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April 30, 2005

Targets

Lots of talk about these recently.

Young Toni was totally flumoxed by a question about the 48 hour waiting list target for General Practitioner appointments. Apparently what happens is that you can't book an appointment MORE than 48 hours in advance as a result of this. This is because the days might get full up, and then, when someone calls they have to be put off, thus missing the target. So what they do is have a very narrow window for booking the appointment, and keep the diary as open as possible.

This is precisely the sort of thing that always happens. Philip Johnston wrote a most interesting article on the subject which you can read here. (You may find you need to sign up for membership; if that's a problem read a copy here.)

My take on this goes like this.

Around ten years ago, in one of the hubs served by United Airlines, it was common for the last short haul plane out to wait for the (frequently) delayed incoming connecting flights. Passengers didn't mind, most were business travellers who knew that the next week the plane could be waiting for them, and were just glad to get home in the evening rather than the next day. The day came when my then chairman, after sprinting to make his connection, found the gate closed and the departing aircraft pushed back about 20 yards. This was bad enough, but worse followed as the plane remained in that position for around 45 minutes before finally resuming the push back and taxiiing for takeoff.

He made enquiries.

United had set a target of improving push back times. Not take off, not landing, but push back. So the plane had met it's target and the employees concerned could bask in the warm glow of self satisfaction and management appreciation that comes when you hit a management target. The problem, it hardly needs stating, is that the target had absolutely no relevance to the airline's customers. They care about arriving safely and early enough to get to their hotels, homes, or appointments. When on an evening flight even arriving on time comes a poor third to those two requirements.

So it's not, as Toni thinks,about setting more detailed targets, it's about setting more sensible targets which relate to end users' experiences.

Here's a nice picture of an Anti-target.

Incidentally, and this is completely off topic, this picture came from a very heavyweight scientific paper. You'll get a feel for this just from the abstract: -

We study pattern formation arising from the interaction of the stationary Turing and wave ~oscillatory Turing! instabilities. Interaction and competition between these symmetry-breaking modes lead to the emergence of a large variety of spatiotemporal patterns, including modulated Turing structures, modulated standing waves, and combinations of Turing structures and spiral waves. Spatial resonances are obtained near codimension-two Turing-wave bifurcations. Far from bifurcation lines, we obtain inwardly propagating spiral waves with Turing spots at their tips. We demonstrate that the coexistence of Turing spots and traveling waves is a result of interaction between Turing and oscillatory modes, while the inwardly propagating waves ~antispirals! do not require this interaction; they can arise from the wave instability combined with a negative group velocity. © 2002 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1507110#

If you're in a really masochistic frame of mind the full paper is available here.

Health

Apparently John Reid is going to do great things for the health service if ZNL get reelected.

Mr Reid said if Labour was re-elected next week,

"the party would ensure that all women would have the choice over where and how they had their babies by 2009."

He also told a news conference that a Labour Government would also

double the investment going into palliative care, to help more people "die with dignity at home if that is what they choose".

It's hard to understand why some of these wonderful things couldn't have happened in the last 8 years.

Reid is a bruiser, visibly happy in debate when anyone else is getting uncomfortable. A most unpleasant man. It's hard to imagine him as some sort of friendly, concerned local GP.

15 Minutes of Fame

Gillian Ferguson is standing in North Tyneside. We should praise and support her to the utmost extent since she's standing against "Bozo" Byers, the man, you'll recall, who stole Railtrack from its shareholders and ensured that Rover died. Apparently he is lined up for high office again if ZNL win, so make sure you don't have anything he might want. And if you see him with shitty, run.

Anyway, this is what happened last time, so Gillian has a mountain to climb.

Candidate	Party	Votes	Share	Change
Stephen Byers *	Lab	26,027	69.50%	-3.30%
Mark Ruffell	Con	5,459	14.60%	0.90%
Simon Reed	LDem	4,649	12.40%	1.90%
Alan Taylor	UKIP	770	2.10%
Pete Burnett	SA	324	0.90%
Kenneth Capstick	SLP	240	0.60%
Turnout		37,469	57.70%	-10.20%
Majority		20,568	54.90%

Good luck Gillian!

Incidentally, politics.co.uk should get their act together. I believe Gillian is female...

Political Betting's Predicted Labour majority 78 seat

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)

April 29, 2005

Toni

Well, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings it is.

I am indebted to Alice Thomson for advising me that

and when [children] started singing, "Mr Blair, we don't care, you're wearing Cherie's underwear," they were quickly whisked away.

Of course, if you google this phrase (we always try to get multiple sources, of course) then you'll find lots of sites about underwear (and lack of it), but not much else, so we'll have to take Alice's word for it.

The point is though, sad though it is to admit it, the children got to the question of Blair's gender before I did. How they knew beats me, but never underestimate kids.

If you're keen, and have Quicktime on your machine, you can play the bush'nblair endless love video here. (broadband recommended)

Toni has a lovely singing voice...

Railtrack

I guess we shouldn't be astonished, the financial press has been convinced that Bozo Byers was up to no good for a while now, but the release of e-mails originating in government departments which clearly show a long term plot to nationalise railtrack without compensation, still come as a shock. Even more shocking is that Toni and our ZNL chancellor were "personally involved" in this "eye catching initiative".

One of the key architects is Ms Shriti Vadera. Shitty is a lovely piece of work.

A couple of Shitty quotes: -

"I was thinking we need a trigger to insolvency that we decisively pull"

and

"Can we engineer the solution through insolvency - finding the balance between not having triggered it and therefore avoid compensation of Human Rights Act but enough to be seen to have acted decisively rather than reacting to a failed privatisation that we refused to see and deal with earlier. Need detailed legal advice. How would we manage it?" (this under a heading 'Renationalisation'

A shitty prediction: -

Future Governor of the bank of England (by Evan Davies, BBC economic editor)

A shitty picture: -

Cardiff Central

Funny how the same constituencies keep coming up. You'll recall from here that this is where the Beany heartland is. Well it also turns out it's the best hope the libdems have for gaining a seat.

Last time looked like this: -

Candidate	Party	Votes	Share	Change
Jon Owen Jones *	Lab	13,451	38.60%	-5.10%
Jenny Willott	LDem	12,792	36.70%	11.80%
Gregory Walker	Con	5,537	15.90%	-4.20%
Richard Grigg	PC	1,680	4.80%	1.30%
Stephen Bartley	Green	661	1.90%
Julian Goss	SA	283	0.80%
Frank Hughes	UKIP	221	0.60%
Madeleine Jeremy	PA	217	0.60%
Turnout		34,842	58.30%	-11.70%
Majority		659	1.90%

So as you can see there's not a lot of votes to pick up.

Jenny Willott is standing again and must have a very good chance of getting a lot more than 15 minutes of fame.

Good Luck Jenny!

Political Bettings Predicted ZNL majority 78 seat

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)

April 28, 2005

Gender?

Channel 4 put the Bliar story up for grabs again. I still find it difficult to believe that it will have enough of an impact to affect the polls; people seem to believe that sometimes little porkies are necessary in the affairs of state.

However it really does lead to serious question marks over Lord Peter Goldsmith.

Peter is clearly a clever bloke, having gained a double first at Gonville and Caius college, Cambridge around 35 years ago, but when there is even a hint that a deputy high court judge has opinions malleable enough to be guided by a politician it's time to call a halt. Peter needs to step down after the election and tell all; he has no credibility left, or at least not enough for his current postion.

What is now clear is that Biar took the country to war for the wrong reasons. Bad intelligence, bad legal advice, and a false sense of his own importance. This last is excellently shown in this letter from the Telegraph today. Nevil Johnson, Emeritus Fellow, Nuffield College, Oxford, wrote, inter alia: -

While defending his decision on the Iraq war and protesting that he would never apologise for the action he took, he remarked in relation to Saddam Hussein: "I decided to remove him." But this is nonsense. Neither Mr Blair nor this country had the means of removing Saddam.
What Mr Blair actually decided to do was give support to a decision by President George W. Bush to bring about regime change by removing Saddam. There are grounds on which Mr Blair's stance might be justified, especially in terms of Realpolitik and the abiding geo-political interests of this country. But this is not a case that Mr Blair now chooses to deploy.
Instead, he indulges in posturing and fantasising about what he has done.

I couldn't have put it better myself, and indeed, didn't.

You may have been wondering "why the title of today's article?", but I think you can see it coming together now. If not, here's a question for you: -

What do you call someone who get's the right answers for the wrong reasons, who is excessively concerned about their own appearance, and in no way feels embarassed to have a homosexual man as a close friend?

Answer: - Female.

The bottom line here is we're going to have the first cross dressing prime minister in our history. Well, that's progress for you I guess.

Deep 'oles

Still indicating a landslide; majorities of up to 148 seats are being predicted. This might be true but there are a lot of caveats being expressed about the marginals. It seems to be believed that ZNL is 'leaking' these stories to the press to make sure their supporters are scared enough to vote. Why a leak? Well, it's the old forbidden fruit trick. If the fourth estate believes that they've been clever to get hold of the story they'll print it, if it's in a press release, and clearly propaganda, they won't, or if they do say they think it's propaganda.

And of course, all this might be double bluff, so what's the truth?

The table below was generated by Mori, in a poll comissioned by the GMB. The GMB doesn't now like to be called the General and Municipal Boilermakers, still less refer to its origin in 1889 as Gas Workers and General Union, but be that as it may, they are still firmly behind ZNL. So essentially ZNL is asking for this information.

Note the heavy concentration on what unhappy labour voters might do. The bottom line here is that there's real concern about complacency, and you can bet ZNL will try to do something about it. If they get it right expect the landslide predicted here, rather than the smaller victory predicted by political betting.

In the context of polls you'll recall I believe polls about expectations (who do you think will win?) are better predictors than those about voting intentions (who will you vote for?). I am greatful for a political betting commenter who pointed me here. There's a nice graph on the site reproduced below.

Pretty certain then, but it doesn't give a majority, just a certainty.

15 Minutes of Fame

Emily Thornberry, ZNL candidate for Islington South and Finsbury.

She considers herself principled. This from her website:-

A principled politician.

The House of Commons needs principled politicians. Chris Smith took a courageous decision to oppose the war in Iraq, and I am proud to have stood alongside him on this issue. If elected, I will continue his tradition of reflecting the principled concerns of this community in Parliament.

But she is perfectly happy to tell you to do one thing and do another herself. She sends her child to Dame Alice Owen's School in Potters Bar, a selective school some 13 miles away from the constituency she wishes to represent in such a principled way. The old socialist slogan "What's yours is mine, and what's mine's my own", springs to mind.

A smiling hypocrite

Little doubt she'll win unfortunately. The table below shows what happened to her predecessor. (Last election she herself lost Canterbury. You'll recall from this article that Rocky van de Benderskum is standing there this year on behalf of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance. Obviously she couldn't face the competition...)

Political Betting Predicted ZNL majority 76

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

April 27, 2005

Slow News day

It's a bit much when the biggest news of the day is an election poster. It's just a teeny weeny bit more sophisticated than the one I posted yesterday, but not exactly intellectually challenging.

Also Europe made the scene, again as foreshadowed yesterday. Only in the context of the rant against immigration however, which apparently can't be stopped without regaining some of our autonomy from the Bureaucrats of Brussels. There really is a lot that could be said about the EU. Take the example of Intel. Ireland wanted to give them a grant to help build a new fab in the republic. The EU Commission signalled this would not go down well. Note, they did not reject an application, nothing so transparent. The just signalled. Apparently they are so concerned to ensure that Ireland doesn't put one over on, say, France, that they completely miss the big picture that it is the EU competing with the far East. In any case Intel will build their next fab in Ireland, and have already said as much; but the one after that??

Stupidity.

There are many more examples which could be listed but the guy who does this best is Christopher Booker. His campaign verges on monomania, and as a result has become boring, but the points he makes should be aired. If you want to read some of his articles here are several links.

I'm indebted to a correspondent for pointing out the latest Prescott story. Yes, Prescott Castle was desecrated, and he's very, very cross. Normally I would, of course, feel his pain, but in reality it couldn't happen to a nicer bloke.

Well done chaps!

Postal Votes

It's not gone away you know. Political Betting reports that those recently (fraudulently) registered to vote in Birmingham are still registered. One of their correspondents wrote to the judge (Richard Mawrey) to enquire about this, and got this back: -

Richard Mawrey:

I was not able to take any action about the postal votes which had been wrongly or fraudulently registered but I was told by Counsel for the Returning Officer that the Elections Officer (John Owen) had written to everyone on the absent voters’ list to ask whether they were properly on the list and, if so, whether they wanted to remain on the list. I’m not sure that there is very much more that can be done at this stage. The obvious way for the future would be to scrap all existing lists and require new registration (preferably, as in Northern Ireland, with proof of identity).

Lin Homer, the city’s Chief Executive, responded to Icarus with this letter:-

I have instigated a letter to all 53,000 permanent postal voters (to their home address if different from where their vote is sent) reminding them that they can cancel their vote or change where it is sent to. I have also put in place some capacity to undertake forensic analysis of requests. If we spot any areas of concern, the police have confirmed they will proactively pursue enquiries. I hope therefore, we will be in a much stronger position to deter fraud in the system.

(copied here because it will disappear down political betting's rolling site)

Defections

So Sedgemore joins the Libdems. So what? A bit surprising perhaps that anyone would want him. But there's one thing to be said for it. At least he switched when not an MP. Most defectors switch but hang onto their parliamentary seat (and salary). At least he has to stand again to be an MP. (and it appears he can't be arsed) The question is; will this be a 15 Minutes of fame moment?? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

Brian Sedgemore says:
On Ken Livingstone: "I don't see why London has to suffer because he hasn't fulfilled his ambition to be party leader."

On women Labour MPS: "Stepford Wives"

Good Luck Brian!

Political betting projection Election Outcome LAB majority 78 seats. The first time the projected ZNL majority has dropped.

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 02:31 PM | Comments (2)

April 26, 2005

Bliar?

Well, it took some time, but it finally hit the hustings.

TBCs said Blair was lying. The trouble is that it's very hard to believe that Joe Voter will get excited about the sort of detailed procedural lying which is being talked of. As any fuel no the prime minister basically has the right to take his country to war, subject to a parliamentary vote, and that's what he got, and that's what he did. There may have been some caveats in the Attorney General's legal view which were not made explicit, and it is just possible that a tiny bit too much was made of some distinctly dodgy intelligence, but hey, it was in the greater good. (honest!) The Lib-dems have some sort of a case, in that they always said it was a bad thing, and still do.

Still, I suppose it will make a great campaign poster for TBCs. (click image to make your own!)

Constitution

One of the things that's getting very little coverage in this election, is Europe. In particular, only very few people have pointed out that the constitutional referendum in France, shortly after the general election in UK, is probably more important to the future of 'hard working families' than the general election result itself. If it passes ZNL will have to have a referendum too, and given their resources and skill will probably win it. If not, all bets are off. (At least for the moment. As any fule no official EU policy is to keep holding referenda till the people get it right). Anyway, if you would like to read the new Euroconstitution you can here.

I challenge you to dip into this document ANYWHERE and not find something stupid, meaningless, wrong or inappropriate. Constitutions are supposed to be top level documents providing a framework against which all other legal decisions, or laws, may be judged. This is not such a document, comprising, as it does, some 349 pages of utter tosh. (Compare with the US constitution which, I believe, comprises 11 pages.) Considering it was written by a French guy who fancies himself an aristocrat (but is not) and who obtained a significant part of his wealth by accepting diamonds, probably as some sort of bribe, from an alleged cannibal, I guess we should not be too surprised.

Here is a sample, genuinely plucked at random: -

"European laws or framework laws may establish measures designed to encourage cooperation between Member States through initiatives aimed at improving knowledge, developing exchanges of information and best practices, promoting innovative approaches and evaluating experiences, excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States;"

What does that mean? Why is it in a constitution?

OK, you say, 'what should be in a constitution?' Well, pretty much the same sort of thing that should be in a manifesto. Top level, overview sort of stuff. Three examples: -

1) A TBC govenrment would reduce government budgets to less than 35% of GNP. (The subtext here is small govenrment, low interference, more choice. Governments don't actually run things, people do, and the businesses and associations they form. Lighthouses used to be private, lifeboats still are, and a charity to boot.)

2) A TBC government would never introduce or use retroactive legislation. (subtext. If you retrospectively declare something illegal you have a tool to lock up anyone who disagrees, or has ever disagreed, with you. It is fundamentally totalitarian, which is why ZNL were happy to use it. Remember the fat cats?)

3) A TBC government would repeal one law, at least, for every law enacted. (subtext. there are just too many.)

But it will never happen.

15 Minutes of fame.

Here's Rocky van de Benderskum. He's standing at Canterbury for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance.

Surprisingly, "Rocky, 46, an artisan, believes that adults should be able to decide legally on whether or not to use cannabis."

Last time TBC's got nearly 19,000 votes, over 2,000 more than ZNL. No one else got more than 20%


Good luck, Rocky!

Political betting projection Election Outcome LAB majority 80 seats

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 11:08 AM | Comments (2)

April 25, 2005

Education

The Telegraph leads with a discussion of two recently published papers.

Intergenerational Mobility in Europe and North America by Jo Blanden, Paul Gregg and Steve Machin at the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, and a similar one by academics at the University of Cardiff.

What they portray is little less than a crime against humanity, perpetrated by left wing politicians in UK over the last 38 years. Please read on, I am not exagerating.

It all started with Anthony Crosland who was Secretary of State for Education and Science 1965–1967. He is famous for saying "if there's one thing I do, I will smash every fucking grammar school in the country". Fortunately, and I make no apologies for saying this, he died before he could complete his mission. This has not stopped his successors trying however.

While no-one could claim that the grammar schools were perfect, they did provide a mechanism for intergenerational social mobility which has not been equalled in UK since the late 60's when comprehensives arrived on the scene. With this system, if you come from a sink estate in Bootle, you will go to a school serving that sink estate with your peers from the sink estate. This has been true, and blindingly obvious, since Crosland started destroying grammar schools in the mid 60s. But the efforts haven't stopped there. We had an attempt to close the schools by requiring a vote from parents to keep them open, and now we have comprehensives saying they won't accept people who don't put them as first choice when they apply. Which means the only schools which will accept children who have put them second are fee paying. If you were poor would you take that risk? Blanden, Gregg and Machin state that of 8 countries investigated UK has the worst record on intergenerational mobility, and not only that it is the ONLY one where it is getting worse.

The glorious struggle to eliminate elitism continues. If you are a bright lad from a working class family you must not be allowed to rise above your roots, but must be ruthlessly kept down. Excellence is discrimination by another name. Inequality MUST be expunged, whatever the cost.

Now you might thing this is just stupidity. As usual there are two theories of life. The cock-up theory, whereby they're not out to get you, they just get you by accident; and the conspiracy theory, whereby they really are out to get you. Normally I subscribe to the incompetence theory, but I simply cannot believe that nearly two generations of socialist politicians, over the last 40 years are all incompetent. As Sherlock was wont to say, having eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth. There is a strand of pure evil running through these men. THEY must be the only ones to escape their background. Crosland can go to Oxford, as can Blair, but not you, boy. You stay in your place.

Unlike the Sun I have not declared my support for any party.

Red Smoke at the Sun

However, what I will do, is come out against one.

Do not, under any circumstances, vote ZNL.

Got that?

15 Minutes of Fame

Melodie Staniforth (Commonly known as Boney Maroney)
Standing at Sedgefield against a certain Tony Blair.

Last time around she stood against William Hague (remember him?), where she got 561 votes.

Here's a picture of her with Hague: -

Good Luck Boney!

Political Betting Election Outcome Prediction: - LAB majority 80 seats

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 01:39 PM | Comments (0)

April 24, 2005

Trust

The Sundays are full of trust issues.

It's most odd. Everyone knows that Blair makes it up as he goes along. Most believe that, despite what all the enquiries said, he did 'sex up' the dossier, and many believe that the entry into war was illegal and unjustified, and yet none of it sticks. The Sunday Telegraph today published a list of 10 'lies' which it claims ZNL have promulgated so far during the campaign. Now while this is just a political view it's hard to argue with them too much. The point is people really don't care.

The same paper publishes a lovely story about the pinko BBC placing hecklers with microphones in a Howard meeting. So much for impartial coverage.

What was a little less partial was the Paxman interview. Much has been made of the '20 questions' which Blair dodged on illegal immigrant numbers, but it's hard to get excited about this. While it is true that there are estimates of the numbers concerned, almost by definition they cannot be accurate. The guys are illegal after all, they don't queue up to register. Now why Blair couldn't say that I do not know. Also during that interview he admitted leaking the name of Kelly to the press; always previously denied. Not impressive.

By contrast the TBCs are trying to be reasonably honest, but that does NOT end up being straightforward. One can be for war but not for the way we went to war, but it's not an argument that's going to turn the 'vote for me' light on in many people's heads.

In fact it seems that all this will lead to the lowest turnout for many a year yet the bookies don't seem to reflect this.

BlueSquare are offering evens that more than 62% turnout will be achieved, whereas Bet Direct are offering evens on a less than 62% turnout. Which says the answer will be 62%, which is odd given a 59% number last time. Go double your money but don't blame me.

Maybe the answer is in postal votes. A week ago the Times published the following list, and numbers have certainly grown since then: -

RISE IN POSTAL VOTING IN KEY MARGINALS
Cheadle: 485% to 8,226
Dorset South: 192% to 6,557
Thanet South: 219% to 1,129
Dorset Mid and North Poole: 318% to 4,306
Rugby and Kenilworth: 207% to 6,847
Norfolk North: 163% to 6,323
Weston-super-Mare: 240% to 6,323
Braintree: 333% to 10,000
Taunton: 282% to 11,700
Orpington: 246% to 6,429

As you'll see it's not just ZNL that stand to gain. Given that the judge in the recent voting fraud case in Birmingham said "Short of writing 'Steal Me' on the envelopes, it is hard to see what more could be done to ensure their coming into the wrong hands," it is nothing less than certain that fraud will occur, and on a large scale. Madness indeed.

15 Minutes of Fame

Sharon Buckle

Standing for Liverpool Walton.

Last time Peter Kilfoyle won for ZNL with 77.8% of the vote. Sharon, or Sibby as the TBC site curiously styles her, has done all sorts of good and clever things, but I doubt she's going to add 'being an MP' to the list any time soon.

Best of luck Sibby!

The Fazakerley Winner; Kilfoyle

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)

April 22, 2005

Respect

Aretha Franklin sang of this but she would never have expected to be associated with George Galloway.

He's a right one, it must be said.

Here's Galloway on Galloway: -

(On his proudest achievement in parliament since 2001) "Having been a leader of the anti-war movement which built the biggest demonstrations in British history; having been right about Iraq; having made enemies like Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black; having defeated the Daily Telegraph in court; and having helped build Respect - the Unity Coalition." (hey, we can all make enemies, the clever bit is making friends)

Hmm... A couple of questions: -

Who (or what) has most influenced your political thinking?

An anti-imperialist family, an Irish maternal grandfather who told me the reason the sun never set on the British Empire was because God would never trust the English in the dark. And Tony Benn, the best prime minister Britain never had.

What do you do to forget the stresses of Westminster?

I don't stress, in the words of Ho Chi Minh, "Calamity has hardened me and turned my mind to steel".

What were the last book and CD you bought?

Cuba - A New History by Richard Gott
Steve Earle - The Revolution Starts Now (lovely man, Steve. Got his girlfriend pregnant when he was 14. Lyrics here. Yes, he had a dream too...)

Fascinating.

Nick Cohen's view (use arrow keys to scroll, sorry, Firefox and Netscape only)

Enough already.

Crime

Same as before. Arguments over numbers and a realisation that perceptions count. How perceptive...

Stamp Duty

See Council tax. It's exactly the same. Gutter politics and a meaningless and ultimately deceptive attempt to buy votes. It will NOT make prices cheaper. Prices are set by supply and demand. If a punter can afford, and is prepared to pay, say, £150,000 for a house then he will pay £150,000. The stamp duty is NOT 'on top' of the price, it is part of the total price as paid by the punter.

The TBC's had a strategy of drip feeding good news throughout the campaign. Two parts to it; firstly a little good news every day, secondly less chance (and time) for ZNL to trump the TBC's latest ace. Sounded good on paper, but in practice it's turned into a disaster. Every announcement sounds like a desperate last throw of the dice, and makes voters despise them. Look for a landslide ZNL victory despite what the polls and political betting say.

Lies, damned lies and Charlotte Atkins (One way of getting 15 minutes of fame.)

Charlotte was one of Blair's 1997 babes. (though no spring chicken at 46 at the time). She has, according to this site, clocked up £119,702 in expenses during the last parliament. She went to LSE, and likes to keep fit. She's a big fan of car clubs. On 24th March 2005 she gave this written answer to a parliamentary question. Strange how they spend our money. Most important however is that yesterday she said that ZNL would scrap council tax if they won the election. Trouble was, no other ZNL minister knew anything about it. Well Done Charlotte! She had close to a 6,000 vote majority in Staffordshire Moorlands last time so it's unlikely she'll get kicked out. But I wouldn't put money on her being a minister in the next government somehow...

A little picture for a small player...

Political Betting's Projected Election Outcome: - LAB majority 76 seats

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2005

Council Tax

The TBCs have announced they will cancel the revaluation of properties in England.

This is cant. (Or it soon will be. Definition is "buzzword: stock phrases that have become nonsense through endless repetition" I note an alternative definition is "A squared off piece of timber that was initially a round log". Square pegs and round holes spring to mind.) Council taxes are, of course, very visible, because the bill drops on the doormat and isn't part of the price, like VAT, and isn't hidden in the small print of your wage slip like income tax. The fact remains, however, that it's very small. The whole point of the TBC "initiative" is to be able to say "I told you so" sometime in the future. Council tax bills will go up and they'll blame ZNL and their insistence on revaluing. If, by some miracle, TBCs get in, they'll be able to say, when council tax again goes up, "well, at least it's not as bad as it could have been if we'd revalued".

The whole point of revaluing is to make the system a little fairer. The fact that venal, hypocritical, greedy politicians will use it as an excuse to screw a bit more tax out of you doesn't alter the motive for doing it.

Gutter politics.

Slogans

Let's look at slogans again, and how Flo Ting Voe Tah might respond: -

TBC

"Dunno" (perfect for the Don't Knows)

ZNL
IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY

"Not here it's bl**dy not"

Lib-Dem
HIGHER TAXES

"Ooooh, goody"

NMBL

"Fantastic! I didn't even know it was your round"

YES! today we have a new manifesto for you. The NMBP is alive and well and was featured prominently on NewsNight last night. Oh lucky, lucky, people of Cardiff. I was going to put a copy of the manifesto on my web site, to save overload on their server, but when I got there the hit counter showed 8 so it doesn't look as though they've suffered a Denial of Service attack lately. Here's a direct link to their manifesto.

15 Minutes of Fame

Welcome to the world of Rehman Chishti

Horsham Constituency Labour Party have selected 25 year old barrister and councillor, Rehman Chishti, to challenge the Conservatives in the next General Election. According to 'Perspective,'the members newletter for the Horsham Labour party, "Rehman Chishti has spoken of his absolute determination to overtake the LibDems, who received just over 2,000 votes more than us at the last election".

He won't win, of course. Francis Maude got 26,134 votes at the last election (51.5%) and our hero's predecessor only got 10,267.

But anyway, Good Luck Rehman!

Today's political betting projected majority is 76.

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April 20, 2005

Immigration

Slow news day.

Or, to be more accurate, the election news was largely taken over by the news of a new pope. Of course that could be described as 'election 05 too, I guess.

Our newsagents has the tabloids displayed side by side, so we had GOD'S ROTWEILER, THE ENFORCER and POPE IDOL. Needless to say the last was from the Irish Sun. Not quite up there with UP YOURS DELORS! (November 1st 1990) or GOTCHA!

Thank God for the fourth estate, I'm sure you agree.

Immigration

I was astonished this was on the TBC list, frankly, after William Hague's disaster with it last time out, but it seems they just can't forget Smethwick and the river Tiber foaming with much blood. The full text of that speech from 1968 is here, and a picture of Powell for good luck.

The problem is that this is always presented as a totally racist attack, and even the national front proudly has the full text of the speech on their website (Not the link I gave you). Powell was sacked and for the most part any anti-immigration rhetoric is now automatically associated with racism. What is interesting is the result of immigration. Think of two of the most economically successful regions of the world in the last century. California and Hong Kong. In both cases they are populated almost entirely by people who have got off their butts and done something for themselves and their children. You might think Hong Kong is all chinese with a few whites, and you'd be right, but that ignores the fact that there are almost no third generation Hong Kongers. The influx during the cultural revolution saw to that. The bottom line is that nobody struggles half way round the world for fun; they do it to better themselves. (I know this having been an immigrant myself these last 24 years) These people are people any country would be sensible to accept.

So what's the difference in UK today? In a word 'welfare'. In California and Hong Kong people struggled there knowing they'd have a chance to work and do well for themselves. In some cases, yes, a minority, people struggle to UK knowing they'll have a chance to live off welfare for the rest of their natural. If people saw that HMG understood who was coming in, and ensured the maximum help in finding work for them, and the minimum help, consistent with humanity, in terms of cash handouts, there would be few objections. But when neither of these conditions are fulfilled it provides fertile ground for the National Front and their ilk to prosper in.

So the TBCs have a point, and are actually putting it across a little less stridently than before, but it still won't do them any good.

Why?

It's the economy, stupid. (From around 1992 when Clinton beat Bush snr.)

15 Minutes of fame

David Jackson. Lib-dems

Political experience: -

• Member, Rutherglen Local Party Committee 2000-3
• General Election Candidate - Glasgow Rutherglen 2001
• Convener, Glasgow Rutherglen LP 2003-
• Glasgow City Council Candidate 2003
• Scottish Election Candidate - Glasgow Baillieston 2003
• Scottish Election List Candidate - City of Glasgow 2003

So, a trier then. He'll need to be. His predecessor in Glasgow Baillieston, one Charles Dundas, polled 6.7% of the vote last time, though, on the bright side, up 2.8% from before, and only 0.1% behind the TBCs. Now, there have been boundary changes so he may just do better.

Good luck David!

Political Betting Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 74

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April 19, 2005

Health

We've had all the buzz words today. Waiting lists, targets, cancer, choice. You name it. But what does it mean?

The thing about health, as promoted in the UK, is that it, or rather the service that is supposed to give it to us, should be free at the point of use. No party seriously disagrees with this viewpoint. Howard even went so far as to sign the ZNL petition to 'keep the health service free at the point of use'. But there's a fundamental problem here that needs a little thought.

To see why you need to go back to the ideas of supply and demand. Fundamentally this is what, in markets, sets the price. If the price is forced to be free, there's nothing to restrict demand, and in a population with increasingly high expectations, and of increasing age and infirmity, that demand can effectively be infinite. To put it another way there are only two ways to make demand equal supply. Either by price, or queuing. (Rationing is just another form of queuing.) In fact, though no politician would admit it, The UK health service operates by a combination of the two. You join a waiting list or you pay for private treatment. This has always been the case, and it's hard to see how that can ever change. So really the only way you can adjust the situation is to try and set the standard for the 'free' health service sufficiently high that people have to pay a LOT to get anything better. If you do that people really don't care that the very rich can 'jump the queue', since everyone knows that in the final analysis the very rich can always do that.

There's two ways to go about this. Firstly set targets that seem desirable to people. The don't have to be reasonable to experts. If they're achievable, either by fiddling the books or by ignoring unseen other facets of performance, this will do the trick. Secondly, genuinely put more money in. Again, it doesn't have to be spent on health care directly; as long as people see very important performance indicators getting better 'as a result of' more money, they will think their free service OK, and getting better, and won't worry too much that very rich people can get even better service.

Any of this sound familiar?

TBC, by contrast, are looking for a phased over boundary, whereby slightly rich people can get a bit better service, and furthermore take a bit of cost from off the shoulders of the NHS. The second part looks fine, but the first part is heresy, because it's not just the unattainable toffs with rollers that get a two week hip replacement, it's the guy next door with a 2 year old Audi who gets a 4 week one, while you have to wait 7 weeks. Envy plays well here. Not for nothing was socialism called the politics of envy.

The problem with a lot of this is that is that it's counter-intuitive. Letting people pay a bit might actually make it better for those who can't pay. Doesn't sound right, but probably is. But equally, thinking that, because you don't pay anything it's free sounds right but isn't. TBC have got to find a way of getting across a message of personal self reliance before thay have the slightest hope of electory success.

Ok enough already.

15 Minutes of Fame

Wafik Moustafa Conservative candidate for Bootle.

TBC polled a massive 7.95% of the vote last time.

Our very best wishes go to Wafik Moustafa. Unfortunately no pictures are available of this brave soul.

You read it here first.

Look in the Examiner today. (Cork's Irish national newspaper) You'll find an article on the back page telling you about Blair 'forwar not bach' photo opportunity. You read it all here on April 14th.

Look in the Telegraph letters today. Brian Christley, of Abergele, Conwy, suggested an ASBO for Paula Radcliffe. You read it here yesterday.

Today's Political Betting prediction: - Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 76 seats

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April 18, 2005

Crime

The TBC's strong suit, if you believe the polls, is law and order. Nobody really bought Tony's 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime' slogan (1997 ZNL manifesto). Currently ZNL says crime's down, TBC says crime's up.

As usual it's hard to pick the bones out of the conflicting claims. The BBC's Panorama made a fair fist of it last night, though with lots of the normal long winded distractions. If you don't believe me the full transcript is available here. My take on it was that there have been a couple of changes in the way statistics are gathered and presented since 1997 and, if you take account of them, crime is actually down a bit during ZNL's tenure. This was ascribed to a number of factors, the main ones being, more prison, more concentration on known offenders, and, particularly in regard to car theft, better security devices. They also emphasised that the trend started under the TBCs, and has perhaps slowed a little under ZNL. It seems clear that, as Howard said at the 1993 TBC party conference, 'Prison works'. Those who argue against this always make the point that recidivism rates of males are around 50%, but that begs the question 'what are prisons for?' In a touchy-feely ZNL world prisons would be there to 'cure' people, and maybe deter them, but what Howard was talking about is their effectiveness in keeping known criminals off the street so they can't offend. Having said that the actual actions of ZNL, as opposed to the PC rhetoric, seem to be largely following Howard's way.

The Mirror's editorial emphasised another point, which is that people's perception of the risk of crime is important, even if it's wrong.

The bottom line here is that it's hard to slip a sheet of paper between the likely actual actions of the two main parties, ZNL's PC rhetoric will alienate many, TBC's exagerations will also.

What is new in the last few years is the concept of ASBOs. (Antisocial behaviour orders) By use of these, antisocial yobs and yobbesses are kept out of areas where they persistently urinate on the street and cause a nuisance. All very praiseworthy, and apparently reasonably effective.

Question: - Shouldn't Paula Radcliffe be served with an ASBO? According to the Sun's report on the London Marathon "She could afford to spend a penny, though — or even two.... and minutes after she crossed the finishing-line to pick up £127,000 in prize money and bonuses to go with her £275,000 appearance fee." One hopes that's all it was, other reports spoke of stomach cramps, which makes one wonder...

15 Minutes of Fame

Sharon Whitlam. ZNL candidate for Arundel and South Downs. Campaigning on social inclusion and equality issues relating to service provision and employment in the public sector.

Last general election: -

Howard Flight Con got 23,969 votes
Derek Deedman LDem got 10,265 votes
Charles Taylor Lab got 9,488 votes
Robert Perrin UKIP got 2,167 votes

Best of luck, Sharon.

Today's Political Betting prediction: Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 72 seats

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April 17, 2005

Strange Polls

Conflicting messages from the polls. As usual they go mad for them on Sundays. The Sunday Times reported that the TBCs had 'closed the gap to just one point. Now the dirty digger is proud of having won the last election the Tories ever won (It woz the Sun wot won it, 1992), but doesn't support them now so this pro-tory poll is not what he'd want to publicise.

By contrast The Sunday Telegraph had ZNL 10 points ahead and was predicting a landslide with a majority of over 150. Again not what the proprietors of a Tory rag would like to see on their front pages.

These polsters (YouGov for the times, ICM for the Telegraph) are on a hiding to nothing. Elections are the best free advertising polsters will ever get, but with forecast results so widely different it's hard to convince their bread and butter customers that the surveys they do have much validity. The whole excersise is pretty pointless anyway since the current constituency boundaries are so out of whack. General estimates have it that even if both majors get an equal share of the vote, ZNL would win by 30 seats. This is due for review, but, crucially, not till after the election.

Now for a little arithmetic. BMW gave Rover around a half billion pound loan, and left them around point 3 billion in stock; say point eight billion to start. Today's papers say Rover now has debts of over one billion, so they've burned of 1.8 billion. Maybe they still have some cars to sell so let's say they've tossed out 1.5 billion. But they've also sold around a quarter billion worth of assets, (the longbridge land, the component business, and the engine rights) So let's stick with that 1.8 billion number for the amount gone.

We'rd told they're currently running around a 20 million per month loss (say a quarter billion annually). This is obviously worse now than it was when Phoenix took over since they're selling half the cars now than they were then, so over 5 years they'd have lost less than a billion. In other words there's close to a billion missing that shouldn't be.

And of course, we KNOW it can't have gone to Towers since he said: -
"My annual salary has been £200,000 and the pension I will get is £105,000, not £16 million as reported.

"If you look at the salaries of other company chairmen within the same industry, you will see that this is significantly below the average.

"Other bosses are paid a lot more than I was and are given larger pensions."

Would YOU buy a used car from this man?

And another thing. Now they're gone we're told 5000 workers will be redundant. To pay those people for one week cost £6,500,000. Average annual salary? Around £65,000. I'm in the wrong business.

Spotted on 'Tony Blair's campaign diary', headlined 'I saw him off'

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

Kaleem Saeed, labour party candidate for Henley. 2001 results were:-

Candidate                Party  Votes   Share   Change

Boris Johnson            Con    20,466  46.1%   -0.3%

Catherine Bearder       LDem    12,008  27.0%   +2.3%

Janet Matthews          Lab     9,367   21.1%   -1.6%

Philip Collings         UKIP    1,413   3.2%

Oliver Tickell          Green   1,147   2.6%    +1.6%

Turnout                        44,401   64.3%   -13.3%

Majority                        8,458   19.0%

Pledge:-

‘The people of Henley want an MP who can represent them full-time and deal with the core issues which concern Henley. Choose an MP who will do just that. If I was elected as your MP then I would offer you a full commitment, responsibility and be accountable to the people of Henley.’

Picture: -

Good luck Kaleem.

Political betting Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 72 seats

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 03:40 PM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2005

RIP Rover

Sometimes you just can't bring yourself to put a favourite pet out of its misery. So it was with Rover. It had been the subject of endless blood tranfusions and a tracheotomy at the very end to help its breathing, but the major surgery that might have extended its life, albeit as an amputee, proved unacceptable to animal lovers of all political persuasions. Thus its life was preserved for nearly five years too long. The haemorrhaging continued, and parasites grew fat on its decrepit body.

Far from rising, Phoenix-like, from the ashes, it spread its miasma of decay around the region. Alchemy might have helped, but, in the end, there were no Byers. Now the parasites will quickly leave, seeking a new host. We must be vigilant for a while, for, should they find one they will grow fat once more. We should take comfort in the fact that they do not have long to live when removed from their host, but we should take no risks, they should be plucked off, and crushed. Now.

Pet lovers and owners everywhere will grieve, but we must ask ourselves the hard questions. Should Blair and Hewitt be allowed to have another pet? Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, and if Rover was too scared to play with the Jaguars and Cougars out there, he either needs training or replacing. Tranfusions and hospice care will never do the trick. If this lesson has not been learned then, I'm afraid, no more pets.

We now have a Welsh lib-dem manifesto. I was wrong, they didn't translate it. To be honest I can't bring myself to give you a picture this time.

We have a Prescott egger. No photos of the act this time, and no pugilistic skill demonstrated by John 'thumper' Prescott. But we do have a photo of the egger.

If you're interested in Prescott egging then this site may keep you happy for a while. Unfortunately it's not too up to date, but as a record of history in the making it remains valuable. Potential eggers should study the sequence below to understand the objectives of the game. We're eternally greatful to the Sun for making these images available.

Political betting Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 68 seats

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April 15, 2005

Mo' of deep 'oles

Polls are dreadful if you're a TBC today. We forecast that locking up Bourgass might play well for ZNL, but were unprepared for the counter attack on the grounds of immigration. This may well gather pace today, despite ZNL attempting to defuse the issue with apologies.

The Sun was pretty scathing about this in it's editorial today. "We must have proper control of our borders to keep his like at bay", gives a flavour of their views, surprisingly close to the TBC views.

Nothing phases The Mirror however, who take the line that it was just operational difficulties which led to Stephen Oake's death, and makes no mention of the ZNL apologies. "Tragically Detective Constable Stephen Oake was killed by Bourgass because the raid was badly bungled." They also have fun at Howard's expense, with a son at public school, and 10 fellow ahadow cabinet members ex-public-schoolboys, it makes his claims about being a simple comprehensive school student in Wales a pretty easy target.

All bad news on the Rover front too. The putative Shanghai partners have all but pulled out, and the last £6,000,000 is all but spent. Given that they say they are losing around £20,000,000 per month it tells you that, in effect, they are losing their entire wage bill. Not good. The Financial Times tells us that the fragrant Hewitt and her friends at the DTI were against both the proposed £100,000,000 bung and the actual £6,000,000 one. Blair was for it, however, presumably wanted an eye catching initiative with which he could be personally associated, as he originally wrote on 29th April 2000. So will Rover get more? My bet; YES.

Hmm. Past noon and still no Lib Dem manifesto for the welsh. Are they translating it or what? For Scotland (plus a supplement) they had some special, localised ambitions: -

"# Achieve radical health improvement by preventing illness and promoting good health
# Cut crime and reoffending through effective rehabilitation and alternatives to custody
# Implement innovative education and enterprise policies to create an entrepreneurial Scotland
# Get Scotland moving through massive investment in public transport & infrastructure
# Make sustainable development the focus for Scotland’s future and ensure a green environmental thread runs through all Scottish Executive policy, not least in our ambitious targets for renewable energy, recycling and green jobs"

So, they're going "achieve health improvement by preventing illness and promoting good health", are they? Good Plan.

But it does have a pretty cover....

Today's Political Betting Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 68 seats

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April 14, 2005

Numbers

Slippery little things aren't they?

'Just One Manifesto', reported yesterday, was in fact the second manifesto. The True Blue Conservatives (TBC) had released theirs on Monday. More of an escape than a release really; no-one noticed. It's smaller than ZNL's version, some 7,500 words (not including the scribbled words) and 32 pages (which end at page 30 due to some rather odd page numbering).

Here's a flavour: -

Oh dear Oh dear. If you're going to aim your manifesto at the lowest common denominator then, firstly, don't make it obvious, and secondly, don't use cursive script (that's 'joined up writing' for those of you in ZNL).

Talking of numbers, how many pages did the ZNL manifesto have? Yes, it is a trick question. The downloadable version has 56 single sided pages. ZNL published it in booklet form with 112 pages by the simple expedient of folding each sheet in half. Of course, if you printed double sided you'd have 28 pages of information. But, meekly following the ZNL diktat, the meeja all said it was 112 pages. That's what you get for believing election promises.

And there were lots of numbers about the economy. And we had the IMF and the IFC telling us that bits didn't add up. (surprise!) And we had ZNL saying that TBC was going to cut services and spend too much. All very difficult to get to the bottom of, and hardly worth the bother. Like always both major plans depend on HUGE 'efficiency savings' being made in the administration of govenrment. This is always promised and never delivered, so what you really want to know is not the plans, but the philosophy behind them. Judging from ZNL's campaign song they just think 'it's a beautiful day', which is suspiciously close to 'you've never had it so good'. TBC ask if you're thinking what they're thinking. Hard to know really...

I kind of suspect that yesterday's conviction of an illegal immigrant for terrorist offences (the poison factory case) may play well for ZNL. They're pushing the line that the minister concerned (Blunkett the blind babe hunter) worked tirelessly behind the scenes, protecting britons without alarming them. Maybe so, but only one of the defendants was convicted and he was already in goal for murder. Certainly not a triumph. It's all being linked too, to the War in Iraq. ZNL was doing great things to stop terrorists but really couldn't talk about it too much and had to take the outrageous brickbats on the chin. They're not really for war, just protecting britons. But Blair looks a little forwar in this pic.

Thanks to Political Betting for showing this. And would that be Johann Sebastian or Carl Philipp Emanuel who disagrees with Blair?

STOP PRESS

Lib Dems release manifesto. Actually 3. Well, actually 2 since the Welsh don't get theirs till 15th April. No link to a pdf file this time, The Orange Party is using new technology, but you can get a somewhat formatted document here. As a middle of the road party they've got a middle of the road number of words in it (around 16,000). If you read it on the web it has 20 pages, if you put it into Word it has 40 pages. Cunningly they've used small writing on the web. A flavour: -

Messy, confusing, hard to read, but earnest. Get a publicist Kennedy.

Today's Political betting Projected Election Outcome LAB majority 64 seats

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April 13, 2005

Just one Manifesto

It seems as though this election has been going on forever. I was somewhat surprised, therefore, when yesterday's big news was a sneak preview of parts of ZNL's manifesto. Yes, the manifesto appeared today, and only by mid morning. A copy can be obtained here.

It's a fairly substantial document, 56 pages and some 24,000 words. Every chapter begins with a comparison with 1997. For example
"1997: Marginalised in Europe, aid in decline
and Bosnia in ruins
2005: Aid doubled, elections in Iraq and
Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia peaceful
2010: A strong Britain in a reforming Europe,
300 million out of poverty, global action
on climate change"
You can see the process; even Bosnia was a CONtrick. But all this was eight years ago. The message is very clever, right down to the slogan "forward not back". Show how bad things were before ZNL took over, plead with people not to go back there, but to go forward to the 2010 elysian fields, singing, dancing, and holding hands with ZNL. Even a planning disaster like breaking up the house of lords with no sensible idea as to how to replace it, is presented as much more progress than the other lot ever made and more to come. The last sentence of the leaflet reads,
"Having refused for decades to accept any reform of the
archaic House of Lords, some of them now claim to support
a fully elected House.The choice is forward with new Labour to
modern institutions and more power than ever devolved to
communities and successful local authorities. Or back with
the Tories to a government indifferent to the health of our
democracy and negligent of our institutions."
No mention here of the attempt to 'devolve power' to the North East regional assembly, a suggestion voted out by a huge majority.

Today’s Politicalbetting “BALANCE OF MONEY” prediction: Labour majority 60

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 01:08 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2005

Choice

So what is this 'choice' thing that Howard (CON Folkestone & Hythe) witters on about?

Well, an example. It surprises many outside UK just how little input parents get on where their children are educated. Everyone has read about the British (so called) Public Schools, and many have heard how even members of ZNL send their children to specific schools because they will get an education more to their parents liking that way. (Think blaster Blair and Diane Abbott). People just assume this is the privileged tip of a system of privately and publicly funded schools, and that depending on your means you can mix and match as you please.

Not so.

In UK you send your children to a school within whose catchment area you reside. Period. No choice. If you come from a sink estate in Liverpool your children will go to the school serving that estate and will mix with others like them. If you come from and asian area of Bradford your children will go to school with other asians.

You don't believe me? Well look at the news today. Margaret Gillespie, a deputy head teacher with 27 years of unblemished service applied to have her child go to Lady Margaret school. Hers was a common choice. Last year 660 applications were received for 90 available places. What distinguished Margaret Gillespie's application was that she lied about her address. If she had got away with it she would have had a good chance of getting her child to the school she wished; in fact it was her only way of making a choice. If there was any realistic way of parents choosing the school their children attend do you really suppose that a deputy head, with 27 years unblemished experiency would have chosen to lie? But, according to the Telegraph, she did. One hopes this is not a CON trick slipped in by Howard...

The problem is that choice promotes competition. If you had to buy a Rover then they wouldn't have been driven out of business by Toyota. And competition produces losers. And losers are a bad thing. The fact that Abbott, Blair, Boateng, and in the good old days Gaitskell, Douglas Jay and Anthony Greenwood choose, or have chosen, to bypass the system says it all. And let's not forget that the likes of Blair, Charles Clarke, (the former education secretary no less!) Ruth Kelly, (the current education secretary no less!) and even Blunkett (from the people's republic of South Yorkshire no less) have benefited themselves from choosing a school.

If you want to become nerdishly expert on the last election (e.g. Largest labour majority by percentage Joe Benton Bootle 69.0% Smallest majority Patsy Calton (Lib) Cheadle 33), then get this pamphlet. Kindly put together by HMG at your expense. Some spotty nerd could have got a PhD from Bootle tech by doing this, but HMG denied him the choice.

Here's a picture of the great Joe Benton and the equally great Patsy Carlton so you'll know them should you run into them on the street. (If for some strange reason you want a 16Megabyte high resolution image of young Patsy the liberal democrats have kindly given you a link here.)

POLITICALBETTING “BALANCE OF MONEY” prediction: Labour majority 60

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 11:28 AM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2005

Educating Rover

No, not starring Michael Caine this time.

Nice to see Blaster Blair (ZNL, Sedgley) so keen on education. As a public schoolboy with a privately educated offspring perhaps it's no surprise. What is a surprise, right up there in the 'you couldn't make it up' category, is his use of the famous 1997 'education, education, education' slogan. Remember you read it here last Friday. Could it be possible that Blaster reads our little blog?

What, perhaps, is even more astonishing is that it comes only days after this: -

"The national literacy strategy, the foundation of the Government's education policies, is almost certainly flawed, fails one child in five and needs to be urgently reviewed, a Labour-dominated committee of MPs said yesterday." (John Clare, Telegraph 7th April)

What we have here is a committee with a ZNL majority savaging what Blaster has achieved in the last 8 years. Then the man has the chutzpah to demand your votes for putting education top of his list?

Meanwhile Rover is now OK again (OFFICIAL!). The fragrant Ms Hewitt bunged 'em £6,000,000. Only another £94,000,000 to go. Though realistically if she can avoid the workers all getting sacked before May 5th I guess they can all go get stuffed after that. I have to admit I'd forgotten part of the start of this saga. It was Bozo Byers that let John Towers get away with it. Jon (asset stripper) Moulton's Alchemy bid of 5 years ago just didn't switch Bozo's points. (sorry about the tag Mr. Moulton, but your annoyance on the BBC's Newsnight the other evening was just too good to ignore) I reported the other day that SAIC was claiming ownership of the Rover brand but the story gets murkier according to the Sunday Times, who say BMW also claim ownership. Apparently they retained ownership but gave a free licence to Towers and his cronies. If both claims are true then it would appear that Phoenix sold brand rights they didn't own to SAIC. Even by Tower's standard's that's a little bit naughty. 'Her Fragrancy' might regret praising the Phoenix Phour (Birmingham Motor show, May 04) "I am very pleased with Rover's performance, there was a very big risk involved in setting up Rover again when it looked likely to come to the end of the road." Still, keep your chins up Ms Hewitt, here's a picture of a shiny new Rover to gaze lovingly at while listening to the campaign song.

Current prediction from political betting:- a 54 seat ZNL majority.

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)

April 10, 2005

Deep 'oles

Naturally this weekend everyone went crazy with the polls, and mostly they said ZNL was pulling away. One of the things that has happened in this UK general election, and in the the last US presidential election, is the rise of on-line spread betting on the results. Now I'm personally almost violently allergic to all forms of gambling so don't look here for a guide to what to do. However what is interesting is the predictions that come out of what is essentially a question of 'who do you expect to win?' One of the players in UK (Mike Smithson of Political Betting) said the difference is that you're putting money behind it but I suspect that's only part of the story. The key part is that word 'expect'.

The point is that we all put bets on our expectations, spread betting just makes it explicit. This is in the sense that all our lives we make decisions on the basis of what we expect to happen. Other studies have indicated that polls on expectations are more accurate than polls on voting intentions. The last US election also is claimed to have been better predicted by spread bets than by conventional polls.

The current prediction from political betting, is for a labour majority of 54 seats. Also look here under 'live prices/politics/uk/general election' for the likely range of seats.

We shall see.

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

April 09, 2005

Rover

It looks like this particular story is going to get political legs. It turns out that Patricia Hewitt, the ZNL minister in the Department of Terminal Ineptitude, announced Rover was going broke yesterday, before the company itself announced anything, thus triggering the situation whereby suppliers refused to deliver anything without cash on the nail. (My thanks to Neil Collins of the Telegraph for de-acronymising the initials.) Not only that but she said the company was going into 'receivership', as opposed to 'administration' prompting the uncharitable to think it possible that she hasn't a clue.

Also let's not forget the bungs already passed to Rover by the govenrment in the form of "deferred" national insurance and tax payments for Rover's workers. One wonders if the EU commissioner for competition will forget?

Finally, at least for now, it would seem that full intellectual property rights for 3 engines and the MG name already are owned by the putative chinese 'partners', and have been paid for. And, yes, the money's probably been spent. Electronic transfers being what they are it's hard to know if any of the actual pound notes handed over by the government or the chinese ended up in John Towers' back pocket, but a casual observer might be forgiven for drawing that conclusion...

Meanwhile, back at BMW, remember them? Yes they used to own Rover. Anyway, back there on April fools day, some people decided to have a little joke. A company spokeslady described it as "our traditional April Fool advertisement". In it they described BMW's new hands-free steering system which was going to overcome the EU's forthcoming ban on right hand drive cars driving in mainland Europe. No steering wheels on either side, you see. On the special web-site they put up they had a picture of nine steering wheels above the catchy slogan "Lest we forget". If one wanted to stereotype a german company's sense of humour it would be hard to improve on them reducing the holocaust memoriam to the status of an April fool's joke. Of course people complained and the picture was modified shortly after midday, so, if you missed it, here's a before and after.

Posted by Flo Ting Voe Tah at 08:18 AM | Comments (0)

April 08, 2005

Day of Mourning

Of course everyone is on their best behaviour today; the funeral sees to that.

Strange happenings in Ireland, across the water. Firstly everyone accused the govenrment of paying more attention to mamon than to god when they wouldn't give the country a free day off to mourn, and coincidentally run into the weekend. Strange how non of the doubters chose to take a day off without pay, or from their annual leave, to grieve on. Finally a letter writer in the Irish Times picked up on this.

The second thing was a second rate DJ on a Cork commercial radio station stating that it made him 'sick to his stomach' to see Bush in Rome. He also stated that 'war was really about fairness'. Great to see the hand of deeply felt philosophy resting lightly on even no-account Irish DJs, I have to say.

On a lighter note it looks like Rover is going broke. I await late breaking news that ZNL will actually bung them £100,000,000 to 'save the only British Volume Car Manufacturer'. We shall see. Of course what they should really do is lock up Towers and his friends who have supervised the convers