3028 days ago
For me and, I suspect many readers of this site, David Bowie was one of the iconic musicians of the time when we were young. It is thus sad news that he has died of cancer aged just 69. It makes me feel that I am moving that much closer to the "front line".
3671 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
3696 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.
3699 days ago
I have been panned for criticising Bob Crow who died today. In that vein I apologise for that piece and have amended my original piece with the change in italics. See below.
You are not meant to say bad things about those who have just died…but for fat hypocritical selfish bastards like Bob Crow, the head of the tube driver’s union, the RMT, one can make an exception. Crow died of a heart attack this morning.
Crow lived the high life as a Union boss. He was paid a huge wage and his expenses bill for fine wining and dining was a disgrace. His lifestyle did not exactly show solidarity with the workers.
Moreover under his leadership, the tube drivers have held Londoners to ransom for years, blocking change when change was needed and negotiating wages which are thoroughly unjustifiable. By 2015 a tube driver ( who takes just six weeks to learn his or her trade) will, for a 35 hour week with generous holidays be getting a package worth £52,000 a year. That is just shocking and cannot be justified.
Crow has extracted such a package by regularly holding Londoners to ransom with strike action which causes misery for us all. And then of course he also launched strike action for purely political purposes, often on days when England were playing a soccer match, so the drivers could see the game.
While trousering £150,000 a year plus grotesque expenses Comrade Crow lived in a council house paying a trivial rent. That meant he was even richer and a really poor person was deprived of social housing. In practice, such was the solidarity this fat, selfish, greedy arsehole showed with the working classes. I apologise for omitting this fact from my earlier piece.
Britain is better off without this blackmailing bastard who grew fat thanks to inflicting misery on the rest of us. While his family may miss him and have my sympathies I would be a hypocrite if did not say that I – and 99% of the population – will not miss him at all.
PS I see that uber-scumbag George Galloway is to write a glowing tribute to Comrade Crow in the Guardian later today. That says it all.
4171 days ago
Dallas was part of my childhood. Who shot JR? The poison dwarf, Lusty Dusty. I remember it all. And JR Ewing was at the centre of it all. And, as you probably know, my cousin Jeff appeared in two episodes where he raped Lucy ( the poisoned dwarf). Not quite the highlight of his career ( I think that was giving Tatum O’Neill her first on screen kiss in International Velvet) but that made the Winnifrith family bond with the programme even stronger. We even had Dallas the board game. And so, today I really do mourn the death yesterday of Larry Hagman, the actor who played JR.
Hagman did actually hail from Texas and died there. He was, by all accounts, a bit of a character, downing five bottles of champagne a day as he filmed Dallas.
