Unenlightened Commentary.

But it's a good thing because it applies to property, where the normal rules of inflation being harmful magically don't apply. The people who would normally object to a transfer of unearned wealth from the poor to the rich are also silent.

Via

I'm going to make my official election prediction now so people can laugh at how wrong I am.


I suspect that the Labour & Conservative vote is being accurately reflected in the polls however given the relative uncertainty of Lib Dem supporters to vote I believe that their support will be lower than anticipated.


So I am predicting a wafer thin Tory majority rather than a hung parliament and Lib Dem gains to be under 30 seats, with Labour getting around the same as the Lib Dems in the popular vote but still having around 200 seats.

Prediction:

Conservatives*: 35%, 325 seats
Labour: 28%, 195 seats.
Liberal Democrats: 28%, 90 seats

* Includes Ulster Unionists.

One of the things I've noticed about this story is that foreign newspapers have picked up on it in a way in which they haven't done on any other issue in the campaign thus far.

I suppose Brown can be given some credit for apologising profusely rather than doing what Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell would have done which would be to smear the woman via anonymous leaks to the press.

Three quick things:

1. My problems with my computer have flaired up again, possibly because the shop I took it to previously fobbed me off. Therefore blogging may be light again until Monday.
2. It's ironic that one of Disney's most iconic characters, Donald Duck, is famous for being naked from the waist down and yet I have received a lifetime ban from all Disney stores.
3. Wetherspoons pub chain offer a bacon roll and a coffee at breakfast for £1.50, isn't that great value?

They are the only party willing to dissent from the cult of the NHS, arguing that no department can be ring fenced from spending cuts. The Tories don't believe in the cult either but they are terrified of being exposed like an atheist in Saudi Arabia. Ring fencing the NHS's vast budget inevitably means that other services have to endure deeper cuts in order to maintain millionaire consultants in the style to which they have become accustomed.

He's probably right though. The public have moved onto far more dangerous emotions- pity and contempt. At least there is a certain respect that goes with anger.

I saw my old house, that I grew up in until I was 12, being advertised in the window of an estate agent home. When I got home I decided to look it up online, to see what had been done to the place in the intervening 18 years. It had all been done up, none of the rooms on display looked as they were, in fact it has the over furnished look of a house that is there to be looked at, not lived in, with white and cream decor. The dining room has a chandelier ffs!

The weird thing is I actually feel resentful of the fact that they've changed it even though as I say I haven't set foot in there for almost two decades, because it means that the house that is in my memories doesn't exist anymore in a sense.

It is very inconsiderate of them not to preserve the house as a monument to my childhood.

The head of War Child seems to understand the importance of not becoming an adjunct to a political party, perhaps this letter should be posted on the wall of every 'charity' that doesn't understand the where the line is drawn with respect to political campaigning:

I am surprised that former employees of aid agencies are willing to use the good names of their former employers for political purposes during an election campaign ('Cameron aid policy about populism, not poverty, say former charity bosses', News). Every major aid agency prizes its impartiality. We don't shy away from criticising any party policy when we think it is wrong and welcoming it when we think it is right.

Organisations such as mine are funded by the public. This money is not given to us for political purposes. When former employees of respected aid agencies use the reputations of their previous employers for political campaigning it has negative implications for all non-governmental organisations working to address poverty in a way that is impartial.

Mark Waddington

CEO War Child

Indeed. Whilst there may be an argument for public funding for charities and NGOs, not one that I'd agree with, there is no argument for funding partisan political campaigns.

At least two bloggers whom I regularly read are standing for election on May the 6th. Mark Wadsworth is standing for UKIP in Uxbridge & South Ruslip and David Vance is standing for the new Northern Ireland party the TUV in East Belfast (against NI first minister Peter Robinson).

So good luck to both of them and to anybody else who I know that is standing but have overlooked.

This is the moment commentators will look back on and proclaim that it was when Gordon Brown completely lost his marbles.

In a couple of months it is going to be revealed that the Labour leadership has been tearing itself apart in this election.

Oh ffs:

An atheist who left leaflets mocking Jesus Christ, Islam and the Pope in an airport's prayer room has been given an Asbo.

Harry Taylor, 59, from Higher Broughton, Salford, left the anti-religious posters in prayer rooms at Liverpool John Lennon Airport in November and December 2008.

Admittedly getting Muslims angry before they fly can have certain consequences which we wish to avoid.

It's somewhat ironic for an airport named after John Lennon to seek to ban someone for expressing views that might be offensive to religious people. Sure, if they asked him not to leave the leaflets in the room and he kept doing it then he is partly in the wrong, but given the enthusiasm of religion for proselytising their beliefs you'd think they would appreciate it.

I suppose as it is an election right now I should look up which party is committed to getting rid of "religiously aggravated" offences, all I know is that Labour supports the idea.

Good week for free speech.

Bad week for free speech.

Academic feuds are notoriously unpleasant and vicious, so the fact that historian Orlando Figes wrote psuedonymous reviews of his rivals works on Amazon isn't remarkable.

What is incredible is that he is such a complete moron who can't even troll properly. He posts a number of comments praising himself and trashing his rivals which might be enough to raise suspicions that he might be him. So how did he cover his trail? He used the nom de plume "Historian" as well as "Orlando Birkbeck". Orlando is a historian at Birkbeck just in case you hadn't guessed.

How can anyone that stupid be a professor?

A few observations:

• For all the inevitable talk about 'reclaiming' St George's day and the flag from fascists, it has never been a major fascist symbol. When someone claims otherwise they are articulating an unconcious prejudice that any patriotic display is racist.
• Celebrating St George's day is very un-English. A defining feature of Englishness is not going in for national days, national costumes and all that.
  
• Shakespeare was born and died on St George's day, which makes his prolific output all the more impressive if he only lived for one day.

In the recession it always pays to keep an eye out for new and potentially lucrative new careers. So it is interesting to read that North Korea has been using "human torpedoes" to sink South Korean ships.

By definition this immediately creates a vacancy which if you strive hard enough you can fill. There are many advantages to this line of work:

• The swimming is good exercise.
• The work is challenging and varied.
• It is a job for life.

In truth no job is just about the positives and there are downsides to being in a "crack squad of human torpedoes"*.

• The pension plan is rubbish.
• When people hear that you are a human torpedo, you are likely to be chased out your home by an angry mob chanting "No 'Pedos"

* A crack squad? As opposed to what bog standard human torpedoes?

I'm in two minds over the Daily Mail's attack on Nick Clegg.

Describing his remarks about Britain's place in Europe and attitude to World War 2 as a "Nazi slur" is grossly unfair to him. If what he said is a "Nazi slur" then almost any comment that tangentially references the War can be a "Nazi slur". I also don't like the reference to his foreign parentage and marriage which seems gratuitous. Churchill had a foreign mother of course and it didn't seem to affect his love of country.

However Nick Clegg's articles on Britain's role in the world are worth airing as they reveal how he views the world. The first thing to make note of is how unimaginative he is with cliches about the "loss of empire" popping up. He churns out the default positions of Guardianistas in the Guardian yet does so in a patronising tone that suggests that he is bravely challenging the orthodoxy. He does not challenge his opponents positions because he doesn't seem to see any need to actually know what they believe because they are so self evidently stupid. Therefore he simply creates a straw man and knocks it down.

This attitude also infuses the Lib Dems statements about other issues, for example on crime they come out with the canard that prisons are "colleges of crime" and try to pass this off as original thinking that contrasts to their opponents more emotive and irrational positions.

In fact it is almost 180 degrees opposite from the truth, the idea that prison doesn't prevent crime was for many decades the policy of both Conservative and Labour governments but when Michael Howard finally made prison a more likely outcome for criminals, crime fell for the first time in decades. There are counter arguments that can be made against this but Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne can't be bothered to understand the position of their opponents let alone refute them, so instead dismiss it as an emotional spasm that is self evidently stupid.

Dogmatic thinking is never appealing especially when it is presented as being the result of open minded and non ideological policy making.

I see Australian academics* are demanding that Australians stop commemorating ANZAC day, which commemorate those fine biscuits those Australians and New Zealanders who fought in wars for their countries.

Nina Burridge of the University of Technology in Sydney - said Anzac Day glorified white males.

"It's something about male mateship in many ways to me - it doesn't celebrate the wide diversity in Australia," she said.

"The very fact we focus on Gallipoli means we symbolically exclude others, even if we don't intend to."

Right. The implications of that idea is probably not what Burridge would intend, but her argument that Australia's history can't be remembered because it "excludes" non whites etc, implies that multiculturalism and large scale immigration necessitate forgetting a country's history and customs.

* No, Australian academics is not an oxymoron.

It's quite funny that when teaching unions launch a grassroots campaign against pay restraint in the face of a financial, and demonstrate exactly why they shouldn't get more money:

One educator, a librarian with a Master's degree, described the cuts as "rediculous."

.....

"Remember Pol Pot, dictator of Cambodia?" warned another. "He reigned in terror, his target was teachers and intellectuals. They were either killed or put into forced labor
.....

The debate appears to be taking a slightly more civil course lately, especially after the founder of the anti-Christie page was shut out from posting on the site for about a week because of all the hateful comments.

"I have deleted and will continue to delete commets comparing Governor Christie to genocidal maniacs," read a recent post, complete with a typo. "He is not a genocidal maniac. He is a crappy governor."

Is there any other profession where the semi literate nature of the hate mail is so inevitable? How can they hope to teach children anything?