Quote of the Day

"That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed."

-Sydney

Felt appropriate given 

the news

this morning.

Last Night at the Lion

As TB reported last week, tragically someone thinks it will be a good idea to rip the life and soul out of the Red Lion and install a food bar and spruce it up. TB is still quite grumpy about this.

Well wonks and wonkettes, hacks and bag carriers, lobbyists and bloggers, it's time to give Westminster's finest watering hole the send off it deserves. The dingy dark corners just right for plotting and gossiping will never be the same again.

So one last night at the Lion it is

.

Be there on Friday 5th March after work. Peanuts optional.

Will it Win Votes?

For those of you who missed it check out TB chattingg away with Clifford Singer from spoof attack site

mydavidcameron.com

on Sky News last night:



Remind TB not to do his jacket up next time he is filmed from that angle.

Quote of the Day

"Gordon Brown claims today that the country is turning away from a celebrity culture and insists his seriousness is in tune with a new spirit of the times."

-

The Guardian

Saturday 14 April 2007

For Sale

You may have noticed the advert down the side of the blog for the last year for

noiseporn.com

:

Well that slot is now for sale, you can have it for a year, a month, a week. Artwork provided preferable, though not vital. 110,000 views a month. Make TB an offer he can't refuse...

Tobin Hood and His Merry Pinkos

Just a cursory glance down the list of the organisations supporting the

Robin Hood Tax

shows you exactly where these delusional hippies are coming from. Just look at the mandatory use of “Merry men and women” in the description to gauge exactly the sort of lefty bores we are dealing with here. Trade Unions, barking communists, self-aggrandising green movements, you get the picture. Instead of electing politicians to run the country perhaps it would be a much better idea just to put that nice Bill Nighy, or seasoned economist Richard Curtis, or what about obnoxious loud mouthed Fern Cotton, in charge.

For starters, it should be made very clear that however many pinkos join a Facebook group, the chances of the Robin Hood Tax succeeding are somewhere around half of half of point one percent of a percent – that doesn’t sound like very much to normal people. And that’s because normal people don’t run the worlds banking systems. That’s why bankers do – people who actually know what they are talking about, people who have been consistently smeared by those looking to shift the blame for their own cock-ups. The Labour Party is as much to blame for the recession as the bankers they are so willing to blame. We would be well on the road to recovery by now if it wasn’t for the ridiculous levels of government spending instigated by Gordon Brown. Now the left want to levy a new tax, not for deficit reduction, but wait for it… more public spending!

The chances of US investment banks agreeing to this are tiny. Thank goodness. As for the rest of the world? Well the global community can barely agree where to hold summits, let alone on anything actually discussed at them. The delusion of the supporters becomes immediately clear when they state that 0.05% is a tiny figure. Yes it is a small percentage but as Tim Worstall

points out

, that figure represents half of the profits generated by the banking system. Do you seriously for one second believe that the banking section would put up with losing half of it’s incentive to bother trading, and thus prop up the world we live in?

Have these people ever thought for one second what the world would be like without international trade and the banking system? Or maybe they have, maybe they want government controlled finance. Maybe this is indeed part of their grander plans to redesign the world, who knows what these mentalists are really thinking.

Most of the people supporting this either spent their childhood standing in the cold while their parents gave out Socialist Worker, or failing that, were too busy eating tofu and lentils in-between sessions of singing Joni Mitchell songs on an old battered guitar. However TB actually spent his childhood reading Robin Hood.

He remembers the true story, not the hijacked jumped up version that these deluded morons are spouting. Robin of Loxley returned to his homeland to find it crippled by a tyrannical regime hell-bent of propping itself up by taxing its citizens till the pips squeaked. Sound familiar yet? Robin Hood as he became was the ultimate fighter against taxation, he wasn’t stealing from the rich to give the poor, he was merely taking back from the rich what they had taken from the poor through taxation.

Nottingham was the ultimate big state, with its only desire to grow and a casual disregard for its citizens. The irony of the name is hilarious. This tax does not steal from the rich to give to the poor. It’s just sanctioned stealing by the state. It should be named the Sheriff of Nottingham Tax if anything. This countries recession has been made so much worse due to the ridiculous size of our state. How will giving the state more money to piss up the wall solve anything?

Time to move on to some of the more well disguised bull that supporters of the Robin Hood Tax seem to have swallowed. Take Will “Evidence Based Blogging” Straw's

Left Foot Forward

for example. LFF constantly refers to “world economists” as if every economist is part of the world club and all agree with each other that everything the Conservative Party has ever said is wrong.

Left Foot Forward also bands about the figure of 350 economists as if it is something to be proud off. Margaret Thatcher got at least 25 more economists than that to slam her ideas and she went on to become the greatest peacetime Prime Minister this country has ever had, and her ideas were eventually embraced by the Labour Party he is so tireless to defend. He also has to stop banding the expression “Nobel Prize Winning” as if it actually means anything. They gave Obama one for Christ sake.

Will’s spin swallowing naivety really becomes obvious in his myth-busting attempts:

“Claim #2: It will harm ordinary consumers, including ‘holidaymakers when they exchange money at the airport’ 

The Robin Hood tax campaign FAQ states that: 

“The Robin Hood Tax will not impact on personal banking or on retail banking. That’s because it targets a distinct area of bank operations – high-frequency large-volume trading, undertaken by financial institutions in the ‘casino economy’. 

“If you change money to go on holiday, send remittances abroad, invest in a pension fund or take out a mortgage, you will not be affected by this tiny tax.””

Yes, that is correct. But come on Will, banks are there to make a profit, it is what they do. To suggest that they won’t find a way to make up for the losses of Robin Hood’s theft is naïve at best, and plain ignorant at worst. Banks aren’t the fluffiest of creatures but they are a necessary evil and will pass on the any cost inflicted upon them to their customers without fail. Higher bank charges immediately come to mind. Boom right there, you have then inflicted the poorest this pathetic and delusional tax is meant to help. Whoops.

The idea that taxation is theft is rarely so hysterically and openly embraced by the left. They normally spend most of the time hiding their casual disregard for other people’s money. At times like this you see right into the thought process of the modern left. Their ideas have been rejected again and again, decade after decade so they opportunistically wait for a low point to strike and force their thievery through the back door. You could yell and yell that’s “It’s not your money!” until you were blue in the face, but frankly these people don’t care. They are dressing up there desire to hamper and limit global capitalism under a veneer of caring.

Just as they are so quick to dismiss the fact the climate scientists are a bunch of politicking liars, you would think that the case for a global levy was open and shut. If it is such a good idea why hasn’t it been implemented over half a century since the concept was first mooted? It won’t work because it is stealing money that governments have absolutely no right to touch. Opposition to this tax will prevail, whatever the more naïve and deluded elements of society wish to call it.



Many more voices have come out against The Tobin Robin Hood Tax.

TB Recommends:

Robin Hood Tax, or Compulsory charity in a post-religious age

Picking apart the ‘Robin Hood Tax'

Forget the Robin Hood Tax, I want a Celeb Tax

Robin Hood: A Libertarian Hero Defamed

Robin Hood Tax

PM 'Bananas' Over Robin Hood Tax

Robin Hood Tax, yet another view

Robin Hood Tax – Stealing from the worthy

ROBIN HOOD, ROBIN HOOD, RIDING THROUGH THE GLEN

On the Robin Hood Tax

Fairytales like a ‘Robin Hood Tax’ won’t help anyone

The cruel deceits of the left - the re-branded Tobin Tax

And a special mention to

Guy of Gisbourne

- resurrected as the good guy to fight the resurgent Robin and his evil tax.

ITV Responds to CrocodilePiersgate

"Thank you for your email regarding Piers Morgan Life Stories.

Life Stories features a wide range of different interviewees, from Sir Richard Branson to Sheila Hancock and Sharon Osbourne. Gordon Brown is simply the latest in a long list of public figures who have been quizzed by Piers. This is an opportunity for viewers to gain a glimpse into the personal life of the Prime Minister and to bring a lively insight not just into politics but the human story behind the politics.

The election has not yet been called and ITV is not bound by the particular rules governing the pre-election period at this time. Nevertheless ITV, like all responsible broadcasters, observes due impartiality and balance across our output as a whole. We are developing ideas and are in discussion with other parties about potential programming."

So will Dave get an hour of prime time coverage one on one with a supporter or not?

TB reckons an hour of Dylan Jones doing a TV version of his book "

Cameron on Cameron

" would be about fair game. Like Piers and Gordon, they are mates and ideologically similar. Sorted.

A Funny Lefty?

Yes TB didn't think there were any either.

Greg Pope's blog

came to TB's attention when it laid into Gordon in no uncertain terms. His son Conor's weekly videos are also quite amusing. Imagine a fiercely partisan skinny 18 year old Ricky Gervais, if Ricky Gervais was interested in the Labour Party. Anyway TB wouldn't normally give air time to the enemy, but Conor's piss take of Labour's constant use of campaigning and social media (as if it will make a difference,) in the last minute of this is hilarious:



Wonder who he could possibly be mocking with the "#LabourWin" reference?

Cough.

Tonight Matthew, TB Will Be...

One of those dreadful lefty types that complains.

And so it begins:



A busy TB will let

Liberal Vision

take it from here:

This is Piers Morgan interviewing the PM. No other politician at any other point, just the PM. This is Piers Morgan - former editor of the pro-Labour party Mirror newspaper, up until 2004 (when he was sacked). This is Piers Morgan, Gordon Browns mate. Piers Morgan who interviews the likes of Cilla Black, Katie Price, Boris Becker,Dannii Minogue,Ronnie Corbett, Vinnie Jones, and.. er…oh.. the Prime Minister (weeks before a general election must be called). Piers Morgan who says of Gordon Brown (presumably with a straight face (and fingers crossed behind his back)) “He’s one of the most famous people in the country, yet remains a man of mystery to many. I have known Gordon Brown for over 15 years – he is a man who has enjoyed great triumph, suffered terrible tragedy, and will soon face the biggest challenge of his career.” Sound like a one hour party political election broadcast to you too?

Much has been said about how cynical Gordon Brown is to use this programme as a vehicle to gain public sympathy etc. I dont care whether he cried or stripped naked and did the hokey Cokey - what I care about is how the hell those people in charge of ITV let Gordon Brown’s mate interview Gordon Brown within weeks of a general election without any regard to their internal or external commitments to impartiality.

So what can you do?

Well whine basically:

Ofcom makes it very difficult to complain prior to programme transmission but you can try

here

or you can call OFCOM on 0300 123 3333 or 020 7981 3000 or write to them at Ofcom, Riverside House, 2a Southwark Bridge Road,London, SE1 9HA and simply ask them to post date your complaint about the “Party Politcal Broadcast brought to you by Piers Morgan” to Feb 15th (day after the interview is broadcast). Just tell them it seems to break just about every rule in section 5.

Or complain directly to ITV:

This you can do by emailing

dutyoffice@itv.com

(duty officers logs get sent round the big boys - or at least they used to) copied to the

viewerservices@itv.com

or call 0844 88 14150.

I understand that some libertarians out there will shrug and say that OFCOM should be scrapped and every broadcaster allowed to do what the hell they like. And I have some sympathy with that view. But until the point that OFCOM is scrapped and whilst ITV pretends to operate a news code of conduct then I think we have a right to expect it to adhere to its and OFCOMs rules.

So this is what it must feel like to be a sniffling lefty whining bore. Self-loathing rising but frankly this is bang out of order...

Talk to George

Head over to

Facebook right now

(1pm) if you fancy chatting up George Osborne.

He is taking questions on the economy too.

Quote of the Day

"I love it when high earning celebs like Bill Nighy and Richard Curtis start campaigning for banker taxes. Oh, and Fearne Cotton is in favour of it too... based, presumably, on her economics degree?"

-Overheard discussion on the Tobin Robin Hood Tax

RIP Charlie Wilson

The fun loving Democrat Congressman from Texas who took on the Ruskies

has died

. They don't make Democrats like they used to.

Sad day.

Snapper in Hot Water

It's sometimes hard to forget that the SNP are a nothing but a jumped up pressure group, labouring under the illusion of a "government". It all comes crashing down when their political naivety is so obviously exposed. The Telegraph

reports

:

Alex Salmond’s number two wrote a letter of support for Abdul Rauf prior to him being sentenced for defrauding £80,000 from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

She referred to Rauf’s crimes, which include a previous conviction for stealing £60,000, as “mistakes” and appealed to the court to “consider alternatives to a custodial sentence”.

Donald Findlay QC, defending, said it was the first time in his lengthy legal career he had handed over to the court a letter from someone of such importance.

Sheriff Alan MacKenzie said he was still minded to send Rauf, 59, to prison but promised to take into account Miss Sturgeon’s protests before he reached a decision.

Miss Sturgeon, the Glasgow Govan MSP, admitted she knew about the fraudster’s criminal record, but claimed she was duty bound to represent her constituent.

But opposition MSPs said they were aghast at her lack of judgement and challenged her to make a parliamentary statement explaining why she was lobbying on behalf of known criminals.

The word "resign" comes to mind.

Hotel Rhondda

The cause of the Secretary of State for Wales' perm-a-tan may have been found. Peter Hain seems to have a bit of a thing about Rwanda. In light of the tough economic circumstances in the valleys Shadow Minister for Wales David Jones quite reasonably asked "What did the Secretary of State have in mind when he boasted last week that “Wales is still a wealthy country”? Complacent or what?" Hain's reply was the stuff of political legend:

"Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, compared with Rwanda and most countries in the rest of the world—this is the point that I was making, if he had not chosen to take that quotation out of context—Wales is indeed still a wealthy country?"

Umm ok. David Jones rightly got the last word:

"It says it all that after 13 years of economic mismanagement under Labour, all Peter Hain can crow about is the fact that Wales is more prosperous than one of the poorest countries of the third world. Mr Hain’s unguarded comment underlines the full extent of Labour’s lack of ambition for Wales.”

Who is talking down the country now Labour? 

Caption Contest - Cash Back Edition

"A 10 minute break took place during which Mr Hancock and others were in frantic negotiations with the leadership. One person said that Mr Cameron himself was on the phone - "He’s livid", they

said

."

But what did Dave and Eric say? 

Answers below, winner gets a copy of Tim Bale's exquisitely researched

The Conservative Party: From Thatcher to Cameron

.

Whoops

She's no Jonah Brown but you can hardly take anything Kerry McCarthy says seriously. Naively she swallowed a line and didn't bother trying to fight for her constituents.

Jan 19th

:

Today

:
"Cadbury's new owner, Kraft, says it plans to close the company's Somerdale factory in Keynsham, near Bristol."

What's that word she always uses? Ah yes. Fail.

Why Do Labour Want to Change the Voting System?

Well lets ask TB's favourite thumb Eric shall we?



Think that clears everything up.

+++ Exclusive: Joanne Cash Not Resigning +++

Double sourced. Statement imminent.

Developing...


UPDATE 18.09: Peace has apparently been brokered.

18.12: Westminster North Conservative Association has not accepted Joanne Cash's resignation. CCHQ is working to resolve issues.

18.17: Well that certainly is an interestingly worded line, that should have come out this morning. You could defintely add a "yet" to that sentence. Seems everything has calmed down since last night. A boil has been lanced and in the cold light of day TB suspects the decision to jump looked like a bit of a silly over reaction. Though there will be invitable personalities to sort and kinks to bash out, TB suspects Joanne Cash will be returned from Westminster North down the road to the Palace on May 7th.

This little sticky wicket could be a bit of a headache for her on the road to that day though.


UPDATE: 20.41: CCHQ: "She is still our candidate. There was a personality clash at the local level. It has now been resolved."

Two and half hours late CCHQ confirm what you read here first.

Joanne Cash? Hello?

Talking of silence, the Joanne Cash situation is becoming increasingly ridiculous. Nobody will comment on whether she is still the candidate or not. Frankly to serve as a Member of Parliament is an honour that rises above petty inner association squabbles and for Cash to throw the chance away in a row, as she allegedly did, says a lot about her suitability for the role.

This has to be sorted, publicly now. If she is the candidate, fine, she can pick up the pieces on the doorstep and try salvage anything close to a shred of credibility, but if she really has quit then she should put her money where her mouth is and come out and tell us that. It is a tight situation and every day matters if a new candidate needs to be selected.

With three months until a General Election this is pathetic and frankly with all the dithering and deliberate game playing going on today it should be pretty clear how to resolve this.

The Sound of Silence

It's weird, there is a stunning silence from normally very loud and hysterical places. Why hasn't Liberal Conspiracy's editor, Pickled Politics, Comment is Free, you get the picture, commented properly on the banging up of bent copper Ali Dizaei? Not a squeak, despite writing about him extensively in the past. Could it be that it doesn't quite fit their desired narrative that he was part of a racially motivated smear campaign and was secretly a good egg?

TB was particuarly amused to yet again see Sadiq Khan MP being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the yet another wrong-un. Khan has previous on this sort of thing, and TB couldn't help notice that he was slipping out of the court room with Dizaei when he was cleared of corruption in a wiffy case back in 2003 when the footage was run on News at Ten

last night

:

Just sayin'.


UPDATE 16.01: TB hears that Ali Dizaei was sent down to Wandsworth Prison. In Sadiq Khan's Tooting constituency. Smirk.