Cameron the small stater.

I'm not quite sure why David Cameron has suddenly started talking seriously about the excessive size of the British state, giving power back to the people and holding a bonfire of Labour legislation, but it's about time. In fact it's actually well past time in my case since overseas voters need to allow time to get postal ballots back or to talk to their proxies. This can be useful if you're an unpopular Prime Minister who might want to reduce a possible protest vote against you from a section of the electorate that you've treated particularly badly, but if you're the leader of the opposition it's counter productive to wait until after people have made their decisions to tell them something that might make them vote for you. To be honest Cameron's sudden interest in these things wouldn't have tempted me into voting Tory even if he'd been going on about it since the day the election was finally called. He's been leader of the Conservatives since December 2005 and unlike Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan, who really have been making these noises for some time, he's not said almost nothing about it before as far as I can recall. Four and a half years of silence on these issues followed by a sudden Damascene conversion less than a week before polling day? That might be why I have a hard time believing him.

For the record I asked my proxy to spoil the ballot paper. Having voted in every election since 1992, the year I was first eligible, and having gone to the effort of keeping my vote when I migrated this should say a lot about what I thought of the choices on offer.

Who'd want to?

I'd hardly call British elections 'pure', though I suppose it all depends what you're used to, but I had to smirk at the end when I read this:

In short, I'm not sure why anyone would want the job of British prime minister for the next several years. But evidently, a few people still do.

I've been wondering the same thing for a while and I can come up with two possibilities - power mad, or just mad.

Changes of heart.

As most of the MSM who had supported Labour desert Colostomy Brown and his party of contemptible pricks these few lines leapt out at me (my emphasis):

The Sun was the first national paper in this general election to clearly state its political change of heart in September last year with a front page headline declaring "Labour's lost it". The Sun had previously supported the Labour party for 12 years.
In the Sun's editorial, the newspaper told readers Labour had failed and was now backing David Cameron's Conservatives.
The editorial said: "The real story of the Labour years is one of under-achievement, rank failure and a vast expansion of wasteful government interference in everyone's lives."

Indeed. Under-achievement, failure, waste and government interference... which The Sun supported for twelve years.

Cunts.

Broon to quit if defeated?

Apparently he'll go and go quickly if Labour suffers a decisive defeat, though what exactly constitutes a decisive defeat isn't said and since only a few weeks ago there were noises that he'd stick around even if he lost you have to take it with a large pinch of salt. But now it's:

"I cannot see Gordon coming back to the Commons in a few weeks to take on Cameron as leader of the opposition.
"It would be too cruel. I cannot see him wanting to do it and I don't think anyone would try and make him do it."

If that's considered cruel then I think we should go one step further and make the bastard Chancellor. Yep, really. And rub his nose in the mess he's made with the strict instruction: 'You fucked it, so you fix it'. Won't happen, obviously, and of course there's the huge downside of the potential for the incompetent prick to do even more harm, but if staying in the Commons is cruel then I really don't have too much difficulty with a little cruelty being put his way.

Better still would be quite a great deal of cruelty sent the way of Mandelsnake.

... Lord Mandelson is understood to want to arrange a "coronation" for Mr Miliband – in order to avoid a "divisive" leadership contest which would also hit Labour hard financially – at a time when party funds have been bled dry by the general election campaign.

Yeah, put up a preferred candidate unopposed, what could possibly go wrong? It turned out okay last ti... oh, no, wait.

However, most Labour MPs are thought to want a contest, which would be fought under the auspices of a caretaker leader, the role taken by Margaret Beckett in 1994 following the death of John Smith.

Which suggests most of them are brighter than Mandelsnake or have learned a lesson about the potential downside.

Tragic.

Read this if you haven't already. What Bella Gerens describes is simply fucking awful.

More Brown contempt for voters.

Via Guido.

He just doesn't give a tinker's fuck about ordinary people, does he? Not that that should surprise anybody by now (apart from people like the sycophantic drones sent along to cheer him, of course).

UPDATE: full story here.

Speaking to journalists afterwards, Mr Borthwick said he was not a member of any opposition party.
But the 38-year-old said he felt the Labour campaign was orchestrated and Mr Brown only spoke to party activists and did not get to talk to real people.
...
Sky's Michelle Clifford said: "We asked him 'What right do you feel you have to disrupt all of those other people who clearly have come to hear the PM?
"He said 'they haven't come here to hear the Prime Minister. It's the PM making them come to listen to him because they are all Labour supporters.'"
As he was walked to the edge of the centre's car park by a police officer, Mr Borthwick said: "This is what happens if you bump into the Prime Minister, you get walked off the premises."
Sky's Peter Spencer said of the incident: "I would put it down to something of a missed opportunity for the Prime Minister. It was obvious that the room was completely packed with Labour activists.
"It would have been a glorious opportunity for him to have said, when the security guards were trying to push the bloke out, to say 'no, no. no. Let's hear him speak'.
"And let him say his piece, answer him and thus prove the bloke wrong on the spot. But he didn't. He simply said: 'Well I'm talking now you can ask your questions later.'"

What? And risk accidentally calling him names out loud?

Your waistline and national security.

From that fascinating and occasionally incomprehensible land across the Pacific (or the Atlantic depending on whether I'm thinking as a Brit or an expat down under) comes the latest assault on anyone who simply wants to be left alone to live their own lives, a joint attack from the foodie health police and the perpetual war mob as well.

Increasing rates of obesity among young Americans could undermine the future of the US military, with potential recruits increasingly too fat to serve, two retired generals said today.

"Obesity rates threaten the overall health of America and the future strength of our military," generals John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, both former chairs of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a commentary.

Obesity disqualified more potential recruits for military service than any other medical factor, the two former commanders wrote in the Washington Post.

The two generals urged Congress to adopt legislation that would ensure better nutrition in schools, offering children more vegetables, fruits and whole grains while cutting back on foods with high sugar, sodium and fat content.

"We consider this problem so serious from a national security perspective that we have joined more than 130 other retired generals, admirals and senior military leaders in calling on Congress to pass new child nutrition legislation," wrote the commanders, part of a non-profit group called Mission: Readiness.

Child nutrition legislation? Oh good grief. You just know that it's only a matter of time before this is repeated here or in the UK (if it hasn't been mentioned already).

"We must act, as we did after World War II, to ensure that our children can one day defend our country, if need be."

I can see where they're coming from, but Jesus Christ... The most admirable thing about America is that it's a nation founded on the idea of liberty.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator* with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

How does legislating people's diets fit in with that?

'Kinell.

* Which should still apply even if you think your creators were a couple of people bumping uglies because there was nothing on TV.

Blogosphere power at work?

This morning I noticed that this year old story in The Australian on the 'soft totalitarianism' of modern Britain, which has had a permanent link on my sidebar for ages, is suddenly the 8th most read article. How come, wonders I. Could it be that the news of Gordon Brown's 'bigot' gaff and the talk of the TV debates has generated a renewed interest in what's going on in the old country among British expats and Aussies of British descent? That was certainly my first thought, but then I over at Leg-iron's blog I noticed that his blogging on the Australian federal government's plan to de-brand tobacco packaging had attracted this comment.

It's a shame there aren't more writers like this bloke in both countries: Thought police muscle up in Britain

Since it made the most read list during the night while most here would have been asleep I'm now wondering if Leg-iron, his smoky drinky blog and readership, and an anonymous commenter gave it a boost, especially as two hours later it's no longer on the list. I'll never know but I hope so, because I still feel that it's an article everyone in Britain should read before they put an X on a bit of paper this coming Thursday. There might well be nobody on most people's ballot papers who wants to do something about it but that's not going to change unless many moree become aware of the creeping influence of the real life Thought Police and are prepared to shout:

"Enough!"

Do you think I'd make a bad parent?

It's just that I thought this was fucking funny.

Heh.

A few weeks back I chuckled at Bella Gerens blogging about three TV stations who refused to air a tampon advert that mentioned vaginas. Since nobody would bat an eyelid if any other advert mentioned what the product is supposed to be used with - tyres on cars, say - this is clearly beyond uptight and into the realms of outright vagina-phobia (presumably just the word rather than actual vaginas, but who knows what they might think?). The only sane response is to completely take the piss out of the tennis playing, white jeans wearing style of advert these sooks obviously prefer so, from the people who brought you this beaver, another advert for women who can think.

Mrs Exile laughed at this one too.

Another thought on Brown's bigot gaff.

A thought's just occurred to me. Remember the Stuart MacLennan story from three weeks ago? The guy whose Tweets referred to one woman as a boot and old people in the Post Office as coffin dodgers? Remember what Gordon Brown said at the time?

"A candidate has made a mistake. It's unacceptable. That candidate has got to resign.

"I have made it absolutely clear what my views are: we cannot have people standing as candidates for the Labour party who express these views, so that candidate will not be a candidate for the Labour." [sic]

That being so why is Gordon Brown still the candidate for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath?

Quote of the Day.

An unnamed Labour junior official after the coverage of the car crash that is the Labour re-election campaign was interrupted by a car crash. Or possibly the other way around.

"I feel like a dog that can't be kicked any more."

The new poster sucked arse in case anyone was still wondering.