English - the lingua franca?

I am sure Donal Blaney will forgive me for belatedly pinching this very jolly video which you may think has a little more resonance in the USA than in Britain....Or does it?

I heard recently that most public bodies have had to greatly enlarge the numbers of interpreters available to them to cover around 100 different languages and dialects. And that's just so they can understand all the Scots who seem to run the country these days! (It's a joke, OK? Don't get your kilts in a twist!)



See you, Jimmy!

Brown's (one) fan club

Apparently there is at least one person who is pleased that Gordon Brown is our Prime Minister - and she rang the Jeremy Vine show today.

I didn't realise that Cherie Blair was such a good mimic.

Bye bye Redditch, thank you for paying for my mortgage

If this is the best that Jaqui Smith can do then she is doomed to be an ex Labour MP at the next general election. Hope so!

"Right wing" blogger defends Daniels Hannan! Shock! Horror!

This is a taste of things to come from Labour's attack dogs over the next few months as they despairingly try to prevent a meltdown at the June elections. In this example, dear old John Prescott is desperate to reclaim the NHS as the Labour Party's own particular fiefdom in the minds of the electorate even after David Cameron has explicitly said that a Conservative government would protect spending on it.



Labour supporters are ever so keen to cite the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan's recent interview with Fox News as evidence that the Conservative Party is concealing it's real intentions for the future of the NHS. But watch and listen to what he actually said (about 6 minutes into the video below).



I am a great supporter of the NHS - I worked in it for 17 years - and have had many personal experiences of how brilliant it can be. But if I was advising the US government on how to reform their health care system I could not urge them to follow our model. Particularly, they should not try to impose the sort of target driven culture that has led to the sort of scandals that result in the needless deaths of tens of thousands of patients from hospital-acquired infections or patients being shunted into holding wards so they don't breach the 4-hour wait limit in A&E.

If Labour wants to make the NHS a battleground for the next general election they will have to have a lot of sound arguments to show that they are more competent than their record over the last 12 years justifies.

What spin will Tom Harris put on this poll?

The news that the latest Populus poll for The Times shows that the Conservatives have a 13% lead over Labour will, doubtless, not put the illustrious Labour blogger and MP for Glasgow South (maj: 10,350) off his stride. Where's the G20 bounce, Gordon?

The paper reports that: "The survey...shows that there has been no G20 bounce for Gordon Brown or for Labour, despite a favourable view of last Thursday’s summit in London. Labour is unchanged compared with a month ago on 30 per cent, while the Tories are one point up at 43 per cent. The Lib Dems are one point down at 18 per cent. Other parties are unchanged on 9 per cent."

More interesting is the finding that: "More than two thirds of voters think that all or a majority of MPs abuse their expenses and allowances. Some 27 per cent say that all or nearly all MPs abuse the system, and 42 per cent think that a majority of MPs do so. By contrast, 20 per cent say that “a majority of MPs do not abuse the system, but many do”, while just 8 per cent say that very few MPs do. Working-class voters and Tory supporters are most inclined to say that most MPs abuse the system."

Let's hope that Tom is not one of those that will be named and shamed when the details of MP's claims are published in a few months time.

G20 "miracle" already starts to unravel

The FT Westminster blog, among many others, does a very clear demolition job of Brown's G20 claims on the amount of money (real and imagined) that is going to be pumped into the world economy: "Was it one trillion dollars? Or less than 100 billion?"

Makes you wonder if he was just plucking figures out of the air!

The man who broke Britain

I am grateful to Lord Elvis of the 10 Drowning Street blog for this link to the latest Renegade Economist (Fred Harrison) video which sets out the case against Gordon Brown's claims to be the saviour of the world.



Not sure why "Vince the Cable" was included as the only example of a siren voice warning against Brown's incredibly incompetent handling of our economic and financial policies over the last 12 years but, that apart, it sets out the key failures that Brown will never admit.

Climate alarmists facing a cold spring?

Interesting debate going on over at EU Referendum about the actual weather conditions that are being experienced as opposed to those predicted by the computer models that drive the climate scientists into a frenzy.

The Watts Up With That? blog has some fascinating facts that makes it hard to take these boffins as seriously as Prince Charles and the other alarmists take themselves.

This passage is rather telling:

"....So how is the current ski season looking? Wolf Creek ski area in southwestern Colorado has received a paltry 10 metres of snow so far this winter.

Summit Base Depth : 110 inches
Last 24 Hours : 1 inch
Last 48 Hours : 2 inches
Last 72 Hours : 2 inches
Midway Base Depth : 105 inches
Last 7 Days : 20 inches
Latest Storm : 2 inches
Year to Date : 398 inches"

The next big thing - Alistair's Budget

The exchanges at PMQs yesterday were more about generating heat than light. All Brown could do was set out his party's attack line on the Conservatives in the on-going general election campaign. "They will cut, cut, cut and cut again. Your babies will be eaten at birth and the world will stop rotating on its axis if the Tories are the next government. They are the 'do nothing' party that opposes my fiscal stimulus which all other countries in the world have followed. I am the saviour of the world and my mate Barak thinks I'm the bees knees."

[He even had the gall to claim that his decision to sell off the country's gold reserves at the bottom of the market was the "right thing to do" as he had used the money to buy euros which have gone up in 'varl-yoo'! Yeah, because you have buggered up our economy so badly that sterling has depreciated by over 30% in the last year! Twat!]

When all the dust has settled after the G20 jamboree and we discover that nothing much has really happened we will have the pleasure of hearing Alistair Darling present his much delayed Budget to the House of Commons. How will he present the fact that this Labour Government has totally lost control of the country's finances? How will he portray the fact that this country's level of debt will be totally out of control and cripple the financial future for our children and grandchildren?

How will he explain that unemployment will rise to over three million in the next year? What will he do to 'spin' the fact that if he doesn't cut public expenditure now the rises in taxes he will need will be so high as to prompt a mass exodus of businesses and individuals from the country and, therefore, reduce the tax revenues he needs to repay the interest on the debts that he and Brown have created?

Despite Brown bestriding the world stage today nothing will stop him looking like the small boy who put his finger in the dam on April 22nd. He must hope that Alistair will rescue him before the waters break through and wash him away.

(PS: Hope you like the picture of Alistair Darling in 1982 when he was a Trotskyite!

Tom Harris to stand down!

It is with a mixture of sadness and relief that I read the news on the Press Association's website that Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow South (maj. 10,365), and former Minister of Transport is to stand down at the next general election.

Sadness, because he has provided so many of us with the opportunity to both slag him off for his myopic and distorted views on the failures of this awful Labour Government (despite his valiant yet doomed spin operation) and to ridicule his juvenile obsession with Dr Who, Star Wars and his strange taste in popular music.

Relief because this will mean that he will not be popping up on the airwaves every few minutes pontificating about anything and everything. The world of politics can only be a better place for his going.

It is reported that he is to retire to his estate in Croatia where he has already established a sanctuary for old (Labour) donkeys.