19 days ago
My friend Lucian Miers and I drank English Champagne after standing for hours outside St Paul’s to pay our respects and watch the funeral of Margaret Thatcher on 17 April 2013. We mourned as some freaks celebrated as I reported back with photos HERE. But it was even years ago today that Mrs thacher died. The video below is a reminder for younger viewers of what an amazing leader she was and of the pygmies who have led us ever since.
323 days ago
I have read a couple of books about Harold Wilson and I remember my late Uncle Christopher Booker and my late father agreeing that there were some good reasons to regard the former Prime Minister dimly. The pound in your pocket is worth the same today as it was yesterday said Wilson having just devalued the pound so it was patently worth less. The White Heat of Technology was the sort of vapid nothingness that served as a blue print for Blair’s Cool Britannia. But I was just two when Wilsonwas evicted from office the first time, by the even more useless Heath. The second time around I was eight. But i still have no real memories of what he did and I certainly never had cause to hate the man.
752 days ago
Of course, you and I know the answer. Forty years ago, at the instigation of a fascist military dictatorship, the Argies invaded a group of Islands that had never been under the control of their country, and where the folks all wanted to be British. That was the start of the Falklands war, where Lady Thatcher led Britain to victory. Frankly, they should be erecting statues of the blessed Margaret in Argentina, as that defeat led to the demise of the fascist military dictatorship.
913 days ago
It is always the way that the woke of one generation will be devoured by the woke of the next. Who could imagine that feminist icon Germaine Greer and the heroic gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell might find themselved “no platformed” on British campuses, the marxist madrassas at the cutting edge of the woke revolution? The “crime” of both Greer and Tatchell was not to understand the pyramid of victimhood and thus to question even some of the demands of those currently perched at the top of the pyramid, the Transgender community. As we discovered yesterday with lesbians who do not want to have sex with a “woman with a penis” such challenges are just not allowed and are, at once, branded as hateful and bigoted.
914 days ago
Ahead of the pointless green wankfest that is COP26, folks in the host City are getting hotter under the collar than a solar panel desperately seeking sun on the Clyde, over the fact that Glasgow appears to be over-run with rats amid piles of rubbish. Personally I reckon that is all down to global warming but others think that the blame can be pointed at a more obvious villain. So who is to blame? Is it:
967 days ago
I challenge even those who dislike Peter Tatchell, who loathe his methods or who just don’t like homosexuals, to watch this film and not come away from it both liking and admiring the man. Those of us who think that that day, just over 50 years ago, when Peter arrived in Britain to escape being drafted by Australia to fight in Vietnam, was a very fortuitous day, for it has given us a true national treasure, start in a different place. Wherever you start, I suggest you go to Netflix as I did yesterday for a most riveting film.
993 days ago
The soon to be ex wife of Michel Gove, Sarah Vine, is – for reasons I have never been able to fathom – paid vast sums to serve up a weekly diet of complete bilge in the Mail on Sunday. If Mr Gove is looking for an excuse for his historic drug use, I’d suggest that having his Mrs read her column to him each week is one that would gain the sympathy of many. Today, Vine deals with Thatcher, coal and global warming prompted by Boris Johnson telling an unfunny and factually inaccurate joke last week.
1218 days ago
I have not read the full 1500 pages of the Trade treaty between the UK and the Evil Empire. I am sure that buried in the detail are a few dastardly measures from inserted by stormtroopers from the Death Star. I don’t need to fall asleep reading it; I just look at the reactions of those who have.
1231 days ago
It is now more than thirty years since Michael Heseltine and a group of other traitors stabbed our greatest ever leader, Margaret Thatcher, in the back. I was on an underground train when the news came through. As it was heading out East to the great county of Essex, I kid you not that there were folks crying.
1233 days ago
Public school, Oxford, 5 years training to be a City lawyer, couldn’t hack it, so went to work as a policy wonk & bagg carrier for Tory MPs, after 7 years an MP and three years later, Simon Clarke, aged 36, has still not risked 1 cent of his own capital as an entrepreneur or enjoyed one day’s managerial experience making decisions in the private sector. But who cares? That is the sort of chap today’s Tories think should be running Britain. Gone are the days when Tory MPs were entrepreneurs or businessmen so understood how firms grew and hired more staff and how wealth was actually created.
1251 days ago
Boris Johnson, Princess Nut Nuts, Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock all need to watch this video as you have forgotten what capitalism and freedom of speech really means. As for students attending the Marxist Madrassas we used to call Universities, this should be compulsory viewing. From 1977 the great William Buckley interviews the greatest… Margaret Thatcher, a woman who understood why all freedoms were so vital.
1290 days ago
I have a soft spot for Lisa Nandy – the Labour MP for Wigan. I think one of my sisters or maybe it was me sat on the lap of her grandfather Lord Byers once upon a time. In what is termed show business for ugly people, Ms Nandy scrubs up fairly well. Above all, she is, by the, admittedly low, standards of her party a voice of sanity and reason. However, I am afraid that her weekend utterances might in today’s Orwellian world be described as misspeaking, you and I might call it lying.
1310 days ago
Okay, the Tory party does not believe in liberty and freedom anymore. But at least it knows that Government and money trees are not the creators of real jobs which generate wealth and tax revenues, right? Er..wrong. To her credit, Andrea Jenkyns shares just a few shreds of ideological DNA with real Tories like Margaret Thatcher. However, in the era of Boris that is not something to shout about if you wish to clamber up the greasy pole.
2025 days ago
Forcing companies to disclose the pay of men and women demonstrated two things clearly. Firstly that folks doing different jobs earned different salaries and secondly the willingness of the liberal left and the media to distort data to pursue a virtue signalling agenda, and one that lumbers business with more costs and pressures. There is a gender pay gap but its narrowing and it cannot simply be put down to sexism as I explained to the free speech loving ,angelic. multi-brained genius students at Bath Spa University here
2104 days ago
The headline in the Independent, an online publication which was once a newspaper but is now a little read comic is clear: “Biggest rise in UK poverty since Margaret Thatcher was in power, experts claim”. In lefty bingo terms it gets better with a claim by the Indy that “The figures show the extent to which a combination of Brexit and government austerity is imposing a serious squeeze on living standards.” Thatcher, Brexit, Austerity – House! Of course it is 100% fake news
2209 days ago
Yesterday was the 5 year anniversary of the death of Lady Thatcher. I celebrated by publishing a short video of the Iron lady explaining a few home truths. There have been numerous comments made by those ignorant of the facts of life in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s. In this podcast I set them straight.
2210 days ago
It is five years since the death of Margaret Thatcher, our greatest ever Prime Minister. A couple of weeks later, with my friend Lucian Miers and tens of thousands of others, I stood in silence on Ludgate Hill as her coffin passed by on its way to St Pauls. As we celebrate her life, here's a short video for the snowflakes, Maggie explains that there is no such thing as public money. Don't rush off to find a safe space in which to cry, you pathetic bedwetters but the money tree really does not exist. Take a lesson on that from a woman who grew up in a room above a corner store enjoying almost none of the luxuries, handouts and "rights" that you take for granted.
2316 days ago
Sadly, since the passing of the 22nd Amendment in 1951, the US Constitution limits a President to two terms. It would be wonderful to think of Donald Trump causing all those, who right thinking folk despise, in Hollywood, the NFL, the liberal media and the special interest groups howling with anger in perpetuity as he talks common sense and stands up for American values. But sadly the party will come to an end after his second term, in 2024. And that brings me to crooked Hillary. You know, as I approach my 50th birthday for the first time ever, I find myself agreeing with the enabler of a rapist.
2356 days ago
The BBC was forced to grovel when Lord Lawson's disstening views on the global warming scam went unchallenged on air. For many, such as Pravda's own green guru, Roger Harrabin this is a "settled science" and thus those who dare to point out things like the fact that the world is getting colder, antarctic ice is at record levels and that the computer models have all been wrong, deserve to be no platformed. On the other hand Harrabin himself is allowed to tell blatant lies which expose his innate bias and go unchallenged.
2443 days ago
In most ways I am, as you might have gathered, the black sheep of my family. Am I allowed to use that phrase anymore? The rest of them work for the State, read the Guardian and believe in money trees while worrying about the poor polar bears drowning on melting ice caps thanks to wicked folk like Donald Trump and Margaret Thatcher. But in one respect I followed a family tradition in that I managed to get into the UK's leading seat of learning, that is to say Oxford.
2485 days ago
The BBC, Channel 4 and the rest of the liberal media are telling us that this weekend is when we are "celebrate" pride. There is a massive event in London and a march has just set off here in Bristol. I am sure there are events across the land.
2608 days ago
We are waiting at Warwick Hospital for a scan and to help pay the bloated wages of the greedy doctors there is a mini second hand bookstore - buy any volume for just 50p. I spot Margaret Thatcher, the Downing Street Years and hand over three 20p pieces saying "keep the change". Bargain and double bargain.
2846 days ago
Jeepers this is confusing: listening and watching Theresa May yesterday I was told that she has just become leader of the Conservative Party and will be our next Tory Prime Minister. So why was she sounding like a socialist but also a peddler of bogus religion? If this is the best the Tories can offer then, to quote a real Tory Margaret Thatcher, There IS No Alternative. TINA says it is time to quit and emigrate.
It is not that Mrs May is already speaking weasel words on Brexit. She states Brexit means Brexit but then waffles on about how we may have to accept certain things to get free trade. Mrs May we voted for full on Brexit, not Brexit light.
It was not the quasi evangelical clap trap
2972 days ago
Living with a Guardian reading sociology lecturer I need no reminding that it is International Women's day. Natch I gave the Mrs a thankful pay on the backside after she cooked my breakfast and reminded her that my new West Ham top was a bit dirty and that she should not forget it when putting the clothes wash on. But how to celebrate this great event? With some photos of women from around the world who show that there are no glass ceilings, who demonstrate how powerful women can be, who are role models for our daughters and who will infuriate every feminist in town. Let's start with some athletes.
3156 days ago
A play on the great Margaret Thatcher speech from 1980. If you have forgotten it the video is below. In this podcast I look at Greece and its Election. It does not matter. Whover wins the most votes Angela Merkel will still be running the Hellenic Republic after the polls close. Then onto an interesting threat to stockbrokers such as Hargreaves Lansdowne. Finally onto Tern. I do not dislike Angus Forrest but discuss issues of corporate transparency and valuation.
3394 days ago
As you may know the Mrs has decreed that I cannot work in the house because I make it untidy, stop her having freedom to canoodle three legged cat Oakley, watch Coronation Street and “work” on Facebook, etc. And so I was consigned to the garage as my new study. As October turned to November I flagged up that the garage was a little on the nippy side.
And so for Christmas by biggest present was a radiator. I have until now managed to avoid using it and have happily worked away in the kitchen. The Mrs has this morning put her little feet down and so I am now in the garage. The radiator is blasting away against my left leg which is toasting nicely. My right leg is about surviving. But above the desk my fingers are freezing as I tap away. I suppose it keeps me awake. The Mrs is however almost quoting the blessed Margaret – of whom she strongly disapproves: “The lady is not for turning.”
Meanwhile as a birthday present I am to be allowed to give a lecture to the sociology students currently taught by the Mrs. These impressionable young people currently have their minds filled with all sorts of nonsense
3671 days ago
The Tory party can normally rely on the support of hard working folks who just want to keep more of what they earn and make a better life for them and their families. Today it is sending a message out that it does not give a flying fuck about those folk, as long as its fat, out of touch, sleazy inner circle are looked after. The Tory party and David Cameron will not be forgiven for Maria Miller.
The Culture secretary has made a million quid profit flogging her house. It was the taxpayer who funded that “investment” as Maria Miller fiddled her expenses. Maria Miller stole money from hard working taxpayers to make herself even richer.
So out of touch, stupid or arrogant is David Cameron that he does not see how the continued presence of Mrs Miller as an MP let along a minister is a complete insult to the very folks who normally are his core constituency.
It is clear that a lot of Tories cannot sense that anger but instead blather on about how this is a media storm whipped up by papers who are hostile to Miller over gay marriage or Leveson. They assume that with these patent smears they can deflect attention from the key issue her: Mrs Miller has made a million quid by bending the rules and using taxpayer’s cash. And we the peasants are furious.
Thatcher or Tebbitt would have realised this
3672 days ago
Just a quick note reflecting that it was a year ago today that Margaret Thatcher died. She did not get everything right but was, in my view, our greatest Prime Minister. At the time I greatly mourned her passing and stood near St Pauls on the day of the funeral to show my respects.
I was reflecting on her achievements yesterday after a chat with an ex Tory voting cabbie. He was a man to rather disproved stereotypes when it comes to cabbies. For instance he thought UKIP’s immigration policies all wrong – he admired those who came her from Europe to do the jobs lazy Brits on welfare simply will not do.
We both admired Thatcher greatly. She was a woman who had taken a proper job outside politics. A woman who showed how the Tory party could be one of meritocracy not simply a part of the establishment and of career politicians. Yes, the contrast is with Call Me Dave Cameron. The Tory party was the first to be led by a Jew, it was the party that expanded the electoral franchise most aggressively, and it was the first to be led by a woman. This was the party that used to believe in assisting poorer working class voters by liberating them economically with lower taxes, the ability to buy their council house, the freedom not to join a Union. I hope and expect that the first major party to have a non-white leader will be the Tories.
The Tories should be the party of opportunity. Thatcher appreciated that and so was able to connect with many outside the traditional conservative tent. Call Me Dave is cut from a rather different cloth.
RIP Lady Thatcher
3682 days ago
I have to flag up this piece from yesterday by my fave Tory Blogger Charlotte Argyle becuase it is a? very good and b) seems to have wound up a series of lefties. Well done on both counts Ms Argyle. The daughter of Thatcher writes...
I like Bankers..... There you go I said it. My guilty little secret is out. What I don’t like though, is the concept of an organisation being too big to fail.
3694 days ago
In a secret meeting George Osborne apparently stated that more folks paying 40% tax is good news. They feel happier because they feel like they are successful and have joined the middle classes and so will share Tory values and vote for his party. At every level these claims are stupendously stupid.
As a Conservative I believe that folks should pay as little tax as possible – I have always thought that this was a core conservative belief. We believe in a small state and a society where one is encouraged to work harder to earn and keep more money, not just to pay more in tax for an ever bigger Government to piss away. And I always thought that George Osborne was meant to be a Conservative. Have I missed something? Has he joined the Lib Dems?
If folks are mad enough to want to pay more tax then they always have the right to send a cheque off to the Treasury and make a voluntary donation. But it should be their call. Not that of a patronising dicked like George Osborne.
As to the idea that if the State steals more of my money then I am likely to reward the party in power? This is sheer folly.
Osborne like most of the out of touch upper class twits who dominate the Conservative Party these days has no idea how the aspirational working and middle classes think. They come from the classes who believe, to quote Leona Helmsley, that tax is for little people.” They come from families who have never had to juggle bills and dip into overdraft to pay the mortgage or to pay for Christmas. They simply have no idea how ordinary folks live and struggle.
It is inconceivable that anyone in the Conservative party of Thatcher, Tebbit and Joseph would have spouted such nonsense. But then they were not patrician fools like the current Tory elite.
3697 days ago
The veteran Labour politician Tony Benn has this morning died aged 88. As is the case, even for Bob Crow, his family have my sympathies. So what to make of Wedgie? This may rather surprise you.
Anthony Wedgwood Benn was an aristocrat who renounced his seat in the Lords to fight for what he believed in from the House of Commons. And he certainly had strong beliefs. During the 70s and 80s as Energy Minister in the appalling Callaghan Government and then in opposition he tried to swerve the Labour party violently to the left and he almost succeeded. He did his part in making Labour utterly unelectable and thus gave the blessed Margaret a good stretch in office. For that he deserves our eternal gratitude.
My grandfather, Sir John Winnifrith, was a Bennite. After retiring from the Civil Service he was for the first time in his live, as head of the National Trust & War Graves Commission, able to speak his mind. And thus in the 1975 EU referendum campaign he found himself now and again speaking on the same platform as his hero. Their reasoning for opposing staying in the Evil Empire was that it was a construct to make rich farmers and industrialists richer at the expense, largely via food prices, of the working classes.
I am not sure that I follow their logic but at least I could agree with my Grandfather and Benn on one thing, the EU was a bad thing.
In his declining years Benn came to be seen as a bit of a National Treasure.
3733 days ago
For the second day the complete bastards in Bob Crow’s RMT Union have paralysed the London Underground with industrial action. The time has come when someone needs to deal with these greedy and selfish complete and utter bastards.
This strike is over plans to phase out manned ticket kiosks and replace them with machines. Most folks already use machines out of choice since they are quicker and more efficient that the folks who man kiosks who are almost without exception grotesquely overweight, utterly surly and spectacularly unintelligent. Those who currently use kiosks will not struggle with the machines. We live in 2014 not 1914.
This mechanisation will cost 950 jobs. But other roles are to be expanded so creating 250 jobs on the tube while 1,000 staff have actually applied for redundancy. So there will be no forced redundancies. Yet the tube drivers are on strike.
To be a tube driver requires six weeks training. It is not like learning to be a heart surgeon. Yet tube drivers earn an average of £45,000 for a 35 hour week and get perks like free travel for the family which are worth a couple of thousand more. They are set to get a wage hike to £50,000 in 2015. They have managed to secure such great packages
3765 days ago
I am sure that for many readers of this blog there have been two highlights of the Christmas News Season. The first came from Call Me Dave Cameron who arranged a photo shoot with a foxy blonde lady who was one of the first to use taxpayers cash to buy a flat under the Government’s Help to Buy scheme ( also known as lets bribe the fools with their own cash by inflating the housing bubble to win the election scheme).
It has since emerged that this bird (Ms Sharon Ray) did not need taxpayer’s cash at all since she drives a £33,000 sports car. Better still, the Estate Agent who pocketed a handy commission for selling the flat to the foxy bird was in fact the foxy bird herself. Great photo op Call Me Dave and I am delighted that my taxes are going to such a worthy cause.
Only one event trumps this triumph for the heir to Blair and it was the stranding in ice packs of the Russian research vessel Akademik Shokalskiy over Christmas. This ship was carrying 52 passengers (including research scientists and, naturally, reporters from the BBC and its sister paper The Guardian) and was travelling to the Antarctic to investigate how global warming was melting the ice packs.
I would have thought that they would have been more successful had they been trying to find a bunch of Shepherds, three wise men and a virgin in Cardiff City Centre. They would at least have found the shepherds. Antarctic ice is in fact at levels not seen since modern records began. I know that the computer models
3768 days ago
The last time we drove out to the reservoir at Chew Magna it was a placid little puddle nestling in the Somerset hills – barely a ripple on its surface. So it was an idea place for a bracing New Year’s Day walk we thought. Okay there is a bit of wind and rain but we are hardy folk.
I think that the rain beating down on the windshield so that you could see barely twenty yards ahead should have been a clue. As we arrived all the ducks and seagulls were huddling looking rather cold behind a wall well off the water. That should have been another hint for the Mrs and I.
The wind was so strong that this small reservoir suddenly looked like the North Sea.
3795 days ago
I regard the late Nelson Mandela as a hero but the media coverage of his sad demise is somewhere between OTT and nauseating.
Why is he a hero? Apartheid was an evil regime and he played his part in its overthrow. He wasted the best part of his life in prison for the cause but the same could be said for many who stand up to evil. For me his heroism was in his actions post-Apartheid.
I could understand had he been bitter but if he was he hid it well. The way he showed forgiveness, compassion and was reconciliation embodied, was truly heroic. Moreover – in stark contrast to those now running the ANC – when gaining power he did not plunder the State’s coffers for personal gain as he could have done.
For anyone of my age Mandela truly was a hero of our era.
However, as the UK suffers the worst storms in living memory and one or two other things happen which might not please the BBC (the most upbeat Autumn statement in years), the wall to wall coverage on Mandela’s demise at the expense of all other news is OTT. Having listened to the same soundbites about ten times today I gave up on the news and will only start watching it again in a few days when the Mandela-fest has eased.
But the worst part of it is the excuse it has given the BBC and other twisted and deluded lefties to rewrite history and bash the Tories, notably Margaret Thatcher.
3835 days ago
There are now almost a year’s worth of video postcards loaded up on this site and the topics have been pretty wide ranging. Today there are two topics.
1. When will the Global warming nutters concede, Margaret Thatcher and Nuclear power.
This refers to an article I published earlier this week HERE
2. The House price bubble and the disgrace of Government policy.
In between I manage to mention the Great British Bake-off and the dismal reaction of Call Me Dave.
My financial video postcard on www.shareprophets.com covers 1987, storms, crashes and also housing and can be viewed HERE
3849 days ago
The highlight of the week was Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee, possibly the most annoying and stupid woman alive today, blaming the 2007 death of Baby P on the wicked Tories. I am sure you can spot the flaw in that pathetic smear.
With that in mind I have arrived in the Grim North, where Labour likes to keep folk poor so that they still support the People’s Party, for a weekend with the in-laws. It has rained solidly since we passed passport control in Leicestershire and so I have not ventured out to check out the poverty porn in great detail. But I guess that all those folks whose welfare payments won’t stretch to buying shoes will be feeling pretty cold, wet and miserable as they troop off to the local to blame everything on Thatcher and the bankers.
Since I am assured that no-one up here bothers getting up before midday I shall pop out tomorrow to have a look around. But in this vein, for this week’s caption contest I ask you to supply a witty few words for the picture below.
3912 days ago
I am sure that this will get me into trouble in some quarters but can someone explain why there are so many fat and stupid people in Scotland? I start with its leader Alex Salmond. Faced with the fact that Scotland is the third fattest nation in the world ( after the US & Mexico) and getting fatter the Scots Government says
“We are investing more than £7.5 million between 2012 and 2015 on projects to encourage healthy eating.”
a) How much has been spent on such projects between 2009 and 2012 and did Scotland get fatter or thinner? So why spend more money?
b) You are not investing. Scotland is a heavy net taker from the Union in fiscal terms. So you are taking money from English taxpayers and not investing it (that implies you get a return) but pissing it away creating yet more non jobs.
Okay, so we have established the Scottish Government is thick and as it happens its leader Mr. Salmond is a real lardbucket. So what about the folks he claims to lead?
3989 days ago
This week’s video postcard comes from Berlin. I was staying an hour outside the City for a wedding and today came into town. I spent a good couple of hours at the City’s Jewish Museum, more on that later. But the first point of call was Checkpoint Charlie.
The picture of what remains of Charlie is below. As you can see it is now a tourist mecca surrounded by all the symbols of Western capitalism at its trashiest.
4006 days ago
I have been meaning to do this for a while but only today have we launched a new range of T-shirts, mugs and sweatshirts dedicated to our greatest ever Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. I am ordering a sweatshirt and T-shirt in blue but kind of fancy the red Che style too. My deluded lefty partner has already said that I am not allowed to wear these outfits at events where her deluded lefty friends might be present. We shall see. For wandering round liberal bastions such as Clifton and Islington I can think of nothing better to wear. Although the It’s Time to Leave T-shirt gets some good comments.
You can order your Viva Maggie T-shirts, mugs and hoodies only at our online store here.
4011 days ago
David Cameron: an out of touch, principle free, liar – a Godsend to UKIP
147 net gains for UKIP on Thursday was a political earthquake. The political classes are scared. They do not like it up ‘em.
Like most folks I was first attracted to UKIP over the EU. It wants out of the Evil Empire and so do I. Does it have any other policies? Yes. Do I agree with all of them? No. But where we disagree on matters like immigration UKIP at least accepts that the current system (easy entry + free welfare) is a joke and unworkable. UKIP would make entry impossible & keep welfare, I would make it automatic but scrap the welfare.
My point is that UKIP is instinctively right in that it sees – as do – most folks in Britain – that there is a vast problem. In its DNA UKIP is on the right track. The established parties have – for years – made it clear that the immigration system needed minor adjustments. They have lied about the scale of immigration, tarred anyone who questioned the system as a racist and then occasionally made tiny changes which stop skilled workers coming here ( who we want) in order to win grubby votes and Daily Mail headlines.
And so when David Cameron or Ken Clarke or any of the other mainstream politicos of all three parties tarred UKIP as racist in the past they meant it. That is what they actually believed. When they now say they are “listening” and must “connect with the views of those who voted UKIP” it is just another big fat lie. It is a lie born out of desperation.
And that brings us to David Cameron
4016 days ago
Christopher Booker founded Private Eye, was campaigning journalist of the year several times in the 1970s and as a columnist on the Sunday Telegraph and ( sometimes) on the Daily Mail he is a scourge of global warming nutters, the EU and all things that right thinking folks despise. He is also my uncle and godfather. And he knew the late Margaret Thatcher well. His speech at UK Investor Show on April 13 reflects on that and on Maggie’s U-Turns on Europe and on global warming as well as setting the record straight on her attitude to apartheid. It is a stormer.
4024 days ago
Better late than never, this caption contest comes to you from the North Terminal at Gatwick Airport where I am spending the night ahead of an early flight. Of course there were only two stories last week: the Funeral of our Greatest ever Prime Minister and the attacks in Boston. At 3 AM in the morning I am not sure I can say anything much about either but as you look at tomorrow’s leaders below do your best in this week’s caption contest.
Post your entries in the comments section below:
For what it is worth my entry is:
“This champagne’s too warm…I blame Thatcher”
Or
“The BBC interviews a representative cross section of young people in its coverage of the passing of Lady Thatcher”
4024 days ago
Romany Blythe ( pictured) is my age, 45, and her 15 minutes of fame have arrived thanks to her organising parties to celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher. That in itself is horrible. But to understand why Romany is such a nasty piece of work look at the story of her adult life.
There is the fact that although she had a well-paid job as a teacher Islington Council gave her a council flat in a pleasant house – a nice mid terrace Victorian job. She took it. She earned more than my staff but they cannot get such housing as they are not defined as “key workers” – they are just scum from the private sector. We shall see how “key” Ms. Blythe is later.
In June 2006 Miss Blythe bought the leasehold of that flat from Islington Council for £141,000. To fork out that much she must have been earning a bob or two. So why the f**k did she get a Council flat in the first place? Just four years later she sold the North London property for £298,000. If she had sold it within three years she would have had to repay some cash to the council. Again she took.
A few years earlier Miss Blythe had a boob job on the NHS, again she took.
And now with her new (large) boobs and the money she trousered from the council flat sale she works as a drama teacher with a workshop company that is paid by daft local councils to visit secondary schools. She specialises in ‘facilitating workshops for young, excluded and potentially criminalised individuals and uses drama techniques she has developed to explore resolution of conflict and oppression.’ Sounds a bit different to the three Rs. Basically she poisons the minds of the young and fills their head with crap and the State pays her to do this. She takes again.
This ghastly creature has never generated a cent in wealth for society. She is the sort who believes that the “money tree” can fund a society where all have rights and no-one (except wicked bankers, evil Tories, disgusting capitalists, etc.) has obligations. She is the pin up girl for the parasite class.
The Romany Blythe’s of this world, Guardian reading members of the middle classes are tied at the hip to the Heather Frost’s – the trash who live as pure welfare parasites from cradle to grave. Both classes have continued to grow in size under this coalition leaving ever fewer folks out there to create the wealth and generate the taxes to pay for it all. Those who are treated most unfairly in this brave New World are the poor who work and pay tax. They fund folks who do not work ( or who do crap non jobs like Romany) and who then get so much in state hand-outs that they can live in better houses/have a greater disposable income etc. than the workers who pick up the tab.
Margaret Thatcher understood the inequity of this. The heir to Blair, Call Me Dave just does not get it.
4027 days ago
I report back merely on my experiences standing about 100 yards from St Paul’s. The doors closed after the coffin entered the Cathedral and I wandered back to Real Man Pizza to drink English Champagne with Lucian Miers, to record a joint video and to toast our greatest ever Prime Minister.
I was standing by St Pauls for around five hours to ensure that I had an almost front row perch. By 6.45 there was already a good enough crowd. But it was clear that it was going to be much larger. But still the reporters persisted in asking anyone they could find if they were disappointed with the turnout or how they felt about those who had celebrated Lady Thatcher’s death. That was the narrative of, at least some of the fourth estate.
Among the early birds were a group from the Falklands showing their flag proudly, there was a Canadian flag, union flags and even a Scottish Saltire. Behind me were a group of Americans come to pay their respects.
But by ten thirty when the Coffin left St Clement Danes the entire route was packed as you can see from the photo below.
The narrative of the reporters then changed. They carried on interviewing folks in the crowd but swarmed like bees around honey when they managed to find the odd individual protester such as the gentleman below.
I asked this fellow what he did. He was a retired teacher. So after a lifetime of poisoning impressionable minds with lefty filth he has now living on the sort of final salary pension scheme we in the private sector can only dream of. His sort of pension scheme costs a multiple of the cost of a funeral which was approved and costed by the last Labour Government. But facts do not matter to hate filled bigots like him.
He was a minority. The crowd was just a mixture of folk. I was next to a couple of scousers (very right wing chaps from the Freedom Association), but there people of all ages, all colours, all classes there. Thatcher gave them opportunity to progress in a way that stuffy paternalist old school Tories like Howe and Heseltine (who stabbed her in the back in the end) or David Cameron will never do or understand. They were just there to say thank you.
As the coffin approached your feelings were mixed. Some people cried. Others clapped. Others stood in silence. I did not really know what to do. I sort of half clapped but could not really work out how it was best to show total respect and to say thank you.
And then the coffin passed into the church. Five and a half hours waiting, standing on my feet for just a few minutes. Was it worth it? Of course. I had to show my respect. I would not have forgiven myself had I not done so.
4028 days ago
I am tired. A hard day is behind me and now I work through the night preparing to bag a space on the Strand at daybreak to show my respect to the greatest leader that Britain has ever enjoyed. Part of my tiredness is down to launching a new website which I would urge you to check out at www.shareprophets.com, but part is also down to wrestling with an idea of how to attack the corruption at the heart of AIM. Perhaps you can assist? I think out loud.
I spent a good 45 minutes today chatting to a fellow who has tried to gain answers to what seem to me 100% legitimate questions about an AIM listed company. He has approached the company and was blocked. He approached the advisors. Blocked. He tried the police, his MP and the LSE AIM team and was again blocked. Finally, he wrote in public and has now been crushed with a PLC using shareholders cash to shut him up via the courts. But his questions are legitimate ones.
4028 days ago
It is 3.38 AM and I am still tapping away producing high quality material for five different websites ahead of a 5.30 AM stroll to bag a place on the Strand. Mrs Thatcher surely you would admire such entrepreneurial spirit. And the phone rings at Real Man Pizza Company? Feck is it a neighbour complaining that the music is on at full blast. Maybe “watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello is not his cup of tea? Or perhaps it was me singing along to Marianne faithful’s Ruby Tuesday?
Or maybe one of our neighbours is a deluded leftie and objects to me singing along loud to the Kinks anthem which explains why the UK was such a basket case before Thatcher came to power: Sunny Afternoon.
The tax mans taken all my dough,
4028 days ago
A hard call… It is after eleven. I have enjoyed a good meal with a City pal M. I have a couple of stories to break. I am a bit…er over the limit. And I have to be up at 5 to bag my spot on the Strand for Margaret Thatcher’s Funeral. What to do?
a) Grab some sleep
b) Spend another night churning out articles, attend the funeral and then crash?
What would Maggie say? Work hard young man! Okay, it is another night with Wendy James of Transmission Vamp: I don’t want your money I want your xxxxxxx love and let the articles flow.
4028 days ago
I had planned to leave London on Sunday but that all changed. I will be heading down to the Strand to mark my respects to Britain’s greatest ever Prime Minister – a woman who saved this country. A woman of principle. I am not sure how many folks will line the route nor if it will be disrupted by unkempt lefties, ignorant young people or worse but I shall be there anyway.
Lucian Miers is trekking up from the boonies to join me. I guess the crowds will build early so I shall work late at Real Man and then head off well before the crack of dawn to bag a place for Lucian and myself.
Uncle Chris (Booker) says that his wife queued to pay her respects at Churchill’s coffin and so this time I am there for the Booker’s who cannot make it. My own family of deluded lefties have rather different feelings but I guess I am also there for little step sister Flea who, to her credit, is a true child of Thatcher.
Afterwards I shall return to Real Man, feeling – I suspect – rather tired so it may be a light blogging day ahead.
4030 days ago
I have never knowingly listened to a song by Justin Bieber. I am therefore not what is termed a Belieber. But this little shit is now on my radar with news that he visited the house where Anne Frank hid from the Nazis for two years before eventually being sent off to a death camp, and left a message in the visitor’s book saying that he hoped that Anne would have been a Belieber. Where to start?
Perhaps with the state of Holland and much of the West today where the holocaust is trivialised by a liberal elite who loathe racism unless, of course, it is the frigging Jews are who are at the end of it. Chuck in open anti-Semitism from certain elements of the Muslim Community and David Ward MP and the collective attitude to an event that wiped out two thirds of European Jews is pretty reprehensible.
These days, as Mark Steyn once noted, if the play about Ann Frank appears in Holland as the Nazis search the house, half of the audience is shouting out “ she’s hidden in the loft, go get her.”
Bieber is I am sure not an anti-Semite. He clearly does not have a thought in his head about anything but himself. He is the uber-celebrity – all that matters is ME. And so for him it is perfectly natural to relate Anne Frank’s tragic life and suffering to er….him. Asked for Thoughts on the sad death of Margaret Thatcher, Justin replied “I am sure she was a true Belieber.” As for impending war in Korea, Justin stated “They need to start Beliebing …and follow me on twitter.” The world centres on ME, whether that be Justin ME, Madonna ME or Simon Cowell ME.
Will any of those celebs be remembered in fifty years’ time? I do not know. But at the rate we are going I rather fear that in fifty years’ time we will not be allowed to view Anne Frank as we should, as a victim of true evil – will she be remembered either?
4030 days ago
The lefties wanted the tune from the Wizard of Oz to hit Number 1 as a way of celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher. It hit number 2 in case you care which I do not. The debate was should the BBC play it?
Cameron and Clegg said it was distasteful, shocking etc but that it was er..up to the BBC. They dodged the issue. Nigel Farage of UKIP said it was disgusting and disgraceful etc but as a believer in free speech, for him it was clear. If morons push this up the charts by buying it the BBC had to play The Witch is Dead.
You would have thought that as a liberal Cleggy would have stumbled on this obvious truth. But then again he likes Secret Courts and wants to gag the press. Call Me Dave is no believer in free speech but instinctively Farage gets it right. Thatcher would have approved.
At number six in the charts is “I am in love with Margaret Thatcher”. I like the sentiment but the tune is awful. If you can bear it listen here
It is not a patch on "I'm in love with Ann Coulter" which is a great song and we are all in love with Ann Coulter aren't we?
4035 days ago
If David Blair or Tony Cameron was asked by an interviewer to jump in the air becuase it might win a few votes their response would be "how high." Margaret Thatcher was different. Watch and wonder.
4035 days ago
Margaret Thatcher was adamant that she did not want a flypast by the RAF at her funeral. She said that was a waste of money. Money, she always said was the taxpayers cash and should not be wasted. She would thus be horrified to hear that Call Me Dave has said that greedy MP’s can claim up to £3,750 in expenses to attend a special Parliamentary debate in her honour. If they want to attend fine. They damn well should. But not at the expense of taxpayers.
Millions of those who pay the taxes that funds the swine who trough at Westminster will be paying our own way to the funeral, to mark our respects. We may be travelling to London or taking time off work or booking a hotel room or whatever and that is our call. It is our money. What will this debate achieve? Nothing. What will it waste? Cash. Taxpayer’s cash.
Cameron’s mind-set with regard to who extricating cash from the great unwashed and wasting it shows once again that he is the heir to Blair and not to the Iron Lady.
4036 days ago
We are lucky to have a speaker already lined up at the UK’s top investor show which takes place this Saturday April 13th who knew Margaret Thatcher well. In fact we have several but in light of the sad demise of Britain’s greatest Prime Minister we have moved Christopher Booker, the founder of Private Eye and celebrated Sunday Telegraph columnist to the main stage during the afternoon to talk about “The Margaret Thatcher I knew – nearly always right in the end.”
I chatted to Booker – who is my uncle and godfather - this morning and our reflections on the Iron Lady covered her Euro scepticism, the treachery of her colleagues, the lie that she supported apartheid, her conversion from a supporter of global warming theory to becoming an ardent global warming sceptic and many other issues. Booker will cover how and why her views changed on these and other topics and how our leaders today might perhaps reflect on this.
The revised speaker line-up on our main stage is now:
10 AM Opening Remarks
10.10-11 AM Nigel Wray & Nick Leslau
11.00 – 11.45 AM – Tom Winnifrith with bear raider Lucian Miers
11.45-11.55 – the short debate: Is AIM doomed Tom Winnifrith vs Richard Poulden
11.55-12.40 – Comedian and gold guru Dominic Frisbey on gold
1.40-2.35 PM – The Traders session: Clem Chambers, Alpesh Patel, Zak Mir, Evil Knievil and John Piper
2.35-3.15 – Christopher Booker
3.45 – 4.30 Mark Slater
4.30-5.15 Nigel Farage MEP ( who will I am sure also mention the Iron Lady)
We still have a handful of tickets going for the show due to late cancellations. If you wish to attend email your postal address with postcode and how many tickets you require to [email protected] and the tickets will be despatched first class at once.
I look forward to seeing you on Saturday 13th April at Excel.
Tom Winnifrith
4036 days ago
Unrepentant murderer Gerry Adams. Friend of extremists everywhere Ken Livingston. Friend of extremists everywhere and Cypriot property developer Derek Hatton. Workshy welfare funded scroungers having street parties in Brixton and Glasgow. Students at the NUS conference too young to remember Britain in 1979 (or even 1989) and too stupid and lazy to do their homework. Fat cat overpaid officials with unions with no members. Low-life MP (and friend of extremists everywhere) George Galloway. The Guardian Newspaper.
Let us be judged by the company we keep.
I am glad that on this issue as on almost every other issue I disagree vehemently with all of those listed above.
4037 days ago
This is parody. But it begs a serious point. How many folks under the age of 30 know the facts about our greatest PM? How many are reliant on BBC half-truths?
For what it is worth I am in the blue camp. Not for the first time.
4037 days ago
There will no doubt be wild celebrations in parts of Islington, Bristol and bastions of the Guardian reading Middle Classes tonight. After a long illness. Margaret Thatcher has died of a stroke today. This death will divide the nation.
I am watching the BBC’s coverage and it ignores her achievements totally. It is spiteful and worthless reporting. The left will blame her for all sorts of matters and will delight in her demise. Already I see tweets saying “the witch is dead.” Expect a torrent of tasteless and unpleasant comments and myth perpetuation over the coming days. Thatcher had that effect – she polarized opinion.
That the left hated her with such a passion was down to the fact that she delivered so much of what the left claims as its own ground. And so the left claims to represent “women” but Thatcher showed that a woman could rise to the top based on ability and without positive discrimination. The left claims to look after the poor. But whereas Milliband, Brown, Blair etc are all solidly working class, it is the Tories who have delivered the leaders from truly humble origins (Heath, Major and above all Thatcher).
The left keeps its client state poor. Thatcher gave opportunity to that client state to get a better life: to earn more based on work and ,merit by breaking Union power and abolishing collective bargaining; to own their own home via council house sales, to save more by cutting taxes. That was revolutionary and Britain needed a revolution because in 1979 after the Winter of Discontent, Margaret Thatcher took control of a country on its knees: bankrupt and with no sense of national pride. Thatcher faced opposition from a left determined to keep the poor poor and from patrician Tories who did not wish to upset the status quo. Bravely she drove through change in society by ensuring that the State did less not more.
She was not always right. In her early career it was she who did away with large numbers of grammar schools. I suspect she regretted that. She did not stand up to Mugabe in his early years when the mad old kook could have been stopped. Again, I sense that she regretted that. But on the big calls Maggie was right and that is why the Left cannot abide her.
All those Guardian readers celebrating today were, if my age or older, proudly wearing CND badges and trooping off to Greenham during the cold war. Folks like Tony Blair, Paddy Pantsdown and Baroness Ashton may pretend otherwise but the lefties were wrong about how to win the Cold War while Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Regan were right. Many of those same lefties would have caved into the Argies in 1982. Thatcher stood firm, although some of those around her wobbled. For her it was a matter of principle. Thatcher was right about the ERM and the Euro. She was branded an out of touch nationalist for her views but her views were based on pure economics and she was once again right. She was right. The deluded lefties were wrong. History is on squarely her side.
In parts of the North they say that they cannot forgive her for closing the coal mines and other State subsidised rust belt industries. But the same folk lambast today’s politicians for bailing out the banks. Thatcher understood that there is no such thing as the Government’s cash. There is money paid over by the taxpayer and that cash cannot be wasted. Subsidising an industry which just cannot make a profit, whatever the industry is waste. It is taking money from those who are creating wealth and paying it to others who are not. Whether the recipients are bankers or miners Thatcher understood that such an action was wrong.
Today’s conservatives do not dare cut Government spending or taxes or foreign aid because they are afraid of being confrontational. They have forgotten what principle means. Thatcher never forgot principle and based every decision about it.
Margaret Thatcher was without doubt the bravest politician of the 20th century. She was without doubt the most principled politician of our lifetime. She was a truly amazing woman. And she was right about almost everything.
To celebrate any death shows that you have no heart. We should pity those who celebrate the passing of Margaret Thatcher. This woman shaped the lives of a generation. She saved the UK from the bankruptcy and humiliation of the 1970s. She engineered a renaissance of Britain which all of her successors have done their best to dissipate.
Our greatest leader, Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013 RIP
4046 days ago
The Idiocy of press laws in the internet age – ref 82 year old arrested in Saville Enquiry in paedoBritain
Last week an 82 year old entertainer was arrested in Berkshire as part of the Savile enquiry. We are told that he is Australian but cannot name him. You do not need to be Sherlock Holmes to work that one out. Think of Aussies who were famous in the 1970s and 1980s for appearing on British TV and find out how old they are on wikipedia and hey presto. I bet you guessed already.
Now go do a google search for “82 year old arrested xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx (fill in the name you had probably guessed anyway) and hey presto there are 40,100 web pages coming up in 0.32 seconds. Of course under the new British terror laws (sorry Royal Press Charter) none of the mainstream press is naming this chap.
I have no idea what xxxx is accused of and it seems as if most of those arrested so far in this multi-million quid enquiry are not being charged at all so frankly his arrest ( for a second time – he was also arrested on November 29th as part of this enquiry) proves absolutely sod all.
But what exactly is the point of laws that just do not work? I might add that a former senior minister in the Thatcher regime
4059 days ago
Bethan Tichborne is a prize deluded lefty. This 28 year old attended a demonstration in Oxfordshire against Call Me Dave and the wiucked Tory cuts (i.e. public spending going up) and carried a placard which stated that Cameron had “blood in his hands” for cutting spending on folks with disabilities. She appears to have shouted the same message to Dave.
And she has now been accused and found guilty of using threatening words or behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. Judge Tim Pattinson said when convicted Bethan that her comments that Cameron "had blood on his hands" could "hardly be more insulting to anyone, whether a politician or not".
Bethan also tried to climb a barrier at which point the Police allegedly beat her up. I shall take that one with a pinch of salt.
Bethan and I disagree violently on cutting benefits. I do not think Call Me Dave has blood on his hands on this count. Bethan is wrong. But, on the Voltaire principle I also believe in free speech and it is quite disgraceful that she was arrested, charged and convicted for making a politically motivated comment. I am not sure where Bethan stands on the Iraq war but I believe that for that Tony Blair certainly has blood on his hands for that episode. In a free society we have to be allowed to make such comments.
The case of Bethan Tichborne suggests that life in Airstrip One is ever less free.
Just to make my point I shall tweet this article to David Cameron. @David_Cameron – Mr Cameron you have blood on your hands. PS you are a spineless and hopeless Prime Minister to boot. Bring back Maggie.
4068 days ago
Speaking today David Cameron said that There Is No Alternative to his austerity plans. TINA was a Thatcher phrase. Of course Thatcher cut back a bloated state and cut taxes. David Cameron has presided over increased Government spending, an ever more bloated deficit and tax increases. Merely using the catchphrases of a great Prime Minister and a real Tory will not make make Cameron even a half decent PM or a real Tory – for that he needs to implement real Tory policies. Cameron is no heir to Thatcher but is the heir to Blair. Merely pinching the Iron Lady’s rhetoric won’t change that. In fact it is rather nauseating.
4072 days ago
64 days ago I wrote of my visit, no pilgrimage, to Grantham, the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher, the most remarkable Prime Minister of the last century, if not of all times. Grantham is an unremarkable little town and it is Thatcher that is the only reason to put it on the map. Yet there is no statue to this great woman in the town and that is something Labour councillors wished to rectify. Yes, you read that correctly. Well done the people’s party.
Yet when it came to the vote on a Tory run council not one conservative voted in favour of the idea. Are they ashamed to honour the greatest leader of their party and the most famous person from their town? Do they not appreciate the economic advantages of talking up Thatcher town in terms of attracting increased visitors? Or are they Call Me Dave Tories who would rather spend the cash on a statue of Tony Blair or a new centre for hosting civil partnerships/helping Romanian immigrants claim benefits/windmill on the town hall roof?
If you find yourself in the Grim North and wish to visit Grantham you too can – as I did nine weeks ago – stand outside the small corner shop where Lady Thatcher was born and grew up, with just one small plaque on the wall to note this fact. And if you see a local Tory councillor while you are there remember to kick his stick away and tell him why he is a total scumbag.
4075 days ago
On March 1st my daughter Olivia ( whose mother is a Welsh speaker) tends to dress up in her National costume. And I wish her, her mother ( Big Nose) and all Welshies everywhere a very happy St David’s Day. I do not know whether it is a Bank Holiday in the land where they really can take a joke and never molest sheep. But since about 75% of Welshies live off the State it probably does not make much difference anyway.
Anyhow it is probably an excuse for you all to get pissed and utter increasingly dark words about how your coal mines and industry were all closed down by the evil Thatcher! And that the 30 years of high unemployment seen since, despite wholesale subsidies from the accursed English, is all the fault of Thatcher, the English, the Tories and not you.
Happy St David’s Day to Welshies everywhere, notably weather girl Sian Lloyd, those fine singers Shakin’ Stevens and Charlotte Church, cultural ambassador Mr Craig Bellamy and, of course Ruth Madoc from Hi de Hi.
4080 days ago
This article first appeared in my bi-weekly free Tomograph newsletter. I guess it now merits a wider audience. If you would like more of the same sent to you by email (including a free share tip in the midweek issue) sign up HERE. In the old days when the Conservative party was led by a proper Tory ( i.e. Margaret Thatcher) it used to believe that the individual should be given the freedom to take responsibility for himself or herself. That meant the State not relieving you of too much money but also not being expected to cosset you, but providing a safety net for those who genuinely needed it. Those days are gone.
We saw this in dramatic form this week as Call Me Dave scrapped plans to increase the IHT threshold but at the same time caved in on giving more state funding for residential care for the elderly. He was wrong ( as per usual) on both counts, pandering to the electorate and in so trashing further any idea that he is a man of true conservative principle.
4080 days ago
The Lib Dems are still likely to win Eastleigh. If they do not, given that every councillor there is a Lib Dem and it is a Lib Dem seat then Nick Clegg is in deep trouble. It may well be that the cover-up over the Lord Rennard sex scandal is only a secondary worry although that will get very nasty as well. But at 11/2 UKIP is now worth a flutter. Think the unthinkable: UKIP might just win the by-election caused by Chris Huhne’s imminent fast track to prison.
A Populus poll shows Lib Dem 33%, Con 28% UKIP 21% ( but surging). However that assumes that undecided voters are reallocated on the basis of how the seat voted at the last General Election. That was a whole different ball game. Without that fiddle it is 31 (sex pest party), 26% ( hopeless party of Government), 25% UKIP.
Labour are on the low to mid teens and since the Labour candidate ( the one who supported the Argies in 1982 and wanted the IRA to kill Thatcher) is a prize loon, his vote could well slide far further. Labour voters in Eastleigh are not bourgeois Islington lefties who think the UKIP are unspeakably horrid but traditional working class voters who believe in hard work and have no truck with the EU, unrestricted Romanian immigration etc. They really should vote UKIP anyway and if they see UKIP as a chance to kick the wicked coalition in the goolies they may well switch. No: they are switching it is just a matter of how many more come over in the final few days.
If UKIP can pick up a few more percentage points from Labour ( and it is gaining support from all three parties) then life gets very interesting. It is hard to see the Lib Dem vote hardening in the final few days as the sex scandal widens and deepens and nothing the hopeless Government does these days does anything to attract those who should be core Tory voters. If it is anything the Tory party is meant to be the one that gets the economy right. And on Friday the UK lost its AAA rating as the credit agencies finally twigged that UK public finances are a mess and that things are not getting better.
A separate Survation phone poll has it as: Con 33, Lib Dem 29, UKIP 21, Lab 13 but again if you do not do the reallocation fiddle UKIP is up on 25 with this time the sex pests in second on 26, and the Tories on 29. The same arguments apply here. It is abundantly clear that this contest is a three way battle. Labour support is slipping steadily ( all to UKIP) and Nigel Farage et al must also think that in the next few days they can also pick up Lib Dems and Tories as well.
It will not change the world, but a UKIP win would be disastrous news for both Call Me Dave ( giving credibility to a party which believes in the sort of things the Tory party once believed in) and also for Clegg in that if the safest Lib Dem seat in England is lost what hope does his party have of avoiding electoral wipe-out in 2015.
At 11/2 it is worth a flutter. It might just happen.
And as I noted before, a UKIP vote is in fact the ONLY sane and honourable vote in Eastleigh. .
4086 days ago
Imagine what the BBC or its sister paper The Guardian would say if a Tory or UKIP politician was seen next to a t-shirt looking forward to the death of an icon of the left: Tony Benn, Dennis Healey or perhaps Nelson Mandela. There would be immediate calls for resignations and public grovelling.
For those of us on the right, our iconic figure is Margaret Thatcher yet it is deemed perfectly acceptable in some quarters to look forward to her demise. The Labour candidate in the Eastleigh by-election has (shamefully) admitted that he was sorry that the IRA did not kill her in the Brighton bomb. And so this little snap of Labour leader Ed Miliband posing with a Labour supporter emerges.
Ed, I believe in free speech so this dickhead can wear what he likes. But just to clarify matters for me: do you look forward to the death of our greatest ever Prime Minister? Do you believe that those who admit to doing so publically have a place in the Labour party? Easy questions.
4086 days ago
As I was happily preparing for the publication of another ebook tomorrow I see that I have received a volley of twitter abuse from a good man, but a deluded lefty of the highest order, @Mickkipper. In response to my suggestion that the crackpot Lib Dems wished to tax your jewellery and paintings as well as your house if you were rich, Mick replies ”Why not, most of them have been robbed pillaged during the common wealth days. Bring back slaves ehhhhh Tom.”
Saints preserve us. Is this really the high level debate that the left offers up? I object to being taxed on wealth accumulated as a result of me buying assets with taxed income ( a double tax) and that means that I want to bring back slaves?
But it got better. In stating the fact that at least twice a day some young person from Southern Europe wanders into my restaurant with a word perfect CV begging to work at the minimum wage but in a City were 100,000 young Britons are without work and living off welfare , not one home grown applicant turns up, I am lambasted. Mick sent of a series of tweets of which the best were:
“Caitt Reilly…. out of touch Winnifrith. Bring back the workhouse, chimmney boys and mine boys. Employ a eastern European”
and
4097 days ago
If you do not understand that this is irony then you are probably a lefty. Perhaps we should put humour on the National Curriculum. Anyhow if you have missed #tweetlikealefty on twitter this morning here are some of the best comedy tweets.
@DanHannanMEP
What do you mean, give to charity? I’ve already called for higher taxes!
@DanHannanMEP
I support freedom of speech, but some opinions shouldn’t be tolerated in our society.
@DanHannanMEP
This isn’t about the deficit, it’s about fairness and equality.
@DanHannanMEP
If we reversed the Tory cuts, there’d be higher tax revenues and a lower deficit.
@DanHannanMEP
The trouble with referendums is people might not understand the question.
@DanHannanMEP
A one-off 20% wealth tax on the richest 5% would clear the UK debt.
4099 days ago
For some reason I get called a sexist beast by some folks. And it is not just the odd bird who seems to think this. As such I am delighted to publish a guest post by a woman. This is not affirmative action. Just because the post makes a good point or two although I am not sure why she hails the vile Clinton woman as a role model – try Ann Coulter instead.
The poster is Charlotte Argyle who is from City Future an organisation for young professional Conservatives in the City. For some reason Charlotte thinks that I am not too old to attend an event or two…flattery will get you everywhere but I am not too sure that my views on Call Me Dave would go down that well. Charlotte writes:
100 years ago, Emily Davison threw herself in front of the King’s horse during the Epsom Derby as a suffragette protest. In 1918 the wheels of female equality turned, but the Representation of the People Act was just the beginning of the story. Over the last 100 yrs there have been numerous figures that women could covet when looking for a role model. Some of my personal favourites include Aung San Suu Kyi, Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and Alek Wek. However the most obvious error in the above statement is the omission of the male of the species: somehow in the quest for female equality the see-saw of opinion has tilted, and now, it is almost an insult to the cause for females to seek afflatus from our XY friends.
4112 days ago
The Argie Type 42 Destroyer the Santisima Trinidad was the flagship of the invading forces the last time the Argies chose to ignore the principle of self determination and practice imperialism in the South Atlantic.
After Margaret Thatcher (rightly) gave the order to sink the Belgrano, this ship and the rest of the Argentine Navy headed back to port and sat out the military humiliation of their country in peace. The ship was decommissioned in 2004 but has sat in its full glory in port since then as a reminder of the Falklands campaign.
And this is it yesterday. Sinking faster than the Argentine economy.
4119 days ago
Jo Swinson is a Lib Dem Business Minister who is also an equalities minister. Unlike most politicians she has actually worked in the private sector – as a PR person for a local radio station before becoming an MP at the age of 25. Based on that vast experience of the needs of business she has come up with a cunning wheeze to make life ever more miserable for employers with yet more red tape. Just what the company doctor ordered. And it seems that this is coalition policy. Were the leader of the Conservative Party someone whose Dad ran a corner store and whose husband ran a series of companies rather than a pampered suit who did a brief stint in PR before becoming a professional politician, Swinson would be told where to stick her daft plans but that was before Call Me Dave made his party a “nice” party.
If Swinson gets her way, from next year all employees (not just those with kids) will be able to request the right to work flexible hours and cannot be denied unless the employer can show a clear business need. The silly woman
4120 days ago
It is amazing what cobblers some folk spout. HMV (LSE:HMV) has gone bust. It follows hard on the heels of Jessops which headed to retail heaven earlier this week. Chuka Umunna, Labour’s Shadow Business Secretary, called HMV a “national institution” and described the news as “deeply worrying” Yeah right. What next Chuka? Blame it all on Margaret Thatcher or global warming? HMV is not a national institution it was a commercial enterprise that like British Leyland or coal mines in Yorkshire that had run out of coal was just past its sell by date. In the old days, cretins like Umunna would probably have called for a state subsidy. Now they just blame it on the Tories and wring their hands in a pathetic fashion. The demise of HMV was inevitable, it could not even be saved by soaraway sales of CDs by the UK’s leading chanteuse Ms Cheryl Cole.
4128 days ago
Every time I write about welfare scroungers or fraud I am accused of being a heartless, pampered Tory boy by a range of deluded lefties. I just do not understand this. For starters I am not a Tory. When they stopped believing in low taxes, a small state and started cowering to every EU diktat I gave up on them. Secondly I have worked for everything I have, I am not a beneficiary of inherited wealth. And thirdly if being heartless means objecting to those who work hard having to support either thieves or those who opt not to work hard, sure I am heartless. I believe in a welfare system that acts as a safety net but not in one that becomes a lifestyle choice. To me it is heartless to take away money in tax from those on low incomes to redistribute it to criminals or those who opt for idleness. Het I am not Scrooge but equally I do not see why all those who have been naughty should get Christmas presents paid for by those who have been god. Do you?
There was a damning statistic or two out this week. Firstly we learned that one third of the money collected in income tax is spent on welfare payments. That is an extraordinarily high number. And it is calculated that c 7% or 8% of those payments are made to fraudulent claimants. More damning still was that 43% of those claiming benefits and not working had in fact never worked in their lives. They are on a career of welfare dependency.
4132 days ago
Forget the fiscal cliff, my share tips of the year or why Fat Sam should be sacked as West Ham manager in May. Forget my pilgrimage to Margaret Thatcher’s birthplace, my Christmas culinary triumphs or my witterings about music – I am currently listening to Lene Lovich in case you were wondering. Judging by tweets, postings ion the blog and emails what folks want to know about is Oakley, my eleven year old cat who as of the week before Christmas has only three legs. Quite right… first things first.
He is not quite himself but the trend is positive. No longer does he have to wear the collar of shame to stop him scratching where his leg used to be before it was removed to deal with the tumour. He can scuttle around the place at quite a rate when he wants to. Which is not often. He can now jump up onto a bed. Rather frighteningly he was also able to jump out through a window and onto a slippery ledge four stories high. I panicked (being someone who suffers from chronic vertigo). He waited until I had left the room screaming and then hopped back through the window and sat there calmly grinning at me as I rushed back in.
Tara, my other eleven year old cat, is now sleeping alongside him and seems to have come to terms with his new shape. Indeed she rather enjoys the fact that Oakley demands to be carried to food since she can nick most of his meal before he realises it is there. In some ways he is back to his old self, crawling up the bed so that he can look directly into your face all night. In other ways there is still a bit of hesitation. There is a tendency to hide away most of the time under a bed or behind a door waiting to be fetched to be plonked onto a sofa.
He seems to be slowly coming to terms with what has happened although the poor creature will never understand. It is only two or three weeks ago that his leg was removed and so I am not surprised that he has not fully adjusted mentally. But the trend is positive. Thank you for all your kind wishes. I shall endeavour to post a couple of new photos next week.
4135 days ago
And so I found myself in the grim North this morning and being just down the road from Grantham thought that I would pay a visit to the birthplace of Britain’s greatest Prime Minister. I cannot say that I see much to take me back to Grantham. Baroness Thatcher was born above the corner store owned by her father Alderman Roberts. It is a couple of hundred yards away from the town centre but not on the posher side.
These days the store sells holistic nonsense as you can see in the photo below. What strikes me is just how small it is. Thatcher was a leader born in truly humble surroundings. A small room, above a small shop, in a “secondary” part of a small town. When she suggested that others pull themselves up by their bootstraps she knew what that meant as that is exactly what she (and I imagine her father) did themselves. Her background made her the great leader she was. Just like Call Me Dave’s background made him, er……
The fact that the person who not only became our first female PM but was without doubt the dominant figure post WW2 in British Politics was born in this town is almost unmentioned. That is to the eternal shame of whichever tossers are in charge of the town. All one can see
4136 days ago
I find myself temporarily in the Grim North. The folks here all seem to have shoes, I have not yet been mugged and although it is a Sunday there seem to be plenty of folk off to work and Church. I have yet to see a whippet. It is all rather surprisingly ungrim.
But I cannot stay here long in case I catch the welfare addiction so I shall be heading back South soon. But before I go, since I am within ten miles of Grantham I feel I should pay a brief visit to the birthplace of the last Conservative PM Britain enjoyed. I hope to post a photo report later.
4163 days ago
Memo to Ed Balls & George Osborne: watch and listen to this inspiring video of Margaret Thatcher at the 1983 Conservative Conference: “Someone has to add up the figures, every business has to do it, every housewife has to do it, every Government should do it and this one will.”
“There is no such thing as public money. There is only taxpayers money”
Sadly a lesson lost on Balls & Osborne.
“The state has no other source of money other than money that people earn themselves”
“Prosperity won’t come by inventing more and more lavish public expenditure programmes”
“You don’t grow richer by ordering another chequebook from the Bank”
4195 days ago
Sir George Young is the new Government chief whip. As it happens I know a bit about him as he is also my second cousin once removed and, rather more importantly, brother of my step mother Helen. And I see that he is now a founder member of a new group of Tory MPs which wants to “reach out” to “blue collar” Tories. The sort of people Young’s predecessor Andrew Mitchell might have described as “plebs.” Young’s qualifications?
Born in a stately home at Cookham, like his grandfather, father and brother he went to Eton then
4196 days ago
I have to admit that I thought that Michael Heseltine was dead. But much to my surprise I discover that “Tarzan” is very much alive, heading up a task force established by Call Me Dave to work out how to kickstart the economy and getting it as wrong today as he has almost throughout his political career. I suppose that one should not speak ill of the brain dead but for Heseltine I can make an exception.
4198 days ago
You and I know that hurricanes just happen. No-one is to blame and mankind just carries on. But out there in the twittersphere the left is already working out whom or what is to blame for Hurricane Sandy which is now battering New York. Just to help these simple folk along so that they can cut and paste away for the comments board on the Guardian, BBC, etc here are the top ten candidates for who or what is to blame.
1. George Bush Junior – he caused all that is evil on this planet.
2. Global Warming. I know Sandy is rather cold but it is all to do with Global Warming which was partly caused by George Bush ( see above)
4198 days ago
Is this the last episode of Downton Abbey series three tonight? Maybe it is the penultimate one. But it is hard to see what shocks we could have left. After all it is 1920 so unless the IRA man takes time off from grieving to join the Irish Civil War or Lady Edith heads off to fight for Greece against Turkey it is hard to see what can go wrong. Bates is on his way out of prison. The ex prostitute is settling in well at the Crawley household. Predatory homosexual Thomas really must get his long awaited come uppance downstairs while simple but honest Mary the under-cook looks set to be handed the keys to a farm by the father of the man she married but did not love just before he died.
Non Downton lovers – in this show someone important has to die at least once a series. The pompous prig Matthew Crawley is trying to make himself more exciting by picking a fight with thicko Aristocrat the Earl of Grantham but he is failing. He and Lady Mary really need to emigrate.
In Dallas, the younger generation of John Ross, Chris, Elena and the mad wife of Chris are growing on me. News that Bobby/Patrick Duffy/The Man from Atlantis
4201 days ago
My half hour taste of the BBC yesterday, via the Today programme, still hurts. The episode in question concerns the EU’s plan to increase its budget by 6.8% this year, David Cameron’s faux outrage, the lies told by an EU spokesman on the show and the dismal lack of balance provided by a biased BBC. I have discussed the matter with Christopher Booker and the whole business is a disgrace.
4206 days ago
Lunch with some nice folk but since they are academics it is simpler to declare my hand from the start and out myself as a right winger. It avoids any embarrassing moments later on. Er maybe not. The Great Margaret Thatcher comes between us.
Somehow the conversation turns to buses. One academic mutters “Maggie Thatcher” and another nods. I let it pass for a couple of minutes. What are they talking about? And so I ask. Well they cannot remember the exact quote and but it is something along the lines of “
I could not argue or defend Mrs T. Instinctively I doubted she said that because it in no way chimes with the philosophy of someone (who unlike the left) admired those who sought out opportunity, however they got there. Thatch wanted to give the poor a chance. The left wants them to have to travel on a bus for life. But I did not start a debate. The quote seems damning. And being academics I am sure they have sourced and verified it.
They have not.
4214 days ago
This day in 1925 In Grantham Lincolnshire was born Margaret Hilda Roberts. The daughter of a shop owner and Alderman of the town, Maggie Thatcher went on to become one of the greatest leaders this country has known. She is a marmite figure. Everyone has a view. Before we come to that: you know where I stand on this one and so from me it is Happy Birthday Maggie.
4246 days ago
At the TUC Congress this week (no I did not know or care that it was happening either) you can buy T-Shirts celebrating the death of Margaret Thatcher. Cased in environmentally unfriendly plastic you can buy now and use on the day Thatch dies and again on the day of her funeral. Tasteless and unkind are words that spring to mind. A few others string to mind but they would not pass the censor’s pen on this website.
4273 days ago
I am a bit new to this twitter game and so was horrified when I returned home from supper last night to find Margaret Thatcher RIP trending on twitter. The first tweet appeared to come from Sky and so seemed credible and so Maggie was dead. This followed on from a worrying morning on Monday when certain tweeters were convinced that Phil the Greek was gravely ill and that an announcement from the Palace was imminent.
I now gather that this is part of the “fun” of twitter. Folks are “killed off” and the rumours spread and might even trend until it is then found out that the person in question is not in fact dead after all.
In the 20 minutes or so before I discovered that Maggie was, in fact, still alive I had knocked out a eulogy which was, I thought, pretty good. At least that is now on file for when the sad day does come. I shall be in the camp who regard Thatcher as the greatest PM of the twentieth century
4307 days ago
I was planning to have another pop today at Louise Mensch MP for being so thick but I shall save that treat for another time. Instead my mind wanders to Spain where the Prime Minister, Mariana Rajoy is implementing austerity measures with vigour in return for another bailout or twenty. This is not going to be fun. It is sheer madness but we are talking about the EU here so I guess that is par for the course.
4328 days ago
David Cameron says that Jimmy Carr’s tax avoidance scheme is morally wrong. But he admits that it is not illegal. And so he says that he is looking at new legislation (general tax avoidance rules) to make it illegal. David Cameron is a prize git and with this attention seeking outburst he shows it once again.
