down.

No two countries are the same. Their economies are based on different employment, different materials and different demands. It is hard to transfer economic predictions of one to another. Even within the UK there are vast differences. But the Canadian system is close in many ways to the UK system (except for their willingness to treat small parties with respect. Their debates include ALL parties and, of course, entail two languages). If they can cope 3 years into minority government doing better than any other G7 country, why oh why can’t Britain?

Ms Tomlin concludes that all the nonsense about the pound and markets going into freefall due to a hung parliament are just plain old lies.

Yes. I agree Ms Tomlin. And, if that is what we vote for, then that is what we should get. No running to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen for another election after 6 months, because they are not sufficiently good at coping with not getting all their own way all the time. They are always telling us that we must learn to cope with change. It may be that they will have to as well.

Pics: The 'Three "Wise" Men'; 'The Three "Wise" Monkeys'; or is it 'Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest'