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I heard the Army Chief say in an interview (I think on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Five Live) re the exit, words to effect "what ever the rights and wrongs of 'us' having being in Iraq, at least Sadam has gone AND there is after all a massive oil reserve here"! Could Newsnight look into this Army Chief's statement as it would be nice to know if after all, it WAS oil rather than WMD that 'we' tax payers have paid out a fortune - for this disgusting war. Get that millionaire Reverend Blair on to comment on this statement...

Its not The Peanut Scale (but top brownie points for getting it across) its the fact that they have power over us and behave in such a slimy, slippery and dodgy way and then they try to defend it.

I posted this on Peston's blog :

From a very recent speech by Sally Dewar, Managing Director, Wholesale of the FSA :

"Going back five years, to an economy with much more benign conditions, where there was legislation that made pursuing a criminal conviction for fraud near impossible."

"NEAR IMPOSSIBLE"

Kinda gets at the mind set and whole situation Blair and Brown instigated.

Are MP expenses just peanuts? Well, yes.

Compare the staff costs that George Osborne claims from the taxpayer with the cash he accepts from the City for staffing his office. Last year, the former was roughly £79,000. The latter, nearly half a million quid, earmarked by the hedge fund and banking donors for the express purpose of staffing his office. Either his "age of austerity" and thrift doesn't apply to his office, or the money's paying for something else. We would be within our rights to think it might, possibly, be influence.

So, yes, expenses are peanuts.

I've just watched that Grossman video and actually its rubbish. It fogs the issue and tells you absolutely nothing that a graph or a pie chart wouldn't explain better. The video is the latest of a recent series of Newsnight reports whose point has been obfuscated by lavish spending on food. We've had the one with course after course of plates of expense account food. And we've had the one with the squashed oranges. And now we've got a whole weeks groceries. Personally I've got even less wish to foot the food bill for some Newsnight chiseller than I have to provide bath plugs for MPs.

(In fact it was probably even more ridiculous, if that's possible, than the Stephanie Flanders Budget film that panned up a lamp post to illustrate the rising cost of something or other.)

MPs' 'peanuts' expenses.
Of course, it's always easy to trivialise or lampoon something that may justify a proper examination. One could even quote the old employment saw that if we pay peanuts we will get monkeys. But we are talking about a unique class of employment that is privileged, generously salaried and with exceptional pension rights; particularly for a job with an absence of any stated qualifications or performance criteria.

The ongoing review of expenses should be broadened to include a complete job evaluation of remuneration, compared with other forms of employment.

The principle of having MPs 'representing' arbitrary defined areas of the country should be re-examined in the light of changes in social mobility and 'equality' and the attempted infliction of a multicultural and homogenous society.

Proportional Representation, coupled with working-from-home technology should rid us of the 'need' not only for second homes, but also from a huge amount of environmentally unfriendly travelling back and forth to Westminster. This would also enable many more citizens, on a part-time basis, to be involved in discussion and decision taking, producing something far more democratic than our present system.

Let's start thinking radical instead of trivial.

Radical instead of trivial indeed. Have you heard what is going on in France with 'bossknapping' and direct action by those whose jobs are threatened by French bosses who want to upsticks their industry and go to China etc etc... here is a wonderful link to the debate (two clips) in English on France 24 with Tony Benn and Paris based American economist Max Keiser and two other interesting participants. I just wonder why none of this is reported on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ? Also why Newsnight can not do something as good?!

In the words of Margaret Thatcher, let us rejoice that our country's shoddy role in the Iraq debacle, militarily speaking, is now officially nearing an end. I hope the soldiers will get some well earned respite before heading for Afghanistan, yet another war we have little reason to engage in. The sole consolation is that the US will have everyone out of there in two years.

MPs' expenses are most definitely not peanuts; the structure of expenses and allowances is seriously out of date and needs re-shaping as a matter of urgency; Gordon Brown's creepy YouTube appearance did show that urgency is needed; but not panic. Once the media have had the opportunity to trawl through the myriad pile of receipts and publish the results, then, and only then, are we likely to see a new system of expenses which reflects the age of austerity we all will have to tolerate, partly because of the MPs' collusion, tacit or otherwise - with some notable exceptions - in the City Bubble.

What is it you are all trying to divert our attention from with this pig flu thing?

"The World Health Organisation (WHO) has raised the alert of a swine flu pandemic to five on their six point scale and following the confirmation of a new case in the Netherlands and Switzerland, the virus is officially in 12 countries. The Prime Minister has said all necessary steps are being taken to ensure Britain is prepared for a possible swine flu"

Oh dear Newsnight, you're not keeping up with the World Hysteria Organization, which now insists that we only talk of H1N1 Influeneza A, as talking about pigs seems to incite some countries to all sorts of daft behaviour - this time !

It still looks remarkably like a 'we, your leaders, will save you all' PR routine after the major anarchistic governments made complete sows' ears of their economies ...

PS. I trust this post won't incite any other type of animal genocide, or affect pork-belly or any other commodity prices.

"CREEPY YOUTUBE" and 'WHO' LOVES YOU (#7 and #8)

What a lovely name for the Great Leader. But Kashi, YOU ARE SOOOOOO RIGHT - creepy! However, as nearly all brains are now jelly, Wee Jimmie Brown's TOTALLY TELLING performance is only mentioned in asides, yet if performed in Tesco's, it would get you sectioned.

HI JJ. It did come along rather conveniently didn't it? Not unlike 9/11 - or should I say 'The New Pearl Harbour'?

What a pity Hannan thinks the Tories are the answer. Shiny Boy Dave is a denizen of the Westminster Swamp. It is the swamp ITSELF that is the problem.

barrie (#9) "What a pity Hannan thinks the Tories are the answer. Shiny Boy Dave is a denizen of the Westminster Swamp. It is the swamp ITSELF that is the problem."

The Conservatives can't possibly be the answer as New Labour has obviously been implementing their policies ever since 1997!

The only viable party would be an Old Labour Party made up of experienced politicians (from whatever party) and a purge of New Labour politicians - so long as they implemented the National Socialism we had in the UK from the . That this is remarkably like the PRC today should not worry anyone. It even meets your demand for Independent politicians.

Watching the 'Conservative Activists' in the USA on last night's programme it seemed to me that most of these anti-statists have absolutely no grasp of how their demographics have changed over recent decades, and how they will continue to change as a consequence of their own anarchistic politics which they think of as freedom/conservativism!!

The government have got a valid point on the Gurkhas, Tories preaching thrift yet prepared to spend 1.4 Billion on NHS / social services crippling potential coffin dodging Gurkha natural old age death refugee's. Allowing all Gurkhas to settle in the UK could seriously damage the Nepal economy, ex UK soldiers living in Nepal on pension must be the best way of providing foreign aid and getting it fairly into local communities.

The Tories are practicing double standards, alleging that the UK disabled are scroungers and appear to value virtual overseas mercenaries more than their own indigenous population.

JJ #8

Picked this up on the local grape vine but apparently Mexican students attending as boarders at a long standing well know catholic " college " were put into quarantine immediately when they returned after the Easter holiday's. Government probably kept it quiet so as not to spoil stock market options expiry, could have screened passengers from Mexico up to two weeks earlier.

When Blunkett claims Gordon and Labour had "lost their antennae" I presume he was talking about things like the National Conversation that commenced with trying to push through GM after 85% of the populace indicated they were against it?

#10 Jaded_Jean brossen99

So the upshot as ever is that the Haw Haws that regularly post on this page would like to give up on democracy and adopt the policies of Hitler. But people were enthusiastically against them in WWII and they are against them today.

Its great that the vote, and the public reaction, on the Ghurkas demonstrates that your views are both abhorrent and out of touch. Our gene pool is boosted by those courageous soldiers.

On the racial purity side I suppose all the best far right thinkers will be rushing out to buy a Heck cow as it was Hitlers symbol of racial purity?

Apparently there is a drink that can be made from cows urine. Hitler used to like a "drink" supplied by his niece. The BNP hold their conferences in a field as they are so popular and the field could hold a cow. A beer tent and .... another tent.

My daughter is still out in Mexico and texts me daily wondering what the fuss is all about. The Rep. at her hotel tells them it's a media panic in their complex somewhere on the coast, with no new "residents" since the "out-flight" ban and which is the safest place to be out in the fresh air on an empty beach and complex.
We shall see when she and her partner return Monday what "precautions" will be taken.Flu is always with us and deaths do occur from whatever strain so it makes one wonder if the fuss has been exaggerated. Time will tell.
As to my party, I have e-mailed my MP who was one of the whips on the Gurhka debate, that I am ashamed and I remind him of my many conversations and letters over how Brown will be a liability, well before he took office. I also asked him if I could have £150 per day in addition to the salary I am getting teaching in my retirement (which is preventing my regular blog on this site).
I am off to work before the pandemic catches up with me especially when my daughter return!!??

thegangofone (#14) "But people were enthusiastically against them in WWII and they are against them today."

Which people though? Perhaps many people were whipped up to be back then too? By whom do you think? Germany didn't want a war with Britain. It didn't even want a war with the USSR. It was just Bolsheviks and and their backers which they were opposed to, but they were not the Russians. The problem with is that like so much else, .

drafted the 1945 Labour manifesto, and was no fan of meritocracy. Do you know why?

OF MERIT? OR MERETRICIOUS?

If charisma has merit, Blair and Obama were deserving winners in a meritocracy. Hmmmmm. So what SHOULD we measure?

barrie (#17) "So what SHOULD we measure?"

Repeated (i.e. reliable) Measures of 'g' and 'conscienciousness'....

As a special treat for the "Springtime For Hitler" mob why not have Susan Watts on next week to cover the report on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ web " Africa's genetic secrets unlocked".

If my reading is correct the ten year study shows not only interesting facts about the origins of man but also that there is huge diversity within a race, and I assume re-confirms the view in the real world of genetics that genetic variation is greater within a race than between races and therefore there is no basis for race "realism".

Also how is the Demjanjuk extradition process going? Is his legal team seeking to approach certain Newsnight posters on the basis of their statistical analysis of 1930 Jewish survival rates?


Probably not.

#16 Jaded_Jean

Statements like that reveal so much. Certainly they put your "science" and statistics into context.

You don't actually need to whip people up too much when they know that they are confronted by one of the most evil and hideous regimes in history.

I think if I recall Slavs were considered sub-human and shot almost as enthusiastically as Jews and anarchists etc. As Germany was a large scale war machine quite early on under his tyranny the notion of a peace-loving Hitler is typically ludicrous. Thats why "Springtime for Hitler" works so well.

But whatever happened then to all of the Nazi's after Hitler shot himself having failed? When they were opening up the concentration camps and exposing war crimes there weren't any.

The Nazis were not only evil, they were gutless liars.

BB King segment was great, could so easily have been an hour long...Hail to the Smith for that. Who else was on this list of great guitarist? who came first, Hendrix?

Just Googled and Hendrix was rightly 1st. But no Zappa in the top 10 or Austin Texas finest Eric Johnson! I've been playing for thirty yrs and i didn't get a mention and i know all the chords.

Enjoyed the grilling kirsty gave to MP Chris Bryant. To use an old Dads Army Corporal Jones metaphor, she really shoved it up him.( well actually he used to say "they don't like it up um" but you get the jist) My approval rating for the 'WARK' is always high and non more so when she does NN Review with a lovely colourful top...am always glued when shes made an effort in the fashion dept.
Unlike most ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ folk who are getting paycuts i think Mark Urban is due a pay rise on account his work is always excellent. There you go NewsNight, a little bit of praise for yer...but can you cut back on the flu story as i think we all know when were getting sold a pup.

Thegangofone (#20) "You don't actually need to whip people up too much when they know that they are confronted by one of the most evil and hideous regimes in history."

Have you asked yourself how anyone knew that without being whipped up?

Apparently it keeps you voting Liberal-Democrat....

Your incorrigible behaviour is precisely why some think (looking at the data) that liberal-democracy just doesn't work, i.e why the universal franchise is, in fact, ultimately subversive.