Public Interest.co.uk

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:51:36 PST

Bring on the All-Blacks. Polly won't be pleased.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:50:43 PST

It's just like reading the Guardian.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:05:17 PDT

I think the Hills Have Eyes one is the best.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:18:46 PDT

Hard to keep up with blogging these days. Okay, I've been in semi-retirement for the last five years or so, but I like to think I still read them on occasion. But there are just so many. For example, Call me Ishmael. No, I'd never heard of him either. But I came across him just now, and for invective and bile he knocks Devil's Kitchen into a cocked hat. I mean, this is one hell of a first post.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:59:09 PDT

The noted political philosopher and former deputy leader of the people's party Roy "Lardbutt" Hattersley thinks all is not lost for our current overlords:

"The party is facing a crisis of personal courage, confidence and conviction — not of social democratic policy. If the worst were to happen in May, some of us would make sure that the blame was laid on the politicians, not the winning idea that they have ignored".

I think this is the "socialism hasn't failed, it just hasn't been tried" gambit.

"It is not too late to escape from the Government’s failure to assert a belief in a different and better society. But time is running out. Mr Brown can redeem two years of missed opportunities by speaking at last about freedom and equality. If his nerve fails, it will be up to the rank and file to prove that the Labour Party still stands for something".

I think, in common parlance, Mr. Hattersley is guilty of that most contemporary sin: not getting it. It's the things it stands for that is the problem. I don't want to listen to Gordon Yellow Belly lecture me about freedom and equality any more than I want to hear the lardbutt do so. The idea of the rank and file bellyaching about their core values doesn't fill me with too much rapture, either.

There is a reason that the Labour party has failed, and it isn't the personal courage, confidence and conviction - or lack thereof - that is the problem. It's the ideology, stupid.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:35:38 PDT

Michael Blowhard has quit. Damn. My favourite culture blogger, gone.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:31:11 PDT

Mrs. Self is now writing for the Guardian! This is just the beginning. As the Independent starts to jettison its star writers, getting ready for that much-looked-forward-to closure, it's inevitable that the rest of us are going to have to suffer for our sins. I notice the Yazzmonster crops up with alarming frequency in the Daily Mail. We can expect more of that when the plug is finally pulled.
Who else? Robert Fisk in the Sun? Johann Hari in the Telegraph?
In an ideal world they'd surely all be banned for life. Or at least given a six month sabbatical, and sent off to The Writing School to fine tune their talent. The paper fails and their writers get rewarded by being picked off by their former competitors. You'd have thought these papers' proprietors would put two and two together. There is a reason these papers fail, you know.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:17:19 PDT

Last week I got an email from a group blogging at Nothing British, whose mission in life is to expose the lack of patriotism among the British National Party. On the one hand, one, I'm rather touched that anybody still asks me to link to anyone. Flattery will still get you somewhere, I suspect. And, two, I'd have thought patriotism, albeit a pretty eccentric - that's putting it mildly - is about the only thing the BNP have got going for them.

However, looking closer at the blog, they do seem happy enough to lambast the left for its role in promoting the rise of the BNP, and that's a view I'm delighted to support. The nerve some of the hardcore left has had in pretending that the BNP is right-wing is always slightly irritating. Collectivism, identity politics, separate but equal, capitalism is the same as fascism - these preoccupations are hardly libertarian/conservative ones. Let's face it, the BNP is basically the Labour party as it was in the fifties. What's the difference?

So more power to Nothing British's elbow. I'll stick'em on the blogroll soon, too.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:01:24 PDT

We have a solution! I found it here. Thought I'd share it with you, because I sure in hell aren't the only person to have this problem. How it was caused was still a mystery, but at least it's done, and I can now listen to Subo covering the Rolling Stones in all her majestic glory.

I believe this will be her next single, too.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 03:08:49 PDT

And while I'm here, just on the off chance that 1. There are any readers left here.

and 2. One of them understands this here internet thing.

Could someone possibly explain why I can't hear stuff on youtube now? Or the BBC I player? I can hear music on Windows Media and Itunes and the like, but the rest just goes dead.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:35:46 PDT

Mrs. Marr:

"Let me take you by the hand and lead you to a very different Britain, one that's perhaps not more than half a year away. It's a country convulsed over its future in the European Union, one in which welfare is being slashed and new prisons are the only public investment still growing. Bodies set up to make life fairer and safer are disappearing in a "bonfire of the quangos".

The BBC is being dismantled and a Fox News-style Murdoch broadcasting agenda is ripping ahead".

Here's hoping.

Nice to be back.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:58:23 PDT

Peter Preston:

"Why on earth do we splutter on about foreign menaces in editorial lines dictated from New York by an Australian OAP?"

Peter Preston is 71.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:29:03 PDT

Hugh Hopper is dead. He wrote "A Certain Kind" which is still my favourite song of all time. It was done by the Soft Machine, for whom he was the roadie when they recorded it, though he joined for the next album, and a few more besides.

Yup. Still the best.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:38 PDT

In half an hour I shall be performing my sacred duty and voting for this man. Go on, you know you want to.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:31:28 PDT

More twists than The Wire, more racism than The Black and White Minstrel Show, the Show of all Shows is back.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:35:39 PDT

Oh my gawd. I agree with Aaro. I take it all back.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:25:17 PDT

Andrew MacKay:

“I have checked through all my expense claims over the past four years and there is nothing that stands out – I am confident there is nothing unreasonable in there at all.”

Really?

An hour is a long time in politics, these days.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Tue, 12 May 2009 03:17:30 PDT

+++ THOSE LIB DEM EXPENSES - WORLD EXCLUSIVE +++

+++ Vince Cable Claimed £478 for shampoo and a comb+++

+++ Ming Campbell Claimed £3108.74 for Viagara pills +++

+++ Nick Clegg Paid £4700 for a first edition copy of the Beano +++

+++ Lynne Featherstone Spent 87 p on silk undies from Oxfam +++

+++ Evan Harris Claimed £ 23,256 on a personally autographed Jack Kevorkian suicide machine +++

+++ Simon Hughes Spent £3201 on upgrading his sandals +++

+++ Charles Kennedy Spent £125000 on Perrier water +++

+++ Susan Kramer Charged £515 for a failed brain transplant +++

+++ Mark Oaten Claimed £22,712 on dry-cleaning and hotel bills +++

+++ Lembit Opik Claimed £308 for a job lot of Cheeky Girls' cds bought from a bloke in a pub+++

+++ Sarah Teather Spent £412 on a pair of stilts +++

More to come in tomorrow's Telegraph.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Tue, 12 May 2009 01:58:01 PDT

Somehow I had a premonition Aaro would write this column. Measured and unruffled. All other columnists are hyped-up and angry, but Aaro stands alone, the one sole person capable of rational calm.

He's turning into Simon Jenkins.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Mon, 11 May 2009 09:05:07 PDT

I think it's terrible the way people keep knocking politicians these days. It just acts as a huge disincentive for honest people to go into the profession. After all, most of them - for whichever party they represent - go in for the most honourable of motives.

We should also remember that they could make a lot more money if that was all they were interested in, by getting jobs in the private sector.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:54:58 PDT

Arch New Labour loyalist Stephen Pound has resigned:

"I support the Government in 99% of what they do but I couldn't support them on this. I couldn't look my Gurkha friends in the eye if I wasn't doing everything I can to attempt to match their contribution to our country with our support for them.
"I hope that the Government will now recognise that the situation of the Gurkhas is unique."

That's it. Gordon Brown really is finished.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 01:15:52 PDT

As Labour party Deputy Leader Harriet Harman introduces her new "Equalities" legislation I suppose it was inevitable that the leftoids would be all revved up with no place to go.

Polly tells us that "The politically correct society is the civilised society", but that's par for the course for the old girl. No one ever read Polly for an argument, did they? Likewise, Natalie Hanman gets rather excited, using it as an opportunity to wax lyrical about Mary Wollstonecraft. What's amusing to read is the comments, which are ninety percent negative for both. They can't all be right-wing trolls. Maybe not all lefties are stupid, after all.

Still, over at the Times, David Aaronovitch confirms that he isn't quite up to speed with the liberaloid disillusion with Mr. Brown and his acolytes. Has there ever been a piece of government legislation Aaro didn't like?

"I am very interested in the subject of equality - or, as it is usually discussed these days - the subject of inequality", announces Aaro. This is worrying. When Aaro is interested, the wrong end of the stick is surely about to be grasped.

"For months now I have been reading books, academic papers and think-tank pamphlets trying to work out what the problem of inequality is, and what - if anything - we should do about it".

For some reason this fills me with foreboding. Here is Aaro, a former communist, and the old boy has finally got around to wondering about equality. Hey, he's even decided to read about it. Hats off to the lardbutt.

Anyway, it's a rubbish article. Apparently, the problem is intractable. Still, there's no point in not voting Labour, eh? And there's no harm in passing the law, is there?

"Reducing inequality is officially a goal of the Conservative Party, but Mr Letwin knows that between 1979 and 1997 - the 18 years of Conservative administration - the proportion of children in poverty went from one in eight to one in four, which hardly suggests that a return to Thatcherism will help".

Poor chap. All that reading. All that thinking, and he still can't tell the difference between reducing inequality and reducing poverty. And as for the difference between relative and absolute poverty - don't even go there.

"In lieu of a much better idea the incoming Cameroons would be likely to keep much of what is in Hattie's bill. So - and here at last is the fun - the presumptive heirs to Mrs Thatcher are more likely to end up as the actual heirs to Ms Harman".

So there it is. No one's got a better idea of defining equality, let's stick with Harriet. When in doubt, introduce another law. That'll work.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:33:15 PDT

The worst thing is, assuming I am still alive in thirty years' time and living off my pathetic little state pension, I'll be switching on the little black and white tv and watching Newsnight. We'll have had twenty years of Conservative government. Ten years earlier, Prime Minister Peter Cuthbertson has just dragged the UK back into the black, to be promptly kicked out by the Labouroids. And we'll have just had ten years of high public spending, and finally debt under New New Labour.

Up pops Lord Osborne and Baroness Balls being all matey and self-effacing, saying how things were different, yet the same, in their day. It's very difficult to cut public spending, you know. But there's a black hole to be filled and it's got to be done somehow.

Thirty more years of this?

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:38:13 PDT

So this is how it goes.

Labour gets into power after years of Tory "cuts". Labour pours money into the industries suffering "cuts". Country runs out of money. Tories take over. They "cut". Tory supporters blame the previous administration. Labour supporters blame the Tories. Tories spend a decade or so slowly getting the country back on track. The "cut" industries get increasingly desperate. "The Tories hate us. They only care about the rich. They hate the poor, the disabled, the gays, the nurses". Finally, the Tories balance the books. Hey, at last we can now afford to have Labour again! Along comes another Labour government.

Guess what they do?

I have seen the rest of my life.

A few weeks' back BBC Parliament ran an episode of "Tonight" from 1979, the night the Callaghan government lost a vote of confidence. Labour bloke comes on, says there have been economic difficulties, yes, but Labour are the party of the poor and need time to put things right. Up pops Liberal bloke. The British are fed-up with the two party system, apparently, and need a change. What they really want, apparently, is proportional representation. The Tory bloke - Francis Pym, no less - pops up, and says the British people are, apparently, fed up with big government, and want a less intrusive, smaller state which lets people get on with their own lives. Within reason, of course. Apparently.

This was over thirty years ago.

Kind of depressing, when you think about it.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:05:07 PDT

January 6 last year, and Derek "Dezza" Draper writes:

"It is one of politics' more surprising facts that Gordon Brown is a big fan of TV talent shows. One of the rare ways in which he relaxes is by grabbing a bottle of beer and settling down with Sarah and his eldest son in front of the telly on a Saturday night".

If you say so, Dezza.

"But has the struggling PM got the political X factor?"

Short answer: No. Long answer: Nooooooooooooo.

"Political charisma is much misunderstood, but it is a vital element in the alchemy of political success. It touches on questions of character, celebrity and image, but above all it is about authenticity".

Authenticity? Things are not looking good for the one-eyed Scotsman.

"Take the small but revealing example of his enjoyment of The X Factor. It strikes one as odd, given what else we know about him, yet just three weeks ago there was a passionate discussion over Sunday lunch at Chequers about the merits of Leon, winner of the recent series".

This gets worse. Leon, bless his cotton socks, was a terrible singer. How he won is a mystery that has plagued X Factor connoisseurs for generations. But you can't have a passionate discussion about it. It isn't humanly possible. As Dezza asks:

"But - and this is where one has to speak directly to Brown, and address his fears and insecurities - Gordon, why do you like it?
For heaven's sake, don't tell us it 'promotes aspiration in a global creative economy'. Come on, what's in your gut? Why do you like the ridiculous programme - just tell us.".

Go on, Gordy. Explain.

"It doesn't matter whether your reason is silly or embarrassing. Tell people the truth - that you originally got hooked because the TV would be left on after you'd watched the football and it's something the whole family can share".

Oh. Is that all?

"I know that you are privately appalled by the way David Cameron uses his children in photoshoots, but modern campaigning requires you to introduce your family to the nation".

Shocking, isn't it? Tory politicians using their private lives for political gain. I hope no one in Downing Street would ever stoop to such behaviour. Uh-oh.

"Your office is as chaotic as Tony Blair's was coldly clinical. Emails burst on to your extra-large computer screen, files topple on every surface and there are always three or four books cracked open so you can snatch a few minutes' reading whenever you can. Let the public see this side of you".

We just did. Didn't work.

"Who cares if you sometimes seem a bit intense? Start thinking and speaking from the heart and you will show people that, with all your flaws and rough edges, you are at least authentic".

Oh dear. Back to that.

"To deliver on this mission you need to get the mechanics right. Your team in No 10 should be expanded - bring in some heavy hitters - inspired and empowered to take decisions where they can".

Like Mr. McBride, you mean?

"But you will need to reveal more of who you are - warts and all - to the public so that they can get to know, and therefore trust, you to make it all happen.
You will know from your Saturday night viewing that X Factor fans have a track record of voting for the underdog, the less slick act rather than the super-smooth performer".

They also have a track record of voting off the inauthentic, Dezza. Brown's finished. The only issue is when.

Derek "Dezza" Draper is a psychotherapist. Honestly. There's enough material there for an entire conference.