Stop Press: England opt out of the Euro!

Why was this man picked as the England goalkeeper?

All the pundits criticised the manager before the game on his controversial selection of a relatively untried newcomer at a senior level.

Gordon Brown, who was the deputy to the previous manager, and whose own position is now in doubt said: "I have every faith in him." This is despite the fact that he lost by 25.

It's not clear whether this is £25 billion, 25 million personal records or 25 own goals but several post-match reviews will make this clear. "Lessons will be learnt" said a beleaguered Brown. "Lord Hutton has been appointed to carry out the investigation so the blame can be laid at the feet of the Croatians".

Hat tip to Comment Central for the photo.

Spinning in the Wind?

Good old Charlie Whelan - one time spin doctor to Gordon Brown - writes a classic piece demonstrating his art in the Daily Telegraph extolling the fortitude of his old boss in the face of all his current adversities.

What loyalty! What friendship! What a load of old balls! I think his most ironic line has to be "Gordon has never been a short-termist politician, which is why he was so reluctant to go to the country so soon."!

With his old spin doctor saying "there has been a skirmish but the war is yet to be won - and they are confident of winning it" as well as "things can only get better" it makes you wonder how desperate Brown really is.

Move over Darling?

Some people say that Alistair Darling has the worst job in the Labour Cabinet - having to take over as Chancellor of the Exchequer from Gordon Brown. Watch him here having to explain yet another debacle.

Some say he's been unlucky to have so many bad stories breaking in his first few months in this high office. Some have even suggested that Gordon Brown has been interfering in the running of the Treasury.

But what is clear is that Brown and Darling have both been involved in this Labour government for more than 10 years and they are both culpable when things go wrong.

And another thing is certain - this Government does not deserve it's reputation for competence.

Liberal Leadership Contest Calamity!

I hear that these two happy chappies have been calling each other names in the playground and giving each other chinese burns around the back of the bike sheds. What naughty boys!

It's always a calamity when two friends fall out (hee hee)!

Apparently, you can see it here but why bother?

Defence of the Realm - Labour Style!

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the Defence Staff, (pictured left on a recent visit to Iraq) delivers a devastating report on the way NuLabour has treated our army personnel over the last 10 years. The Sunday Telegraph report is here.

We should all feel ashamed that we have a government that has allowed this to happen. One of our greatest assets as a country has always been the ability and professionalism of our armed forces to carry out very difficult missions at the behest of politicians.

Having been starved of funding by Brown when he was "the most successful Chancellor for 250 years", they are now being even further weakened by this imposter Prime Minister. He's quite happy to "invest" £25 billion (and rising) of taxpayers' money on propping up Northern Rock to protect the jobs (and votes) of some 6,000 Northern Rock workers and their families in the North East but he can't bring himself to equip our Armed Forces to a level that gives them at least an even chance of beating the enemies that the Government has chosen to fight.

Sir Richard has said this before. Will Brown (or even Des Browne?) listen this time?

UPDATE: According to an article by Des Browne, the Secretary of State for Defence, in the Sunday Telegraph everything is OK. Well, that's alright then.

Would sir like to try the Goat's Balls?

Good article in the Guardian by Martin Kettle here which shows why Brown's GOATs (government of all the talents) is, well, er..... a load of balls.

I have posted previously that, fundamentally, Brown's Labour is a busted flush that has run out of ideas and is now casting around desperately to find anything remotely useful to do for the next two years.

In the meantime, we are going to have to put up with these clowns struggling to be even half-way competent in doing what we pay them to do - run the country. Don't it make you feel good?

And the latest YouGov poll continues to show Labour behind the Conservatives with Brown's personal rating now in negative figures.

Sarkozy - the real threat to European unity?

The Spectator's Coffee House blog posed an interesting question about the relative corruptness of the EU after the European Court of Auditors refused to sign off its accounts for the 13th year in a row citing "errors of legality and regularity". It asks: "can anyone think of a more financially corrupt institution outside of Africa?"

Then, link this to the post by Danniel Hannan, the excellent Conservative MEP writing in the Daily Telegraph here where he reports on a speech by Nicolas Sarkozy to the European Parliament. "The French people had not voted No to the EU. On the contrary, they wanted Europe to do more..... the EU should decide things by majority, not by unanimity, which gave the power of veto to the most reluctant.... ratification of the constitution would now be without a referendum.... on the subject of protectionism, the EU mustn’t leave capitalism unrestrained ... the capitalism that he was interested in was that of the workers and producers, not that of the speculators and rentiers."

Hannan goes on to say: "My problem is not with him, but with the self-deceit of the British commentators who keep claiming, against all the evidence, that the EU is becoming less federalist and more free market. We’ve been telling ourselves this for 50 years, during which time Brussels has steadily agglomerated more and more powers."

It's all going to end in disaster, mark my words! And the treachorous French will be to blame. Should we bail out these cheese eating surrender monkeys yet again? I don't think so!

A "brown hole" in the Government's figures on immigration? Countdown to meltdown?

The Coffee House blog links to yet another story about the Government's inability to get any of its numbers right here.

Is this a "Brown Hole"? After all, his acclaimed clever economic planning over the last 10 years has been based on Government statistics. (He has recently told us that he wished Carol Vorderman from Countdown had been helping him get his figures right - and she only got a Third Class degree in Engineering from Cambridge.)

So, remember, when you hear Brown & Co telling you that there is a "black hole" in the Conservatives' economic plans, they are not necessarily the best ones to judge!

Enoch Powell returns to haunt the Conservatives

After David Cameron's very measured and sensible speech on immigration and population growth earlier this week I had a small bet with myself who would be the first give to Brown and his crew the opportunity to cry "same old Tories, same old racists". I just knew it would be a Tory!

This is Nigel Hastilow, the Conservative Party candidate for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, ironically, in the heart of the Black Country, who has been reported as quoting Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech in an article in The Observer here.

No matter that he was actually writing in the Wolverhampton Express and Star paper and quoting the views he has encountered on the doorstep whilst canvassing in the constituency that he hoped to represent as an MP.

I say "hoped" because it is very likely he will be "pressed" to step down as a result of the ensuing furore.

I know nothing of Mr Hastilow's personal views on the issue of immigration and the problems of a rapidly expanding population but he has a right to reflect the views of the people he is asking to vote for him. That doesn't make him a racist - but he will be labelled as such by the media and Labour will use it to punish David Cameron whatever he does about Mr Hastilow.

But what did Enoch Powell actually say? It might not surprise us that in today's more "grown up" discussions there are still echoes of the concerns that Powell quoted nearly 40 years ago. Perhaps the concerns are now more about the overall numbers of immigrants rather than the colour of their skin and their country of origin. Is that progress?

UPDATE:

Cabinet minister Peter Hain told BBC1's Andrew Marr show: "This Conservative candidate really exposes the racist underbelly of the Tory party." Well, there's a surprise.

And Mr Hastilow did step down as a Conservative parliamentary candidate on Sunday 4th November after meeting the party chairman, Caroline Spelman. Mr Hastilow said: "They wanted me to issue a statement apologising and I don't feel I had anything to apologise for. If I had said sorry I could have stayed on, but I am not sorry. I have definitely not said anything racist."

NuLabour Spin on Immigration

Lots of NuLabour spinning here - but John Kampfner does edit the "Newt" so I suppose it's inevitable.

If John is really looking for information on immigration he should ask the Government - oh no, they don't know do they?

How about asking Migration Watch - they do have a handle on what's happening and have been vilified for saying it for the last six years or so.

Kampfner's article is another sad example of NuLabour being unable to accept that their own incompetence over the last 10 years has stored up problems that will take many years to resolve.

He says "In truth, nobody could have envisaged the scale of the influx" Oh yes they could - and they were told by the Conservatives in 2005 - who were then roundly condemned for playing the "race card". The Labour Party (new and old) needs to realise that they need to grow up very quickly and just admit we can't accommodate all the current and projected scale of immigration without a coherent policy on the actual numbers that can settle on our island.

Stop spinning. Agree you've got it all wrong and start to put it right. If you don't (or can't) then the Conservatives will have to deal with your mess.