tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27687141769486610582023-11-16T05:02:15.878-08:00Hemingway & Orwell's KitchenA blog about politics & cooking.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2768714176948661058.post-85143239059543328392011-04-22T12:30:00.000-07:002011-04-22T14:11:40.165-07:00Credit Reference agencies - How on earth can we trust them?So, the other week, Standard & Poor, one of the largest credit reference agencies in the world, <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/04/18/the-politics-of-sps-u-s-debt-warning/">downgraded the outlook on US debt</a>. What does that mean? <br /><br />It, a private company, told the most powerful nation in the world to change its fiscal policy. I can guarantee that S&P making that statement will have more impact on US policy than any or all of the opposition to any US policy in the last 20 years.<br /><br />Which must make it frustrating to be, for example, Hugo Chavez.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ufDLr3JdjE8sjOEgYb3GCpImCazrCJobYQ8XZGadUQR-BClz8S5gTyi12DvuUp5ahxapklo8gBu_HonuBaPz9Vjm4hrN2YUbBTd8oPbhCUCAfyRrBmEJlsbOQg1PTJuOMEZKQhZZMMA/s1600/chavez-parrot.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 397px; height: 399px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9ufDLr3JdjE8sjOEgYb3GCpImCazrCJobYQ8XZGadUQR-BClz8S5gTyi12DvuUp5ahxapklo8gBu_HonuBaPz9Vjm4hrN2YUbBTd8oPbhCUCAfyRrBmEJlsbOQg1PTJuOMEZKQhZZMMA/s400/chavez-parrot.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598503333649489650" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Above:</span> He wishes he was a credit reference agency (Hugo, not the parrot)<br /><br />The US isn't the first country to suffer from credit scrutiny. The Portuguese & Irish crises were exacerbated by ill-timed rating downgrades; the British government has been running scared from these agencies since 2007. Why are they so powerful? How many aircraft carriers do they have? <br /><br />In 1996, Tom Friedman said "<span style="font-style:italic;">There are two superpowers in the world today in my opinion. There's the United States and there's Moody's Bond Rating Service. The United States can destroy you by dropping bombs, and Moody's can destroy you by downgrading your bonds. And believe me, it's not clear sometimes who's more powerful</span>."<br /><br /> <span style="font-weight:bold;">It wasn't always like this</span><br /><br />At the start of the twentieth century John Moody, a former journalist with an entrepreneurial streak, saw a gap in the finance market. Investors too often bought on trust because they were in the dark about credit quality. Moody set about publishing information on stocks and bonds to help them.<br /><br />The business grew but Moody’s maintained its founder’s hawkish devotion to accuracy and steadfast focus on investors’ long-term interests. It was renowned for erring on the side of caution when assessing risk and turned work down if it didn’t meet its lofty standards. If anything, the institution saw itself as a public servant.<br /><br />Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s – among the handful of agencies approved by the American regulator – grew to dominate the bond rating market. By the 1970s the financial sector had become more complex, increasing the agencies’ costs, so they began charging issuers as well as investors for rating services. But this shift laid the foundations for the massive conflict of interest that would later undermine the rating agencies’ integrity. <br /><br />The idea is, they provide investors with objective and trustworthy guidance. Perfectly above board. But there is a huge conflict of interest that results from the agencies being paid by the issuers of the debt<br /><br />The fact that major financial institutions only trusted Moody’s and S&P to rate significant issues created a dangerous duopoly: most deals required two ratings. “We had no competition and a steady stream of work,” recalled a senior ex-Moody’s managing director. “It was perfect. I used to think to myself ‘there’s no way we can screw this up’.”<br /><br />In the mid-1990s this duopoly was broken by the emergence of Fitch. An injection of private equity investment had propelled Fitch, previously a minor player, into becoming a serious rival.<br /><br />Moody’s were still keeping to the judicious values of their founder. Under corporate chief Tom McGuire, an ex-Jesuit priest, Moody’s culture remained pure. Analysts didn't enter dialogue with bankers and certainly didn’t return calls from the people they were analysing.<br /><br />But the entrance of Fitch had turned the market on its head. Keen to expand its market share, Fitch was happy to co-operate with issuers’ needs. This shift, in turn, encouraged S&P to be more accommodating. In contrast, issuers saw Moody’s as arrogant and inflexible and it began to lag behind the competition. In 1996, Fitch and S&P rated five times more commercial mortgage-backed securities’ deals than Moody’s.<br /><br />Moody’s brought in a management consultant to try and fix its woes, and in the resultant shake-up, Tom McGuire departed along with other top people.<br /><br />This created an opening for a clutch of senior players within Moody’s who argued it should pursue a more profit-focused direction. The company, they figured, possessed a first-rate brand and, in times of plenty, should cash in. The advocates for change argued that Moody’s should develop more amicable relations with Wall Street and increase the number of deals it rated.<br /><br />The management of the company was gradually wrestled away from older staffers who clung to its former values; the new school’s victory was sealed in September 2000 when it took the company public. Being held by shareholders created yet another pressure - Moody’s now faced short-term pressures to demonstrate earnings growth.<br /><br />Moody’s dialogue with Wall Street improved. But this exchange of information gradually became a negotiation as the last vestiges of Moody’s old culture were broken down. It became normal in structured finance deals for analysts to tell issuers what they needed to reach investment grade, and analysts grew accustomed to tweaking the requirements on a deal a little to keep a banker happy.<br /><br />The banks began playing the rating agencies off one another and shopping around to see who would rate an issue more favourably. Former Moody’s Asia structured finance chief Ann Rutledge told me in 2008: “An analyst would help the banker that was issuing the debt by relaxing the constraints on the deal a tiny bit. But the impact on the rating could be huge.”<br /><br />The effect, as the big three agencies fought to hold onto market share, was that thousands of deals were put together with costly levels of investor protection reduced. This corner cutting was exposed when the wheels came off the US housing market, sparking hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of losses on under-collateralised debt.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">How it all went wrong</span><br /><br />Here's a good example of how the process went wrong: in the late-90s a Miami-based company freight company sought to borrow $140 million against 14 aeroplanes. Unfortunately the numbers didn’t work. The notes backed by the planes only rated as triple-C, or non-investment grade. This meant the deal could not fly.<br /><br />To resurrect the transaction, the triple-C ratings would have to be raised to triple-B. “A leap, in order of magnitude, equivalent to turning a Robin Reliant into a BMW,” recalls a former Moody's analyst who worked on the deal.<br /><br />To get around the problem, Moody’s extended the predicted useful life of the 14 planes from the normal 25 years to 100 years to generate more cash flow. Moody's simply redefined the longevity of an aeroplane to generate the right rating.<br /><br />This shift in standards might have mattered little if it had only affected the shelf life of a few aeroplanes. But, from 2002 onwards, structured finance witnessed the rapid rise of the collateralised debt obligation. By 2006 CDO issues topped half a trillion dollars. CDOs’ opaque methodology took already sliced-up bonds and sliced them up further into new tranches based on risk and return. This meant certain tranches could be rated triple-A despite the fact that lots of sub-prime mortgages had been squeezed into the overall package.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">And we all know how that turned out.</span><br /><br />In the financial crisis, the three big credit reference agencies - Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch - bungled the grading of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of debt with catastrophic results for the entire world's economy. <br /><br />How can we trust them any more? Are they to blame for the credit crunch and the subsequent worldwide recession? The banks share some of the blame, obviously, as well as useless financial regulators - however, while equally culpable, the big three credit rating agencies seem to have gotten off scot-free, and are again on the rampage. <br /><br />Following the 2007 disaster, the incoming administration in Washington vowed to address the ratings system. The EU meanwhile announced its intention to directly regulate ratings agencies for the first time. Other countries vowed to set up independent domestic agencies to reduce reliance on the big three. But this hasn't changed anything. Pressure from the ratings agencies has meant all that has come to naught.<br /><br />Exactly the same underlying conflicts of interest that damned the CDO market are present in their ratings of sovereign debt; for example, in March Greek debt was downgraded. The cuts to the ratings help to push up the cost of borrowing for Greece on the international bond markets. That means all kinds of people increase their margins of profit - not least the reference agencies.<br /><br />The truth is, the global financial system hinges on the accuracy of the credit rating agencies. As a result, these bodies are, it seems, totally unaccountable. And that can't be good for anyone. Even Hugo Chavez.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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It wouldn't last real, sustained intellectual challenge (but more on why that hasn't happened later).<br /><br />In my opinion, there's plenty to not like about AV, without resorting to this sort of thing. I am voting yes (mostly because I want a real proportional system, not this half-arsed fudge) - but I am only voting yes because I don't want electoral reform to be buried for a generation.<br /><br />AV is a shit system.<br /><br />1.) It's not proportional. You can look at Australian outcomes to see that. Indeed, it's often more outrageous than FPTP (see <a href="http://blogs.walesonline.co.uk/devolution/2011/03/1997-under-av---tories-on-96-s.html">analysis of Blair's 1997 election</a>).<br /><br />In about 1/3rd of seats, the safe Labour/Tory strongholds, you get a 50% majority without any 2nd prefs even being counted, as more than half the turnout will be for the sitting MP. Probably a real mandate, but a pisser for everyone in the other 49%. <br /><br />So...it doesn't get rid of safe seats at all, one of the main reasons to supposedly support it.<br /><br />2.) The system is far from transparent, and leads to enormous resentment as people can't understand why "their" candidate lost to someone less popular - see entire Labour party baffled by election of Ed Milliband, and in theory most of them understand the system.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJI_rF5CQIt2vszNWv4t6qzZ3bHoJeF_A6p_dgxklpaFiHJJNpOkv7gR2EfQfhb8j43JpJzLK57f63aHRAiTKIzDvCIgvkE64WJps2NNDOzJRCJd6lSs5KOymIc7R4zSdT-wiOqKQrqCc/s1600/Yestoav.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 254px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJI_rF5CQIt2vszNWv4t6qzZ3bHoJeF_A6p_dgxklpaFiHJJNpOkv7gR2EfQfhb8j43JpJzLK57f63aHRAiTKIzDvCIgvkE64WJps2NNDOzJRCJd6lSs5KOymIc7R4zSdT-wiOqKQrqCc/s320/Yestoav.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5593995917975588882" /></a><br /><br />The no campaign could literally run pictures of Ed Miliband marked "RESULT OF AV" and win on that alone.<br /><br />3.) It also makes it harder for excellent but divisive people like Caroline Lucas or Douglas Carswell to get elected, as the "anyone but them" vote is bolstered tremendously by the stacking effect AV gives. For the record, Lucas was elected on 30% of the vote in Brighton; "Greens unlikely to win again" is hardly an advert for "AV helps small parties".<br /><br />It also makes it all but impossible to elect the occasional oddball single issue MP like Martin Bell.<br /><br />4.) The "50% mandate" is entirely illusory.I question whether the combo of say, liberal votes going to Labour represents a pro-labour mandate or an anti-tory mandate - and in my mind, there is a big difference, but not one reflected in policy.<br /><br />5.) The most electorally representative seats - the third of seats that are three way marginals we'd all like to see more of - basically get abolished, and probably turn into Liberal/Labour swing seats, disenfranchising loads of people. And yes, if you want a Tory, could reasonably expect a Tory and are forced to have a liberal you are being disenfranchised by the new system.<br /><br />Of course, with the ramping up of anti-libdem "traitor" rhetoric from Labour (my personal favourite of which was Mark Thomas saying this week that he "finds it astounding that Nick Clegg can wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and not put a gun in his mouth" - harsh), that may change, disadvantaging Labour.<br /><br />6.) It effectively reintroduces plural voting - with some voters influencing the democratic process 4, 5, or 6 times, and others doing so only once. If you don't believe me, then wait until you see <a href="http://www.australianpolitics.com/elections/htv/">canvassers giving out australian style "preference cards"</a> at the polling booth, telling you how best to vote to aid your chosen party. So, the claim that AV "<a href="http://isupportav.co.uk/2010/11/av-really-will-end-tactical-voting/">eliminates tactical voting</a>" is nonsense - it just means people will vote tactically in a different way.<br /><br />The people who vote for small parties *are* influencing the democratic process more than once, because they are contributing to the elimination of a party during one round, and then having their vote reallocated the next. <br /><br />So you can vote Green to try to make sure the BNP come last and are thus eliminated. You have then knocked out the BNP and prevented them gaining any more reallocated votes. Your vote can then be transfered to - say - Labour, and you then get to help them win the seat.<br /><br />Another voter - who just plumps for Labour - does not get that ability to influence the democratic process more than once. You've thus had more voting power than someone else<br /><br />I'm uncomfortable with the fact that the truly decisive votes - especially in seats where one candidate currently gets between 40 and 50 % - are the second/third/fourth/fifth preference votes of the most unpopular parties. We hand the casting votes in our system to the BNP voter - or alternatively to the ultimate tactical voters, gaming the system. Either is bad.<br /><br />7.) BABIES WILL DIE, but I'd also like to point out that rugged soldiers will not get body armour or guns, as all the money will be poured into biro ink caused by the endless, endless, box checking.<br /><br />Despite all of the "Kittens will die" rhetoric, the yes campaign has been even worse. <br /><br />From it's <a href="http://www.prweek.com/uk/News/MostDiscussed/1060337/Yes-AV-messages-fail-resonate-public/">total failure to connect with the public</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12730964">squabbles over Nick Clegg "sharing platforms"</a>, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/03/zephaniah-dropped-av-leaflets-outside-london">airbrushing Benjamin Zephaniah out of its inner city leaflets</a> , to <a href="http://poplarmark.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/reading-av-debate/">failing to garner official spokespeople to do debates</a> it has been probably the most shambolic political campaign in the last twenty years. As a media professional, it's actually embarrassing to watch.<br /><br />On the other hand, as a Tory, watching a campaign mishandled so badly by Labour & the Libdems, is reassuring to watch. Letting enfeebled remanant of the Labour election team in the Millibunker dictate the campaign is akin raising Barbara Cartland from the grave and then putting her in charge of government make-up policy.<br /><br />So, after that screed of "No to AV", why do I think we should vote yes?<br /><br />1.)It's an incremental step to a better, fairer voting system - it will allow the democratic process to more accurately reflect the will of the people, to a greater degree than now at least.<br /><br />2.) I think one or two elections under AV will produce a non-proportional result which will make the case for moving on to a better system stronger. I think AV moves toward entrenching the idea that proportionality is good, and it (a poor system) won't last that meme becoming established.<br /><br />3.) I think a "no" vote will make the real opponents of proportionality (the rotten borough Labour MPs, especially in Scotland & the hunter-shooter racist homophobic shires Tories) dig in and say "the people voted no". It'll be 20 years before we even get something as half-arsed as AV on the table again.<br /><br />4.) It will abolish *some* safe seats, which I see as a good thing. Safe seats often entrench the most awful people in political parties (Hazel Blears is a good example), and in many seats, the momentum of revulsion will carry off these loathsome toads. The best current example of this is that under AV, Ed Balls would almost certainly lose his ultra-marginal seat. Which leads me to...<br /><br />5.) An important one for me - <a href="http://bit.ly/fKC2D2">Labour will lose the most from the introduction of AV</a>. I think the poll I linked to even understates the consequences - especially in Wales & Scotland, the "anyone but Labour" vote is very strong. If you're a Tory like me, and think a return to a Labour government would be a catastrophe, then hey, this isn't a bad thing. AV lead to almost 20 years of tories in Australia... <br /><br />That said,<br /><br />6.) Whatever the impact on the main parties in the short run, it will be dwarfed by changes in how we *do* politics over the next 50 years, and that is genuinely exciting. The real effect of these changes won't appear until 2020 at the earliest - and a radical overhaul of politics sounds like a good thing, even if it takes a while.<br /><br />7.) The first-past-the-post system may work under a two-party system, but we no longer have one. In 1951, 97% of voters voted for Labour or the Conservatives, but this figure was reduced to 66% in 2010. <br /><br />We should have a voting system that takes account of the new political pluralism. The days of red or blue are dead. Accordingly, politicians should need to cultivate support from outside their traditional bases if they are to have a mandate to represent them. While this will not happen that much under AV – one-third of seats in 2010 were won with over 50% of the vote in any case – it will happen more, and it will reflect that large amounts of people hate both Labour AND the Tories.<br /><br />Hardly a ringing endorsement, I realise, but the truth is no-one really wants AV for itself (<a href="http://www.nextleft.org/2010/09/yes-for-fairer-votes-and-missing-voices.html">including all six members of the Yes to AV</a> steering committee). I dislike AV, but I think I dislike the status quo more.<br /><br />This referendum is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for us to have our say on the current system. We should probably take it.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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Especially among the poorest people, a better understanding of how to cook would leave them (and crucially, their children) with more money, and better lives.<br /><br />Now, most of my friends (especially my most patronising socialist friends) usually tell me:<br /><br />1.) Working people don't have the time.<br />2.) Cooking is too hard for the average person.<br />3.) Cooking from fresh ingredients is too expensive compared to processed food or fast food.<br />4.) You and Jamie Oliver are both massive twats.<br /><br />Now, I disagree with everything but 4.<br /><br />I think especially in comparison with processed &/or fast food, you can feed a family cheaper & better by home cooking. I'm going to compare a Burger King Whopper with the kind of homemade burgers I learned to make when properly hard up.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Burger King Whopper</span><br /><br />We're all familiar with it, but in case you've forgotten what the grim things look like, here it is in all it's glory.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1DSONHmeUyEUXojInDPFFrXDk6NKdAX3ZgEBw6nKvPi3BkoVQ_ZaCwpJm71UVU1Lg2PhDDIeltGg7dnp5q90Lm9-4A07ySs8LRrmyrcjMD6EsZtqicyzBPhl0yu-uePakOzzE7_eEmgA/s1600/Burger-King-whopper.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1DSONHmeUyEUXojInDPFFrXDk6NKdAX3ZgEBw6nKvPi3BkoVQ_ZaCwpJm71UVU1Lg2PhDDIeltGg7dnp5q90Lm9-4A07ySs8LRrmyrcjMD6EsZtqicyzBPhl0yu-uePakOzzE7_eEmgA/s320/Burger-King-whopper.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5593966181419981106" /></a><br /><br />The whopper costs, in a meal with fries and a drink, an astonishing £6.49. I reckon I can produce a better result, with far more food, for far less cost. It's something of an unfair test - I imagine very few of the drastically poor eat at Burger king. <br /><br />But that said, there is evidence that the poorest people are eating at takeaways rather than cooking - a situation we haven't really seen in this country since the 1920s.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">AV Burgers</span><br /><br />Much like the alternative vote, this meal isn't perfect - it's probably high in fat and so on. But, it is delicious, and almost certainly better for you than the alternative.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ingredients</span> (these are representative of the cheap version - if cooking & not on a budget, feel free to, for example, substitute any kind of mince, use red onions, etc)<br /><br />400g of Sainsburies Value mince (£1.00)<br />One loose onion (20p)<br />One box of eggs (£1.65)<br />4 rolls (£1.00)<br />Iceberg lettuce (69p)<br />Sainsburies value Tomatoes (45p)<br />Bag of potatoes (£1)<br />200ml bottle of Best-in Vegetable oil (35p)<br />(Cost - £6.34)<br /><br />Prep time:<br />15 mins prep,<br />30 mins cooking.<br /><br /><br /><br />Recipe - Burgers, chips & salads<br /><br />1. Chop the onion, add in the beef and break two eggs into the mixture. Mulch together with your hands, until a satisfying paste is formed. (If not doing it on a budget, add a pinch of salt & pepper, a dash of tobasco, a squeeze of ketchup and a mix of strong, woody herbs - I recommend thyme).<br /><br />2. Scoop the beef into four discrete patties. Don't worry too much about regularity & shape - you're not winning a prize for aesthetics.<br /><br />3. Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6. Peel the potatoes and cut them into long chip shapes - the thickness you do is entirely up to you, though the width of your finger is ideal.(Unless you have really fat fingers). Rinse under the cold tap and pat dry with a tea towel.<br /><br />4.Spread the chips on a baking tray and toss with oil. Lie them flat in a single layer, then bang them in the oven. Roast for 25-30 mins, turning now and then. When cooked they should be golden brown and crisp with a light fluffy centre.<br /><br />5. Make the salad by roughly chopping half the lettuce, roughly chopping the tomatoes, and then tossing them together. If not on a budget, make some kind of pleasant dressing!<br /><br />6. About ten minutes before the chips are ready, heat the oil to a moderate heat in a frying pan. Add the burgers to the pan. Fry them slowly, regularly turning them. Make sure they are cooked through before serving.<br /><br />7. Pop the rolls in the oven for the last couple of minutes of the chips; serve on one plate with the salad, chips and so-on.<br /><br />Voila! A kid-friendly meal, reasonably nutritious meal for 4 on the same budget as a BK whopper. When researching the costs for this, the extent of food inflation did hit me; when I was skint in 2003, I could do it (and lots of other pared-down meals) on about £4.<br /><br />I did this experiment in 2007 originally, and by then we were up to just under £5. The jump in the prices of staples, especially eggs & bread, is pretty shocking.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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Just to cheer you all up, here's the best linking of Facebook & the pope I've seen:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Mo71E2-fzXZo_ZwIQZ0k-pgNJkEAIIhtCLNq2uUW14Y49b81F1LqvSUhPX0GiUluUkfdeXNrWukO3m9lR0RtOg_uD9My8BDMHDo8HdkT-xVHB897IgGLu3LRzD5SAqV0rqBu7cYJM1w/s1600/Pope+FaceBook.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 376px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3Mo71E2-fzXZo_ZwIQZ0k-pgNJkEAIIhtCLNq2uUW14Y49b81F1LqvSUhPX0GiUluUkfdeXNrWukO3m9lR0RtOg_uD9My8BDMHDo8HdkT-xVHB897IgGLu3LRzD5SAqV0rqBu7cYJM1w/s400/Pope+FaceBook.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517533399500290194" /></a><br /><br />I've tried to be moderate - but to be fair I had a pretty snarky facebook status for Hu Jintao & King Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz too and b.) I'm fairly sure my (anti-pope rather than anti catholic) FB status is something that even if Herr Ratzinger saw, he's probably say something like, "ACH, JAH, ZE ENGLANDER IS GANZ CORREKT! ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG! SPITFEUER!!!"<br /><br />Well, maybe not the last bit.<br /><br />For a more erudite critique of the Pope's visit, I'd refer you to Hobbes' Leviathan:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">.. from the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for bishop universal, by pretence of succession to St. Peter, their whole hierarchy, or kingdom of darkness, may be compared not unfitly to the kingdom of fairies; that is, to the old wives' fables in England concerning ghosts and spirits, and the feats they play in the night. And if a man consider the original of this great ecclesiastical dominion, he will easily perceive that the papacy is no other than the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof: for so did the papacy start up on a sudden out of the ruins of that heathen power.<br /> <br />The language also which they use, both in the churches and in their public acts, being Latin, which is not commonly used by any nation now in the world, what is it but the ghost of the old Roman language?<br /> <br />The fairies in what nation soever they converse have but one universal king, which some poets of ours call King Oberon; but the Scripture calls Beelzebub, prince of demons. The ecclesiastics likewise, in whose dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one universal king, the Pope.<br /> <br />The ecclesiastics are spiritual men and ghostly fathers. The fairies are spirits and ghosts. Fairies and ghosts inhabit darkness, solitudes, and graves. The ecclesiastics walk in obscurity of doctrine, in monasteries, churches, and churchyards.<br /> <br />The ecclesiastics have their cathedral churches, which, in what town soever they be erected, by virtue of holy water, and certain charms called exorcisms, have the power to make those towns, cities, that is to say, seats of empire. The fairies also have their enchanted castles, and certain gigantic ghosts, that domineer over the regions round about them.<br /> <br />The fairies are not to be seized on, and brought to answer for the hurt they do. So also the ecclesiastics vanish away from the tribunals of civil justice.<br /> <br />The ecclesiastics take from young men the use of reason, by certain charms compounded of metaphysics, and miracles, and traditions, and abused Scripture, whereby they are good for nothing else but to execute what they command them. The fairies likewise are said to take young children out of their cradles, and to change them into natural fools, which common people do therefore call elves, and are apt to mischief.<br /> <br />In what shop or operatory the fairies make their enchantment, the old wives have not determined. But the operatories of the clergy are well enough known to be the universities, that received their discipline from authority pontifical.<br /> <br />When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them. The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another.<br /> <br />The fairies marry not; but there be amongst them incubi that have copulation with flesh and blood. The priests also marry not.<br /> <br />The ecclesiastics take the cream of the land, by donations of ignorant men that stand in awe of them, and by tithes: so also it is in the fable of fairies, that they enter into the dairies, and feast upon the cream, which they skim from the milk.<br /> <br />What kind of money is current in the kingdom of fairies is not recorded in the story. But the ecclesiastics in their receipts accept of the same money that we do; though when they are to make any payment, it is in canonizations, indulgences, and masses.<br /> <br />To this and such like resemblances between the papacy and the kingdom of fairies may be added this, that as the fairies have no existence but in the fancies of ignorant people, rising from the traditions of old wives or old poets: so the spiritual power of the Pope (without the bounds of his own civil dominion) consisteth only in the fear that seduced people stand in of their excommunications, upon hearing of false miracles, false traditions, and false interpretations of the Scripture.<br /> <br />It was not therefore a very difficult matter for Henry the Eighth by his exorcism; nor for Queen Elizabeth by hers, to cast them out. But who knows that this spirit of Rome, now gone out, and walking by missions through the dry places of China, Japan, and the Indies, that yield him little fruit, may not return; or rather, an assembly of spirits worse than he enter and inhabit this clean-swept house, and make the end thereof worse than the beginning? For it is not the Roman clergy only that pretends the kingdom of God to be of this world, and thereby to have a power therein, distinct from that of the civil state. And this is all I had a design to say, concerning the doctrine of the POLITICS. Which, when I have reviewed, I shall willingly expose it to the censure of my country.<br /></span><br /><br />The above is of course courtesy of eminent materialist philosopher <strike>Will Jones </strike> Thomas Hobbes.<br /><br />See you all for the resumption of normal service on Friday!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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As a victim of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8124838.stm">Bernie Madoff</a>, I was particularly enraged to see loathsome sleazy two bit fraudster Azil Nadir crawl out from under his Cypriot rock last week.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXuA1rWOH-_08leNx-LGVQZ2wtHwbtw_QE74pdmgj2fcwbxwwC25tNzG2QaATW8gvN1KHhTLMFfMIYg3lNPE2RQtXiL2O2mIp_fICVpoZD_T3Kas6dxLjQjbfPaP965te87sY6CAm6fd0/s1600/Azil+Nadir.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXuA1rWOH-_08leNx-LGVQZ2wtHwbtw_QE74pdmgj2fcwbxwwC25tNzG2QaATW8gvN1KHhTLMFfMIYg3lNPE2RQtXiL2O2mIp_fICVpoZD_T3Kas6dxLjQjbfPaP965te87sY6CAm6fd0/s400/Azil+Nadir.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5513140958164594482" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Above:</span> A sleazy old pervert.<br /><br />The above Pervert (Asil Nadir) was a major player in the City in the 1980s and early 1990s. He took a small east London textile firm called Polly Peck, and through a series of takeovers and canny deals he turned it into a serious conglomerate. It owned a slice of the Del Monte fruit canning brand, a majority stake in Japanese electronics company Sansui, and also owned companies making colour televisions and Betamax video recorders.<br /><br />Wait, Betamax? The man from delmonte, he say, bad investment.<br /><br />Still, like shoulderpads, hairspray, and movies with volleyball & fighter jets, it was all very, very impressive in the 1980s.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizjFfQXTVTQC93fWnsiLnibNmE9ku34hoPHcUwiToype19JSNGeJxg67Bfz7fAQ4UZGppHjAaMfoOzwWxBh3Ovb2eAe6Ir-Fwjt4EKJpKPeXb4Ph7_hgOS1NrbS3744fRPDEfLHXdsqi8/s1600/Val+kilmer.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 335px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizjFfQXTVTQC93fWnsiLnibNmE9ku34hoPHcUwiToype19JSNGeJxg67Bfz7fAQ4UZGppHjAaMfoOzwWxBh3Ovb2eAe6Ir-Fwjt4EKJpKPeXb4Ph7_hgOS1NrbS3744fRPDEfLHXdsqi8/s400/Val+kilmer.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5513142185899429474" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Above:</span> Some things that looked good in the eighties look less good now.<br /><br />Shareholders flocked in, quicker than you could say "Asset Bubble". If you bought into Polly Peck early enough, say, in the year Top Gun came out, you could turn a £1,000 investment into £1m - a huge return even by the champagne-soaked Square Mile standards of the day.<br /><br />But to cash in, you had to know when to sell.<br /><br />The downturn started when Nadir tried, and failed, to take Polly Peck off the FTSE 100 and back into private ownership. The party was really over when the Serious Fraud Office raided the company that ran his family's financial affairs, called South Audley Management. Six weeks later, the administrators had been called in.<br /><br />The UK authorities moved with their traditional speed, and it was just three short years later that Nadir was facing the prospect of 66 charges of theft and false accounting involving £34 million. Instead, he hopped on a flight to Paris, and was soon in Northern Cyprus - a territory with which Britain does not have an extradition treaty.<br /><br />There he has stayed. Until last week.<br /><br />He's now back.<br /><br />Prosecution lawyers and Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigators must now trace 183 witnesses, some of whom may have died since Nadir fled. Zillions of documents have to be recovered. In the meantime, he remains on conditional bail under curfew and, despite his lawyers' objections, electronically tagged.<br /><br />A £250,000 bail security has been deposited with the City of London magistrates, and he must reside at his £20,000-a-month rented Mayfair home, where he is subject to a midnight to 6am curfew. He must report each week to Chelsea police station, and has already surrendered his Turkish and British passports.<br /><br />I think this is ludicrous. He should be in a cell. Preferably sharing a bunk with a glue sniffing violent delusional transexual rapist. Well, that's not quite fair. And Michael Barrymore isn't in prison anyway. <br /><br />But the truth is, we definitely shouldn't be letting Nadir keep his house, and generally lord it up while on remand.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />Because fraud is a rational crime. It's not as though you turn around and steal £36 million through a complicated share swapping scheme in a moment of passion. Deterrence works well on rational criminals - especially ones in it for the money, who understand delayed gratification. If you think, well, "even if I get caught, I may only do seven or eight years in what amounts to a poor quality golf-club", then it's not nearly enough of a penalty to make them think twice.<br /><br />On top of the deterrence factor, we treat white-collar criminals far too well - we as a society do not extract nearly enough retribution from them. The damage they wreak is enormous. The cost isn't in millions of pounds - it's in marriages broken up, houses lost, suicides, failed businesses, misery for thousands. The societal cost is at least as great as for acts like robbery - and robbery carries a minimum 20 year sentence.<br /><br />Of course, this kind of white collar crime is going on all the time. No, really.<br /><br />For example, recently JP Morgan won an award for providing the following service:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The process of rehypothecation allows institutions - in many cases hedge fund clients - to extract greater value from their collateral by reusing this collateral elsewhere in the market, increasing liquidity and reducing collateral costs. <br /><br />Against this backdrop, JPMorgan's forward-thinking Rehypothecation Program stood out, directly addressing market misgivings regarding the practice while simultaneously allowing the practice to be safely extended to the benefit of clients. Winner of both this year's Chair's Choice and Innovation in Custody and Securities Services, JPMorgan Rehypothecation Program supports the multi-asset class, unlimited re-use of collateral.</span><br /><br />Yes, <span style="font-weight:bold;">unlimited re-use of collateral</span>. Or, in other words, taking out as many loans as you can on a single asset. Disastrous? Short-Sighted? Of course. Sadly, they are unlikely to land up in jail - and lets face it, even if they do, they can probably evade justice as easily as Azil Nadir probably will.<br /><br />Some people I know said to me recently that they didn't feel we didn't get enough concessions out of the banks during the financial crisis. To them I say, "don't worry - there'll be another one along in a minute".<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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He's currently on trial for a wide variety of assorted war crimes - most of which feature a recurring theme of recruiting of child soldiers, then either supplying them so badly they are forced to loot and/or commit cannibalism, all the while using them to guard the slaves digging your diamond mines &/or rape camps.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW0jj-TS1VqKGSyW_-PRSkE67lzHAw2vRSTnFjC_Qtyeqjp6wMxIw3u8XxUwobHJLQVzjK6cGVelQ_5ywcGQOTwTIMiTssY7ZMj-AAMQQE2Gq8UqKQjjTg40JOc5vxPzzemWvKTSZ4kLM/s1600/child+soldier.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 248px; height: 203px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW0jj-TS1VqKGSyW_-PRSkE67lzHAw2vRSTnFjC_Qtyeqjp6wMxIw3u8XxUwobHJLQVzjK6cGVelQ_5ywcGQOTwTIMiTssY7ZMj-AAMQQE2Gq8UqKQjjTg40JOc5vxPzzemWvKTSZ4kLM/s400/child+soldier.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505711022956711346" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Above:</span> Maybe if the child soldiers were white, there'd be more coverage.<br /><br />The world's news media has decided that two not-even-that-famous any more celebs arguing over what happened at a particularly squalid dinner party is more important than the trial of man who has been accused of- <br /><br />• Five counts of war crimes: specifically, terrorizing civilians, murder, outrages on personal dignity, cruel treatment, and looting;<br /><br />• Five counts of crimes against humanity: specifically, state-sanctioned murder, rape, sexual slavery, mutilating and beating, and enslavement; and<br /><br />• One count of other serious violations of international humanitarian law: recruiting and using child soldiers.<br /><br />To quote one other witness, Joseph "ZigZag" Marzah, one of Taylor's erstwhile military commanders, "We executed everybody – babies, women, old men. There were so many executions. I can't remember them all." Taylor had encouraged his commandants - usually former child soldiers themselves - to cannibalise victims, in exchange for $200 of "cigarette money".<br /><br />It is the prominence given to this squalid dinner party compared to other testimony from the trial that feels odd.<br /><br />Both Sky News and the BBC News channel cleared their schedules for over an hour and a half, thus devoting more coverage to Naomi Campbell than to the whole of the rest of Taylor's trial since 2007. <br /><br />In fact, Sky have not covered any of the other 90 witnesses – not even Taylor himself. The Guardian website & the good old Beeb led on the trial when the former president testified, but other outlets - ranging from the Today programme, Channel 4 News & even debaters-bible The Economist have all ignored the trial while in session.<br /> <br />This is at all surprising, but nowhere near as shocking as the lack of attention given to another child-soldier fuelled conflict, that has been rumbling on since the overthrow of appalling dictator of Congo Mbutu Sese Seko in 1997.<br /><br />Congo's history often seems like an uninterrupted tale of woe. After decades of often brutal foreign rule, first as the private possession of King Leopold II of Belgium and then as a Belgian colony, Congo won its independence in 1960. But within months its first elected Prime Minister had been murdered by Belgium- and U.S.-backed opponents because of his growing ties to the Soviet Union, an assassination that eventually opened the way for army general Mobutu Sese Seko to grab power. <br /><br />A U.S. favorite during the cold war, Mobutu presided over one of the most corrupt regimes in African history, siphoning off billions from state-owned companies and allowing most of the country to languish in poverty & disorder.<br /><br />In 1996 neighboring Rwanda and Uganda jointly invaded Congo to eliminate the Hutu militias, known as the Interahamwe, that had been responsible for the Rwandan genocide and were hiding in Congo's eastern forests. As the invading armies advanced across the country, Mobutu fled, and the invaders installed a small-time rebel leader named Laurent Kabila as President.<br /><br />But things got worse. In 1998, after Kabila got too friendly with the Interahamwe, Uganda and Rwanda invaded Congo again, triggering what became known as Africa's first world war. The scramble for power and resources dragged in forces from at least eight African neighbors, spawned a myriad of Congolese factions and set off campaigns of ethnic cleansing. Kabila, as nasty and corrupt as his predecessor, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards in 2001. His son Joseph, 29, has ruled since.<br /><br />In Congo, a nation of 63 million people in the heart of Africa, a peace deal signed in 2006 was supposed to halt the war between nine countries, in addition to 20 separate private armies of indigenous Congolese. In short, you probably needed more space in the signing box than for the average, standard form peace treaty.<br /><br />The war produced a record of human devastation unmatched in recent history. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that 3.9 million people have died from war-related causes since 1998, making it the world's most lethal conflict since World War II. <span style="font-weight:bold;">But you never even heard about it.</span><br /><br />The suffering of Congo's people continues. Fighting persists in the east, where rebel holdouts loot, rape and murder. In particular, I was personally involved with a project to protect, arm & train <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3869489.stm">the Northern Pygmy alliance</a> from being preyed upon by militias who regarded them as "subhuman" - with some believing that eating pygmy flesh can confer magical powers. <span style="font-weight:bold;">But you never heard about that, either.</span><br /><br />The Congolese army, which was meant to be both symbol and protector in the reunited country, has cut its own murderous swath, carrying out executions and razing hundreds of villages. Even deadlier are the side effects of war, the scars left by years of brutality that disfigure Congo's society and infrastructure. The country is plagued by bad sanitation, disease, malnutrition and dislocation. Routine and treatable illnesses have become weapons of mass destruction. <br /><br />According to the IRC, which has conducted a series of detailed mortality surveys over the past ten years, 1,250 Congolese still die every day because of war-related causes--the vast majority succumbing to diseases and malnutrition that wouldn't exist in peaceful times. In many respects, the country remains as broken, volatile and dangerous as ever, which is to say, among the very worst places on earth.<br /><br />Yet Congo's troubles rarely make news headlines, and the country is often low on international donors' lists of places to help. After Sudan, Congo is the second largest nation in sub-Saharan Africa, a land so vast and ungovernable that it has long been perceived as the continent's ultimate hellhole, the setting for Joseph Conrad's 1899 book Heart of Darkness. <br /><br />It is in part because of that malign reputation--and because the nation's feckless rulers have consistently reinforced it--that the world has been willing to let Congo bleed. Since 2000, the U.N. has spent billions on its peacekeeping mission in Congo, which is known by its French acronym, MONUC, and it is at the moment the largest U.N. force anywhere in the world. However, the troops number just 17,500, a tiny force to secure a country almost the size of the EU. Many of the battalions are besieged in their bases by the resurgent militias. <span style="font-weight:bold;">But you didn't hear about that.</span><br /><br />In February, the U.N. and aid groups working in Congo asked for $682 million in humanitarian funds. So far, they have received just $94 million--or $9.40 for every person in need. By comparison, Oxfam estimates that Haiti appeal last year raised $550 for each person. <span style="font-weight:bold;">But you didn't hear about that - and they don't have <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2008588,00.html">a former member of the Fugees running for President to make headlines</a> - so you probably won't.</span><br /><br />In short, the message from The Hague today is you can have as many child soldiers as you like, but if you really want to impress the 21st-century western media, then no matter how brutal your crimes you do need to have a celebrity on board. <br /><br />Depressing. What we need is a celeb to take up the cause...<br /><br /><object width="512" height="328" classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" id="ordie_player_50425bf4c8"><param name="movie" value="http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf" /><param name="flashvars" value="key=50425bf4c8" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed width="512" height="328" flashvars="key=50425bf4c8" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" quality="high" src="http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf" name="ordie_player_50425bf4c8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed></object><div style="text-align:left;font-size:x-small;margin-top:0;width:512px;"><a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/50425bf4c8/get-him-to-the-greek-opening" title="from Get Him To The Greek">Get Him To The Greek Opening</a> - watch more <a href="http://www.funnyordie.com/" title="on Funny or Die">funny videos</a></div><br /><br />Of course, if you are interested in Africa, I can't recommend a better blog than the excellent Will Jones' <a href="http://mynameisnotmuzungu.blogspot.com/">"My name is not Muzungu"...</a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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However, there is something very convincing about having a 6'6" Ugandan who's eyes wordlessly proclaimed "real machete experience" telling you <span style="font-weight:bold;">the way it is.</span><br /><br />By the way, he advised getting a Panga, rather than a machete - they are bigger, even scarier knives that look a bit like this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Qy4DtNHre7eVrMXY91mGueEpNgYL2B5nZl2dpEzik-EdsH5N4I1hezLcC-XRgwJt_UUDV-mf5_aFiwqoopUwyCo-wRpYavmreLUay7rDgq7nnEa2dLXexIbXmkyIGlwaxHfa60McTfg/s1600/machete-panga.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Qy4DtNHre7eVrMXY91mGueEpNgYL2B5nZl2dpEzik-EdsH5N4I1hezLcC-XRgwJt_UUDV-mf5_aFiwqoopUwyCo-wRpYavmreLUay7rDgq7nnEa2dLXexIbXmkyIGlwaxHfa60McTfg/s400/machete-panga.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505701951917437650" /></a><br /><br />For a team from a <a href="http://www.uwe.ac.uk/">tiny university</a> in the middle of a glum swamp, we did pretty well. But there would always be a point where we'd have to discuss Africa, and then things would go horribly wrong. Some bespectacled Oxbridge gnome would insist that the problems of Africa were easily solved by a more neo-liberal economic outlook or something, which would prompt from my debate partner "the speech", as we called it.<br /><br />This would usually start with the phrase "You - white man - want to tell ME how to solve the problems of AFRICA?!?!?" Then there'd be a story about growing up in the third world, told with a frankly terrifying chopping action with his hands. We'd often lose that round, usually at a crucial part of the tournament. Long on charisma and gut-wrenching terror, short on analysis & facts, tragically.<br /><br />Looking back, I am impressed by the integrity of the judges - I'd have given him a string of firsts, just to avoid the possible bloodsoaked freakout on telling him he came last. Usually, after we got back to Bristol, the gentleman in question would cook me this stew - based on a recipe his mother taught him, improvised from easily available UK ingredients.<br /><br />It's delicious, warming and spicy - it also spends a large amount of time unattended on the hob, so it's perfect for entertaining at short notice, or alternatively for saying "I can't believe the judge in round four gave us a third!"<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Panga Stew</span><br /><br />Serves 4<br /><br />Olive oil<br />2 red onions<br />4 cloves garlic<br />6 sausages – about 400g<br />One pack of Supermarket Chorizo<br />Cheating lazy chillies - <a href="http://www.englishprovender.com/">English Provender company</a> does the best, in my opinion.<br />A glass of dry sherry, vermouth or Dry White wine - my chum was quite the Sherry drinker, oddly enough.<br />5 or 6 decent-sized tomatoes - or a couple of cans of tomatoes.<br />2 x 400g tins chick peas<br />small bunch parsley<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC67srcqkvADQ3y-C8rqjCT14mNFVne-kXp0TfIn7bwurOILeGE7oRRthVWhUtMmhNn5F_zCNFXHJULf8YaUDAj2IDsioK3eA8kD9jcnGIrV2QyyFM8hCEibQG8860cjhK59ucP0wc6AY/s1600/even+even+even+more+iphone+pics+007.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC67srcqkvADQ3y-C8rqjCT14mNFVne-kXp0TfIn7bwurOILeGE7oRRthVWhUtMmhNn5F_zCNFXHJULf8YaUDAj2IDsioK3eA8kD9jcnGIrV2QyyFM8hCEibQG8860cjhK59ucP0wc6AY/s400/even+even+even+more+iphone+pics+007.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505704629276956690" /></a><br /> <br />1.) Warm the olive oil in a deep pan. I use a cast iron casserole. Peel the onions, roughly chop them and add them to the oil, stirring to coat them, then letting them cook. Peel the garlic, slice it (with a panga, if you like) and stir it into the onions. Cook until the onions are soft.<br /> <br />2.)Cut each sausage into about three fat chunks. Mix these in with the softened onions then add a teaspoon or so of the chillies. Then stir in the chorizo. Pour in a glass of dry sherry, vermouth or white wine and bring it to an enthusiastic bubble. Chop the tomatoes roughly, add them and bring them to the boil, then add the chickpeas, drained of their canning liquor and rinsed, then pour in a can of water, then season with salt and black pepper. Bring to the boil then turn down to a simmer and leave to cook, slowly, half covered with a lid for 45 minutes.<br /> <br />3.)Stir from time to time, and check the liquor levels. What you want to end up with is a brick-red sauce with a wonderful spiciness from the chillies and chorizo. Chop the parsley, but only roughly, then stir into the stew.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7C2STBFPq95kk6ZSY3ZnrgVPWetB2eDuVLm73bOYoqnZVlzCI_8A9ilWbMWKhXEsF76ajMPwTeUZQI4XFasg8hywcO5qmYI1ucw0zXznpSQSyIPMI10GN_5i9V6-p_mYpOuq2nF7zUhU/s1600/even+even+even+more+iphone+pics+014.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7C2STBFPq95kk6ZSY3ZnrgVPWetB2eDuVLm73bOYoqnZVlzCI_8A9ilWbMWKhXEsF76ajMPwTeUZQI4XFasg8hywcO5qmYI1ucw0zXznpSQSyIPMI10GN_5i9V6-p_mYpOuq2nF7zUhU/s400/even+even+even+more+iphone+pics+014.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505704979508904322" /></a><br /><br />Serve in shallow bowls, making certain everyone gets a fair bit of sausage. Otherwise, there may be violence.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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The sort of thing you might buy in this wonderfully named shop in Soho:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTysi4Esg3h3Oa8EedQTqylQUN0Llx_c2e7kePXta7zc7R7HlQHnXyePQvebcbtE96BUNlRCu8uargld1pPX4KLiz9tAcxe8dXPHEHfkMrAG1ivmLgy8vC4PaKhQgUq0N1L7zMCFvpWEU/s1600/porn_shop.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 222px; height: 191px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTysi4Esg3h3Oa8EedQTqylQUN0Llx_c2e7kePXta7zc7R7HlQHnXyePQvebcbtE96BUNlRCu8uargld1pPX4KLiz9tAcxe8dXPHEHfkMrAG1ivmLgy8vC4PaKhQgUq0N1L7zMCFvpWEU/s400/porn_shop.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502445837394016242" /></a><br /><br />If you're not a fan of Porn, please feel free to not read this article. Instead, you can click on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzRH3iTQPrk">this link</a> - it leads to a video of a baby panda sneezing. (Honestly. It really does. You do trust me, right?) <br /><br />Of course, if you're not a fan of Porn, that's statistically unlikely. <br /><br />Porn isn't a small business. It's a major industry. Pornography - particularly on the internet -is now estimated to generate around $14bn worldwide, roughly the same amount as Hollywood's US box office receipts. The US leads the world in pornography (USA! USA!); about 211 new films are produced every week. The Los Angeles area is the centre of the film boom and most of those in the trade are perfectly respectable citizens. Admittedly, they tend to have more surgery & fake tan than most, but they pay their taxes, and are citizens just like everyone else. As are the consumers of their products.<br /><br />It's not just an American phenomenon. In the UK, we spend more money at strip clubs than we do in the West End, regional theatres and orchestra performances combined. <br /><br />Of course, there's all kinds of other sexual stuff on the internet that you don't have to pay for. Indeed, one of the people I used to work with on <a href="http://www.bizarremag.com/">Bizarre magazine</a> used to say "you aren't a real pervert if there's a pay-site for what you're into".<br /><br />On websites like <a href="http://www.deviantart.com/">deviantart</a> and in chatrooms like <a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.06/net_surf.html">mIRC</a>, you can find pretty much any fetish you like. While working my stint at Bizarre, I did see some stuff that made even me blanch - from women who liked to have sex with men dressed in werewolf costumes, to men who were unaccountably attracted to balloons. There are even whole websites devoted to people who find <a href="http://www.sarahpalinhotpics.com/Sarah_Palin_Hot_Pics/Sarah_Palin_Hot_Pictures.html">Sarah Palin attractive</a>.<br /><br />People who are into this sort of thing are, by definition, perverts. But is that a bad thing? Sadly, the UK's CPS prosecutors seem to think so, and don't worry, they are "protecting" us. Mostly, it seems, from ourselves.<br /><br />Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 makes it illegal to use the internet to send or receive a message or communication which is any of the following:<br /><br />- grossly offensive<br />- indecent<br />- obscene<br />- menacing<br />- annoying<br />- inconveniencing<br /><br />Yes, saying <span style="font-style:italic;">annoying things on the internet</span> is illegal in England.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiusZWQCg59XtMrfL9Nl7AycfuRdCfg23J0j2qIUw_ZMCZELA-sz6GTRRwVgQ09unma2GygNLnKt3jhaiGr3fr25lV7AGrnpkVrhzXiZlopNhEc9kaiCm7hKmPFjA1HoUGH-rElSvObQvo/s1600/XKCD+wrogness.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 330px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiusZWQCg59XtMrfL9Nl7AycfuRdCfg23J0j2qIUw_ZMCZELA-sz6GTRRwVgQ09unma2GygNLnKt3jhaiGr3fr25lV7AGrnpkVrhzXiZlopNhEc9kaiCm7hKmPFjA1HoUGH-rElSvObQvo/s400/XKCD+wrogness.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502447620703089954" /></a><br /><br />I'll just give you a second to digest that. Just have a quick flip through the Guardian Comment is Free while you think about it. Then call the Police, and have the writer of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/10/keepthesequislingsout">this article</a> arrested.<br /><br />Of course, I don't really want him arrested. He's wrong, not a criminal. Free speech anyone? <br /><br />Clearly, the people who framed this law should probably not spend five minutes on any internet forum, or read the comment pages of any major newspaper - indeed, reading the speeches of contenders in the Labour leadership contest is probably an absolute no-go area for most people, as in many ways, offence is in the eye of the beholder.<br /><br />Of course, this could just be an obscure law no-one cares about - there are plenty of those on the statute books. But the CPS are pushing this one to the hilt. For example, this year a clearly jokey tweet was held to be "menacing" under this act, and the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/twitter-user-faces-jail-over-airport-threat-1905133.html">tweeter was sent to prison.</a> Ridiculous.<br /><br />However, an even more egregious case has come to my attention.<br /><br />The saga began last summer when, following an anonymous tip-off, police raided Andrew Holland's home looking for indecent images of children. They found none, but they did find two clips, one involving a woman purportedly having sex with a tiger, and one which is believed to have depicted sado-masochistic activity between consenting adults.<br /><br />Holland's was charged with possessing extreme porn, and denied access to his children as a result, despite the fact that there was no suggestion anything paedophilic was involved. Would this happen to a Burglar? To a fraudster? No, of course not - but once a "crime" is defined as sexual, all rights go out the window. <br /><br />In a first court appearance in January of this year, the "tiger porn" charge was dropped when prosecuting counsel discovered the volume control and at the end of the 7 second clip heard the animated tiger turn to camera and say: "That beats doing adverts for a living" - it was an cartoon spoof of Tony the Tiger from the Frosties cereal adverts. <br /><br />The clip was therefore deemed to be "unrealistic" and out of scope as far as extreme porn legislation was concerned. The court then turned its attention to the allegedly more serious clip involving adult interaction.<br /><br />In March, following advice from his legal team, Holland pleaded guilty to possessing one extreme porn clip and was stunned to be told that he might face a prison sentence. Holland then spoke to members of Consenting Adult Action Network and sexual rights organisation Backlash, who put him in touch with their legal adviser, Myles Jackman of Audu and Co in King's Cross, London.<br /><br />Jackman, a solicitor specialising in extreme pornography offences (I bet that is a great business card), advised Holland that contrary to previous advice, there were grounds for pleading not guilty. On this basis, Holland took the unusual step of applying to the court for permission to "vacate his plea". This is a technical device whereby an individual may go back on a guilty plea at any time before sentencing.<br /><br />In May a judge granted Holland leave to vacate his plea from guilty back to not guilty. Holland was therefore due to stand trial again. The CPS, however, declined to offer any evidence on the day (yeah, <a href="http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/2010/07/police-brutality-cps-pusillanimity-and-the-future-of-demonstrations/">fucking it up for free</a> as usual), and the matter is at an end - at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds to the taxpayer. The CPS has not yet commented on this matter, or on the fact that on each charge, it was not until the day of the court appearance that they decided the evidence to hand was inadequate. <br /><br />I assume putting out a statement saying "Basically, we are really, really incompetent" is just too humiliating.<br /><br />Of course, had Mr.Holland not contacted Backlash in the first place he would have been sentenced for an offence which other people have not only escaped prosecution for, but in fact have made fortunes over in the Libel courts. Yes, I'm thinking of you, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7523034.stm">Max Mosely</a>. <br /><br />Why should we criminalise relatively odd porn if we don't criminalise the sex acts themselves? Of course we should criminalise some sex acts; but if the acts are legal (or impossible), why is it right to criminalise seeing images of them? I just don't see a harm to it; certainly not one which justifies spending a fortune and hugely limiting liberty. Fortunately, Mr. Holland has since be reunited with his children.<br /><br />Other cases have not ended so well. For example, Kent Police are in the process of using the Obscene Publications Act as a means to prosecute an individual, Gavin Smith, of Swanscombe for publishing obscenity in respect of a log of a private online chat he had with another individual. This case marks an extension of the law into an area that its originators could never have envisaged – text chat. Most internet users would regard it as person-to-person conversation.<br /><br />The legal principle at stake here is whether internet chat constitutes "publication" in the ordinary sense of the word, or can be treated as private conversation. If the former is the conclusion, then anyone with even a passing interest in unusual sexual fantasies may need to be very careful in respect of any online conversations they have in future. <br /><br />IRC will no longer be quite the refuge of the bizarre and the outlandish it once was. In my opinion, that's a shame. There's a case for the state to legislate to outlaw some things - but private conversation and private, harmless fantasies should not be one of them. <br /><br />So, in short, we live in a country were the CPS are willing to prosecute a man for being a bit kinky, but not willing to prosecute a man who beat someone to death. Not for the first time, I do worry about the country.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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Hard.<br /><br />(See what I did there?)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Italian Sausage in a White Wine & Cream sauce</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What you need</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiag-mKcPr-zHJgwZp_tBvFg-gshBYDEm8EZSKTQWekOXfCg6vTcTmHRf0qQy53WlwWO_U_ARAvyUFFC4HE9lqOZtf1RmLKzYpI1uAZzQ1_Eee_a2YyKYoGM43nqhmW0dYE03rVm6fItbE/s1600/even+even+more+iphone+pics+033.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiag-mKcPr-zHJgwZp_tBvFg-gshBYDEm8EZSKTQWekOXfCg6vTcTmHRf0qQy53WlwWO_U_ARAvyUFFC4HE9lqOZtf1RmLKzYpI1uAZzQ1_Eee_a2YyKYoGM43nqhmW0dYE03rVm6fItbE/s400/even+even+more+iphone+pics+033.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502454593818856226" /></a><br /><br />12 Italian Sausages (.com?)<br />One Red onion, sliced<br />Half a bottle of wine<br />One tub of single cream<br />Half a punnet of mushrooms, sliced<br />300g of Penne Pasta<br />Olive oil<br /><br />One large pan for the sauce, one large pan for the pasta<br /><br />Cooking time: 30 minutes (15 minutes prep, 15 minutes cooking)<br /><br />Serves:4<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Method</span><br /><br />1.) Slice the skin of each sausage, and slide the skin off, leaving you with a large pile of sausage meat. Bring the pasta pan to boil while you do this, but do not add the pasta yet.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQ7al3zwFzHAMccf4cbBce968k6Hbd90NbuvdWnrVmJoEGvFfmF17_umvaoOFCgnaLz6bSdp3HCHLANokBw3cHmynemkBmVhVL1yWwpwMIQAFq6ALL4FhpZbNQdn8PjItUbpT9kqnhhY/s1600/even+even+more+iphone+pics+035.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQ7al3zwFzHAMccf4cbBce968k6Hbd90NbuvdWnrVmJoEGvFfmF17_umvaoOFCgnaLz6bSdp3HCHLANokBw3cHmynemkBmVhVL1yWwpwMIQAFq6ALL4FhpZbNQdn8PjItUbpT9kqnhhY/s400/even+even+more+iphone+pics+035.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502454899461753730" /></a><br /><br />2.) Add the onion to the pan, and fry in the oil until the onion becomes tender. Then crumble in the sausage meat. Fry the sausage meat until all the flesh looks cooked; try to avoid it forming balls or clumps by vigorous stirring.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOqh2-1xI9bWZF0xF-NErt60hvEDp7IjaYzrP0EmVTYG_fIkTbBJpY48w7CZNa0iWccP5K4ihdUtx0nNi5OEfSDsT9IBKYa2D2KG_lX5R-obMuKKKJAjmgELPC7hQSzPGWYwJn5ZybVlY/s1600/even+even+more+iphone+pics+037.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOqh2-1xI9bWZF0xF-NErt60hvEDp7IjaYzrP0EmVTYG_fIkTbBJpY48w7CZNa0iWccP5K4ihdUtx0nNi5OEfSDsT9IBKYa2D2KG_lX5R-obMuKKKJAjmgELPC7hQSzPGWYwJn5ZybVlY/s400/even+even+more+iphone+pics+037.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502455217183978322" /></a><br /><br />3.) Add the pasta to the boiling water.<br /><br />4.) Add the mushrooms in to the sauce mixture, stirring them in until they begin to take on a golden yellow hue.<br /><br />5.) Add the wine. I've said use a half bottle, but you generally want to cover the meat rather than drown it. It's generally a judgement call. Simmer this for about five minutes, until most of the alcohol has burned off the wine, but a reasonable amount of liquid remains.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9M5flGIAAtHOgK5loQuD7UKSqxSk1ghtvDrY1dK20d_zsry_3OgnxQUa9JYBALq3Rn_nhHftui5ctdP1FTs-RVH5PuHIXc81vI-ylhqau7THrs9ranclsCoHWOu9uMmZqLrUnueoa9P4/s1600/even+even+more+iphone+pics+041.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9M5flGIAAtHOgK5loQuD7UKSqxSk1ghtvDrY1dK20d_zsry_3OgnxQUa9JYBALq3Rn_nhHftui5ctdP1FTs-RVH5PuHIXc81vI-ylhqau7THrs9ranclsCoHWOu9uMmZqLrUnueoa9P4/s400/even+even+more+iphone+pics+041.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502455532583743954" /></a><br /><br />6.) Turn down the heat, then stir in the cream and the basil in to the sauce.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9fje_CQ1mpVbqiAL9R_8-Cq3T7LOp7utnz6VxkUslBTwsfCpNGM0XMg6Ero5ln5NHgXov1L-Gkh7SbRuyWLQbxDhRzJn6Qf8zK0c7v5eIrE53jPIH-yimkdYMsvSETyPwZHDEavs1aRc/s1600/even+even+more+iphone+pics+043.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9fje_CQ1mpVbqiAL9R_8-Cq3T7LOp7utnz6VxkUslBTwsfCpNGM0XMg6Ero5ln5NHgXov1L-Gkh7SbRuyWLQbxDhRzJn6Qf8zK0c7v5eIrE53jPIH-yimkdYMsvSETyPwZHDEavs1aRc/s400/even+even+more+iphone+pics+043.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502456027329132818" /></a><br /><br />7.) Drain the pasta, then stir the pasta into the sauce.<br /><br />8.) Serve to middle class dinner party you have invited your cute-but-sleazy bohemian friend to. Orgy optional.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9a2fgsFGf780lo6HQ393V6R2fw5b04Yc1NgyKgNf2blSh6k1NC-9S_DPbz5JE1O0T1Es0mB-wmzFmICvWofNZfpXdcGJ2Yjc2wPsJev87jyIj7fZS7drz3-M9YXK-JuPm3MCFQsesX4/s1600/even+even+more+iphone+pics+051.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT9a2fgsFGf780lo6HQ393V6R2fw5b04Yc1NgyKgNf2blSh6k1NC-9S_DPbz5JE1O0T1Es0mB-wmzFmICvWofNZfpXdcGJ2Yjc2wPsJev87jyIj7fZS7drz3-M9YXK-JuPm3MCFQsesX4/s400/even+even+more+iphone+pics+051.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502456248387242914" /></a><br /><br />Hope you enjoy it!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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Am I disappointed by the end of the UK film council? No, because it represents exactly the sort of cuts that <span style="font-weight:bold;">should</span> be made.<br /><br />To understand last week’s move, you need to know that last August Labour culture minister Sion Simon proposed a merger of the UKFC with the British Film Institute, the country’s other big film body, which manages the National Film Archive, runs BFI Southbank and organises the London Film Festival. The plan (despite Labour's shrieks of disgust this week) was to cut costs and prevent overlap. Neither did it help relations that the UKFC’s execs were on far higher salaries compared to those doing similar jobs at the BFI, but were to be the ones who were to be kept.<br /><br />The BFI were horrified. They were going to be subsumed into an ugly New Labour quango, which was obsessed with pumping lottery money projects like Harry Potter and then claiming it as a "British Triumph". To claim the Harry Potter film franchise is a British Triumph is akin to claiming Monopoly is just like real bond trading. It looks sort of like it on the surface, but really is nothing of the sort. All the money, all the profit, flowed back to the USA. <br /><br />People are talking about £15 million pounds being removed from UK film funding - that's not correct. The £15 million figure was amount of Lottery funds disbursed by the UKFC - minus the £6 million plus combined staffing cost of the 75 people who work for the UKFC. <br /><br />The lottery money - which was often blown on shit films like 'Sex Lives of the Potato Men', 'Lesbian Vampire Killers' and 'The Parole Officer' is still there. It's just now in the hands of the eminently more reliable BFI - who have a far better track record than the UKFC - ‘Dog Soldiers’, '28 days later' & ‘Slumdog Millionaire' all started with BFI seed money.<br /><br />Certainly, the UKFC did have a hand in some good films - notably 'Hunger' - but for the record, its last disbursement was for two street dance films in 3d, both of which utterly bombed at the box office. Of course, Hunger bombed at the box office in comparison to Harry Potter too, but it had the saving grace of being artistically brilliant. <br /><br />So, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the UKFC were not. The french new wave, the UKFC was not. UK film funding has not dropped; we fired £6 million pounds worth of bureaucrats. This is no reason to weep. We need to take this sort of action across all the areas of the budget.<br /><br />On this topic, the treasury recently set up a website, by which you could suggest ideas for cuts that the government hadn't thought of. Nice idea, but predictably, it had to be removed, as it <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66K31L20100721">swiftly filled up with lunatic racist rants </a> - as anyone who has ever posted a youtube video or read the brilliant <a href="http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/">Speak your Branes</a> would have been able to explain. <br /><br />In the absence of the website, some of the things I'd like to see cut are:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Civil Service Pay</span><br /><br />The Civil service is ludicrously bloated. There are 525,000 of them, out of 6 million public sector employees. Civil servants are on incremental pay scales, which rise automatically. They need a pay freeze. Now. If it was down to me, I'd also impose a 15% salary cut on all civil service salaries over £25,000, with some sort of phase in at the margin.<br /><br />On top of that, there are hundreds of civil servants languishing in non-jobs, because they are too expensive to make redundant. Why? Because of the crippling cost of <span style="font-style:italic;">making</span> them redundant. Civil servants have one of the most lucrative redundancy deals in the country, a system which Labour tried but failed to scrap. The terms of their redundancy deal is extraordinarily generous, with many civil servants eligible to receive about <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/06/cap-civil-service-rendundancy-payments">six years’ pay if they are made compulsorily redundant</a>. <br /><br />For example, a 46 year old earning £40,000 who had been a civil servant for 25 years could enjoy a cash payment of about 6.2 years’ salary on retirement, or around £300,000. <br /><br />We literally can't afford to sack them, but cutting this to an (eminently fair) one year's salary as redundancy payment would save 6 Billion pounds over 10 years. If the unions strike, will the public support them in claiming this outrageous gilded perk? I doubt it.<br /><br />Second, the civil service offers a pretty ridiculous pension scheme. Contributions to the premium scheme are only 3.5%, but the employer (us) is charged another 22% on top - and we have to maintain that pension, index linked, until death. We should renegotiate their contracts, making it clear they can quit now, or accept a deal which is fair to the country.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">No Tax cuts</span><br /><br />There are some taxes I loathe. Inheritance tax in particular. Sadly, the truth is, we can't really afford any tax cuts until the titanic deficit is cleared. Don't worry, in 2015 I'll start banging on about why it's unfair.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Means test all Benefits</span><br /><br />Means test all benefits, especially child benefit. There's a whole plethora of universal benefits like this - for example, a couple of my friends who are reasonably well off recently had a baby, and the government sent them child toothbrushes and a teddy bear - plus they claim the £20 a week in child benefit.<br /><br />This is a couple who aren't short a bob or two - he's an oil engineer and she's an oncologist. There is absolutely no way that people earning £100,000 a year should be entitled to free toothbrushes, teddies or cheques. This isn't an isolated case - other deeply middle class friends get child benefit, and I see no reason that the state should subsidise people buying Glyndebourne tickets (or whatever else they spend the money on).<br /><br />Benefits are meant as a safety net, not a perk you get for citizenship.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Pensions</span><br /><br />Equally, there's no way people with over £300,000 in assets should get the old age pension - why not means test it? Secondly, why don't we raise the retirement age to 70 for people currently 30 or under? All of us are of the "screwed generation" who had to pay to go to university - this has inculcated in us a feeling that we cannot rely on the state. We will have forty years to prepare for retirement. The saving from pushing our pension entitlement back would be tremendous - billions and billions of pounds.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Citizen allowance</span><br /><br />There are 55 benefits for being out of work or on low income at the moment. ESA, JSA, New Deal, LCA, Income Support, ALA, Incapacity benefit, tax credits, housing benefit. Every single one has an office of bloodsuckers assessing claims, while picking their nose on the telephone.<br /><br />Why not replace all these benefits with a single welfare payment to all unemployed people (pensioners, the sick, the incapable, the lazy - everyone), regardless of why they are unemployed? It would let us get rid of literally thousands of assessors and would have the tremendous advantage of greatly simplifying the benefits system, making access to it easier for those in need.<br /><br />This was actually one of the quite a few parts of the Green manifesto I really liked, but more on that some other day...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Defence Cuts</span><br /><br />Something has to give. We aren't a great power anymore. If we want nuclear arms, conventional weapons will have to go. If we want to maintain a decent conventional airforce, army and navy, our ocean-going holocaust delivery systems are going to have to be scaled back or cut altogether.<br /><br />Another discussion for another blog post I think.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Centralisation of all Services for all Local Authority Back Offices</span><br /><br />This isn't a very sexy cut. There aren't any movies with machine guns or aircraft carriers or middle class people using benefits to buy champagne & opera tickets. But it is vital.<br /><br />Every local & county council up and down the country has rooms and rooms full of worthless pen pushers in Billing departments, Accounting departments, IT departments, HR departments & Procurement Services. <br /><br />These are broad areas whereby each local authority manages the services independently (read:badly) and where the jobs are the same but managed locally by local authorities within local budgets. I can't see any reason why most of the above cannot be centralised. In particular, centralised procurement on major contracts would yield huge savings.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Conclusion</span><br /><br />These cuts are probably further than the coalition will go - but they should be pushing this far. <br /><br />These cuts are relatively painless; which will be crucial for maintaining the mandate of the electorate. To maintain support, the coalition has to cut the deficit, while not letting the axe fall on the weakest in society. We have to maintain the NHS; we can't let benefits fall too far.<br /><br />In short, don't be distracted by all the noise around the UK Film Council - it was a room full of bureaucrats. More of those need to go.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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Chicken is particularly bad for this; I often end up buying chicken breast, and can't help but compare the pink, skinless things under the cellophane to buying a tray of baby rodents or something.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNSuvhkrVpzcvb1OTIrSzHgyGUYCOE86CtK_XCyaTf2zP_fxGAVEklXSYE1h8k8N9q30OrzPVWyNKjmhi6dUucxyTBlUDHf18s02mkrZabytWgWlohilvRURgLjDeUQNfj48s_kS7uQ4M/s1600/yet+more+iphone+008.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNSuvhkrVpzcvb1OTIrSzHgyGUYCOE86CtK_XCyaTf2zP_fxGAVEklXSYE1h8k8N9q30OrzPVWyNKjmhi6dUucxyTBlUDHf18s02mkrZabytWgWlohilvRURgLjDeUQNfj48s_kS7uQ4M/s400/yet+more+iphone+008.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499887368282343874" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Above</span>: Less like a rodent<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Quick Roast Chicken with Savage cuts</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Preparation time:</span> 15 minutes the first time, 5 minutes with practice<br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Cooking time</span>: 30 minutes<br /><br /><br /><br />Ingredients:<br /><br />1 Chicken<br />Olive Oil<br />2 Cloves of Garlic<br />A Lemon<br />A glass of White wine<br />A handful of Basil<br /><br />Tools:<br /><br />One big sharp knife<br />A Roasting tin<br />A lack of squeamishness<br /><br />Preparation:<br /><br />1.)Cut through the skin between the leg and the breast. Feel like a manly hunter gatherer as you butcher the beast.<br /><br />2.)Bend the leg back as far as possible, so the end of the leg bone pops out from the socket. Feel powerful as you snap the creature's bones with one mighty blow. Just like being the Hulk.<br /><br />3.) Cleave the leg away from the body with one mighty blow. Repeat on the other side. Imagine you are a Samurai while doing this. <br /><br />4.) Cut through the joints connecting the drumsticks to the thighs and separate the two different bits. Just like being Quincy, MD.<br /><br />5.) Back to Samurai mode, and slice off the wings. <br /><br />6.) To serve the breasts off the bone, cut either side of the breastbone & then carefully remove the breast meat from the bones with your sharp knife. If serving on the bone, turn the chicken over and cut through the centre of the breastbone to separate the breasts. Yes, breasts. This is a manly dish. Phoar, etc.<br /><br />Voila! You have 8 pieces of chicken, for far less money than you'd otherwise spend. If you like, you can even use the carcass to make stock, but we'll stay away from that for now.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU7atUz8rRl7UKtriaF0cJd4YgiKKGq_PlZlLOuOkDK0Hpe4vXNVHR05WpGli7g0U9RwgWZdoxBRDkM2YmxJdUOKuQELZxf_JIm4z2gW2EVpyWNBUiCcbcvcL2cEodMpjjQY2hRSPHWhg/s1600/yet+more+iphone+009.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU7atUz8rRl7UKtriaF0cJd4YgiKKGq_PlZlLOuOkDK0Hpe4vXNVHR05WpGli7g0U9RwgWZdoxBRDkM2YmxJdUOKuQELZxf_JIm4z2gW2EVpyWNBUiCcbcvcL2cEodMpjjQY2hRSPHWhg/s400/yet+more+iphone+009.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499887814685702946" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Cooking:</span><br /><br />1.) Season the Chicken, add your handful of dried basil, and push garlic under the chicken skin, then and put the pieces in the roasting tin.<br /><br />2.) Pour enough olive oil over the chicken to ensure all the pieces are lightly covered - enough so a shallow pool forms.<br /><br />3.) Quarter the lemon, squeeze lemon juice all over the chicken, then bung in the lemon bits.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7XYElH0T1IH25etzhmT4PjdWlRPDAYmlcWfLaV8Btz7qnOku983fd55njEJW9CQgtkT7uaNbFVFu2gYkAxg1aqo_b-EGlTrbWOWVDjmqZUf3I1Ll2XPm_cAVg_nIIEyyhyphenhyphenqL7RRBs89Y/s1600/yet+more+iphone+014.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7XYElH0T1IH25etzhmT4PjdWlRPDAYmlcWfLaV8Btz7qnOku983fd55njEJW9CQgtkT7uaNbFVFu2gYkAxg1aqo_b-EGlTrbWOWVDjmqZUf3I1Ll2XPm_cAVg_nIIEyyhyphenhyphenqL7RRBs89Y/s400/yet+more+iphone+014.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499888124179809026" /></a><br /><br />4.)Roast for thirty five minutes on gas mark 6/200 degrees.<br /><br />5.) Remove from the oven, tip in a glass of wine (pictured wine is very firmly Eastern European, called something like Château T-34), and heat the roasting tin over a low heat on the hob until the wine bubbles. Then remove and serve with a green salad or vegetables.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5kouGRIBYCaZ3O3s5CamgkR3rPgnL6beAB8_hCh-i26Z0lAeNN_P3T94r_Lf-uetHzxqi0AystnXBitIxhjSVWBLo17uUZ1VFVFNHO2yXr9Z_xsrnpVeb6Tb2RzQ2pEJ3wZr3mFpYlhg/s1600/yet+more+iphone+015.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5kouGRIBYCaZ3O3s5CamgkR3rPgnL6beAB8_hCh-i26Z0lAeNN_P3T94r_Lf-uetHzxqi0AystnXBitIxhjSVWBLo17uUZ1VFVFNHO2yXr9Z_xsrnpVeb6Tb2RzQ2pEJ3wZr3mFpYlhg/s400/yet+more+iphone+015.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499888545408865458" /></a><br /><br />Delicious, quick, and probably cheaper than a Kiev.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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As a former criminal barrister, I cynically remarked "I wouldn't have bothered; in my experience they normally fuck it up for free."<br /><br />Sadly, I have been proven entirely right by the CPS's absolutely farcical handling of the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/22/ian-tomlinson-police-not-charged">Ian Tomlinson</a> Case.<br /><br />There are three problems here - the way Police forces have become corrupt, the deeply unbalanced way the CPS is handling cases, and the impact this has on demonstrations. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiemptotSiyL_1x9ya9n7jL0Qb1JfOpZVWW4k3qLrhKIhvjYWUyW8p-OSJ5VGdHwi3hJndf3f1KkZp52ol_a4z9bdus6R3txZOzqStzBxRgtIjjz_SdlZMFh_xHBvEyifikCTlY2VsF-DA/s1600/Police-stop-G20-protester-001.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiemptotSiyL_1x9ya9n7jL0Qb1JfOpZVWW4k3qLrhKIhvjYWUyW8p-OSJ5VGdHwi3hJndf3f1KkZp52ol_a4z9bdus6R3txZOzqStzBxRgtIjjz_SdlZMFh_xHBvEyifikCTlY2VsF-DA/s400/Police-stop-G20-protester-001.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5497098006417988866" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Above:</span> The TSG engage in some modern community policing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Police Brutality</span><br /><br />There is a huge problem with the Police - particularly with the Metropilitan Police's Territorial Support Group (TSG), the "elite" unit trained to deal with "Domestic Extremism & terrorism". The conflation of these two things under Ian Blair, Labour's favourite Policeman - legitimate civil disobedience and protest mixed with terrorist outrage - has turned this unit into a self-righteous bunch of thugs. <br /><br />This poison has seeped into other police forces too, as the TSG provide training to other forces to deal with this sort of incident.<br /><br />According to The Job, the Met's in-house magazine, TSG officers - who are known as the 'tough guys and girls' of the Met - can be identified by a "U" on shoulder epaulette numbers.<br /><br />Of course, the question is, can you identify them? When a police officer hides his face & removes his identification number, how can you tell who is who? Speaking off the record to people I know in the Met, there is prima facie evidence of a conspiracy - that the TSG are regularly instructed by their immediate superiors to systematically hide all identification.<br /><br />Of course, it's not the people behind desks giving these "orders". It's sergeants, the people actually going out in the vans, with the batons and the riot gear. It reminds me of my father telling me that in Northern Ireland, the "policy" was to always shoot first, and then everyone in the platoon would "confirm" you gave the mandated three warnings.<br /><br />This is creating a huge problem for civic society. Not since the Life on Mars days of the 1970s have we seen Police corruption on this scale. Policing doesn't work unless people respect and support the Police - and increasingly, the actions of the TSG are turning more and more people against them.<br /><br />I worked with a director at the BBC who exposed lots of the Police Corruption in the 1970s. At its root, he explained, there was always a conviction that amongst the Police that they were doing the right thing. They felt they knew who had done it - who the villains were. That all they had to do was beat a confession out of this scumbag, plant some evidence here or there and justice was done. That attitude was ultimately what lead to the murder of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/cass-report-blair-peach-justice">Blair Peach</a>, by the fore-runners of the TSG.<br /><br />That is exactly the problem with the TSG. They consider themselves an elite; they are almost certainly opposed to everything the protesters stand for. They don't consider any of this to be wrong. The reason they keep doing it is not because they are evil - it's much worse. The reason they keep doing it is because they think they are right. All these petty things like displaying badge numbers, the IPCC and so on, are just lefty-liberal concepts that "get in the way of justice" in their eyes.<br /><br />I know many police officers and have a great deal of respect for them - they are doing a dificult job. However, like others in positions of trust such as teachers, doctors or catholic priests, 'rogue' squads of police officers leave a terrible stench - especially when the establishment closes ranks to protect them.<br /><br />I say rogue, but this attitude goes right through the Met - it has been rotted to the core by Ian Blair's tenure. You only need look at Blair's own statements about Jean Charles de Menezes - that he would not <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4713199.stm">revoke the shoot to kill policy</a>, his assertion that the Brazilian was the 53rd victim of the 7/7 bombers & his statement that if Mr. de Menezes had been a terrorist, his men "<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221340/Jean-Charles-De-Menezes-officers-medal-says-Sir-Ian-Blair.html">would have got medals</a>".<br /><br />This is madness of the first order. Firstly, if Raoul Moat's victims had been Hitler, Goering & Ming the Merciless, then he too would have got a medal. This does not change the fact that instead of those individuals, he shot innocent people. Just like the Met's officers did. The refusal of the high command to accept they did anything wrong is absolutely damning, and sends a terrible message to the rank and file.<br /><br />The very least that should happen now is that the internal police enquiry should find a reason to sack this officer without compensation or pension, and while they are at it they should look at <span style="font-weight:bold;">all</span> the officers who removed their ID and take action against them.<br /><br />The Metropolitan Police Website says "All employees of the MPS, whether they wear a uniform or not, are in a position of responsibility and trust. As such they should be law-abiding citizens with proven integrity." It is about time the started acting like that.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">One law for them, One law for us.</span><br /><br />There are countless cases where the CPS has taken decisions quickly, in equally confusing circumstances. For example, <a href="http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/07/23/16123/">in this case</a> involving a similar set of facts.<br /><br />But the CPS seems to take leave of its senses when it comes to prosecuting the Police. How can it be fair for <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/apr/01/delroy-smellie-g20-assault">Sergeant Delroy Smellie</a> walk free after <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2009/apr/14/g20-police-action-tomlinson-memorial">savagely beating someone without cause</a> while <a href="http://gazademosupport.org.uk/about-2/about/">a 19 year old dental student with no criminal record gets 2 years in jail</a> for throwing an empty plastic bottle at the Israeli embassy.<br /><br />It defies belief that bungling in this case has led to a criminal getting off scot-free. A corrupt police force needs to be taken to task; clearly, the CPS are not up to the job, having serially dropped the ball.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Protesting in the Future.</span><br /><br />As I mentioned above, the Ian-Blair-inculcated attitudes of the TSG have spread far and wide, through the TSG being deployed as trainers to other forces. They have led to minor incidents, like <a href="http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2010/06/unbelievably-photographers-are-still-being-abused-by-the-police-for-exercising-basic-rights.html">this young man having to stand up to his rights</a> to more serious issues, such the police covering up a massive overspend by pretending <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/15/kingsnorth-climate-change-environment-police">70 officers were injured by protesters at the Kingsnorth power station</a>, when in fact all the "injuries" sustained were totally preposterous - for example, "stung on finger by possible wasp"; "officer injured by seatbelt while sitting alone in car"; and "officer succumbed to sun and heat". One officer cut his arm on a fence when climbing over it, another cut his finger while mending a car, and one "used leg to open door and next day had pain in lower back".<br /><br />These injuries were trotted out to try to justify a massive police presence. All of the apparatus of anti-terror surveillance was trotted out.<br /><br />This is all down to a wilful attempt, aided and abetted by the previous government, to define all dissent as "domestic extremism".<br /><br />The term "domestic extremism" is now common currency within the police. It is a phrase which shapes how forces seek to control demonstrations. <br /><br />There is no official or legal definition of the term. Instead, the police have made a vague stab at what they think it means. Senior officers describe domestic extremists as individuals or groups "that carry out criminal acts of direct action in furtherance of a campaign. These people and activities usually seek to prevent something from happening or to change legislation or domestic policy, but attempt to do so outside of the normal democratic process." They say they are mostly associated with single issues and suggest the majority of protesters are never considered extremists.<br /><br />It has led to the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/25/doth-i-protest-too-much">personal details and photographs of a substantial number of protesters being stored on secret police databases</a> around the country. In this era of enhanced CRB checks, anyone who goes on a demo not only risks their health from thugs with batons, but also risks their future career in any sensitive area. Anyone who wants to be a teacher, a criminal lawyer, to serve in the forces, or to join the police, is taking a chance if they stand up for what they believe in.<br /><br />This is a disaster for civil society in the making; by adding barriers to protest, you confine protest to only those willing to suffer serious penalties. You create a culture of demonstrators expecting violence and mistrusting the police.<br /><br />You push the right to demonstrate out of the hands of legitimate protestors into the hands of extremists. As citizens, that is something worth marching against. Even if we do risk being attacked by thugs or recorded on databases.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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He could win it!".<br /><br />This is absolutely true.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2JKDrpcRC1FFWdL3z-0W3gRMY2rRLKRuP4rrnRItwfty9oT7LLzHD-0IKoNSDGH5tRA3fff_DeJ6f337HhkACAnJ1Tu56OGWPHtAGtQY1NTebE4UhuXNEVESannGQplYk6CDgNAJPNFo/s1600/Labour.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 204px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2JKDrpcRC1FFWdL3z-0W3gRMY2rRLKRuP4rrnRItwfty9oT7LLzHD-0IKoNSDGH5tRA3fff_DeJ6f337HhkACAnJ1Tu56OGWPHtAGtQY1NTebE4UhuXNEVESannGQplYk6CDgNAJPNFo/s320/Labour.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494132221271503010" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Above</span>: How much would this picture be improved by an Octopus?<br /><br />All of the candidates (apart from Diane Abbott) are absolutely awful. And none of them are psychic. <br /><br />They are all creatures of the Blair years - in Abbott's words "all male, all white, all former policy wonks". The Labour party - the self-proclaimed party of the working class, the immigrant, the woman, the left - has rolled up the representation of all of its core constituencies into one ultra-token candidate: Abbott. <br /><br />For a party obsessed with "fairness for all", they struggled to get someone representative and likeable on to the ballot. Even the champion of feminism, Harriet Harman, who nominated Abbott, is on record as saying <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/10/diane-abbott-nomination-labour-leadership">she will not vote for her</a>. Ironically, Abbott is the only one who could command mainstream support from the country, but the least likely to win within the Labour party. None of the other candidates is capable of attracting support from anyone who isn't a tribal Labour voter. None of them are credible candidates for PM.<br /><br />There's also some irony in a field of candidates for the party which espouses "<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7827032.stm">class war</a>", having the most 'Ghetto' amongst them singled out by the fact that he studied English at Cambridge rather than PPE at Oxford. <br /><br />That said, graduates of the Cambridge English department assure me it is "Well Ghetto".<br /><br />Labour party members (not to mention the electorate) were all crying out for fresh thinking, but the four main candidates are well placed to deliver only one thing - more of the same. <br /><br />Not one of them has broken free of the shackles of New Labour. Unsurprising, considering this is the first Labour leadership contest in 16 years - New Labour made these men as surely as it will now break them. Part of the reason this campaign resembles a dismal election for President of a Students Union is because of the intellectual straightjacket that Blair & Brown imposed - these people are conditioned to be minor figures. Medium sized fish in a big pond.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Balls</span><br /><br />For Ed Balls probably (the individual mostly closely associated with the fag end of the Brown government), dumping the past was his most crucial task. <br /><br />But he cannot help but be compared with Brown while he continues to defend the legacy the Brown (not Blair) government. When his strongest criticism of Brown is the unspecfic "Gordon didn't get everything right by any means and in the end he couldn't be the leader that people wanted" - it's hardly a differentiating, ringing admission of the were huge problems that culminated in an electoral defeat, is it? <br /><br />When he goes on to say "what he [Gordon] did manage to do was get the Labour party to have confidence in itself, its values, its beliefs, its unity ", you can't help but see the lack of reality that bedevilled Brown.<br /><br />How can he say that the dissent riddled Brown government, lurching from PR <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iPaiylUYW0">crisis</a> to <a href="http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/tax/income/article.html?in_article_id=440554&in_page_id=77">real, nightmarish, impoverishing crisis</a> - to <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8084290.stm">coup</a>, after <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1059774/Miliband-denies-Heseltine-moment-gaffe-undermined-loyalty-Brown.html">coup</a>, after <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/06/hoon-hewitt-gordon-brown-leadership-letter">coup</a> had confidence in itself? In its beliefs? In unity? It sounds very much like His Master's Voice.<br /><br />Balls looks, acts and sounds like a bully. It is his reputation to such an extent that even <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/31/ed-balls-interview">Guardian articles </a>begin by noting his tendency towards menace. <br /><br />It's public knowledge that he has inherited the <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/rachel_sylvester/article6087884.ece">monstrous Brown negative spin machine</a>, as personified by his chief backer, Charlie Whelan. Darker rumours suggest it was threats from this muck-raking smear bazooka that convinced left-winger John Cruddas not to stand. In the light of this, Balls reaching for the mantle of a centrist, peace-making leader is met with absolute derision. <br /><br />By the way, having your thugs intimidate people doesn't help with the whole "perceived as a bully" thing, by the way, Ed.<br /><br />Balls also isn't helped by the sentiment within the Labour party that his infinitely more talented wife should have stood in his stead, but he prevented her from doing so. Yes, it's true - Ed Balls is not even the best potential leader of the Labour party in his own bed.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Milliband the younger</span><br /><br />The other Ed, Milliband, is doing his best to run the worst campaign in the history of the world. As a candidate bedevilled by accusations of nepotism, his first act was to hire Neil Kinnock's daughter as his head of campaign events. Is his slogan "Labour:Keeping it in the family since 1983"?<br /><br />He's also hired useless press officer Ken Young to head his campaign. Young is famously one of the worst PRs in the world - a stock joke in the business - once wonderfully described as "omnishambolic" during his tenure as Brown's head of "gaffe monitoring and prevention. <br /><br />Yes, he was head of gaffe prevention for Gordon Brown. Needless to say, he is unlikely to win any awards from PR Week for that role. He was behind everything from <span style="font-weight:bold;">that</span> youtube video on the expenses crisis to the election blowing Rochdale gaffe. Malcolm Tucker, he is not.<br /><br />Still, unlike the mercenary Tucker, he's been hired because he is a Labour ultra-loyalist rather than for his competence. Notoriously, Young openly tells people that he styled his hair on Gordon Brown’s while chairman of Labour Students. It really takes class to stand out among Labour student activists as a massive loser. <br /><br />Aside from the image of the campaign, and inept hires of useless staff, Milliband the younger has constantly missed open goals when offered them, with his constant unwillingness to commit to actually saying anything.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">On Gay Marriage</span>: <span style="font-style:italic;">"As someone who is liberal on social issues, I will listen to what people have to say on going further if there is a demand".</span> What does that mean? Nothing. Analyse it - if there is a demand, I will listen to people. How is THAT radical? If people say things, I will listen to them. That isn't a political pledge, it's a basic social skill. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">On Civil Liberties:</span> <span style="font-style:italic;">"I accept that in government we were too draconian on some aspects of our civil liberties"</span> Specifics? No. Where's the vision, Ed?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">On Iraq:</span> <span style="font-style:italic;">"As we all know, the basis for going to war was on the basis of Saddam's threat in terms of weapons of mass destruction and therefore that is why I felt the weapons inspectors should have been given more time to find out whether he had those weapons, and Hans Blix – the head of the UN weapons inspectorate – was saying that he wanted to be given more time. The basis for going to war was the threat that he posed. The combination of not giving the weapons inspectors more time, and then the weapons not being found, I think for a lot of people it led to a catastrophic loss of trust for us, and we do need to draw a line under it... History will judge the outcomes for Iraq and that is important, but I think it is just clear to me because we went to war on a particular basis and when that basis turned out not to be correct even apart from the people that were against the war in the first place, that caused a big loss of trust for us: what I am not saying is that the war was undertaken for the wrong motives but what I am very clear about is what my position was at the time and the way I look at it in retrospect." <br /></span><br /><br />I've read that statement about 20 times, and I still have no idea what it means. There are too many caveats for it to say anything. Oh, and as for charisma? Winston Chruchill, he is not. Christ, Ken Livingston he is not.<br /><br />To win the Labour leadership and then the country, a Labour leadership candidate needs to have the balls to stand up and say "We were wrong on Civil Liberties. We were wrong on Iraq." He or she needs to be unequivocal on issues, rather than running scared from the Daily Mail hate brigade. That is how to win back the five million voters who have deserted Labour since 1997.<br /><br />On Policy, he is a disaster. Ed Miliband has ditched Labour's manifesto commitment to a 2:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax rises, and has hinted he would prefer a 50:50 split. He <span style="font-style:italic;">hinted</span>. In a campaign to be leader of the opposition. Wow. Bold. <br /><br />This also means he is dumping the the manifesto that <span style="font-weight:bold;">he himself wrote<span style="font-style:italic;"></span></span> two months ago. Intellectually consistent.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Who? Oh, that other one who isn't a Milliband</span><br /><br />Andy Burnham is a non-candidate. His campaign, masterminded by the unlikely combination of the former head of the Freight transport association (that's the Trucker vote <span style="font-style:italic;">in the bag!</span>) and invincible poison dwarf Hazel Blears, consists of repeated assertions of the blandest nature. My favourite, when asked about Andy's vision, Blears responded "Andy [Burnham] believes in fairness". Who doesn't believe in fairness? (1) I mean really? <br /><br />As for vision, get this from Burnham: "I can give the Labour Party something the Tories don't have: a leader that people can relate to . . . a people person." Well, that's a big idea, isn't it! As a Tory, I am literally quaking in my boots.<br /><br />You know, I don't think I would mind a field of all Oxbridge candidates so much if they had a single original, intelligent idea between them. They are all well-educated, intelligent people... but the best they can do is "I am a people person".<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Front-runner - David Milliband</span><br /><br />The final and most likely candidate for the Labour Leadership is David Milliband.<br /><br />But the Tories & Jack Straw have planted a massive bomb under his candidacy. As foreign secretary, Milliband consistently denied to Parliament that rendition occurred, yet, curiously, denied a public enquiry into the matter. After having his attempted cover up been <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2010/feb/10/david-miliband-binyam-mohamed-statement">defeated in the Court of Appeal</a> - Miliband even had the front to welcome the decision - it was established beyond doubt that the UK knew that Binyam Mohammed was being tortured by the USA.<br /><br />The truth about the government's complicity in torture is becoming established beyond doubt. David Cameron has announced there will be an inquiry into British (read:Labour) government complicity in torture. According to the first tranche of government <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/14/torture-classified-documents-disclosed">documents released yesterday</a>, there was an overarching, ministerially approved policy to use intelligence from torture, which continued under Milliband's tenure.<br /><br />The contents of these documents are truly shocking - for example, <a href="http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/jack_straw_lied.html">Jack Straw having been directly complicit in individuals being boiled to death in Uzbekistan.</a> Milliband was responsible for the attempt cover up of this; the <a href="http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/06/proof_of_compli.html">redactions of these documents</a> and the repeated smearings of Craig Murray were carried out on his instructions.<br /><br />The cynical would argue the Tory-ordered inquiry is just political point scoring - indeed, one can't help but feel it's convenient that the enquiry will start calling people just before the Labour leadership election goes to the polls. Maybe it is. <br /><br />But the truth is, Milliband is the only person still standing in the Labour party with direct responsibility for the greatest shame of the Blair/Brown years - the brutal torture of hundreds of people. Milliband has said "we didn't lose the 2010 election on Iraq" - but if he's selected, (assuming he doesn't join Jack Straw on trial), then the stink of Iraq will be something Labour guarantees to carry into the 2015 election.<br /><br />In short, as a Tory, I think anyone but Abbott (or Paul the Octopus) will be a positive benefit for the Tories. But oddly, I'm not happy about that.<br /><br />For this week's recipe, in honour of the possibly socialist psi-horror, I've gone for Paul's favourite, Mussels...<br /><br />1.) Sepp Blatter.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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Mussels are cheap and plentiful. In the wild (i.e. near my home town) they grow on coastline rocks and stones but they are also farmed these days. Farmed mussels will often have much more unpleasant beards - make sure you clean them thoroughly.<br /><br />Farmed Mussels are one of the most environmentally sound types of seafood. Mussels are incredibly abundant, and even when farmed have a positive impact on their beds. Delicious, cheap and environmentally sound...surely not!<br /><br />Orwell would approve:)<br /><br />Odd Equipment: A large, heavy based pan. I'm lucky enough to own a giant le creuset pot, which does this perfectly. If you haven't got a pan of sufficent size, it is better to do the mussels in batches than try to cram them in.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1JuqEt_7jDvg_rq_0rjE0zXMs4QXbyC1E1_umNCIRAYbiLFLELrflivNaOluw8_qw3ImLfKLSHlfDLxHOFKauX3ZVapS4wyNeClNR1UMMD3a2VGKoMVQFriCvpf6OQiWnI4RLYWgV1NE/s1600/Iphone+pics+040.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1JuqEt_7jDvg_rq_0rjE0zXMs4QXbyC1E1_umNCIRAYbiLFLELrflivNaOluw8_qw3ImLfKLSHlfDLxHOFKauX3ZVapS4wyNeClNR1UMMD3a2VGKoMVQFriCvpf6OQiWnI4RLYWgV1NE/s320/Iphone+pics+040.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494279072330955314" /></a><br /><br />Ingredients<br /><br />4 pints of mussels (about a kilo)<br />drizzle olive oil<br />2 shallots, finely chopped<br />2 garlic cloves, finely chopped<br />150ml/2½ fl oz dry white wine<br />handful of parsley, chopped<br />crusty bread, to serve<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY6IFKAEB-CdRJSTGwD4L3M32cYu78am67OweruplZZmFpmhYAcv9ABAKMAer3q3NM8LhV6KqAeaEjkFAZm3qxrNA7ckM_OtDZxXJuEGqNeYDChvpJLHZdLwjyyWjJzxWsn1yOh2sMUQI/s1600/Iphone+pics+035.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY6IFKAEB-CdRJSTGwD4L3M32cYu78am67OweruplZZmFpmhYAcv9ABAKMAer3q3NM8LhV6KqAeaEjkFAZm3qxrNA7ckM_OtDZxXJuEGqNeYDChvpJLHZdLwjyyWjJzxWsn1yOh2sMUQI/s320/Iphone+pics+035.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494279380366252274" /></a><br /><br /><br />Cooking Method<br /><br />1. Clean and debeard the mussels. <br /><br />I tend to clean my mussels in a colander, under cold water, removing tenacious barnacles with a knife. The "beard" is the ropey film which emerges from the shell. It should come away with a little force when pulled.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH2AnZFedijyvgRAq96wGq42S9GVe3YpdAKha2nlktBWJKqJ-8sjoYtU-tF1HQ8WJQ0pLQALHlBamHV-ha_U7IPM0qN5iA45X0rgDCnuRY66kOYbj2-mx2rQNx7CiBCdesy0NtF98jzZQ/s1600/Iphone+pics+030.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH2AnZFedijyvgRAq96wGq42S9GVe3YpdAKha2nlktBWJKqJ-8sjoYtU-tF1HQ8WJQ0pLQALHlBamHV-ha_U7IPM0qN5iA45X0rgDCnuRY66kOYbj2-mx2rQNx7CiBCdesy0NtF98jzZQ/s320/Iphone+pics+030.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494279648840539202" /></a><br /><br />If any mussels are opened, tap them lightly on a hard surface. If they don't close, get rid of them. I cannot stress how important it is to do this right. If you're not 100% sure on a mussel, discard it. Shellfish poisoning (while the most effective weight loss plan I have ever discovered) is absolutely hideous.<br /><br />2. Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy-based pan. Add the shallots and garlic and cook until softened, but not browned. You can substitute shallots for onions if you're super-poor, or a massive luddite, but the extra sharpness of the shallots really adds to this dish.<br /><br />3. Add the wine to the pan and boil for a minute or so to burn off the alcohol. The quality of the wine doesn't really matter - I tend to use the kind of wine with slogans like "Mladić: The Serbian wine nurtured in the refreshing winds of the Chernobyl Plateau", but obviously drinkable wine can make the cooking process more enjoyable...<br /><br />4. Add the mussels to the pan. Add most of the chopped parsley, cover the pan with a lid (use a plate as a makeshift lid if you don't have pots with lids) and cook the mussels for about 3-4 minutes, giving the pan a shake from time to time. The mussels are cooked when they've opened up. Be sure to discard any that don't open.<br /><br />5. Sprinkle in the remaining parsley, then spoon the mussels into a serving bowl. Pour over the cooking liquid and serve with some crusty bread.<br /><br />I recommend dispensing with cutlery and using your first mussel as a rudimentary form of tongs. It certainly makes things more fun!<br /><br />Serving to the perma-tanned nephew of a Labour front bencher is obviously optional, but can enhance the experience...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1W0sjJ8CvTUVyMpvqWx6OSs_whAUHI0ZL00oKRuAjlRcqbGWaHwDavxizjTiC0GAFf6vHwCzHMLvKjNyrKdQK3txFjFsMFdeAB8kGvY8YBNzFjTJf6QpPRbc8yjOh2RG63ztmYObHwg/s1600/Iphone+pics+042.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1W0sjJ8CvTUVyMpvqWx6OSs_whAUHI0ZL00oKRuAjlRcqbGWaHwDavxizjTiC0GAFf6vHwCzHMLvKjNyrKdQK3txFjFsMFdeAB8kGvY8YBNzFjTJf6QpPRbc8yjOh2RG63ztmYObHwg/s320/Iphone+pics+042.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5494280686743170914" /></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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I was forced to admit that, in retrospect, he hadn't missed much.<br /><br />At the time, I was caught in something of a mad Tory frenzy - I was out campaigning for candidates, writing daily electorally themed facebook statuses, posting comments on blogs, reading article after article - I had never been so politically involved or enthused in my life.<br /><br />But, after lots of hot air and speculation and excitement, it was pretty much the result you could have predicted from the minute <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7589291.stm">Alistair Darling admitted we were economy-fucked</a> and then <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/14/gordonbrown.labour">Labour tried to destroy him over telling the turth</a> - i.e. a divided Labour party running a campaign largely rooted in smears & fantasy, which would make them lose the election.<br /><br />Note, I say Labour lost the election, not that the Tories won it. It's clear that despite the inequities of the current electoral system, <a href="http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/01/fairseats.html">which favours Labour to an unpleasant degree</a>, that the overall result of the poll was a solid rejection of Labour, but no embrace of the Tories. Why?<br /><br />Well, lots of my Tory friends - the tweed wearing, hunting, shooting types - tell me "it was down to that Big Society nonsense - didn't play well on the doorstep - by the way, Pass the Brandy old boy..." Really? This mantra is taking hold in the <a href="http://conservativehome.blogs.com/generalelectionreview/2010/05/the-big-society-agenda-is-an-exciting-governing-philosophy-but-it-should-never-have-been-put-at-the-.html">Tory Blogosphere</a> and most of the left has held the policy in contempt since it was announced, characterising it as an attempt to hide cuts behind a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-welcome-to-cameron-land-1962318.html">charitable mask</a>.<br /><br />Even the parliamentary party has come out against the big society, with <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10464083.stm">Health Secretary Andrew Lansley attacking the man</a> who should be the poster boy for the Big Society, Jamie Oliver.<br /><br />In my opinion, this is a bloody stupid thing to do - and not just because triple-chinned, sallow-skinned goon Lansley looks like he could use a few days on an all salad diet himself.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv8kenuNzbiNREkYpXEbQekEVUfpMFr__z7VlMaqrBqBfiGXLEW6-1x8L74OSNLizQyji8ulBefjyLMR13jRVvE8XRe9oy9XX2lzA4LGTlYN1spZX2oy6WY4jAOODOJhhnsSn9CtroFh4/s1600/27_lansley-415.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv8kenuNzbiNREkYpXEbQekEVUfpMFr__z7VlMaqrBqBfiGXLEW6-1x8L74OSNLizQyji8ulBefjyLMR13jRVvE8XRe9oy9XX2lzA4LGTlYN1spZX2oy6WY4jAOODOJhhnsSn9CtroFh4/s320/27_lansley-415.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5491930604114031218" /></a><br /><br />Above:<span style="font-weight:bold;">Goon</span><br /><br />Oliver's entrepreneurial spirit and drive in trying to help the community was what Big Society was all about. Oliver was successful at exposing the failures of the monolithic state sector - in proving that a philanthropic individual could make a difference.<br /><br />If you analyse "Jamie's School Dinners" as a project, it successfully delivered the goal of low-cost, highly nutritious meals - and it engaged teams of local, hard-working ambassadors to make it happen, rather than a top-down, government driven bureaucratic system. It harnessed methods of persuasion seemingly alien to politicians in this day and age - humour, cunning & genuine interaction with the public. Surely this is the sort of thing we as Tories should be promoting, not rejecting and ridiculing?<br /><br />The aftermath of the project is that the schools involved have found their children performed better academically after eating nutritious meals. The overall numbers of children taking school dinners has gone up. Of course, one TV show is never going to change the world, but Oliver did a bloody good job and should serve as a model for future projects on that basis.<br /><br />The article I linked to give you an idea of how the left sees big society - Johann Hari's superb polemic "Welcome to Cameronland" - was probably the best article to be produced in the general election. It hurt us, badly. I must have spoken to 40 or 50 people who told me it persuaded them at the last minute to vote Labour and not Tory. <br /><br />In my social group, it put even the hardened Tories on the back foot. Was this what we meant to do? Were we really campaigning for pregnant women to sleep on dirty mattresses under bridges and children's playing fields to be turned into Polo fields? Most simply denied the truth of the article.<br /><br />Is it untrue? Certainly, it's a Polemic. My girlfriend lives next door to the playing fields in question, and they were only closed off for Polo for two weeks -in return for a vast investment in the area by the hurlingham club - both facts the article would find it inconvenient to mention. Also, the football pitches and children's playgrounds weren't fenced off - another inconvenient truth.<br /><br />But, having volunteered with homeless charities for years, the story of the pregnant woman forced to sleep rough resonated with me. It's almost certainly true. But I could find you an equivalent of that woman in practically any urban borough in the country.<br /><br />The truth is, that story represents the state's abject failure to tackle or even attempt to understand the problems of the homeless. I can promise you that if state run shelters had been available, it would have been a miracle if the woman had been allowed in. They are not well run, and they are frequently trapped in a kafka-esque bureaucratic nightmare.<br /><br />I can give you an equally horrific story from my own experience - while volunteering for the Big Issue in Bristol, I saw a council chief luring homeless people off the streets with a promise of free booze on the night of a rough sleepers audit.Councils, regardless of political affiliation care about things like targets. For the record, the last London rough sleepers audit counted 67 rough sleepers in London. <br /><br />I would guess based on the fact that I usually see 3-4 different people sleeping rough in St.James Park every morning on my way to work, that the figure is about 10-20 times too low. No Londoner can hear that figure with a straight face. The state -not Downing street, but Local councils - has an interest in concealing the true number. Incidentally, what is the state response to the rough sleepers in St.James?<br /><br />Every morning, a team of four policemen combs the park for rough sleepers and moves them on. Caring, and hardly an efficient use of resources. <br /><br />Also, it's worth reading what a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2000/nov/29/homelessness.guardiansocietysupplement">Labour MP and Lib Dem council</a> did to homeless people in Cambridge a while ago; and the spectacularly evil Lib Dem council in Inverness - who shut down a homeless shelter claiming it cost too much to run, then announced an increase to the budget for New Year's fireworks to the same amount it cost to keep the shelter over for a year. <br /><br />Homeless people not a big vote winner (like fireworks). They are not taxpayers. They do not vote. But, if we create a culture which says "the state should deal with it", we simultaneously screw the homeless and create an environment where no-one feels the need to act. And it is the same with many other social problems. <br /><br />We need to enable voluntary organisations to tackle these social problems. Time and time again, we can see that charities and social businesses just do the job better than the state. The Big Issue doesn't have to worry about re-election, about the competing pressure of the Rubbish collection budget, about nimby-ism - that is why it achieves a success rate something in the order of 20 times higher than government programmes to reduce homelessness.<br /><br />Of course, Big Society is not the answer to everything - the state needs to step in some times, needs to provide a safety net. But The essence of Big Society is that government, the state, is just not very good at solving social problems. David Cameron was right to include it at the heart of the election campaign - it's an idea we have to prove to the public if we want to be taken seriously as a party in these socially aware times.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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So, right is now left.<br /><br />The most popular toy for Christmas this year isn't anything <span style="font-style:italic;">real</span> - not like the Action men I played with as a kid, or anything wholly fictional, like the Transformers - it's a Postmodern pastiche of what Toys are like, <a href="http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Strange-News/Toy-Storys-Buzz-Lightyear-Figure-Tops-Christmas-Must-Have-Toys-List-According-To-WoolworthsCoUk/Article/201006415657070?lpos=Strange_News_First_Media_Article_Teaser_Region__4&lid=ARTICLE_15657070_Toy_Storys_Buzz_Lightyear_Figure_Tops_Christmas_Must-Have_Toys_List,_According_To_Woolworths.Co.Uk">Jetpack Buzz Lightyear</a>. At the same time, an artist has hung a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/7859021/Harrier-jump-jet-is-hung-from-Tate-Britains-roof.html">fighter jet in an Art Gallery</a> and said "It's Art", taking the concept of the readymade to a new extreme. So, art is becoming life and life is art.<br /><br />All of this stuff, this contradiction, absolutely blows my mind but simultaneously seems totally normal. In some ways, this blog is about contradiction. For a long time, I've described myself as a feminist, multi-culturalist, liberal Tory. I feel myself getting pulled this way and that way by beliefs that I hold to be completely coherent.<br /><br />In the last week, I've been accused of "being far too left wing to be a Tory" by a Intellectual Property Lawyer, and simultaneously "so right wing you're actually, definably evil" by a Genealogist, for <span style="font-style:italic;">expressing the same view</span>.<br /><br />So, I guess this blog is going to be about my political beliefs, and why they make sense. It's also going to be a way for me to regularly comment on the political happenings of the day. Oh, and there will be cooking & restaurant reviews too. Hence the strapline.<br /><br />What? Cooking!? Well, partly it's to emphasise the contradictory nature of the blog - you might look on here for a passionate rant about why feminism is great (written by me, a man), only to find a recipe for Chocolate cake. Of course, real feminists won't mind, because all girls love Chocolate Cake. (This is a joke)<br /><br />I suppose there's only one question left to answer: Why is the blog called Hemingway & Orwell's kitchen?<br /><br />Well, first off, Hemingway & Orwell are my two favourite writers. One was a macho man's man, who loved hunting, shooting, and himself - the other a sensitive, urbane consumptive, who feared & cared for the whole of society. Orwell died from his lungs giving out at 46, surrounded by his friends and family - Hemingway died alone, by shooting himself with an elephant gun so spectacularly powerful his teeth were found stuck in a ceiling three floor <span style="font-style:italic;">up</span> from the room he did it in. More contradictions.<br /><br />But there were fascinating parallels, too. Both hated fascism before it became fashionable to do so; Hemingway covered the Spanish civil war Orwell fought in. Both were poor in Paris in the 1920s; Orwell's idea of poverty was having to sell his clothes so he and his starving Russian emigre housemate could buy a loaf of bread, while Hemingway's was being so poor he could only afford cheap wine & had to share car journeys with F.Scott Fitzgerald. Both wrote by having adventures and then writing down what happened. Both loved clarity of language.<br /><br />I admire them both, suffice to say. I guess I'm writing what I hope they'd enjoy reading (1). And I hope you enjoy it too.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5F-VVYgAc3FTCwwDEUecNsV1eg7rfm6nCex2vNTZ9r7cfYIOEnMTawwGxKE9Rt9nIkE9iDyuzNaFv-NjrViVLhRlt7MzFTP5G3QLLvLyOajHvL7BbqkQ3fSjFoZFQY41YqSZydnRn3ws/s1600/Hemingwayorwell.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5F-VVYgAc3FTCwwDEUecNsV1eg7rfm6nCex2vNTZ9r7cfYIOEnMTawwGxKE9Rt9nIkE9iDyuzNaFv-NjrViVLhRlt7MzFTP5G3QLLvLyOajHvL7BbqkQ3fSjFoZFQY41YqSZydnRn3ws/s400/Hemingwayorwell.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5489025749252224034" /></a><br /><br />1.) Although, I suspect Hemingway would consider my environmentalism & commitment to feminism deeply unmanly, and probably shoot me, while Orwell would probably hate me for my reactionary views, and make cutting comments about me to Evelyn Waugh at swish parties. Sigh, I just can't win, can I?<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript">
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