• Liberal Conspiracy » Drugs policy: Brown fiddles while…
  Read please.
• George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
  Have *you* read it lately?
• Twitter / pchallinor
  The mighty Challinor is twittering…
• Your groove for today is…
  Look at him go.
• A nose for Nazis
  Brendan O’Neill makes sense shock. He can do it when he tries.
• The Daily Mash - CANNABIS NOW WORSE THAN THE NAZIS
  ‘…a massive increase in the strength of the drug since politicians all stopped using it…’

• Labour: Tighter new rules for skilled foreign workers
  Yay, Labour relaunches itself with a bash-Johnny-Foreigner initiative. I love Britain.
• Labour: Tighter new rules for skilled foreign workers
  Immigration Minister Liam Byrne: ‘Our new points system means that British jobseekers get the first crack of the whip’. Really. That’s what he said.
• Britain is ‘becoming the abortion capital of the world’ claims Tory MP fighting to lower legal limit
  Nice to see Nadine Dorries using strong science in her argument and not cheap emotional incontinence. Hang on, reverse that…
• Iain Dale’s Diary: Move Along, Nothing to See…
  Never his strong point, words fail Iain Dale once more…
• Your groove for today is…
  ‘Nice men dancing on daft punk’s around the world’
• BAE Systems admits to ethical failings as investigations into corruption continue
  BAE “did not in the past pay sufficient attention to ethical standards” Of course they didn’t - They sell guns to bastards.
• Mark Steel: Has the real Gordon been replaced by a robot?
  ‘Oh no. It’s got to the point where you start pitying him.’
• Gordon Brown - The Impression of Listening at Beau Bo D’Or
  Just gorgeous
• Coalition for Choice
  Does what it says on the tin

• CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police
  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…
• Haven’t They Read ‘Politics And The English Language?’ Banned Cliche Number 1
  Referring to someone as Mr Micawber
• Haven’t They Read ‘Politics And The English Language?’ Banned Cliche Number 2
  The ‘whelk stall’
• Your groove for today…
• Business summit aims to fight poverty
  Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh God, I think I’m having a seizure. Gordon Brown is to appeal to Coca-Cola, Diageo, Microsoft and Vodafone’s better natures! Oh, god, the pain! Ha ha ha ha ha.
• Blood & Treasure: unanswered questions
• MP seeks to lower abortion limit
  Hands up anyone who’s had a ‘casual’ abortion. I’ve said it before - Nadine Dorries is a pro-abortion fifth columnist.
• Adam and Joe podcasts
  Marvellous

Bollocks to the lot of it. If the blogosphere was a pub you’d be looking for another one less stuffed with wankers.

Back in a bit.

• Quaequam Blog! » Just how many spoilt ballot papers were there?
  What’s going on here then? Paging Greg Palast.

• Yorkshire Ranter: Donal Blaney: Hypocrite, Political Whore, and Torture Fan
  Alex Harrowell nails the blogosphere’s top libel lawyer…
• Mathar
  Your groove for today is…
  (tags: grooves)
• Mike Power’s Sunday PaperRound 04/05/2008

Here we go. Yet another generous dollop of ‘masochism strategy‘:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is set to reassure the Labour Party he can lead them to victory despite disastrous results at local elections.

…

Mr Brown is giving media interviews on Sunday as newspapers speculate about various plans to oust him.

I don’t know about you but watching this defeated and defeated-looking, hang-dog, humiliated and hunched, inspiration-free ivory tower-dwelling fool beg for his job is not the way to spend a fresh Sunday morning.

The Prime Minister will once again be insisting that denial is a river in Africa. You get the feeling that he will be closing his interviews with ‘They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist…’ (It’s certainly something they should consider carving on New Labour’s tombstone.)

It’ll be a miserable, miserable, miserable spectacle, demeaning to all. Platitudes are not a breakfast cereal. Go and find something far more wholesome and nourishing. We’re off car-booting to bring home more crap we don’t need to fill space we don’t have. A bit like New Labour law makers.

• Iain Dale’s Diary: Friday Afternoon Live Blog
  ‘Sky have London turnout at 45%. This is good for the Tories…” But absolutely bloody terrible for democracy. Still, once must have one’s priorities…
• abandonia - dedicated to abandoned computer and video games
  Holy heck. All the pocket money snafflers of my youth are here - Operation Wolf, Gauntlet, Sensible Soccer…!
• Bloggerheads (UK) - 10 great years in Britain
  Happy Anniversary, Mr Ireland
• Rachel North: Boris Johnson…
  Ouch.
• Richard Herring: Warming Up - Thursday 1st May 2008
  ‘I wanted to try and stop Boris Johnson getting in, even though somewhere inside me I have a sneaking desire to see how he would do at the job. But only for ten minutes - not four years. Even I think that it is possible to take a joke too far.’
• Twitter / Duncan Stephen: It’s terrible. He’s loathsome…
  A cracking gag…
• Mike Power’s Saturday PaperRound 03/05/2008
  I’ve got the Power
• Schrödinger’s Pig: An open letter to Labour MP’s from Labour voters
  Fantastic.

And so it came to pass. A city of grown men and women elected their leader for a laugh. That, in a big way makes them far worse than the deluded souls who voted for George Bush all those years ago.

And like a zombie virus, how do we stop this contagion spreading to the rest of the country? London must be sealed off. Cauterized. Let us thank God that the supply of novelty, racist lightweights is short or we’d all be up to our neck in them, trapped in our homes as they lurch about outside craving our flesh.

If there is a way for these comedy voters to suffer for their levity without those who didn’t vote for Johnson* suffering too, now is the time to start looking for it. They chose their mayor for a laugh.

It’s hard to see the silver lining in these moments. There is a small one. All the hassle and slog of putting on what is almost certain to be a shitty Olympics now transfers to Johnson. May he live in interesting times.

Let’s hope the legion of special advisers who are going to be doing all the heavy lifting of his administration are something really bloody special. The omens ain’t good.

*Let’s have no more of this ‘Boris’ shit. London’s about to find out just how cuddly he is.

• The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three
  Your groove for today is…
• Blood & Treasure: the mot juste
  Gordon Brown: wanker
• Guy Fawkes: The Calculus of Political Pain and Pleasure
  I’m not sure what he’s driving at
• Matthew Norman’s Media Diary
• Noir C´est Noir
  Your groove for today is…
• davecole.org » Free Penguin Classics
  I got Evelyn Waugh’s Men At Arms. Is that good news?
• Bad Science » “Pixie Dust helps man grow new finger”
  Aw, bollocks. I so wanted this to be pukka.
• Prescott blames banks for housing boom
  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, John, you are a caution. If you spread your cheeks don’t be surprised if you get rogered.

So, anybody want to play Fix The Labour Party? What should they do to avoid a thrashing at the general election? I’ll start with:

• Temporarily reinstate the 10p tax rate next week. Fix the problem long term by looking again at personal allowances for the low waged.
• Reverse the post office closures
• A scheme up and running in the next twelve weeks where people earning under a given threshold can claim a substantial refund on last quarter’s fuel bill.
• A windfall tax on energy company profits
• Implement a proportional representation voting system in time for the general election.
• Either commit troops to defending Basra or bring them home. Time to poo or get off the pot.

Rubbish or what? Any more?

Blimey. Will Howells has an unforgettable commute…

Gordon Brown in 2000:

Some people might think Ken Livingstone is funny, but saddling London with him for four years is no laughing matter.

And so the irony of the 2008 model Brown having everything crossed that Livingstone might help save his arse is a delicious one. I hope Gordon’s gagging on it. If I was him, I’d start drinking now and not stop until the snooker’s finished.

It was also a delight to hear the now rusting Blair Babes desperately scrabbling around for a silver lining on the radio this morning. Both Harriet Harman and Hazel Blears, spewing smoke and misfiring as they wobble and parp slowly towards the scrapyard, claimed that last night’s Tory successes would mean that the opposition’s policies and positions would now come under greater scrutiny in the run up to the next general election.

Oh, yeah? Like they did in 1997? Back then policies counted for almost nothing so why should they now? You could have pretty much, as they say, put a dog in suit and the voters would have put a tick in his box just to see off the Tories. That voters are now starting to look to an empty suit like Cameron should tell us just how bad things are 11 years later.

Politically, then, Gordon was wise to stop the pay rise, because the general British attitude to offenders is as brutal and vindictive as it is pig-headed and self-defeating. If a study were published tomorrow establishing beyond the tiniest doubt that awarding the extra £1.50 would reduce reoffending rates by 60 per cent, and save an annual £6bn for an outlay of £6m, the phone-ins and blogs would still resound to that ritual hunting cry of political correctness gone mad, from representatives of the vast majority of voters who favour the reintroduction of capital punishment, however incontrovertibly proven its worthlessness as a deterrent may be.

Read the rest

If this abject waste of water and carbon wins today I, and many like me, will never ever stop taking the piss.

(Video via Mike)

• Gordown Brown, Ten Percent Tax Rate and Poverty (and a U-Turn) at Beau Bo D’Or
  This is very good
• Guy Fawkes: Zimbabwe and Britain : Parallels (I)
  The parallels between Zimbabwe and Britain? I’m sorry but Guido is veering all over the place on this.
• Guy Fawkes: Steve Richards : “Voters Aren’t As Clever As Me”
  Not sure about this. Guido really should know his limits.

You have to say that Gordon’s a trier. The day before polling in the local and London mayoral elections and he’s spraying treats around for everybody.

It was a Blairite tactic to try and be all things to all people and, while it was all too transparent for those who could be bothered to look, there was at least a veneer of arrogant calm about it. Brown, while using the same methods, comes across as having an air of sweaty desperation.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Ministry of Truth » ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty…
  So, Gordon Brown’s skunk as ‘lethal’ as he claims? In short, no.
• British forces will continue to use cluster bombs, MoD says: The Guardian
  Because nothing says Liberation! quite like an unexploded bomblet
• BBC NEWS: Ronaldo in transvestite scandal
  Come on! Who amongst us can say this has never happened to them?
• British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) Careers - Current Vacancies
  MI6 are recruiting…
• Gordon Brown vs Nicky Campbell
  Good grief, Nicky Cambell didn’t half give Gordon Brown a clout this morning. ‘It’s a pleasure,’ said Gordon. Liar.
• Ministry of Truth » With ‘is ‘ead tucked underneath ‘is arm…
  Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What a terrible bastard.
• Simon Jenkins: The only message being sent is of cowardice and stupidity
  ‘All turn a blind eye. They are soft on drugs.’

More here.

What’s the libertarian argument for driving whilst uninsured and over the legal limit for alcohol?

Here’s a not-at-all-blackly-cynical Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian on Labour’s prospects after the elections this week:

What else will the Labour faithful cling to if the voters mete out their predicted harsh punishment? I have heard ministers say that a Boris Johnson victory would be a short-term disappointment, but could be a long-term boon. If Johnson makes a balls-up of London, he will serve as a poster boy for Conservative unreadiness for high office.

Can I be one of the first to thank Londoners for their brave sacrifice? You can’t make a general election omelette without breaking a few electoral eggs. And anyway, a Boris Balls-Up sounds so cuddly, doesn’t it?

It was terribly brave of you London types to volunteer for the front line. Let us know how salvaging New Labour’s electoral prospects works out for you. God bless you all. And you too, Reading and Birmingham:

Losses in Reading or Birmingham will be tolerable because they are faceless, so long as Saturday’s front pages show a smiling, re-elected Ken Livingstone.

Ah, the unknown soldiers. They fought for their country and we honour their sacrifice.

While he was on the GMTV sofa yesterday, Gordon Brown referred to skunk as ‘lethal’ three times. Journalists followed this up at the Number 10 press briefing later that day. Is cannabis ‘lethal’? The government will, of course, have copious evidence to back up the Prime Minister’s claims, yes?

Put repeatedly that the Prime Minister had used the word “lethal” to describe the use of cannabis and asked if there were examples of cannabis being lethal, the PMS said that nobody was disputing the potential dangerous impacts of cannabis and that that was why cannabis was an illegal drug.

That’s a ‘no’ then. Unless it’s some kind of patois in the vein of ‘Wow man, this stuff is lethal!’