DISQUS

Not A Sheep: yes, but we have to go to the Court Of Public Opinion.

Lot's more juicy stuff coming up to spoil McBroon's week: BBC Online still repeating Harperson's Sunday nonsense, meanwhile Radio 4 slipped in a quickie (as per Daily Mail) that "the Treasury are unhappy at her comments" and The Daily Mash sum it up well: Obscene Gravity Must Go!

What is going on? Have ZNL discipline troops forgotten to turn up for work today? Now the BBC Radio 4 lead story, on the hour etc, is John McFall (ZNL, Scottish) chairharperson of the Treasury Committee saying "the government has got to answer whether the (Shed's) deal was in fact contractual or not". That is "the government" as in McFall's own ZNL party. You can sure tell the Dear Leader is away for a few days; who's supposed to be in charge. Don't tell me it's har of the sore bum? I take it this fun will last till McSnot has his triumphal meeting with Odamabomba...

More delicious falling apart of ZNL and their Union friends. Harperson was particularly dotty this morning on the BBC and her comments are the BBC Online lead article and being repeated every hour as BBC's top news story. I am not sure why no one has noticed quite how primed for backfire are the things she is saying, albeit they follow the Prime Mentalist's similarly stupid ramblings re Fred The Shedload in Bristol on Saturday. Is Harperson just repeating and exaggerating the stupid stuff in panic having had her ample arse kicked by the McBroon last week? Or is she clever enough to reward the Dear Leader's kicking by a subtle (some might say feminine) reprisal of her own ie by making the rug under his feet ever more ample she precipitates his fall as the rug is pulled? Hmmm...


In case you missed the loading of the backfire cartridges they included: that Fred "should not count on keeping the money", that "the Prime Minister has said that it is not acceptable and therefore it will not be accepted", that "it is not a pension because he is not retired, it is a severance payment and therefore money for nothing", "it is not going to happen; the PM has said it is not acceptable", "it might be enforceable in a Court of law, this contract, but it is not acceptable in the 'court of public opinion' and that is where this government steps in", and "the PM has been quite emphatic about this and (Fred) is not going to be better off by £650,000 a year".



So, Harriet, if the Prime Mentalist fails to deliver on this one (as anyone with half a brain has already realised he will not unless ZNL manage to knobble Fred), er what next?



Oh and as for the "court of public opinion" being a higher court than the courts of law, well all I can say is fooking fooking fooking delicious. Tall hats and fireworks all round and immediately!

This spat between ZNL and The Shed is getting lovelier and lovelier. The McBroon has now spake unto his people and he is personally vowing to get the pension back! Nicely put up for a fall or a con and or either way to blame the next bogeyman ("overpaid lawyers/HR consultants/IOD, greedy, greedy, greedy"). Interesting to compare the reporting though, for example...


The BBC reports McBroon as saying: "When banks fail... the people who make the mistakes cannot and should not run off with entitlements and with additional discretionary payments... this is unjustifiable, unacceptable and we are going to clean up the banks so that this doesn't happen again."



Whilst Reuters say he said: "The people who make the mistakes cannot and should not run off with entitlements and with additional discretionary payments that people like me believe they shouldn't have."



The Reuters version leaves open the government to criticism (as per this blog) that ZNL pensions and discretionary payments (a la Fatty Prescott) should also be clamped down on so as not to "reward failure". The BBC version neatly neuters the Great Leader's words so they cannot come back and bite him on his bum.



Prefer Reuters; and doesn't he come across as the petulant one: "people like me dinna like it mister!". Mmm, and? "It was them big boys that did it an' they ran away. It was'nae me, I'll help you look for 'em mister".

Overheard; the photographer and his assistant are talking whilst taking this photo...


Photographer: "Not what I got into this profession for. Photo-journalism is where my heart is. I often daydream of working for a major newspaper, caught in the middle of an epic disaster such as a flood of biblical proportions. I'm there taking career-defining photographs while nature unleashes all of its destructive fury. Then suddenly I see a man struggling in the water. He is fighting for his life trying not to get taken down with the debris. I move in closer and realise it's Gordon Brown and the raging water is about to take him under forever."



Assistant (interrupting): "Jeeze! The moral dilemma: you can jump in and save the life of the Prime Minister or shoot a dramatic Pulitzer Prize-winning photo documenting the death of one of the country's most powerful men!"



Photographer: "Nope, the dilemma is would you select high contrast colour or go with the simplicity of black and white..."

Ambrose I am not reading anymore, 23 years of reading this regulatory stuff in a professional capacity is enough. For you though, from reading my post I have no idea how you came up with the conclusion that I "believe the Tories" etc. You should have taken more of an interest in the comprehension bits of your English GCSE. Take the day off and take Calamity Fuckwit with you, please. You are all very boring today and I am hung over. LRRH you are an economic dunce and spouting party political nonsense, also my suits are not shiny and I don't sell anything. Talk about preconceptions matey. And less of the personal vitriol please; grow up eh?

I've calmed down a bit. Ambrose you are indeed silly; the Tories are not in government and have no forum to "oppose" banking strategy which itself does not evolve in parliament but is private enterprise that, supposedly, was being regulated and supervised by your Dear Leader's tri-partite regulatory structure. Repeat, there was and is no forum for the Tories to be involved in any of this. Your party have been presiding over this for 12 years and with a huge majority. You. No one else. I cannot be bothered to go into the Deregulate Mortgages stuff because you are a slimy party propagandist and I spent 23 years of my life living and breathing financial services and was a qualified (FFS) compliance fooking officer latterly under your mates the FSA. You need to catch up on 23 years of reading before we discuss Redwood again because my attempts at explaining things to you succinctly so far have clearly been fruitless. Go to Redwood's blog and discuss your "points" directly with him, he might have more patience with you. Your party political nonsense might go down well with dopey student activists but some of us on here have actually been adults in this country for too many fooking years to be constantly and successfully conned by ZaNuLab morons. Take the day off and go save some fooking Africans FFS. Now I'm all het up again...

I too exploded at this twat this morning on Today; ZNL "delivered 10 years of sustainable fooking growth and prosperity"; WTF? "It was the bankers what did us with their greed, greed, greed". WTF? The 10 years of fooking "growth" "prosperity" and "jobs for our mates" are all home to roost now you ignorant twat ie the bills require paying and that is why your fooked up government is being forced to pay. FFS. He wants RBS to stop paying and let Fred The ShedLoad "take us to Court". You know what, fatty, good plan. I reckon we all just stop paying our taxes to you twats and let you twats take us all to Court. OMG I am Mr Pissed-off today, need a cup of tea and a lie down. And as for Ambrose, Inquisition or Deregulate Mortgages, don't bother; my thoughful response to you today is Fook Off!

Daily Mash reports that G McBroon Refuses To Hand Back Pension. Ho, ho

Anonymous at 7.48pm re "fraud"; this links in quite well with the Scottish QC's case against RBS which has now failed as the legal system ranges up behind the bank, see QC Abandons Case. The principle was good, and similar to my earlier point re ZNL and Fred's pension ie the RBS when they presented the rights issue were either incompetent (because they had no idea of what their actual financial position was) or dishonest (because they knew and withheld the truth). Shame there was no big money behind the case to support it into a higher court but there you go. Another can of worms maybe when we have a surfeit of canned worms.

Apologies if already posted but looks like Fred The ShedLoad will not give up the dough and is quite happy to drop the government in it too by claiming they all knew about his pension. See BBC Pension Vow. Same old, same old; either HM Govt too thick to know what they are doing (incompetent) or got "found out" and going through the motions (dishonest). No wonder they are putting on this knees up; agree with others that at £50 a head this is a very unlikely way to raise funds, I suggest this is a reverse funding exercise and the event is actually being subsidised by ZNL at £100 per head so they can all start to kiss and make up. And where was my bleeding invite?

Stanislav via Swiss bob at 8.03pm makes a fair point, Guido, (I think) in as much as the mod delay does mean that some of what fetches up is then disjointed and often a repeat of something posted earlier. Bit like a conversation via a translator plus with a transatlantic time delay; losing some of the sharpness. What happened to the idea of rating contributors so, maybe, they pass through (until copybooks are blotted) and others await modding? Also maybe a "report" tab so's you can be alerted by readers and retro-mod if required? Just a thought on a boring Wednesday evening...I know you are Sunday Times Top One Hundred Blog anyway and can ignore us.


wv: schichar = from where Stanislav watches the schigulls

Sad but keep 'em peeled, Guido, ZNL won't be able to resist dropping out the odd stinker in these next few days; good day for it etc.

I know the charges differ (follow my earlier links) based on "causal link" but how do the respective sentences follow the tariff system for example?


Also read the first paragraphs of the BBC reports (slightly different words/weighting)though both were sending/receiving multiple texts prior to the crash (Ahmed 5, Curtis 21). Curtis crash preceded Ahmed by one month, they were doing similar speeds on a motorway, at night; actions the same, just that one finished texting slightly earlier. Lucky for him.



But what of the sentencing? Where are we in the spectrum for these different offences?

I know the charges differ but any Learned Friends out there care to comment professionally on these cases?


BBC: Ahmed



BBC: Curtis



PS I don't mean send me an invoice, of course...

See You Jimmy 9.16pm February 24th, re excess drinking; there are lots of complex (and out of date and contradictory, you need to watch the methodology and the authors) bits of research out there but there is some support for the view, which those of us out on the streets believe we witness, that increased state benefits end up getting spent on alcohol. Here is an example: Child Benefit Goes On Alcohol. But there are complications around eg actual cost of alcohol and what and where purchased so for example cheapness when eg White Lightning is bought from a supermarket buggers up percentage of household income expended figures etc. Maybe the hospital and associated crime figures actually point to the more truthful picture? Add to that illegal drugs of course, a "family" purchase that the left-leaning pro-government think tanks tend not to have a category for...same impact/effect etc and what money do they think people on benefits use for drugs if not benefit money? Ho hum. Back under the carpet methinks.

"House values will stay up, banks will lend you the money, wages will rise, savings will rise, billions of Africans will be saved, taxes will reduce, all cars and vans will be electric, our carbon output will be decimated, China and India's carbon output too, we will build houses, houses, houses and whole eco-towns and their values will always rise and in times when they might not we will lend you money to overpay for them so that they do anyway. We will do this, we will do all this for you; and I will see to that because I saved you all!"






(Shout in dark): "Fook off you mental Scottish tosser, none of us under this bastard bridge get any sleep since you arrived...and leave my frigging cardboard alone, cnut, or I'll deck you."

Good to note that there are not the Tory equivalent of nasty stupid dogma-laden ZaNuLab party mongs over at Conservative Home. The comments appear even-handed at worst and positively in favour of Dave getting an early grip on the troughing mentality. Here. Not a perfect world but at least they're not blaming it all on America or whatever and survive without the party machinery of the press and BBC in tow.

I know I have bored everyone to death on this subject in previous posts but all of these schemes (including Housing Association shared ownership etc) should become redundant if the market was actually allowed to act normally ie without manipulation. Markets react to supply and demand (in property that also includes supply/demand for credit) and requires buyers and sellers. If the most a buyer wants to pay or can afford to pay is (for example) £100,000 why manipulate the market so the property is "worth" £130,000 and the government (or developer) then owns a part of "your" house? The reason can only be political (a) to maintain the con that everything is well and you are wealthy and (b) to ensure that more and more of the population is beholden to government so votes for it. The country actually needs a strong strategy for rented housing in these current times but instead this government as usual is focused on its own political ends.

Guardian poll in: Tories 42 (-2), ZaNuLab 30 (-2), Libs 18 (+2). No surprises. Likely BBC headline: Labour Surge in the Polls, Tractor Production Up.

Off thread but it even looks like Al-Qaeda funding for dirty bomb attacks has been hit by the credit crunch: Urine Campaign. Sorry, it made me smile...


Twice. wv = rato sect

Mr Prescott will soon be elevated to the position of "national treasure"; he can clearly be personable and amusing (albeit inadvertently) and once nowhere near any of the levers of power I predict his regular appearance on TV and radio shows up and down the land. Palpable relief at the demise of his and his party's days in power will translate into many a warm welcome in the green room. Unlike McBroon.

Spot on Electro-Kevin. That is why the property market is in collapse and McSnot says he wants (a) to support house prices (b) banks to revert to their previous lending and (c) a return to savings and thrift. None of these things are possible in practice of course in conjunction with the others and that is why the man is mental. Unless he could triple average income virtually overnight by triggering hyper-inflation Mugabe style ... but he wouldn't do that, would he? If you own a farm lock those gates tonight.

Anyone know if the Prescott baby the so-called Pathfinder scheme is still buying up rows of period houses in the North East and North West and bulldozing them?


Not sure if anyone ever mentioned this to Treasury wonk Kate Barker who was in 2004 telling us about how many trillions of houses needed building and who has re-emerged today fronting a housebuilding organisation (telling us how many houses need building).



Just wondered if someone had pressed the stop button...