Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Old jokes revisited

THIS DEPT OF TRANSPORT INITIATIVE HAS BEEN RE-LAUNCHED, MAY 2006
Information Release

Due to the nature of the quality of driving in England the Department of Transport has now devised a new scheme in order to identify poor drivers and give good drivers the opportunity to recognise them whilst driving.

For this reason as from the middle of May 2006 those drivers who are found to be driving badly which includes:
- overtaking in dangerous places;
- hovering within one inch of the car in front;
- stopping sharply;
- speeding in residential areas;
- pulling out without indication;
- performing U turns inappropriately in busy high streets;
- under taking on motorways and
- taking up more than one lane in multi-lane roads,

These drivers will be issued with flags, white with a red cross, signifying their inability to drive properly. These flags must be clipped to a door of the car and be visible to all other drivers and pedestrians. Those drivers who have shown particularly poor driving skills will have to display a flag on each side of the car to indicate their greater lack of skill and general lower intelligence mindset to the general public.

Posted by Ben at 4:54 pm | | Comments

Dance with the Devil?

Tim Ireland at BackingBlair is auctioning Alistair Campbell’s professional fax and mobile numbers to raise money to fund their project to process the Labour Party 2004/5 General Election Campaign Return into a more accessible (and searchable) format.



Posted by Ben at 3:40 pm | | Comments

Prescott builds bridges

John Prescott this weekend sought to rejuvenate his political career by allowing himself to be photographed playing croquet whilst he should have been running the country in Tony Blair’s absence.

The choice of croquet is a clever one, it says “I’m a man of Blair’s Britain, no longer am I obsessed by class, I can appreciate the finer things in life no matter what the social implications”.

It is expected that later on this week Mr Prescott will lead the Belvoir Hunt in one of its off-season ride outs. Asides have hinted that he will “try to contort his face in order to fit in with the country types”.

The Deputy Prime Minister was unavailable for comment today as he was said to be “whacked on opium, reading Byron and stuffing his fat face with frois gras bought with the blood of the poor.”

Posted by Ben at 9:41 am | | Comments

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

All over for war protest bloke

Brian Haw's mamouth protest over the Iraq war is over. Scores of Police Officers turned up at two o'clock this morning and dismantled his banners.

Though I don't agree with Brian, and having read his signs believe him to be a bit of a nutter, the act of preventing his freedom of speech and expression is dispicable and deplaurable.

As the saying goes: "I may not like what you're saying; but by God I will die for your right to say it"

Posted by Ben at 2:02 pm | | Comments

Blood on their hands

Cherie Blair and Alistair Campbell have invited criticism by signing a copy of the Hutton report into the death of Dr David Kelly that was auctioned at a Labour fund-raiser earlier this month.

What would it take to remind these people that suicide can be increadibly traumatic for the families of those who take or attempt to take thier own lives?

Posted by Ben at 1:50 pm | | Comments

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Hot off the pajama press

A stunning 18 days after Iain Dale and Guido asked bloggers for contributions towards the Little Red Book of New Labour Sleaze, copies are leaving the press bound for bookshops and internet distributors near you.

You can buy it from Amazon or Politicos on-line or from Waterstones in shops, where it will be sitting next to the tills.

Posted by Ben at 4:40 pm | | Comments

Eric Forth is dead

Conservative MP for Bromley & Chislehurst Eric Forth has died.

Forth's wit was legendary, the most recent example of which being a couple of weeks ago when the Liberal Democrat's aging leader Sir Menzies Campbell stood to ask the PM a question about pensions in the House of Commons - Forth boomed "Declare your interest, sir"

A sad loss to the House.

Posted by Ben at 12:34 pm | | Comments

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Ay Up - Lets learn to talk Donny

Thanks to reader Gav, who sent us this link.

Posted by Ben at 4:13 pm | | Comments

Friday, May 05, 2006

Reshuffling deck chairs - the division of Labour

Prescott keeps DPM title, loses responsibilities and department - he did bugger all at ODPM anyway, Miliband was running the show.

Clarke out on his arse - Scottish Reid gets the primarily English role at the Home Office. A higher profile for him may provide a nice alternative to Gordon Brown for the next leader.

Straw given humiliating demotion - Hoon and Bed-Blocker Beckett share FCO - Hoon and Beckett for christ's sake! That's causing some strife already - Hoon thinks he's in the Cabinet, Blair has said otherwise.

Kelly out on her arse, Alan Johnson to get her education job. Des Browne gets Defence. Darling gets Trade that's seen as a promotion, but in effect it's a sideways move for someone of Darling's experience. Blears is new party Chairman. Thickie Armstrong out, obviously - replaced by Jackie Smith.
No news on whether Gordon's been offered a new job - I'm sure he's got one in mind.

Is this reshuffle big enough to deflect attention from Labour's piss-poor showing in the local elections? The jobs have changed but the faces are all the same...
Update (12:44): Miliband gets Environment - Not quite a high enough profile platform to spoil Brown's succession, but he may be persuaded to have a go anyway...
Update (12:55): Kelly rises, pheonix-like from the ashes, to take over what used to be called the ODPM - Blair's just playing musical chairs: only Clarke is out of the cabinet, the rest are just moving their desks to another room in Whitehall.

Posted by Ben at 10:41 am | | Comments

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Biodiesel part 3 - I'm a moron

I've figured it out.

The car companies can only make cars that run on fuels that are readily available. Currently those include electricity, petrol, diesel, and to a lesser extent, LPG. The people that sell most of these fuels are the filling stations. These in turn rely on fuels from the oil companies, and so can only sell fuels the oil companies can get hold of.

Imagine for a moment you are a small Middle-Eastern country. You have few resources except oil - more than half of your country is desert. Your people live a reasonable lifestyle, but the vast majority of your economy runs on oil. You learn that one of your major customers is about to collaborate with a car company to develop an engine that runs on a fuel that would make the mainstay of your country's economy obsolete. How much oil do you sell them that year?

Back to the drawing board then, I guess...

Posted by Matt at 9:02 am | | Comments

Monday, May 01, 2006

Prescott's excuses

I found this on B3ta.

And, Guido reported last week that:
"There is a rumour going around in press circles that Prezza, alerted in advance by a journalist that he was going to be exposed, confessed to Pauline about the wrong mistress"

Posted by Ben at 9:14 pm | | Comments

Posted by Ben at 9:07 pm | | Comments