Timely

Via the Eye.

Cain unable

I don't know the truth behind the allegations against Herman Cain, though I suspect there's at least a small element of how dare a black guy be a Republican among some who believe that minorities are supposed to be Democrats. Whatever, enough mud has been thrown that he's dropped out of the contest for the GOP nomination. So, thinking back to that vote matching thing I was playing with last month, who'd get most of Cain's support, Paul or Perry? And will the media there let Gary Johnson get any attention now?

Probably no to the last one but out of interest I went back to that vote matcher and gave the same answers as last time but dropped Cain, and this was what I got.

That's 4% more for Ron Paul and Michelle Bachman, and everyone else remains unchanged. Not what I expected at all.

Contrasting receptions

Peter Costello, former Liberal party MP and Federal government Treasurer for the Coalition under John Howard, writes in The Age on an interesting difference in receptions given to US Presidents.

When the American president addressed joint Houses of the Australian Parliament back in 2003, Greens Senator Bob Brown interjected. In fact so worked up was he that the Speaker ordered his removal from the chamber. He was yelling about Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

This time Brown joined a conga line of MPs clamouring to shake hands with the President, Barack Obama. He had to jostle with Greens MP Adam Bandt (who has a PhD on Marxism) to get his chance. Both of them were beaming. It was a good speech. The President declared America's commitment to a military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, including a new proposal to train up to 2500 marines in the Northern Territory. One can only imagine what Bob's reaction would have been had George Bush announced that 2500 US marines would be stationed on Australian soil. They would have had to cart him out of the House of Representatives.

[...]

Bob Brown was all worked up about Guantanamo Bay when George Bush visited Australia, but he does not seem to worry so much now that Obama is in charge. Julia Gillard used to complain that Australia was subservient to America. Now she claims she has made our alliance stronger than ever before.

In opposition, Labor harvested votes on the left. In government it wants to appeal to conservatives....

[...]

Labor MPs may feel happy to see Obama and Gillard standing in front of troops in the Northern Territory - it is a great photo opportunity for their side of politics. But alliances are between countries. They are designed to outlive the political office-holders of the day. In the future it could be Newt Gingrich and Tony Abbott standing there being cheered by US marines in the NT. The principle is either right or it is wrong and it doesn't turn on who happens to be in office.

That is why it is so useful to have the left of Australian politics now locked in to traditional Coalition policies. Bipartisan support has been firmly established. And in the future if there is ever a complaint about marines based in Australia, just pull out the footage of a beaming Bob Brown grasping the hand of the president who announced it.

Some excellent points made there, and while I have no more love for Peter Costello's party than the ALP - in one sense rather less love because the bastardisation of the word 'liberal' to describe a party of paternalists that like telling other people how to live their lives simply infuriates me - I can't argue that Leftists can be pretty inconsistent if not hypocritical when it comes to the US. The bottom line is this: all the things I disliked about George W Bush, the wars, Gitmo, the loss of individual liberties, cosying up to big business and lobbyists, have by and large continued under Obama.

I'm aware some that Rightists care less about what is done than that it's one of their men doing it - witness David Cameron's actions of late and the deafening silence from his supposedly right of centre party - but if anything it seems to be even more true of Leftists. Is something bad done by a right winger made less bad when a left winger takes over and carries on?

That's you lot told

Click for linky

Wolfgang Schäuble said that, despite the current crisis in the eurozone, the euro will ultimately emerge as the common currency of the entire European Union. He said he “respects” Britain’s decision to keep the pound, but insisted that the survival and eventual stabilisation of the euro will convince non-members to join the currency club. “This may happen more quickly than some people in the British Isles currently believe,” he added.

The message to the UK is obvious - it's not your country anymore. But there is another way of reading it, another subtext below the one which really barely qualifies as subtext: we've nailed our colours to the Euro mast and its unravelling, and we're hoping like hell another big economy jumping on board will manage to keep it going and save our careers and/or reputations. I'm not sure that isn't a bit optimistic given Britain's level of debt and the fact that the Cobbleition government are really no less profligate with other people's money than their predecessors, but from here it seems like time is running out. The Euro car had a dodgy handbrake and was parked on a hill by a cliff, and now the bugger's rolling toward the edge and everyone who helped pay for the car is running like hell after it hoping to stop it in time. Getting a country with a good credit rating on board (though fuck knows why the UK still has a good rating) might buy them some more. Either that or when the car reaches the cliff Britain won't have an advantage over those that kept running after it right over the edge.

The alternative is pretty clear. Herr Schäuble must be told, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off.

Diversions - UPDATED

Oooh, another one of those how to vote thingies. I'm not sure why it's in The Telegraph since it's for the next year's Republican party primaries in the US and being a British publication most of their readership hasn't got a vote there. As usual with these things depending on your own position on an issue some questions can be a little on the shallow side, and when you don't know the details about a particular program or initiative, e.g. Race To The Top, there's little option but to click the open minded option, but for all that I'd say it's better than the one I did a year and a half ago before the UK general election. Still, just for the sake of it I had a play and ticked the boxes to see who I should hope gets the nomination and, since I know little about many of the candidates, perhaps become a bit better informed. I said I'd be prepared to vote for any of the candidates, though of course the reality is I'm able to vote for exactly none of them, and to my not very great at all surprise these are the results I got.

I might agree even more with Ron Paul than this suggests since of the five questions on which I apparently disagree with him I said I was open minded on two simply through unfamiliarity with the program (Race To The Top) and the use of Executive Orders (repealing ObamaCare question), and a couple more depend a little on how it's interpreted.However, it has informed me a little and defied my expectations since I'd expected Bachmann to come a very distant last and for Herman Cain to be a solid second and much closer to Paul.

But I'm curious - I'm sure that clip of the debate that Trooper Thompson had up the other day had 8 candidates and there are others around. I know that some of them are felt to be no-hopers but I'm surprised that it doesn't include at least all those who took part in the debates.

UPDATE - Noticed that it can be embedded. Have fun.

None out, all out

Click for linky

... but warns that if it lasts much longer than that the British people will notice that there's not always much difference from when there isn't a strike on.

Er, aren't we forgetting someone?

In the wake of Nicolas Sarkozy and Barry Ohbuggerit being caught at the G20 slagging off the Prime Minister of Israel behind his back ("I can't stand him, he's a liar." "How do you think I feel? I have to deal with him every day." - really, lads, that's quality diplomacy there) The Age this morning has a little collection of other instances of politicians' mouths digging big holes over an open mic.

There may be no true windows into the souls of politicians, but perhaps the inadvertently open microphone is an aural equivalent - the briefest of glimpses of what lies beneath the polished veneer of stock phrases and party lines.

[Nicolas Sarkozy's and Barack Obama's exchange] is up there with the best of past open-mic gaffes. It is reminiscent of former British prime minister John Major referring to his Eurosceptic cabinet colleagues in 1993 as "bastards" in a post-interview chat with an TV news reporter. There is also George Bush Jr's open-mic aside to Dick Cheney, referring to a prominent New York Times reporter in 2000 as a "major league asshole".

Those cases somehow said less about the intended targets than the speakers. Major and Bush had gone out of their way to cultivate an image of politeness and fair play, and for a moment the curtain was swept aside. Similarly, Bush's open-mic conversation with Tony Blair at the G8 summit in Russia ("Yo Blair. How are you doing?") said as much about his casual lack of respect for foreign leaders as it did about Blair's obsequiousness around the American leader.

I don't know, I just get the feeling there's a really good one missing there. Now, who could it have been? Oh yeah, I remember.



P.S. As an aside the article also joins in with bagging Netanyahu.

On balance, Sarko's aside does more damage to Netanyahu. After all, he came to power as the most pro-Israel French president in decades and is clearly losing patience. To call someone a liar is no profanity (although MPs are not permitted to apply it to each other in parliament), but is all the more cutting because of it, especially with another world leader nodding in agreement. It reinforces Netanyahu's image at home as an opportunist who is losing Israel friends abroad.

That may be true, I really wouldn't know. But I'm not at all sure it doesn't damage both Obama and especially Sarkozy, whose mouth seems to be very busy lately, at least as much or more than it does Netanyahu.

By a man's deeds shall you know him

And probably the same can be said of governments. If, naming no names, a hypothetical government was elected having promised to deal with a spiralling deficit and an eye-watering level of debt left it by its predecessors, and then it carried on largely as before you'd know that it wasn't really all that serious about what it had said. It would have been talking the talk rather than walking the walk. Similarly if a government tries something and is universally praised by other governments, but those governments don;t show any interest in following suit, you have to wonder how much of that praise is meant honestly and how much is nothing but empty diplomacy. Our dear Madam Prime Minister, Gingery Dullard, ought to be asking herself that question about now (possible paywall).

JULIA Gillard's introduction of a carbon tax has been praised at the latest economic summit for showing the way on climate change but Australia is being isolated within the G20 on carbon pricing as members retreat due to changing priorities and economic pressure.
[...]
While Australia is pursuing the most comprehensive carbon tax in the world to combat the effects of climate change, other G20 members are retreating from emissions trading schemes to cut greenhouse gas emissions, such as Canada, while others are giving greater emphasis to dealing with the immediate effects of climate change.
[...]
Senior fellow at the Canadian-based G20 watchdog, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Daniel Schwanen, told The Weekend Australian the praise for carbon tax "would not play well at home".

I should bloody coco. Even making the generous assumption that the warble gloaming catastrophists are actually right the whole idea that other nations will follow Australia's lead, which was the only possible answer its supporters could offer when asked how it could possibly change anything given Australia's meagre emissions, was part of the efforts to sell the carbon tax to us. If the response from the rest of the industrialised world is words to the effect of "Good on Australia for doing this, but don't think for a moment that we're going to do it too" then you have to wonder if the case for it was really that solid. If it was wouldn't they be falling over themselves to join in?

Which should really have Jules wondering now whether it's such a good idea after all. I don't really think she's daft and I'm sure she's been wondering that for a while now, but being left by other countries to go it alone speaks far louder than the praise she's had for doing it.

I'd call that an out

Click for linky

Mr Cameron supports steps that the eurozone is taking to boost its banks and bailouts funds as part of wider moves towards closer fiscal union in order to avert a European debt crisis that has threatened to plunge the global economy into a slump.
But he fears that regular meetings of the euro’s 17 governments will lead to the creation of a Franco-Greman dominated “caucus” or a bloc that could hijack the EU’s single market for its own ends, damaging the British economy by imposing regulations that benefit Paris or Frankfurt over the City of London.
”There is danger that as the eurozone comes together that those countries outside might see the eurozone start to take decisions on some of the things that are vital to them in the single market, for instance financial services,” he said.

Well, no shit, Dave. So it'd be a really good idea to get the fuck out of there, right? Rather than have your supposedly Eurosceptic Foreign Secretary, Willy the Vague, attacking the idea of consulting the millions of British people who've never had a say on Europe along with the smaller number who were consulted and now feel they were misled? So if the Euro block is going to impose damaging regulation then the answer surely is to remove its power over the UK and cancel the standing order that pours vast sums of UK money into the EU black hole. You just need a good excuse, and happily the neighbours have provided one.

”We’re sick of you criticising us and telling us what to do. You say you hate the euro, you didn’t want to join and now you want to interfere in our meetings,” the French leader told Mr Cameron, according to diplomats.

He didn't even want you in the room, Dave. Not even in the room. Can it be made any clearer for you? But don't treat it as an insult when Nicky is really doing you and Britain a tremendous favour. The response should be a dignified exit while tossing the phrase "Well, if our money isn't good enough for you..." over your shoulder on the way out.* Come home, announce a change of mind and policy in the light of the new attitude of the Eurozone to the UK's participation in helping to rescue it, and say that referendum is very much on the table.

Yes, I realise that there's a good chance you'll lose the vote in parliament because your LibDem partners are opposed, and right now Labour would vote against you if you copied every single policy from their own last manifesto. But that could work for you too, do you see? Having been defeated on the issue you could say that the only way Britons could have their say is with a Conservative majority government and call a snap election. Hell, you probably wouldn't need to actually call an election but just tell the LibDems you'll go see Mrs W if the vote is lost. They're unpopular with everyone at the moment and know it, and the last thing they want is an election any time soon where they'd probably lose seats to both the other two main parties. You'd probably also pick up UKIP votes by the bucketload as well. So man up and go for it, Dave. Sarkozy has opened a door a crack for you here, and all you have to do is be willing to kick it hard enough to open it all the way.

But of course this is Call-Me-Dave we're talking about, a man who has, like the other party leaders, already reneged on a similar promise and so someone I would trust slightly less far on this issue than I could throw a tree.


* Only, point of order: it's not your fucking money, and don't you even forget it in your sleep.

More from the Labour wimmin

Having already knocked everyone for six with Yvette Cooper's fucking hilarious claim that Labour is the party of law and order (as distinct from the party that creates a lot of unnecessary law and likes to order everyone around) the Labour party conference's innings of hypocrisy continues with Harriet Harman at the crease, and she's already swinging for the boundary.

Harriet, please shut the fuck up. The Labour party has enjoyed an electoral bias for fucking years. It's so well known that in opposition the Tories need a swing of ≈5% just to draw level with labour that even your unofficial mouthpieces at the BBC don't try to hide it, and indeed have discussed it openly while covering every general election I've watched. Oh, I don't doubt that the Tories will benefit from any change and would love to gain a measurable advantage over you, just as your shower of hypocritical cunts have enjoyed such an advantage over them for years, but to gain any real advantage would require changes that politically they probably don't think they can get away with. Redressing the balance and getting something that's more or less parity is about as much as they'll get away with this time.

So I repeat, Harriet: please shut the fuck up. Because this is the second time this week I've felt the need to defend the Tories against pot and kettle bullshit from Labour and it makes me feel like I need a wash. If you felt so strongly about this, if you had this wonderful love for democracy, why didn't you attempt to fix it while your teams were in orifice? Why didn't you even speak out about it?

Sauce for the goose, Harriet. By all means come back and whine about it when Labour's been hamstrung by 5 or 6 points for a decade or so, but until then, fuck off.

P.S. - I should add that this idea about not having to be on the electoral roll is just formalising things for all those millions who don't vote at all, and judging by a look I once had at MPs who were elected on less than a 50% turnout in their constituencies these dedicated non-voters live mainly in seats which are fairly safe for Labour. Doesn't seem likely to hurt Labour very much and from the point of view of the individual voter the effect on democracy is about zero. After all, what's the difference between them being registered and not voting for anyone and being not registered to vote at all?

P.P.S. - Guido points out that Harperson is basically suggesting that Labour voters are too thick to fill out a form all on their own and need the brightest person in the household to do it for everyone. Not sure she's looked at it quite that way.

Light blogging this week...

... means that the only comment I really have time to make on the above headline is "Are you fucking serious or have you been doing lines of mercury?" Not that Cameron is not a complete twat and his government almost as big a bunch of disappointing and feckless wankers as, well, as the Labour governments of the previous 13 years, but for one thing the government isn't actually cutting police numbers. Seems to me that if forces want to spend their budgets on expensive or irrelevant bullshit rather than police officers then their numbers, or lack thereof, is a problem of their own making. Just an idea this, but they could start with multiplying the number of officers they'd like by the salaries they'd need to pay and then subtracting that number from the budget before spunking money away on other stuff. It's a thought, that's all.

And for another thing the Cobbleition hasn't made any cuts. This is getting really fucking tedious to have  to keep saying this, but cuts are badly needed and the Cobbleition has failed to cut a penny off of overall public spending, and in fact they've managed to spend even more. Yes, they have been more profligate than even the crazed fuckwits who preceded them, and only those crazed fuckwits and their equally crazed and fuckwitted followers could possibly imagine that a government that spends more than the last one has cut a fucking thing. The only point at which the concept of spending less enters into it is that they are spending less than the profligate cocksocket Brown would have spent if he'd managed to win the election. That's it, and it does not qualify as a cut any more than saying I'll take out a loan to buy a Ferrari next year and then changing my mind is saving money.<

I'd suggest to Yvette Cooper that she goes home and asks around her family to see if someone can explain it to her, but since her family has got Ed Balls in it that's probably a waste of time.

'Kinell!

Same same but different

"The MCG is our nation's greatest sports venue, one of our proudest icons, and has been recognised as one of the best sporting stadiums in the world...

“More than 150,000 footy fans are expected to flock to the ground this weekend to watch their clubs battle it out in the Preliminary Finals and there is no better place to watch footy than at the people's ground.

“It's now been 20 years since the Great Southern Stand was built, and it is now the right time to make the necessary improvements to ensure the MCG continues to deliver the world-class sporting experience that it is famous for."

Victorian Premier John Brumby (Labor Party), September 15 2010

"The MCG is Australia's greatest sports venue and a Victorian icon, and it has been recognised as one of the best sporting stadiums in the world...

"More than 150,000 footy fans are expected to flock to the ground this weekend to watch their clubs battle it out in the preliminary finals and there is no better place to watch footy than at the G.

"It's now been twenty years since the Great Southern Stand was built, and the time is right to get to work so the MCG continues to deliver more world-class sporting experiences."

Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu (Liberal Party), September 22nd 2011

The Age, which is where I found this, seems to be treating it a bit as those awful Liberals ripping off the media releases of the honest, hardworking Labor party, but to my mind it suggests something slightly different. In government the Liberals have been much as Labor was, and projects, such as the Myki smart card system for Melbourne's public transport system and the Wonthaggi desalination plant, that some people had hoped would be shut down by the new government have been looked at and allowed to continue. And now we see that not only are the government doing many of the same things as the last one even the bloody press releases are similar. And I wonder, could this be because the elected politicians are not actually running things? Could it be that the public servants actually set much of the agenda and the pollies are there to influence them a little but otherwise just take the credit or blame as necessary? Could it be that Yes Minister was not only not fictional but typical of most governments, national or state?

After all, what's the common denominator here - the civil servants don't change.

When did Australia turn into America?

Not having a dig at our American cousins here, but I've always felt flag veneration is more their thing what with their national anthem being about it and with every other person you meet prepared to tell you that it's illegal to set fire to it (which apparently it isn't). Maybe some of my fellow Brits feel much the same for the Union Jack, especially those who know it's real name is the Union Flag, but here in Oz most people I've come across seem much less attached to the Australian Flag. There are those republican types who dislike the constant reminder of Britain's influence provided by the Union Flag in the top left quarter, and there are those who say that it doesn't represent the aborigines and Torres Strait islanders who were here first. There are those who think the Southern Cross bit has been hijacked by bogans anyway. And there are those to whom it's just the flag and apart from maybe waving one on Australia Day or watching it being lowered to half mast on ANZAC Day they probably don't think about it often.*

I didn't realise there were a group that venerated it in a similar fashion to the Americans and 'Old Glory' or that this group was more commonly known as opposition MPs, but apparently it's so because they're angry about a scene in an ABC satirical comedy called At Home With Julia, featuring Julia Gillard impersonator Amanda Bishop (you've seen her on this blog before). In this scene, to be broadcast this evening unless the ABC have chickened out and pulled it, Bishop's Julia Gillard dances the horizontal tango with the First Bloke, Tim Mathieson, as played by Phil Lloyd. On the floor of the Prime Minister's office. Under a duvet sized Australian flag. And the Liberal Party and their allies have gone apeshit.

COALITION MPs have attacked a controversial TV satire on Julia Gillard as demeaning and suggested ABC funding should be reviewed.
[...]
Liberal MP Teresa Gambaro also expressed disgust with At Home with Julia, suggesting to the party room that the national broadcaster's funding should be reviewed.

I'd agree, but not for that reason. Where I'm from many people complain about the TV licence forcing people who don't watch BBC programmes to pay for the BBC anyway, but since it's funded out of general taxation people pay for the ABC even if they haven't got a television. Review away, but review the principle of making people pay for a service they don't necessarily use rather than use it as a stick to beat them with because you find some of their content objectionable. Once again, this is liberalism in name only - the Australian Liberal Party seems to be as conservative as they come.

... Nationals MP John Forrest [urged] the return of tasteful comedy shows such as the 1970s series Are You Being Served.
Mr Forrest told colleagues the satirical take on Ms Gillard's private life demeaned the office of prime minister, after learning tomorrow's episode features on-air prime minister Amanda Bishop and actor Phil Lloyd, playing Tim Mathieson, naked on her office floor under an Australian flag.
“Having sex in the prime minister's office under the Australian flag is the last straw for me," Mr Forrest reportedly told MPs.

So, is this sticking up for Julia Gillard or disappointment that you won't get to see Amanda Bishop's arse, John? Apparently, neither. It's the flaaaaag.

“It's nothing to do with Julia Gillard. I'm not trying to defend her. It's the office of prime minister and it's not even funny.
“The old English traditional shows like Are You Being Served - they were funny, but this isn't."

John, they weren't funny. You found them funny. Lots of other people also find them funny. Other people don't. I've been for a look on YouTube to refresh my memory, and I found it to be a repetitive series of jokes mostly involving the ambiguous availability of an unambiguously camp salesman in a menswear department and the pussy of the ancient woman with a blue rinse who works opposite (feline kind, but - oh, my sides - never referred to as a cat). This may have been bleeding edge comedy in the 1970s when it began, and to be honest I did think the I'm free/pussy gags were funny the first time, but it felt like the show really didn't have much else. Blackadder or Yes Minister it ain't, but if John Forrest is amused by it then he's welcome to buy it on DVD. I suspect the ABC, despite all the things for which it could be criticised, has a better grasp of what audiences in 2011 want. In fact if ratings are any guide what they want is actually on Channel 7 (and much of it is shit if you ask me) but the ABC seem to be doing an okay job of treading the middle ground, and if it makes John Forrest feel better they are still buying second hand stuff from Britain.

"And to desecrate the flag dishonours what my dad did.”

I don't know what your dad did, John, but was it anything to do with fighting to prevent dictatorial types attempting to control other people's lives? I'm only asking.

Or, bearing in mind the religious nut element of Australian politics, is it just the thought of Julia Gillard having sex that's upsetting people? Newsflash, prudes: the woman is 50 in a couple of weeks - she's probably not a virgin, and having had a stable relationship with the same guy for some years she probably enjoys it when he gives her a nice hot fuck as an alternative to a cup of Milo at bedtime. I wouldn't want to see it on my TV either - in a weird kind of way that has to do with her job and personality it'd be like seeing your parents do it - but I can live with it being referred to on TV. And if not I know what to do about it, as does one Liberal who does actually act up to the name and understands what choice means.

But Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop said if people didn't like the show they could change channels.
She said former prime minister John Howard had been lampooned for years by comedy shows.

And Julia Gillard herself? To her credit also, she's calmly said she won't be watching (fair enough - I can't even look at myself making a speech on someone else's wedding video) and other than that has no commented the whole thing. And while I haven't got a lot of time for her that attitude as raised my opinion of her a smidgeon.



Americans seem to venerate their flag because they think it stands for freedom, representing as it does the original 13 colonies which gained independence from Britain as well as the 50 states of today. Brits and Aussies not so much because their flags are more hybrids of other flags, and in the case of Australia independence was granted at least as much as it was won. So let's leave the flag veneration to people that not only understand it but, understand also that what a flag stands for is rather more important than the flag itself. Because I think that if something's symbolic of being free to do only as you're told I'm not sure it's worth venerating in the first place, as illustrated by a couple of my favourite American libertarians.



* Personally I'm happy with whatever flag Australia choose to have and don't mind what people choose to tattoo on themselves, so I suppose that puts me in the last group.

Australia's Carbon Taxed National Anthem

SING!



Australians all let us revolt,

For we are carbon free;

We’ve iron ore and coal and more,

But live in poverty.
Our land abounds in Nature’s gifts,

To use we do not dare;

In history’s page, we’re now stone age

What chance Australia fair?

In worried strains then let us ask,

What chance Australia fair?


H/T to the Real World Libertarian.

Last of the expenses scandal?

So Margaret Moran has been charged over her expenses as an MP, and with 21 counts it sounds as if they've found enough mud to throw that some is likely to stick (plus of course the CPS policy is not to throw any mud at all unless the odds of stickicity is better than 50:50).

Charges relate to 15 charges of false accounting, contrary to the Theft Act 1968.
"It is alleged that she claimed expenses for the furnishing and improvement of main residences between November 2004 and August 2008 through a scheme intended for the maintenance of second homes or offices," the DPP said.
She also faces six charges of forgery, where it is alleged that she submitted forged invoices.

And I think she'll have a hard time persuading anyone on the jury that the house in Southampton was needed for staying over in London or had anything to do with work in her constituency in Luton.

Of 10 files of evidence handed to prosecutors, seven cases have resulted in charges.
"There are no longer any cases to be considered by the panel," Mr Starmer said.

That this has taken more than two years to reach court, and that while only seven out of all those hundreds of iffy looking claims resulted in charges seems low the batting average of convictions has been high, may suggest that this is an occasion where the time has been taken to painstakingly build evidence and make a really strong case - as opposed to nicking someone on the strength of a fingerprint on something they'd have been expected to handle and then having to admit that actually that's not evidence that they ever did a damned thing. Can someone explain that one to me? Why a possible murder case results in a relatively quick arrest followed by an embarrassing climbdown while a theft case which is arguably just as high profile is built up over months and then year before being brought to trial. Just wondering.

"Margaret Moran now stands charged with criminal offences and has the right to a fair trial. It is extremely important that nothing should be reported which could prejudice her trial."

While I wouldn't want to put money on being cleared that's still true - there's no doubt in my mind that she's a nest-feathering, self interested, venal trougher, but she mightn't be a criminally nest-feathering, self interested, venal trougher. But again I wonder if Rebecca Leighton might have appreciated a similar statement.

So the only question left in my mind, other than how many got away with it of course, is whether this really is the last of the expenses scandal. Or whether, since IPSA seems like a paper tiger and new parliament had barely got in the building before they were all complaining about scrutiny, we'll be doing all this again in a few years. Personally I don't believe that British politicians as a class learned their lesson and I'd be astonished if there aren't some lining their pockets right now.

The mark of a good Julia Gillard impersonator...

... has to be sounding more like Julia Gillard than Julia Gillard does.



More on the spookily similar sounding Amanda Bishop in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Lies, damned lies and ... no, that's it. Just lies and damned lies.

Via the Kitty Counters, the Prime Mentalist of Australia, Gingery Dullard, and the Treasurer, Wayne Swan.



Counting Cats has also put up a vid of the Prime Mentalist getting called out as a liar by a member of the public and coming across as a patronising tool in her responses. Unfortunately there's no subsequent Brownian reveal of the PM's thoughts over a forgotten wireless mic, but we can't have everything.

How's that belt tightening working out for you, Sir Humphrey?

Bernard, dear boy, it's simply dreadful. I've just found out that as
Permanent Secretary for the Department of Administrative Affairs
I'm to get a performance bonus of nearly £20,000.

Twenty.. twenty thousand, Sir Humphrey?

Yes! All the Permanent Secretaries - Peter at the Department for
Communities and Local Government, Dame Helen at the Home
Office - all of us. We're all in the same boat.

But that's good isn't it? I mean twenty thousand... it's certainly

more than us Principal Private Secretaries are getting.

Oh, Bernard, do try to keep up. It's a performance bonus. Can't
you see the problem?

Ah, you mean someone might ask what the actual nature of the

performance was?

Yes! No doubt some revolting little hack from the press will
already be ringing round everyone in Whitehall he can think of,
trying to find out who got the most and what they did to earn it.

And, er, what did they do?

It doesn't matter, Bernard.

Well, twenty grand does seem a lot for not doing anything that

matt... oh, I see. Sorry.

Bernard, must I again explain to you how demanding the position
of Permanent Secretary is? Must I reiterate how much effort is
required to look after the Minister and ensure that he's fully briefed
and to look after the long term interests of the Department itself?

You mean, making sure the Minister doesn't put his foot in it.

No, making sure that feet are put in 'it' with sufficient regularity
for us to be needed to extricate them for him, but never to put them
so deeply into it that extrication becomes impossible.

Unless he's needed to resign?

Unless he's needed to resign, yes. So you do understand?

Yes, I think so. You get £180,000 for making sure the Minister

doesn't wreck the department, and you're getting an extra twenty

thousand because he hasn't?

Close enough. Bernard, but of course allowing it to be put like that
in the press would damage the Department and the Minister, and we
really don't need to be put to the trouble of housetraining a new one
so soon. Now, how can we prevent all that?

Couldn't we say that we can't reveal details of bonuses paid because

that transparency agenda thingy requires them to be kept secret? By

the time the confusion clears it'll all be forgotten.

No, unfortunately the Department for Business, Innovation and
Skills is using that one.

Well, it was innovative of them.

Be serious, Bernard.

Alright then, we could say that it was all agreed with the last

government and there are contracts and everything, so...

... So the new one can't tear up the contracts but isn't actually to
blame...

... Yes, and nor are we because it was all approved by the

government. Only not this one. And because the one that did

doesn't exist anymore it's sort of nobody's fault. It just happened

and now we're stuck with it, aren't we?

Hmmm...

Better than the one Business, Innovation and Skills are using, isn't it?

Bernard? Do you realise exactly what you're suggesting?

Sir Humphrey? Er... well, it is true isn't it.

Yes, but it could apply to all departments. The hacks would
get the same answer everywhere.

It could? They would? Oh. It could, couldn't it?

Yes, it could. Well done, Bernard. We shall have to see that
there's a small bonus for you.

Doesn't the Minister have to sign off on those?

Yes he does, Bernard. And?

Oooh, there's a surprise

Click for linky

She said we wouldn't have it in this parliament and has upset a lot of people by reneging on that promise, and even those in favour of a carbon tax (bearing in mind what I said yesterday) must secretly be aware that a Prime Minister who goes back on their word cannot really be trusted. I can't imagine the same thoughts have not occurred to Gingery Dullard herself, so it's not really much of a surprise that she's less than keen on an early election to try to get a mandate for the tax. Her personal approval rating was already down to 29% (with 62 disapproving) last week before the carbon tax details were announced, so she probably would be punished at the polls and she must know it. Why the hell would she call an election?

Her best hope is to leave it as long as possible and hope that the voters' memories are short and that the recycling aspect of the tax - that is, recycling money taken from so-called 'polluters', who naturally pass the costs on to the paying public, into bribes cuts and benefits for the paying public so they don't feel the effect of the higher bills - works in her favour. Perhaps it will, but of course it does rely a lot on those not-bribes being enough to avoid the pain of raised costs. It strikes me that it might not if some of those companies spot an opportunity to increase margins by using the confusion of expected price rises to increase prices a little more than is needed. And not if the estimates of the adjusted value of those not-bribes blogged over at Thoughts on Freedom the other day are reasonably accurate. If both of those happen then the pain of the carbon tax will be impossible to hide and there will be no doubt about who to blame. In that case Julia's best hope resides in one man.

Ladies and gents, the leader of the opposition, Tony 'Mad Monk' Abbott

Yes, Tony Abbott, who also professes to be of the warble gloaming faith and have plans to control the climate according to the prophecies of the Goracle, though quite what his 'Direct Action' plan involves is not entirely clear beyond that he thinks planting trees and giving grants is a good idea. How many trees and how much in grants and to whom is not easy to find out, but in short it sounds rather like an Abbott government would take it upon itself to pick winners in much the same way as Labor do. This is because, as I have bitched about more than once, the Liberals aren't really any more liberal than Labor.

Not only that but the odd Abbott related PR gaffe isn't exactly unheard of, even if it's sometimes a gaffe that's been manufactured out of nothing and out of context by a Labor-philic media. Perhaps Julia is hoping for more of the same before calling an election? She might be lucky but if so Tony'll need to do something spectacularly outrageous to give an unpopular PM leading a minority government a majority at the next election. Who knows, elaborating on his own carbon tax plan might do it.

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, folks: a pair of total tools whose only saving grace seems to be that each looks good when compared with the other. Picking between them is like picking between, oh, say, Cameramong and Gordon Brown. You sure as hell want one gone but you're not really all that keen on having the other one in to replace them.

'Kinell.

Carbon tax comeback

Yesterday I mentioned that there's opposition and even threats of strikes in protest against the carbon tax, suggesting that Labor's love-in with the Greens - who've had a fluky election result give them the balance of power in parliament and who I feel have probably pushed Gingery Dullard to go back on her pre-election promise not to do introduce the kind of tax she introduced yesterday - is going to cost them. Of course if the ALP have anything to do with things it's going to cost the Greens instead.

AN influential Labor strategist has called for the major parties to starve the Greens of preferences in a One Nation-style pincer movement designed to kill the party.
Former Victorian ALP secretary Stephen Newnham predicted the ALP and the Coalition would soon swap preferences to isolate the Greens federally and at a state level.
[...]
Mr Newnham, a prominent figure in right-wing Labor politics, is considered one of the leading forces in the ALP for having predicted the rising threat of the Greens and the need to expose their policies. Between 2005 and 2009, he ran the Victorian ALP and was one of several figures who stressed that the Greens could become a major threat, particularly in key inner-city streets.
Mr Newnham said the Victorian Liberal Party's decision to preference against the Greens at the last state election in key seats would herald the beginning of the end of the major parties preferencing the Greens.
[...]
"The last (Victorian) election was potentially the greatest strategic disaster for the Greens in this country," he said.
"And the reason it was such a disaster was, for the first time, a major party preferenced them last and won a narrow election, arguably on the back of doing it."

And I'd be right behind that, and even voting for it, except for two little problems. I don't think it speaks well of an electoral system if the biggest fish in the pond can get together and manipulate it with the intention of destroying a smaller opposing party, and, somewhat hypocritically, I'm not really much keener on the ALP or the Liberals either and wouldn't shed a tear if it was done to both of them.

Still, it's probably the Green tail wagging the ALP dog that we've got to thank for Jules going back on her promise not to introduce the kind of tax she introduced yesterday, so fuck 'em.