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A very special OBN must be awarded to the Guardian's Mr Martin Kettle

A man of grace. Cameron has been good for Britain

:o) Jeremy's made it into today's Spectator! Oh yes, he's one of Britain's TOP National Treasures!!!

Jeremy's made it into the list of the top earning ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ 'stars' list this week!....he's paid the equivalent of a chest of treasure every year along side the likes of Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton...

Estimated annual salaries...

Jonathan Ross £6m

Anne Robinson £3m

Graham Norton £2m

Chris Evans £1.1m

Chris Moyles £1m

Jeremy Paxman £1m

Gary Lineker £800k

Fiona Bruce £500k

Graham Norton, Jeremy Paxman and Gary Lineker’s wages to be revealed as ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ pledges end of secrecy surrounding pay


Jeremy makes Gavin Esler look extremely good value for money then!

On the OBR I would hope that they are allowed to be independent and I am disappointed Budd feels the need to step down.

Perhaps one problem with it is that the head is inevitably an individual with a disposition and in a powerful position whereas say the BoE interest rate committee takes in a number of individuals whose subjective instincts are canceled out to a large degree by the process.

Still the office can evolve.

On spying and so on there was a very interesting programme on, I think, Channel 4 some years back.

It proposed that a technological failure in the Russian satellite system led the military to think that the US was launching. The brave Soviet general who correctly resisted the urge to fire was later sacked.

But apparently it was the spies on each side, or the other side depending on how you look at it, who provided the intelligence to suggest that neither side was actually wanting to start a nuclear exchange that day.

That could be said to be useful.

On the other hand the Cambridge spies and the many, many other spies that they had in our ranks failed to really change anything and the great communist expansion never happened. It is Russia that now slowly approaches democracy - and we should remember it will take them time to adjust. All of those people who died due to the betrayal of the spies did not ultimately die in vain.

So maybe the "fifth columnist" spy is a luxury whilst a spy that can indicate immediate hostile military/political intentions is incredibly useful.

As for the swaps today it sounded as though the West got a good deal.

Because of the smoke and mirrors of public declarations and spy novels and so on it is inevitable that some may wonder whether the Russian spies were so bad that they were just decoys to keep the more limited in number Western agencies occupied.

Lets hope not.

One query I have on Raoul Moate is that he is a maniac even in his own words and yet he seems to have friends who are willing to take risks that could see them doing serious time.

That does not totally add up to me as they must have some motivation and they would have to be total fantasists to think that they could take on the entire nations police resources and win.

Bouncers have been known to deal drugs and so on and money may be a motivator and it may explain the ease with which fire arms came into the picture.

But that is wild speculation of course.

'Among the Russian agents deported from America last night is glamorous Manhattan socialite and diplomat's daughter Anna Chapman, 28, who was married to a British man and lived in London for several years.

She is being flown back to Moscow today, but her American lawyer, Robert Baum, suggested she would like to return to the UK. '

My God she must be after kevseywevseys orgone energy accumulator!

Does Berlusconi's good friend and sometime holiday companion Tony Blair have a view on the motivations of Berlusconi's desire to restrict wire tapping on privacy grounds?

If he agrees with Berlusconi then he disagrees with "police unions [who] say it would cripple inquiries into offences such as moneylending and drug-trafficking which frequently lead investigators to organised criminals and terrorists".

Just how good will Blairs judgement be seen to be in history you wonder.

How about a follow up on Oldham where the ex-Labour activist exposing the Lib Dems apparently paying less than the minimum wage may have been an influence in the staggering 103 vote majority Woolas got over the Lib Dems?

Did anybody go down?

I am still baffled that the BNP have a web site that "gets more hits than all of the other parties combined" and they have only a few councilors in Stoke.

How can it be that so many people allegedly support that odious entity and yet won't express that opinion in a secret vote?

Meanwhile their "charismatic" leader Griffin will take his election "expertise" into Europe to help National Socialist parties there.

But then that is also very confusing as they are "not a Nazi Party".

So why would a "modern and progressive" party want to help Nazi's?

Am I even surprised by this? No!

GLOBOPOLY STILL PROVING POPULAR WITH NATIONAL LEADERS

As 'Monopoly' has its 'Get Out of Jail' card, so Globopoly has it 'Swap a Spy' card. Two players holding a card are free to swap, on any terms agreed. The player who hands over the smaller number, moves forward a number of squares equal to the difference.

Meanwhile actual governance comes a poor second.

All spies are then declared 'wronged innocents'.

#2

Mistress76uk

It ain't how much Jeremy earns that makes him a National Treasure but rather the scale of contribution he has made to this country, and consequently to the World in the recent years by making his challenges of all sorts. And therefore, in my opinion, he deserves the money he earns, especially that he also contributes, both financially, I'm sure, and hands on, to several significant charities.

mim

The Queen & Prince Philip - Great Grandparents for the first time!!**

CONGRATULATIONS

mim

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i wonder about this OBR fracas, is it real, or is it a cunning attempt to pretend that they are NOT just Osborne's place-men?

because, lets face it, so far all they have done is stick their hands up, and say "We agree with Oik". Well worth the £Ms we are paying this new quango, i'm shuuuure.



not.

Got A lovely letter from the TAX PersonAges 2day, they require me 2 forWard A sum of Fundage.!!! EH holdUp/ROBbery/stop the bus, they want me to pay MY money 2 fund nulabour excreMeant. Oh Ho Ho LOL

Mind my Finger/z times 2

If I buy A leading Brand of Dung from A leading Dung OutLet and I am not Happy with **IT (**It Stinks) I can get me readys back

I did not ask for nulabour bbc clowns to ruin this country, therefore or against I aint paying for **it

Is there A case at the useless EuroPeeTakeIn court of human rights,I think So, I could waste a lot of the Brainy Taxpayers money and make lawyers more dosh....just call me mr du wonderfull

dear/expensive liars 2% please

The silly Buoy who is still afloat called moat

how much is that caper costing, have Aliens landed (not Allans)

- 9 - GangOfOne

Nope - no-one gone down for vote fixing in Oldham yet. Not aware that there was even a police inquiry (this year...).

However, Arif is still making sweeping statements about Oldham without backing up his claims with facts. He must have missed that day at Journo Skool.

Didn't Woolas work at Newsnight?

'5: 'gangy'

"On the other hand the Cambridge spies and the many, many other spies that they had in our ranks failed to really change anything and the great communist expansion never happened. It is Russia that now slowly approaches democracy - and we should remember it will take them time to adjust. All of those people who died due to the betrayal of the spies did not ultimately die in vain."

with stuff like that 'gangy', i would like to know who's 'side' **you** are on.

the so-called "cambridge spies", somewhat covered in peter wright's book 'spy-catcher' (that Thatcher attempted to completely censor from the UK - he published in Australia against legal action from her Govt), their main focus was in recruiting marxists/leninists/trotskyists into position of power within MI5 - this was made considerably easier by the penetration of Marxists into positions within UK universities.

this is not because of some dreaded "Red Threat", but because Marxists are quite often (but not always) easily recruited into other totalitarian systems, even without their being aware of it.

some real liberals might have noted that supposedly distinguished 'leftists', such as Hitchens, completely volte-faced and supported Western imperialism, becoming almost poster boys. He is a classic example of how individuals with 'leftist' credentials, trained and educated within Marxist circles, can so easily have their "Hearts and Minds" converted to supporting archaic, reactionary policies.

this was the danger to British Classic Liberalism, and why it was perceived to be a danger with the MI5 penetration.

it is the strangest thing perhaps, but it was the very pre-occupation with "Cold War" mentality that supported so many Marxist-potentials into positions of authority, both here and the US. They are fairly easy to spot - they are the ones that argue for greater State control to free us of certain 'fears' - like communism, terrorism, islamism etc etc etc. They are the ones that most easily fit intellectual patterns into simple back/white dichotomies, good v evil etc, "you're either with us or against us" type of BS. Not a few have noted the irony that the McArthyists were often far more Bolshevik than the people they were prosecuting for "communism".

the paranoid mentality breeds the paranoid mentality.

it is notable that *real* liberals, such as Chomsky, are often the targets of greater viciousness from supposed 'leftists' than from 'murderous, right-wing nutters'. And usually because he, and the other -free-thinking 'Leftists', do not so easily fall into hatred and facile clichés against whatever the target group is supposed to be that week.

it has often been said that many young radicals become reactionaries as they get older - no, in fact most of them were ALWAYS reactionary, they just adopted the language of evolution for their own emotional needs at that time. Those who *truly* believe in Liberalism Ideals do not so easily fall into the easy 'dialectic' traps that paint everything black/white, and refuse to see the colours of the intellectual spectrum.

what Marxism, and other High Modernist idiocies such as behaviourism, materialism, objectivism, and positivism do, is attempt to limit the debate, and push a subtle form of totalitarianism upon the People. This has been shown most clearly in the UK since 9/11, where anyone opposing the new Imperialist ventures into iraq and Afghanistan as being "pro- (or "soft on") terrorism".

and this noticeably came from many sections of the supposed 'left', such as Hitchens amongst many others.


in *reality*, the US and UK have been ruled by High Modernist, marxist inspired reactionary totalitarians for decades - in alliance with old, inherited money, the classic UK class system.

with a bit of give and take amongst the elites, squabbling for power and wealth amongst themselves.

--so that puts your claims about the "cambridge spies" into perspective. But nice peice of misdirection.


the second part is your preposterous claim that "Russia is becoming democratic". Riiiiiight - under exactly ***WHAT*** criteria are you judging that on?? On evey indice across the board, Russia is failing in basic democratic principles. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Religion, - what is left of *real* democratic values that Russia is NOT fertilising on?

the people of Russia have done nothing except been moved away from Democratic ideals since the Soviets fell, and Yeltsin was catapulted into power. His buffoonery and corruption allowed the former KGB offices, the new Russian FSB, to quietly steal a march, and gain complete economic, social, and political control of the country. Corporate State? You might have thought the US was bad (it is), but Russia has already beaten them to it.

a slow dawning of "democracy in Russia"?? No-one with half a brain-cell, with access to the range of politics you seem exposed to, could POSSIBLY have believed that. Not even the propaganda sheet 'the economist' could claim that with a straight face.

so, like so many of your posts, this is pure Organic, yet you blither it so confidently. You are also still annoyingly spamming virtually every day's blog at the beginning, as others have mentioned, reducing the readability of this blog.

i wonder who pays some of your bills?

#20

and who pays yours, may I ask, mousey? Or are you dreaming of a big golden mountain melting away in your direction to you can bathe in it, get excited in and lick its flows, etc?

isn't it funny that it is always the intelligensia, the upper middle class, the aristos, that always betray their country and not the working class who usually die in their millions to 'defend' our great country. If anyone can remind me of the contrary feel free...

#21 yes.

#22: "

#23

here you're folks, he's admitted to greed at all costs

I'm sure that there were plenty of aristos who died for this contry in World Wars I & II, never mind The Mother and FAther of The Queen having taken all the risks that they took in order to show they cared!!!!

mim

Back to the Past ?

In 1984 , former KGB agent , gave a interview explaining what his job was.










*

It's about 90 mins long.
It may offer a interesting insight into the cold war era spying game, or it may not.

Enjoy, and don't let the Colorado bed bugs bite :P

* Part 9 of the original set was corrupted , but I found another part 9 of the same interview on you-tube.

If you were writing a fairy story, this is what would happen and they all lived happily ever after! ; )

Why are we so frightened of asylum seekers? No british person is ever given so much, even if in desparate need.

#26: lizzy, a couple of points stick out in this report.

firstly: "Mr Nur worked for the Red Cross in Somalia and married his wife in 1993.

The couple subsequently fled their homeland because of civil war and were granted asylum in Britain in 1999."

in other words they are political refugees, and he is possibly quite well connected, he may be a "bus conductor" (ex) in the UK, and despite the emotive photo used, to gain political refugee status from Somalia probably meant he 'did something' for the UK Govt/connected people at some point.

secondly: "He said he found the new house through a friend who knew the landlord, arranged to rent it through an estate agent".

see? And the house is registered to an off-shore account:

"The house is owned by Brophy Group Business Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company whose registered address is a post office box in Liechtenstein."

!

and thirdly: rather typical of the Mail to use this kind of racially/culturally motivated article, but do you honestly think that this kind of thing is the 'norm'??? The way the article is written makes it seem like this is somehow 'normal', and the Mail has opened up a huge scandal. But the last time i looked, Bethnal Green hadn't been turned into luxury mansions, nor had Streatham, or Tottenham.

it really is the pits to attempt to find ONE abuse of a system, costing the tax-payer into the £10,000s, and then try to leverage that ONE abuse into explaining the entire wholesale taxation/financial/economic problems of the UK, that are in the £1,000,000,000,000s

imho.

still, its good to have these things brought up, and its obvious limits need to be put on how much LANDLORDS can charge (and not caps on benefit until they are in place), and specific abuses weeded out. Slightly less emotive, almost-racism would be pleasant though!! :/


--have a golden apple, mim. :*

#27

May I suggest, mousey, you leave me alone?
There's no future for the combination of you, gold and me. Absolutely none. If you were intelligent enough, you should have worked it out by now.

You've turned out not to be a match for me. I've been extraordinarily lucky to have found another one, though.

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db & jgr , nos 52 & 3, etc

nothing's going to help with me, neither harassment nor even begging on your knees, i don't like your ways. finito. capice??

"You've turned out not to be a match for me. I've been extraordinarily lucky to have found another one, though."

good for you. Enjoy life. Ûž

#31

ta

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Brightyangthing

Re: regrets

You wrote the other day how people often missed what they'd lost due to misjudgement, etc. It seems to have been quite often the case with regard to me, since my childhood in fact. Those who 'chose' to mistreat me in any way due to their own stupidity thinking of themselves to be superior, or lack of appreciation of any sort until it's too late, I'm afraid I've learned to disregard, to say the least. Judgement days are nigh, if not through the Courts then otherwise, painful to swallow in any case condemning the worst of them to life in shame, disrepute, self-pity and a sort of equivalent of hell.

The other day you wished me, BYT, happy mending following my RTA. I am, thank you, and am getting ready to take on more worthwhile challenges and preparing some of my own. Fantasy is great help here. Hope you're keeping fine and well.

mim

what job could a bus conductor do that gives him 8k a month rent?

should housing benefit not reflect the rent a person could pay for if they got a job?

this just traps people into an unjustified benefits lifestyle as any job would make him homeless and so begin the cycle again.

apparently this philosophy is called fairness and equality. Its not fair or equal for those who work and pay taxes.



also another example of the insane marxist equality philosophy that sees class not the good as the highest idea of the mind. Talk about losing focus about what is important to be effective.


'Too few ethnic officers' and 'discrimination' at GCHQ

Hizballah advances 20,000 troops to Israeli border ........

Ha,ha, JC I posted that somali busman earlier from the Daily Mail, and got ripped into by MH!!!

It seems some are far more equal than others! They obviously haven't read Orwell to catch the irony.

My earlier banned post was an amusing film on Youtube posted on a muslim bloggers site. Only in Saudi Arabia ; )

SOMETHING DOES NOT COMPUTE (#35)

In WWII we (and USA) were not slow to pen-up the Johnnie Foreigner in our midst. Now: are we not at war with Terror (and reason)? Wasn't that what all the furore about 'days detention' was about? In WWII, Would we have wanted to put Johnnie Foreigners - or anyone even remotely JFish in our covert services - in the name of fairness?

What are we actually defending/fighting for? Is it a nation that no longer can be identified? Is it a nation, so obsessed with fairness, it will soon post all its secrets on the web? Priggy-Boy Gove wants to get school kids thinking. Hello PB! Start with the sort of nutters who are 'running' the country.

SOMETHING DOES NOT COMPUTE

#35: JC, it is "fair" in the sense that ANYONE can so claim. Whether such claims are "fair" upon those who pay taxes is another matter.

#37: lizzy, i didn't "rip into you", i "ripped into" the Mail. I'm sure you don't *really* believe that such isolated cases are why the UK is in such deep do-do.

...?

i occasionally wonder what Orwell would have made of today's UK...

"4 tax-haven bank accounts are better than 2"?

#38: in WW2 the Allies did not lock people up merely because of their religion. Plus, considering *we* started this "War on Islam", to follow up by putting all Muslims into concentration camps, might seem a little like ethnic cleansing to many.

what are "we fighting for"? We are fighting, in *fact*, to enrich a part of the Global Elite, and in *theory* we are fighting to "liberate" some poor foreigners who were ruled by horrendous dictatorships.

don't you think it would be a bit strange to be incarcerating UK citizens because of their religion, whilst at the same time our troops are dying to liberate people of the same religion?

what "does not compute" is the gap between what we have been informed about this never-ending war, and the reality behind the motives of those who started it.

#32: no worries. I meant it. All the best.

#37 & #38

Ecolizzy & Singie

All of us, including fish, are equal in the face of death though what we do before it catches with us does lead to another equation: SOME OF US ARE MORE UNIQUE THAN OTHERS due to a combination of nature, predispositions, talents, humanity and so on and so forth, including amongst them fish and fishers. Recognition of contribution speaks loud and clear. No mockery or harassment can stop it.

mim

FREUDIAN SLIP MORK? (#39)

Your slip is showing. Very revealing. The detail is in the Devil.

#41: - "post #39" i don't actually see any sexual imagery in that post?? Can you be more specific - don't be shy to be insulting if you feel it is warranted. I won't mind if it is honest!


[dons flame-proof suit] :/

mim ♥

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#43

do i have to repeat myself, mousey? leave me alone