HIGGINS CARTOONS

Demonised and Vilified

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 02:16:00 +0000

29th July 2010

'Sometimes you step off the pavement and get hit by a bus' grumbled the ex BP Chief in a fit of pique, blaming his plight on the unfairness of the press, whom he said had 'demonised and vilified' him. Of course, as we step off the pavement, most of us don't get hit by a bus carrying £12M in pension and payoff salary on our way to another job within the company with an expectation of up to £4M a year in pay and bonus to cushion the blow.

So Tony, a little advice, stop whinging and suck it up... like you should have in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Bill...

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:06:00 +0000

28th July 2010

As budget cuts loom, police services up and down the country look to the past for ways to maintain law and order, save money and slash overtime.

The emphasis will be to get officers on the street in a productive role, not back in the station doing paperwork.

We're going to see a return to the traditional lone bobby on the beat, using the latest technology to work efficiently.

To paraphrase Detective Inspector Gene Hunt "It's time to fire up the bicycle".

BP-To Russia with love...

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:26:00 +0000

27th July 2010

Outgoing BP Chief Tony Hayward, and by outgoing I don't mean bubbly, unless you count the black stuff spewing out of his oil pipe into the Gulf of Mexico, no, I mean "leaving his job by mutual consent", is off.

He's been reassigned to a joint venture in Russia with BP-TNK, taking with him a pension pot of £11M and a years salary of over £1M.

Why Russia? We can only speculate, but the person he's replacing had to be smuggled out in fear of his life amidst death threats... it would appear Tony "I just want my life back" has been sent to the Eastern Front.

Lockerbie disaster II

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 22:18:00 +0000

22nd July 2010

On his first official visit to America, the Prime Minister David Cameron has taken a bit of a kicking from President Obama, BP is knocking out enough oil into the Gulf of Mexico to write it's initials in the water large enough to be seen from the moon, and Britain has announced it's military withdrawal plans from Afghanistan in 2014... However one thing Cameron isn't taking it on the chin for, is the Scottish Executives decision to release the ailing Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who seems to have made a miraculous recovery since his repatriation. As the drip, drip, drip of oil rings suspiciously in the ears of the American Senate, only time will tell if Scotland was acting with a compassionate heart or haggling in blood.

The Third Mandelson

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:34:00 +0000

20th July 2010

Murder has been committed, and yet again Mandelson knows where the body is buried. He has plugged his book to death and now points a boney finger from every television, newspaper & magazine to where we can find it's stinking corpse.

In his desire to please & sell, he dishes dirt, fawns & teases on television slots and even dresses as a camp, luvvie storyteller, complete with smoking jacket and smirk.

His book reveals that Blair and Brown didn't get on... "The Third Man", a one dimensional tale from a two-faced snitch.

Veiled threat?

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:43:00 +0000

14th July 2010

Following a Belgian ban on the burkha the French parliament has adopted a formal motion that the burkha is "an affront to the nation's values".

President Nicolas Sarkozy supports the ban and his cabinet is considering a draft bill featuring a one-year prison sentence and fines up to £14,000 on husbands who force their wives to wear a burkha.

The new law would create an offence of "incitement to cover the face for reasons of gender".

Poor Michael Jackson must be spinning in his grave.

World Cup Final Result 2010

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:15:00 +0000

12 July 2010

In a game dirtier than Tony Haywards wellies, Spain have snatched the 2010 World Cup from Holland with an extra-time goal scored by Andres Inesta, giving them a well deserved 1-0 win against the ever more defensively hacking Dutch team in Johannesburg.

English referee, Howard Webb, will be lucky to get away without injury, not from physical violence, but from the repetitive strain of raising his yellow and red cards throughout the match, he issued 13 bookings, resulting in one Dutch sending-off.

Spain now holds both the European and the World Cup, becoming only the third nation to achieve this accolade. Holland, you leave with nothing...

Whoah woe...

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 01:39:00 +0000

Poor old Toyota, first they couldn't get them to stop, now they can't get them to go. There may be a recall of up to 3,200 Toyotas in the UK because of an engine fault in their top end Lexus and Crown models, the fault can cause the vehicle to stall while moving. I've seen lots of little toot-toot cars doing that, but most of them have a white pyramid with red L plates stuck on the roof.

Worldwide Toyota has now recalled over 10 million vehicles since September 2009, however, most of those recalls were over the risk of unintentional speeding up, not the risk of unintentional conking out.

The Lexus customer relations team telephone number is 01737 367 601, and they don't find it funny if you ask them for co-ordinates to the nearest American aircraft carrier, take my word for that...

Rooney booked

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:05:00 +0000

Staying doggedly consistent, footballs 'golden generation' still can't put a boot right.

After flying out on holiday yesterday Rooney has come under fire for booking his flights to Barbados BEFORE losing to Germany, what did he know that we didn't?

Ashley Cole is in trouble for sending a text BEFORE he left for South Africa saying "I hate England and the ****ing people". Nice, but then he does have previous on the text front, if I were his management I wouldn't let him loose with a whistle let alone a mobile phone.

World Cup National Managers Salaries

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:05:00 +0000

I might have got it all wrong (see yesterdays blog below)

I suggested Capello may not be worth what he's paid without posting the 'going annual rate' for World Cup National Managers.

To rectify that here's a list, enjoy...

National Managers Salaries

Capello (England) - £6m

Aguirre (Mexico) - £2.7m

Lippi (Italy) - £1.7m

Marwuk (Netherlands) - £1.5m

Parreira (South Africa) - £1.5m

Low (Germany) - £1.3m

Maradona (Argentina) - £830k

Bielsa (Chile) - £588k

Bradley (USA) - £345k

Herbert (New Zealand) - £25k

What do you think?

Because you're worth it...

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:46:00 +0000

The weary England squad are back on home soil and wondering if they can pin it all on the foreign johnny with the funny accent. Capello however, has made it perfectly clear that he wants to carry on with the job, who wouldn't, £6m a year to deliver absolutely nothing? Six million pounds a year, it's such an abstract figure, it's less abstract though when you work out it's £25,000 a day, every working day, day-in, day-out, I'm just going to say that again out loud... "twenty-five thousand pounds... a day". Word has it he'll be kept on... Because he's worth it? No, because it'll cost £5m to get rid off him...

England out of World Cup

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 05:51:00 +0000

England have crashed out of the World Cup to the blare of vuvuzulas and cries of despair from fans who had saved for two years to be in South Africa to cheer them on.

A truly abysmal refereeing judgment robbed Frank Lampard of his goal, again raising speculation that goal-line technology should be employed, but even had the goal been allowed it wouldn't have been enough, the young German side totally outclassed and outplayed the lackluster England squad into a humiliating 4-1 defeat, their worst ever World Cup performance.

Capello has vowed to fight for his £6m a year job (no kidding), but last night the only coach the England team were interested in was the 52 seater taking them to the Airport.

Work till you drop...

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:40:00 +0000

It makes a great headline, 'work till you drop', invoking as it does, grainy black and white images of elderly folk breaking rocks, lashed by some grinning, brute faced thug. The reality of the matter isn't quite so dreadful, the retirement age for men is being raised in four years from 65 to 66, and the default retirement age at which a company can boot you out the door for a younger, cheaper model is being scrapped.

The fact is we are leading longer, healthier lives and our pension pot can't support it, we have to do something and getting rid of compulsory retirement is a good start. A word of caution though, we need balances and checks to make sure we're not just taking 65 year olds off pensions and putting 18 year olds on benefits.

England-1 Slovenia-0

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:35:00 +0000

England win a match at last and come second in their group behind the USA.

A visibly chuffed Fabio Capello said after the match "Theeth eeth thee theem thad I thaw een thee roonob tood thee whurlcub, hi amb berry berry abby!"

Just sixteen teams remain and England seem to have found their confidence in the resounding one-nil defeat of Slovenia (pop 2m).

Germany, the next nation to face the English onslaught must be wondering just what they will have to do to stop these behemoths of the field in their bid for glory. Asked the same question a German fan said "Turn up".

George, saint or sinner...

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:10:00 +0000

It's judgement day, and as the dust settles we get a proper chance to take in the facts and figures rolled out in yesterdays emergency budget.

Was it as tough as predicted? The short answer is yes, however the cautious consensus seems to be that it was harsh, but reasonably fair. The fly in the ointment on the fairness front was the VAT hike to 20% due in January 2011. As expected, there was a huge hit on public services, in pension reform and budget reductions of 25% in all departments except overseas aid and the NHS. The mooted capital gains tax rise to 40% was watered down to 28%, not out of compassion, but because that was the optimum return rate for the treasury before people choose to sit on their hands and their assets. There was a robust and targeted benefits shake-up as anticipated.

The £155bn deficit dragon will be with us for a long time to come, but George has made a decent first stab at it.

It may be a while before he's hailed as a Saint though...

The coalition budget...

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 00:07:00 +0000

There has been a lot said about this emergency budget, suggestions that it has been over-egged to blunt whatever nasty medicine George Osborne may be about to pour down our throats now seem unlikely, the truth is that in order to slash Britains £155bn deficit it has to be as tough as they promised it would.

The most controversial measure is likely to be a shake-up of the public sector pension pot, requiring more cash input from the recipient. This will initiate strikes. Hard on the heels of the pension review will be welfare cuts and almost certainly an end to child tax credits for the middle classes. We'll probably see an increase in VAT and capital gains tax, and holiday flights may attract a levy. On the flip side the income tax allowance will be raised from £6.475 to £7,475 taking a million people out of the income tax threshold and there will be a two year freeze on council tax.

I for one am stocking up on cling peaches in the Anderson shelter...

World cup woes...

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:53:00 +0000

First I should hold my hand up and say 'I'm Scottish', however I'm not one of those ABTE's (Anyone But The English) Scots. I don't enjoy seeing any of our national teams being humiliated at anything, and as a Brit I get plenty of opportunity to test that ideology to destruction.

I should also hold my hand up and say 'I'm not really a football fan', but again this doesn't stop me cheering any of our home sides on in an international... In reality England's play hasn't provided much to cheer about, but one thing the performance has highlighted for me is their pay packets. Five of the men not scoring goals against Algeria are being payed over £150,000 per week, and even if they were scoring goals that just seems skewed in so many ways,£4,166.00 an hour? They are earning more in a day than a front line soldier serving in Afghanistan could earn in a year. Perhaps Mr Rooney wouldn't be so quick to shout down a camera lens about being booed at for a pisspoor performance if he knew the people booing him were all toting Kalashnikovs and wearing high explosive underwear.

And as for the 'intruder' to the changing rooms, get a grip, he was an England fan looking for a toilet, don't punish him for following his nose and finding a shower...

BP Chief boiled in oil

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:28:00 +0000

Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP is a walking PR nightmare. His original attitude to the scale of the Gulf of Mexico disaster hacked-off the American people, his handling of the problem hacked-off the President and now his stonewalling of questions has hacked-off Congress. His whining Facebook statement 'I just want my life back' hacked-off just about everyone else.

This smug, laconic, coiffured and bouffant geologist manages to make Monty Burns (of Simpsons fame) look like a sainted, patrician eco-warrior, even Burns would be unlikely to take time off the disaster management to race his yacht around the Isle of White...

Vuvuzelas Sir, thaaasands of em'

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:42:00 +0000

In a far flung corner of what used to be part of 'the Empire', our boys are once again outnumbered and outgunned, moral is strained and resources stretched, however, this time it has nothing to do with a lack of helicopters or body armour, although a shipment of industrial ear-defenders wouldn't go amiss. As the Englishmen stand shoulder to shoulder they face of a wall of noise unprecedented in international football. Calls are afoot to ban the offending culprit, the vuvuzela, a long horn employed, it would seem, by every African fan at the World Cup, but instead perhaps we should just get our 'own' horns out there...

Chancellors choice cuts

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:39:00 +0000

As George Osbourne, our shiny new Chancellor gears up for his first crack at a budget, suddenly all the election rhetoric spouted about who would make the biggest cuts and the widest slashes is about to take form, physical and manifest under his hand. He has to cancel the milk and find all the cash that's slipped down the back of our national couch.

And as the body politic struggles under it's huge inherited debt, we the electorate can only hope and pray, wincing through our fingers as the knife bites, that George is a clever surgeon and not a bloody butcher...

Budget responsibility

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 22:58:00 +0000

The Office for Budget Responsibility has come up with it's first set of figures, and they're not good, in fact they're grim. Had we not had this independent review and audit, effectively an economic 'State of the Nation' address, we would still be working on skewed figures and flawed forecast. The knowledge for government that figures can no longer be massaged into a fluffier, more consumer friendly outcome must ultimately be good for the country, but it's going to hurt while we, the British public, get used to being slapped in the face with fiscal kippers.

Iran sanctioned over nuclear threat

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:29:00 +0000

The UN has approved it's toughest sanctions yet on Iran, this comes amid fears the country is attempting to make nuclear weapons under the guise of a domestic nuclear programme.

At a Security Council meeting the vote was 12 to two in favour of Resolution 1929. Lebanon abstained, only Brazil and Turkey voted against it. It is aimed at nuclear related activity, ballistic missiles and the Revolutionary Guard.

Iran's President Ahmadinejad said "They are not capable of hurting Iranians". The resolution doesn't include an embargo of oil shipments... that would hurt.

Labour leadership contest

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:06:00 +0000

Well it's hat's in the ring time for the labour leadership, and had it not been for a late surge of votes for Diane Abbott the race runners would have all looked very similar, forty-something, white, male and public school educated.

There now follows a 15 week canter over the sticks to decide who should fill Gordon Browns shoes on September 25. Let's hope they have small feet.

The runners are, Abbott's Chance, Burnham Boy, Miliband the Elder, Miliband the Younger and Big Balls.

World Cup Fever

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:24:00 +0000

During the World Cup it's expected that an extra 21 million pints of beer will be drunk, which is great news for our ailing pub industry, faced with crippling competition from big chain supermarkets and their 'cheaper than water' offers on alcohol.

Unfortunately beer sales won't be the only figures to go through the roof during England's world cup campaign. Domestic violence spikes by 25%, and it goes up to 30% on the days England are beaten, perhaps 'our boys' should play in black and blue?

Cameron's Cuts

noreply@blogger.com (HIGGINS) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:50:00 +0000

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has announced that there are going to be drastic cuts to public services in order to reduce the budget deficit. These cuts, he said, are going to affect every man woman and child in the country for years, if not decades to come. The Chancellor, George Osbourne plans to use the same strategy as Canada, which managed to control their massive budget deficit by hacking 20% off their spending over three years.

This will result in nothing short of a public services amputation, brutal and prolonged, but even that is better than the alternative.