Lord Tebbitt Gives Cameron A Job Reference

Lord Tebbitt has today given his full support to Boris Johnson's bid to become London mayor, especially his stance on the expansion of cycling in the capital. Speaking from his office behind the bike sheds at Westminster he said: " It's important to encourage young people to get off their arses and go and look for a job. That's what my father did and that's what all these feckless youths need to do now."

Boris Johnson welcomed this strong support from the former airline pilot but pointed out all job applicants who follow his advice should ensure that they comply with the law. He called for "zero tolerance" of cyclists who break the rules. He said: "I am a militant cyclist myself and I love cycling and I want more people to cycle in London, but part of the deal has got to be that if we are going to expand cycling in London ... we cyclists have got to obey the laws of the road." Mr Johnson is known to oppose a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

In the meantime, David Cameron - who has recently applied for the job of Prime Minister - has been accused of reckless cycling and failing to go left at a bollard. The Daily Mirror reported that he always went to the right. If only!

Boris - Will He Eat Your Babies?

I am a great fan of Boris Johnson because he can come at a topic from "the left field" and in doing so brings a fresh perspective to it. In this article in today's Daily Telegraph here he proves it once again.

You may also have noticed that the issue of population growth and its consequences both for the UK and the world in general have tended to dominate my posts over the last couple of weeks.
In my own amateur way I see links to the other major issue of the day - climate change or as we like to call it "global warming". There are still arguments about the extent that this is a man-made or 'anthropogenic' phenomenon.

Whatever the reasons are for an apparent upward trend in global temperatures - and I agree we should be conserving resources whilst developing new technologies to ensure that we can keep the lights on and feed ourselves - it seems inevitable that the prediction that the world's population will increase exponentially over the next few decades is the biggest threat that we face.

Most of the popular media are happy to constantly tell us that we are all doomed - by being too fat, drinking too much and smoking too much which all lead to cancer, diabetes, stroke, dementia and sundry other terminal diseases - yet at the same time we are told that the demographic profile of the UK is getting older (as it is in other first world countries). In other parts of the world - notably Africa - the ravages of AIDs, malaria and other horrible diseases have prompted our political leaders to pour our money into dubious schemes to reverse this trend so that their populations (which are growing anyway) grow even more quickly.

Is it time to look again at the Gaia hypothesis put forward by James Lovelock? If the Earth is an "organism" perhaps disease, pestilence, famine and disasters on the scale of tsunamis and earthquakes are its way of telling us that we will have to learn to live with Nature.

As for Boris eating your babies - he's a politician - he loves babies. But he couldn't eat a whole one!

What will Boris do when he's old and grey?

Last Sunday we travelled south to the Land of Boris. No, not a mythical world inhabited by hobbits or some such half human hairy creatures with obscure origins. This was the real heart of the middle class of England - or, at least, as I imagine it was when I once lived in that part of England about 35 years ago.

We were there to see my niece and her family who had recently moved into a little village on the side of the Chiltern escarpment. This is Boris Johnson country (MP for Henley) and, indeed, my niece's eldest daughter had met him at the Chinnor fete the day before and found him his usual affable self. This is the sort of circle in which they move! I was impressed.

The reasons for the gathering of Diablo's clan were manifold: a housewarming party; my niece's 18th wedding anniversary; her mother-in-law's 75th birthday; and it was Father's Day too. It was a great opportunity to catch up with all the old folk we don't see very often. And the barbecued lamb was amazing! A great family event.

As one of the older folk myself I naturally gravitated to the "wrinklies". I don't normally talk politics at social events but I couldn't stop the discussion going in that direction. The "greys" are not a happy group: too many immigrants; the NHS is useless; council tax is far too high; good riddance to Tony Blair; Gordon Brown will be a disaster; Cameron is not talking to us; as for the LibDems they are opportunists not worth discussing - except that most thought Ming Campbell was too old! Phew! I didn't realise the older generation could be so vociferous.

It seems to me that while everyone is concerned with the 'yoof' vote politicians could be forgetting that the older end of the voting spectrum is more likely to be listening to what they have to say. Even Boris could be old and grey one day.