TA TA TO BRITISH STEEL THANKS TO THE TORIES

Maybe Mr Cameron (or more likely Mr Osborne, who seems to be in love with the Chinese) would care to explain why, when the EU is trying to stem the flow of cheap Chinese steel, he has blocked it.

Could it be that the 40,000+ odd jobs in the steel industry in the UK are less important than George having a special relationship with Beijing?

Maybe it's just that the Eton boy like supping ale with Presidents of big important countries, and Mr Obama isn't that keen on supping ale with unimportant wannabes, so second best president will have to do?

Or maybe George (I'm not very photogenic, but things go better with coke) Osborne likes being invited to China on luxury all-expenses-covered holidays?

You have to wonder if their promise to make the UK China's best partner in the West has meant that they were prepared to block Europe's attempts to bolster their domestic steel industries. (Bet the Europeans secretly can't wait to see the back of them.)

After all Port Talbot is in Wales, Labour territory, most of the other plants are in the North... and there are not too many Tories to worry about there. 

The rest are in Scotland. And since when were they interested in Scotland? Poorest of pickings for the Tories. They can sort it out for themselves (which they did!)

On the other hand the Chinese throw a good banquet!

In other news Mr Cameron says he will not renationalise the company. Bailing out bankers is one thing; bailing out steel workers, quite another. After all steel workers don't take one to lunch at the best Mayfair eateries!

John Prescott

@johnprescott

Whilst Labour MPs pleaded with Tata in India to save Port Talbot the Business Secretary was in Australia. Shocking. https://t.co/sXKxMHtXtM

Anyone seen the English Business Secretary?

Or indeed the Welsh Business Minister?

MORE RANDOM RAMBLINGS

* Am I the only one who thought that the Times headline the other day was wrong. EVERY ONE IN FIVE.... YOUNG ARE OUT OF WORK. The second part of the headline is approximate (and I can’t check it because it’s behind a pay wall), but it’s the first part that concerned me. It should surely read “ONE IN EVERY FIVE........” To think it used to be a newspaper of record!

* The Metropolitan police are the most incompetent lot, aren’t they? They seem to get precious little right. Now English high court has ruled that the way in which they kettled people during the G20 demonstrations in April 2009, was illegal. The court heard that police used mass detention against peaceful protesters, and that officers punched faces, slapped and hit out with shields as they tried to move a demonstration against climate change. It has opened up the possibility that up to 5000 people may sue the police for wrongful detention. Damned right. People were kept for hours with nothing to eat and no toilet facilities crushed up against one another. I hope to never see that kind of tactic used in Edinburgh. I don’t know what happened to England’s much acclaimed free speech. The fault of course was of the management. Well no surprise there. I wonder where Commander Dick was that day. Looking for a room maybe?

* MPs have reacted with anger at a 16% cut in the BBC World Service. They say that as the BBC is undergoing only a 10% cut (I didn’t notice a 10% cut in my licence fee), it is unfair that the Foreign Office-funded World Service is being penalised. They say that the BBC is used to promote British values around the world. So that got me thinking. What are British values? Are there such things? Are values different in Scotland from in England, what about Irish and Welsh, or for that matter Cornish, Manx, Jerseyman or Guernseyman values? Are British (or any part thereof) values different from say Danish ones? The things that go through my head. Answers on a post card to the usual address with the usual prize going to the usual winner.

* Annabel Goldie was a million miles better than Tavish in her interview with Gordon Brewer, and a fair amount of what she said made sense. Why keep 14 year olds who will learn nothing more at school distracting other people who want to do well, and making teachers’ lives hell.

But Brewer didn’t ask her what she proposed to do with them, or what it would cost. You can't just let them vegetate in bed.

And although I believe absolutely in free education, I could see some sense in Annabel’s argument for graduate tax. But again Brewer missed a chance. Annabel says that everyone knows that there is a black hole in the finances, and she will use the graduate tax to fill it. But the tax won’t start trickling in for 4 years, and then pretty slowly. How will she fund universities till then? And how much will it cost for the Treasury to collect it, as we can’t tax.

And wouldn’t a tax (as opposed to a loan) encourage people to go abroad after we have educated them?

I wonder how Gray will be tonight. How will he explain the 150,000 jobs out of thin air trick he’s going to pull off? Iain Dumblegray, Scotland’s greatest wizard. Not.

* Does anyone agree with me that it might be a good idea for the government to sing from the same hymn sheet? Headlines this evening have changed from “Cable attacks Cameron”, to “Cable agrees with Cameron”. Perhaps there should be a quick meeting of top advisors at the same time as Cabinet each week with each department giving a list of the speeches its ministers are going to make, so that if there is to be a major policy disagreement it can be thrashed out before they look like a bunch of unruly kids, not after.

* Would it not be best for the News of the World to come clean now? It all looked good for a while; the Metropolitan police hadn’t really investigated and long sighs were being heaved.

But there are too many “important” people among the victims; too many with clout in the right places. It is bound to come out in the end.

In the meantime, I’d say John Prescott is bang on the nail. No matter how many dinners the Prime Minister rather stupidly has with Murdoch’s son, and no matter how unprofessional Vince Cable is, there is no way that the BskyB deal can go ahead while this is hanging over our Rupert. I’m not suggesting any impropriety you understand... but it is going to look like dodgy deal.

AT LEAST SOMETHING IS PROSPERING IN THE UK: THE ARISTOCRACY JUST GROWS AND GROWS AND......

Good Lord... or to be more accurate Lords.

So, we are in the middle of a fearsome tightening of belts. Unemployment is high and growing, staff of every civil service department is to be cut (and whilst that’s not bad thing, we can all expect to be kept waiting longer on the phone while we are told how important our call is) and what is happening in Westminster?

Oh yeah, they are starting their own job creation scheme. They are in fact giving people jobs for life.

The outgoing prime minister is by tradition entitled to ennoble people; to send them to join the aristocracy, wear ermine, call themselves “Lord” (or Baron) something or other, their wives become “Lady” something or other and their children are entitled, for some unknown reason, to the style “The Hon” before their names.

After the fuss about money for peerages Tony Blair forewent his entitlement in that matter, but the worst prime minister in history has decided to make even more of a fool of himself by naming a list of second rate disasters and third rate fools to be appointed to the so called upper house.

Not surprisingly SIR Blair the Labour Plod, sacked quite rightly by Boris Johnson, is to go to the house of doddering old fools, where I dare say, he will be at home. The idiot Dez Browne, the man that was Scottish Secretary at the weekends, he told us, while, during the week, he ran two wars, or rather didn’t run them, failing troops by not fighting for more money for them. The patronizing old fool. John Celtic Reid is also going to the Lords, along with Two Jags, Tudor Beams, Toilet Seat Prescott. The bloody old hypocrite. What kind of Old Labour man wants to be in a house of toffs? Mrs Prescott presumably. John Hutton, another fraud of a man and failure as a War Minister, will be going upstairs to bed too. The full list can be seen here.

http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/latest-news/2010/05/peerages-honours-and-appointments-51162

In total there are to be a further 16 Tories, 9 Liberals, and an amazing 29 Labour peers created, not to mention P C Plod and Ian Paisley, who only became human in the last year or two of his political life, and is closely associated with the odious pair that run Northern Ireland, when not sleeping with their friends’ sons.

So, all in all 56 new troughers! Best buy some new troughs and some more pig swill.

But, there’s more. We are informed that under the new coalition there is to be a balancing of the Upper House, needed because of the enormous number of Labour peers created in the last few years... you know, people like Alan Sugar, who just happened to double his contribution to Labour Party funds that year.... well, well.

And according to the Times, because none of them can be got rid of.... (£300+ a day for life, and no one is messing with THEIR expenses), they will simply have to create even more Liberal and Tory Peers. The Times reckons that will mean a further 77 Tories and 95 Liberals. So another 172 on top of the 56 just appointed, and the current membership, will bring the compliment up to just over 900.

Now that is what I call the right way to show an example to us lesser people. You do with less and we’ll nip off to the House of Lords where you can call us Your Lordship.

Well, when Gorbals Mick went there the place lost its last shred of credibility..... and what else would we do with the money?

What a bloody country.


Pictured: The Lords: Mr Blair who made such a mess of running England's main police force: The last deputy prime minister and chief pie eater, John Prescott.