8 minutes ago
Donate...
Our Manifesto
Our manifesto
Who governs Britain?
EU Documents
The Lisbon Treaty
That "mandate" analysed
EU Constitution - official version
Constitution analysis
Constitution Summit analysis
Building a political Europe
Myths
The seven basic myths
Good for the environment
Co-operating nation states
Europe reunited
The EU is democratic I
The EU is democratic II
Can't be a "superstate"
Keeping the peace in Europe
A free trade area?
Constitution for enlargement?
Qanagate
Blogroll
-
-
29 minutes ago
-
1 hour ago
-
1 hour ago
-
2 hours ago
-
3 hours ago
-
4 hours ago
-
5 hours ago
-
5 hours ago
-
5 hours ago
-
7 hours ago
-
8 hours ago
-
9 hours ago
-
10 hours ago
-
11 hours ago
-
12 hours ago
-
14 hours ago
-
14 hours ago
-
15 hours ago
-
16 hours ago
-
20 hours ago
-
22 hours ago
-
22 hours ago
-
1 day ago
-
1 day ago
-
1 day ago
-
1 day ago
-
1 day ago
-
1 day ago
-
1 day ago
-
1 day ago
-
1 day ago
-
2 days ago
-
2 days ago
-
2 days ago
-
2 days ago
-
2 days ago
-
3 days ago
-
3 days ago
-
4 days ago
-
4 days ago
-
4 days ago
-
5 days ago
-
1 week ago
-
1 week ago
-
2 weeks ago
-
2 weeks ago
-
2 weeks ago
-
3 weeks ago
-
3 weeks ago
-
3 weeks ago
-
4 weeks ago
-
4 weeks ago
-
5 weeks ago
-
5 weeks ago
-
1 month ago
-
1 month ago
-
1 month ago
-
1 month ago
-
2 months ago
-
3 months ago
-
3 months ago
-
6 months ago
-
6 months ago
-
8 months ago
-
10 months ago
-
10 months ago
-
11 months ago
-
11 months ago
-
1 year ago
-
1 year ago
-
1 year ago
-
1 year ago
-
1 year ago
-
1 year ago
-
1 year ago
-
1 year ago
-
1 year ago
-
1 year ago
-
-
Climate Change
Blog Archive
-
▼
2011
(1596)
-
▼
May
(198)
- Speechless
- Twitter ye not
- And we need the MSM why?
- Downsizing
- Another day, another jailbird
- Another dozen
- And for my next trick
- Beware of Greek politics
- The cruellest fiction
- First they came for the slaughterhouses
- Over the top
- Devil's Kitchen speaks
- A backwards look
- An invitation
- The power of an idea
- A fantastic fourteen
- Heatwave? Yeah, right!
- It's happening
- Crisis! Panic! Disaster!
- Not PIIGS but Pigs
- The darkness gathers
- Politics of the nursery
- The gentle art of revolution
- Blogroll hopping
- Huff-Puff comes to town
- Good news – for once
- A lack of consideration
- Stop the cheques
- Another twelve
- Not on the back of the poorest
- About 3,060 results
- Klepturition 5
- A voters' alliance
- And the value is?
- Global government
- The death of UKIP
- The verdict of history
- Plaything of the Gods
- Steely-eyed killers
- Answers please
- Not invented in London?
- High fives?
- Intellectuals
- A model of chaos
- Infamy
- And the fallen
- Decline and fall
- Ian Tomlinson: final decision
- One rule for them?
- The story repeats
- Out of order
- What are they for?
- A grown-up subject
- Forget the principles
- The cupboard is bare
- Not their business
- Of this world?
- Never heard of him
- A new economic paradigm
- Propaganda Я us
- When, not if - ugly
- The right way
- Where is the Prince of Wales?
- The politics of denial
- Closing ranks
- Thank goodness for the MSM
- Shocked ... again!
- I see no immigrants
- Eruption in Grimsvötn
- A voice from the ghetto
- Not just the politicians
- It gets better
- And why should they?
- A phoney war?
- Unfinished business
- Just deserts
- Idiots
- Obama does something
- The spotlight shifts
- Open borders
- Falling apart
- Political Inertia.
- They're all at it
- Strike first, strike hardest
- A bail condition?
- The Guardian thinks
- Guilty as charged
- Démissionné
- And just in case
- Scrappage
- More than he bargained for
- Sadly deluded
- What are they for?
- Watch the other hand
- Pain in Spain
- There must be a price
- Totally, completely, utterly
- The net closes
- Reason long departed
- Cloud-cuckoo land
- Here we go again
- Nation-rape
- The Jamesmobile
- A spat in the corner
- So sad
- Second-time lucky?
- See you in court, Minister
- Give us more!
- Banged up!
- A tale of two coldings
- Never!
- We who also notice
- Snigger!
- Am I bovvered?
- Rattle dem chains
- An epidemic of panegyrics
- No end to it
- Time for a stroll
- An unexpected vacancy?
- Part of the problem
- The hallmarks of genius
- Smile sweetly
- The Great Dale returns
- The road to Hell
- From little acorns?
- Doing bird (not)
- This is news?
- Robbing Peter
- Blogger is back
- Ruminations on Euroscepticism
- The curse of the bubble
- A short communication
- The deferred revolution
- Hyperventilation
- Can I have some of that?
- It ain't fair dealing
- I'll go with that
- Only the start
- On their way out
- One day my son
- The truth dawns
- Koch facts
- They really are thick
- Referism: breaking the chains
- Mind your own business
- To chasten the guilty
- Nothing has changed
- Now tell us something we don't know
- Greenpeace not a charity in NZ
- Holding the line
- Eurocrats lie – shock!
- Referism: abolishing the general
- The joys of photoshop
- Sadder but not wiser
- There is hope
- If Heineken made stupid people
- That "ism" again - Referism
- An astonishing revolution
- Mission Accomplished
- From one to another
- Death wish
- Lessons learned
- New pics
- Our Masters
- Another lurch to the bottom
- An abdication
- The next steps
- No shit Sherlock!
- An air of unreality
- Greece stains
- So that's a no, then?
- Animal Farm
- What Obama really saw
- Protecting the narrative
- Election (not) special
- Shameless
- Frozen Poles
- Honey! They stole my vote!
- Change of pace
- Sailing away
- Cutting his losses
- Getting it wrong
- Breaking news – gnomes seized
- They didn't!
- Unravelling
- Why?
- Achieving the impossible
- The ex-Kommissar speaks
- Unlawfully killed
- Nothing changes
- Go strikers! Go!
- Prince of hypocrits
- A feast of fools
- How very convenient
- Drawing the battle-lines
- The march of Ruritania
- Photos released of violent thugs
- Fighting the babysnatchers
-
▼
May
(198)
I suspect that Booker may not be flavour of the month with his own management, who is breaking ranks this week in his column by calling into question David Cameron's "leadership qualities" (lack thereof).
The government's record, he says, seems to add up to little more than weak, half-baked, unthought-through gestures, from the fiasco of our intervention in Libya to its chaotic plans for yet again rearranging the NHS, and Cameron's wish to pass into law a commitment to increase our overseas aid by 47 percent.
But two issues stand out as terrifying evasions of reality, Booker avers. One of those is the truly astonishing smoke and mirrors act being played over the scale of our runaway public spending, while the other issue was exemplified last week by the beleaguered Huhne's proposal that we must write into law a commitment to cut Britain's CO2 emissions by more than 50 percent within 15 years.
So important are just these two issues that, even if the government had got everything else right, it would be difficult to argue that our "self-deceiving" government had shown any of the qualities of true leadership. Says Booker, the only real success of the dysfunctional Coalition has been to obscure from us the horrifying reality of what have become the two darkest shadows hanging over our country's future.
Of course, Booker dare not point openly to the other partner in this obscuration, the MSM – and in particular the political correspondents who have been brown-nosing Cameron to quite an extraordinary degree. But it is a little comforting that, even yesterday, we were finding other complaints about the failure of the government to come clean on the extent of the financial situation.
As we noted, however, on top of its brown-nosing, the media's obsession with trivia is also a factor in the distortion of the news agenda. This features in Booker's second piece - about Vicky Haigh, the single mother of whom it was revealed that she had been threatened with prison for revealing that Nottingham Social Services were intending to seize her (then) unborn child.
It was this and issues like it that were the real meat of concern about the current predilection of judges to support (and enforce) excessive secrecy, but it is entirely typical of a venal and lightweight media to go into bat on the side of the judge and then to focus on the truly pathetic issue of a promiscuous footballer and other slebs.
Raedwald explores the broader issues in an intelligent and adult way, and he rehearses aspects I have not seen addressed in the media. Rather than dealing with any point of principle, the newspapers, in particular, seem more concerned that their ability to retail low-grade "sleb" tat is being circumscribed. Certainly, if the media in general was truly concerned with freedom of speech, than it would be crawling all over the family courts, and their behaviour, instead of concentrating on the more venal aspects.
Another issue that is rarely properly dealt-with by the media is the growing opposition to subsidy farms, with Booker devoting his third piece to the outcry in Wales as the encroachment of the windmills on some of the best scenery in the kingdom – and the pylons required for distribution - is beginning to have a very serious impact.
Add the fact that the subsidies paid from electricity bills is racking up our electricity cost to unsustainable levels and this is an issue were the media could rightly be expressing outrage.
But as long as we have a media that so lack judgement that it sees in Cameron a prime minister with the seeds of "greatness", then – other from the occasional voice from the ghetto - we are not going to be able to rely on this source for intelligent comment. And if they could replace Booker with a little girlie columnist, even the ghetto would then be silenced.
COMMENT THREAD Tweet


