Your Number’s Up

‘WHAT number would you best use to describe yourself? Are you a well-rounded 8888 or a more aloof and individual 1357, all jagged and edgy?

‘And the winning card is…’

Today’s lead story in the Telegraph about how ID cards are to be introduced by 2007 has instantly raised a few concerns.

Will Tony Blair get a card and, if so, will he get preferential treatment and reserve a number that he believes best suits him, like 007, 10 or 666?

And will there by a new business in personalised numbers, as with cars? The two are not unrelated, since Home Secretary David Blunkett has said how these new ID cards may be combined with driving licences.

You can just imagine the copper taking your card and snorting as ‘BIG1’ pops up on his screen.

But if you don’t drive, you need not worry about missing out. The Times says that anyone renewing their passport in 2007 will have to undergo fingerprinting and iris scans at post officers or register offices.

Anyone not wanting a passport or able to drive a car will still get the chance to apply for a plain ID card costing around £35 for 10 years.

But before any of us can get anything, asylum seekers and the country’s 4.6 million foreign citizens will get their cards first.

And we’ve got some inside knowledge that anyone tagged with the number 24980 will be allowed to stay in the country and work for their freedom.

However, anyone bearing a resemblance to the Ace of Clubs will be taken to the edge of a ditch and shot.’

Posted: 12th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Operation Desert Zone

‘THE Independent says that the Government has decided to pour £540m into the rebuilding of Iraq.

Anorak EZ Tent (£539,999,999.99)

If this sounds like a lot of cash, you should consider that it cost this Government around £700m to construct a huge tent in London’s Docklands.

Funds mean that the tent earmarked for construction in the Iraqi desert will be smaller than ours and the locals will have to forgo the delights of the Body Zone.

But the Desert Dome will come with a camping stove and two Anorak Everywhere Chairs – ‘Just another outdoor chair,’ you ask? ‘Not so. This one adjusts for both hillsides and flat ground.’

But it’s not all good news since the money has to come from somewhere.

And, having bled us all dry, the Government has siphoned some cash from its programme aimed at saving the Amazonian rainforest.

The Independent leads with this story, relating how the £16m reserved to saving Amazonia is being spent in Iraq.

Labour MP Barry Gardiner is appalled and reminds us all that the environmental impact of deforestation is very serious. Indeed, it is.

Readers learn that the programme, operated by G7, the consortium of the world’s leading industrial nations, of which Britain is a member, underpins efforts to curtail the effects of global warming.

It might just be that in saving one Iraq the Government has set about creating another. Give it 10 years and the Amazon should be every bit as dry and sandy as downtown Baghdad.’

Posted: 12th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Kitchen Cabinet

‘SUCH is the Tory party’s palsied state that Michael Howard’s decision to slim down his Shadow Cabinet from 26 to 12 members is a cause for concern.

‘The Tory Party? C’est moi’

The Independent can talk about the dozen being, as Howard put it yesterday, ‘clean and lean’, but a reduction in Tory numbers could merely be a prelude to what lies ahead at a General Election.

As it is, the Telegraph has a nice photograph of the clean dozen seated around a table at Conservative Central Office.

Although only 12 in number, the names are too long to list here.

But the notables are the arrival of Lord Saatchi, the reemergence of Tim Yeo, who has recovered from a ‘back to basics’ scandal which cost him a ministerial post in the 1980s, and Oliver Letwin, the new shadow chancellor and the man Margaret Thatcher has described as a ‘genius’.

But what about that table, eh? It’s got a lovely patina and is ageing far better than, well, most of the people seated round it.

The photograph of the gang also shows a pretty decent standard lamp, which could benefit from a new shade, and some lovely wainscoted walls.

As the Times says, the whole lot is for sale as Michael Howard tries to flog the Conservative Central Office, party headquarters for the past 45 years.

The sale will, the paper says, raise round £6m for the party’s election campaigns.

And instantly all things become clear. It is, after all, far cheaper and easier to find space for 12 people than it is for 26.

We commend to party’s attention the Anorak EZTent, which, not a bit unlike the Shadow Cabinet, takes just minutes to assemble and promises to not collapse under pressure.’

Posted: 11th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Doh Nuts

‘IT’S none too surprising that, as the Guardian writes, Britain is ‘close behind US’ on obesity rates. After all, how fast can those Americans run?

‘Atkins! Shmatkins!’

But the news that 40% of men and women in the UK are heading towards the fat farm is no laughing matter. Just ask Homer Simpson.

Scientists have discovered that Homer Simpson, the atypical American from the television cartoon series The Simpsons, consumes 130 grams of fat a day.

While we can only guess at the calorific content of Roger Ramjet’s proton pills, how many units of fat make up one Scooby Snack and whether Desperate Dan uses lo-fat spread in his cow pies, facts about Homer’s diet are on the record.

For this cutting-edge study, the Times asks us to aim our thanks towards the Institute of Physics and, in particular, Michelle Caine, who watched lots of Simpsons videos by way of research.

But to the data. The recommended daily fat intake for a grown man is 83g, which means that Homer is heading for that big fat camp in the cardiac ward.

He consumes 3,100 kilocalories, three portions of fruit and vegetables and two units of alcohol each day.

Better news is that Bart is healthier, because he, as Deborah Allen of the British Heart Foundation tells us, spends lots of time skateboarding and playing with his friends.

Researchers also point out that he is a fictional cartoon character of just two dimensions and that the camera adds 10lbs of bulk.’

Posted: 11th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Dress Sense

‘NOT content with straightening bananas and culling hedgehog flavour crisps from the British plate, the European Union has turned its attention away from food and to our attire.

‘You can call me Daphne’

And the question of the day from Brussels way is ‘when is a skirt not a skirt?’ Indeed, when is it a kilt?

The Independent says that the statistical agency Eurostat sent questionnaires to clothing manufacturers in which kilts were referred to as ‘womenswear’.

Producers were instructed to fill in how many kilts they had sold in a space reserved for women’s skirts.

And the Scots are furious. Ignoring the threat of a £1,000 fine for not completing the form, Patrick McGroarty, director of the confusingly named Caledonian Dress Manufacturers refused to return the ‘offending’ document.

And politicians in Scotland are also upset. ‘If Vin Diesel can wear a kilt and not feel any less of a man, that is good enough for me and should be for the rest of Europe,’ says Frank McAveety, Scotland’s Minister for Culture.

And that goes for fellow skirt fanciers: Lily Savage, Danny La Rue, Liz Hurley, Mel Gibson, the Greek secret police…’

Posted: 11th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Back In The Red

‘THE return of Michael Howard to the fore has trigged some hunger for things past.

Only fools and horses work

Margaret Thatcher has yet to announce her reemergence into the political sphere, but the Independent says that one of her henchmen, Maurice Saatchi, has.

While never a politician, Saatchi, the advertising maven and inventor of that 1979 dole–queue poster “Labour isn’t working”, is said by the Independent to be the new joint chairman of the Conservative Party, sharing the post with Dr Liam Fox.

Any Indy hack worth their salt should also recall how Saatchi and Saatchi, the firm co-owned by Maurice and his brother Charles, once asked the question: “The Independent – It is – Are You?”

It’s the kind of question Ken Livingstone would reply to in the affirmative. However, ask him tomorrow and his answer might have shifted to be in line with Labour party doctrine.

As Saatchi returns to the Tories, the Guardian leads with news that Livingstone is ready once more to embrace the red machine.

And, if the paper is to believed, it’s a decision rooted in fear – Tony Blair is worried that that there could be “disastrous repercussions” if Ken knocks their official candidate out of sight in next June’s London mayoral elections.

But already the party’s official candidate, Ms Nicky Gavron, is carrying on about how unfair it would be to deny her the chance to do as Frank Dobson did a few years back.

Remembering what happened to bumbling Frank, it’s just a wonder that the official Labour candidate, for now at least, is the anonymous Gavron and not one Gordon Brown.

That would get him out of Tony’s hair once and for all…’

Posted: 10th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Grossed Out

‘KEN Livingstone is everywhere this morning. He can do this because, as one of the world’s leading scientific thinkers, he knows how to bend time and be in many places at once.

‘I think, therefore I charge’

Just as he can be independent and a supporter of the Labour party, Ken can be in New York talking about mayoral matters, down the London Underground soliciting the word of the common Tube dweller and in the minds of the doyens of Scientific American magazine.

The magazine, billed by the Telegraph as “America’s best known science journal”, has included Livingstone’s name among the top 50 scientific thinkers of the day.

It seems that Ken’s work with newts and congestion charge schemes has won him many fans Stateside, so causing his name to be mentioned alongside those who have created the first mass-market household robot and a man who formed drugs that block HIV from entering cells.

Ken has every right to be proud, doubly so when he learns in the Times that Americans are brighter than your average scientist.

A map, produced from the data of the IQ test results from 60 countries, clearly shows that Americans have an IQ of 105.

This is not a total, but an average. And it’s one linked to the American’s average gross domestic product of £17,400 a year.

In Europe, to which we Brits belong, the figures show that while we can match the brainpower of those clever Yanks, our GDP is two grand a year less each, producing as we do just £15,600 per capita.

The figures appear to be slightly at odds. But the correlation between IQ and GDP is consistent.

Especially once the figures are tweaked to take into account the congestion charge, which is reducing GDP in London by a factor of three and causing many drivers to lose their minds.’

Posted: 10th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

How The West End Was Won

‘ONE typical American, let’s call him George ‘Dubya’ Bush, is bringing his razor sharp 105-point IQ on a tour of Britain next week.

‘You can never be too careful’

The Times says that Bush will spend three days in the country, during which time he will tell us how to fight terror, how to eat pretzels and how you too can think like an American.

Sadly, fears are mounting that we are not ready to be as George Bush, and he’s worried that we are thinking less like cowboys and more like rabid terrorists hell-bent on his destruction.

For this reason, Bush and his team are demanding that a police cordon be set up to protect him.

And, if the report is true, the capital’s ‘Lasso of Steel’ will seal off a massive part of the West End.

However, Mayor Livingstone has said that anyone wishing to enter the ‘terror zone’ can pay him £50 by texting “I WILL NOT KILL GB” to a premium rate number and explaining why e does equal mc squared.’

Posted: 10th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Feud For Thought

‘IT is hard to imagine that there was a world before Tony Blair moved his beautiful family into Downing Street and embarked on his mission to heal the planet.

‘My Right Honorable friend is a grinning idiot’

However, anthropologists remind us that there was a time when Tories roamed Britain at will, selling off everything that moved (and, in the case of the railways, things that didn’t).

To remind yourself what these Tories look like, we suggest you turn to this morning’s Telegraph, which pictures a few remaining examples of the species in action.

The action required of this bunch is not much more strenuous than smiling, clapping and looking glad that Michael Howard had come to see them.

However, it is nice to see that, despite eight years out of power, a young Tory still manages to maintain that insufferable smugness that is his or her birthright.

Today they have more than just the fact that they have a new leader to smile about as the Labour Party steals the Tories’ penchant for tearing itself apart.

The Telegraph says the feud between the Prime Minister and his Chancellor has burst into the open with Gordon Brown venting his frustration at being kept off the party’s National Executive Committee in a series of breakfast TV interviews.

And, says the Guardian, things boiled over later when Brown launched a “shocking and gobsmacking” attack on ID cards at a cabinet committee meeting.

“Anti-Brown sources claimed the fierceness of yesterday’s row had little to do with ID cards,” it says.

“It merely reflected a wider battle being waged by the Chancellor over the political direction of the party and his eventual inheritance as leader.”

All of which, one imagines, meant a frostier atmosphere than usual as the pair met up for a routine dinner that was being billed as a Granita II.

[Granita was the Islington restaurant where the two agreed that Blair should be the one to run for the leadership of the Labour party in the wake of John Smith’s death.]

Is it just our imagination, but as we read this has the smile on the faces of those young Tories in the Telegraph just got that little bit more smug?’

Posted: 7th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Monkey Puzzle

‘CAMBRIDGE University is ready to abandon plans to build a laboratory near the city in which to experiment on monkeys’ brains.

Scientists proved that monkeys will fight back if provoked

So says the Independent, which blamed spiralling costs and opposition from the city council and anti-vivisection groups for the decision.

All of which is well and good and will no doubt be warmly received in the simian world at large, but it does not explain why the Indy chooses to illustrate the story with a picture of John Prescott.

The paper says primate research has recently attracted stinging criticism from MPs and scientists who claim that experiments cannot be justified because research results in primates often do not translate to humans, especially in brain treatments.

But the Deputy Prime Minister wasn’t one of the 155 MPs who signed a parliamentary motion opposing these experiments.

So again we are moved to ask why his distinctly unapelike visage is staring out of the page at us.

We trust this is not a joke on the paper’s behalf at the very sensitive Mr Prescott’s expense about the brainpower of our primitive ancestors.’

Posted: 7th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Fishy Farts

‘JOHN Prescott’s command of the English language has often been as shaky as Shakin’ Stevens sitting on top of a washing machine.

‘You’re talking out of your mouth, you are’

But accusations that Two Jags talks out of his posterior are, anatomically at least, inaccurate.

However, the same cannot be said of herrings who, the Times reports, use exactly that orifice to communicate.

A team at the University of British Columbia says the fish emit sounds ‘just like a high-pitched raspberry’ from their bottoms.

‘We have a shoal of hundreds of tiny herrings swimming in a perpetual circuit of their tank and we have often noticed little trails of bubbles rising to the surface as they pass by,’ says Mark Steward, curator of the Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary in Oban.

‘If you put your ear flat to the glass, you can sometimes hear exactly the kind of sound the scientists describe.’

Scientists believe the findings, which are published in a journal called Biology Letters, should make it much easier to shut up garrulous herrings – just call Prince Charles.’

Posted: 7th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Pint Worth Making

‘YOU’VE staggered into work half an hour late, your breath still stinks of the 12 pints you put away last night, your clothes reek of smoke and Debbie from Accounts is giving you knowing looks.

‘If Bob’s had three pints of stout, two gins and a half of creme de menthe, what is x?’

You’ve got the hangover from hell and your boss is none too happy with you.

Fret not, dear reader, because help is at hand courtesy of researchers from University College London who will publish a report later this month concluding that spending time in the pub is good for your brain.

It is, says the Times, “the news that every middle-aged man with a middle-aged girth has been waiting for”, not to mention men without middle-aged girths.

The psychologists analysed information on 10,000 civil servants, questioning them on their leisure activities as well as giving them detailed cognitive tests to measure memory and language skills, as well as verbal and numerical reasoning.

And they concluded that there is a clear link between the social aspects of going to the pub and improved verbal and numerical ability.

“This,” says the Times, “contrasts starkly with more restrained activities such as gardening and painting which, the study found, had no benefit to the mind at all.”

The study’s lead author Archana Singh-Manoux said it was a case of “use it or lose it” with the brain.

“However, we would stress it is social activity alone rather than anything else associated with going to the pub which we examined.”

The researchers found that the best way to help the mind was by regular cultural visits to theatres, art galleries and stately homes.

Well, the public bar at the Windsor Castle almost counts.’

Posted: 6th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Au Revoir, IDS

‘IT surely will not have escaped your notice that yesterday The Quiet Man slipped coughing and spluttering out of front-line politics.

IDS brought great humour to the serious business of politics

Iain Duncan Smith made his final appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions as leader of the Tory party – unless, of course, his colleagues decide to stab his successor Michael Howard in the back and bring IDS back from the wilderness.

And judging by his performance at the despatch box yesterday, they might already be plotting to do just that.

“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving of it,” says Simon Hoggart in his Guardian sketch, observing that IDS appeared “happy, relaxed, articulate, funny, self-deprecating and generally in command of things”.

“Perhaps it is our lasting British love for losers,” says Hoggart. “We only like politicians once they have no power over us.”

By that reckoning, IDS should have been more popular than an ice cream salesman in the Sahara seeing as there was never any prospect of his having any power over us.

By contrast, Tony Blair (who, the Guardian reminds us, has seen off three leaders of the Opposition, which is more than even Maggie Thatcher managed) “looked like a father who has had to say no 19 times to a request for immediate ice cream”.

But The Quiet Man is gone, the political world’s loss is the literary world’s gain as tonight IDS launches his novel in Bond Street.

Its title? A Frog In My Throat, perhaps…’

Posted: 6th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Just The Ticket

‘IF Iain Duncan Smith takes to novel-writing as he took to leading a political party, he could be looking for new employment in a matter of weeks.

‘You can’t sit there’

And, if so, he might like to consider the ancient and noble profession of being a traffic warden or parking attendant or Little Hitler as they like to be called.

Not everyone is born to perform this role, although one person who certainly was figures in a story in this morning’s Daily Telegraph.

He is the NCP attendant in Ipswich who issued a ticket to Vincent Ryan’s Toyota Corolla because the ticket affixed to his windscreen was upside down.

Mr Ryan, from Dovercourt, Essex, has been ordered to pay a £30 fine for “not displaying a valid parking ticket”.

“I didn’t deliberately put my ticket the wrong way round,” said the aggrieved motorist.

And just as well – wilfully displaying a ticket at an angle of greater than 10 degrees to the horizontal carries a recommended penalty of a £1,000 fine and six months in jail.’

Posted: 6th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Between Brock And A Hard Place

‘WHEN we think of Westminster, our thoughts inevitably turn to former Welsh Secretary and badger fancier Ron Davies.

‘You lookin’ for a bit of fun, guv?’

And Ron will be delighted to read a report in the Independent which concludes that Government trials to stop the spread of bovine TB by culling badgers have failed.

Indeed, as Ron and any passing truck driver from Liverpool could have told you, the cull has actually helped spread the disease.

In the past five years the Government has spent £25m culling more than 8,000 badgers in 10 separate trial areas, mainly in the West and South West of England.

Scientists say the problem is that badgers that survive the cull no longer live in stable social groups and are more likely to wander about the countryside.

Inevitably, some fall into bad company and are forced to do whatever they can to make ends meet.’

Posted: 5th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Send In The Flying Squad

‘WHO would win in a straight scrap – Superman or Spiderman? Or could Batman have them both?

‘Oi, piss off! I’m protesting up here’

We ask this question as we read in the Telegraph that the cost to taxpayers of David Chick’s Spiderman protest over London is being put at £5m a day.

The 36-year-old, dressed as the arachnoid superhero, has condemned parts of the capital to gridlock since he climbed up a crane above Tower Bridge on Friday.

The effect of closing Tower Bridge has been felt miles away with the AA estimating that the total length of peak-time jams caused by the protest at between 30 and 40 miles.

So far, the only tactic police seem to have to get the man, who is protesting at a court’s decision to restrict access to his four-year-old daughter, down is abuse.

A senior police officer called him “a prat”, mayor Ken Livingstone said he was amply demonstrating why some men should not have access to their kids and his neighbours in West Sussex described him as “a bit of an idiot” and “weird”.

However, as none of the papers are getting delivered to the top of the crane, this is not having much effect on Mr Chick.

But what about sending two men dressed in Superman and Batman outfits up the crane after him? Then we’ll see if a man can fly…’

Posted: 5th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Knives And Fawkes

‘IF Guy Fawkes had succeeded in blowing up the Palace of Westminster those 398 long years ago, large parts of central London would have been flattened.

Tory MPs discuss how to get rid of Michael Howard

Of course, large parts of central London wouldn’t have been built at the time but let’s not let such minor details spoil a good story.

And a good story it is with the Centre For Explosion Studies at the University of Aberystwyth calculating that all buildings within 153ft of the bomb would have been destroyed and walls and roofs within 354ft would have been badly damaged.

Indeed, the Times has got what we can only assume is a computer-generated picture of what the area would have looked like had Fawkes not been dobbed in.

The Stuarts would no doubt be surprised about the number of cars on the roads outside the Houses of Parliament and the plethora of pleasure cruisers on the Thames.

They might also be less than impressed to discover that the men and women whose job it was to put out the flames were on strike.

However, as we all know, Guy Fawkes didn’t get away with it and the Palace of Westminster still stands – but for how long?

Such is the row brewing between Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown that an explosion seems inevitable.

The Guardian reports that relations between the two men are “severely strained” after Blair twice rejected appeals from his former friend for a seat on Labour’s national executive.

Instead, Blair chose to fill the three seats within his gift with two relatively junior ministers, Hazel Blears and Douglas Alexander, as well as party chairman Ian McCartney.

“It is surprising, arbitrary and not in the best interests of the Labour party,” one Brownite MP told the Guardian.

However, a spokesman for No.10 said: “The prime minister always appoints at least one woman and it makes sense for the other two people to be the chair of the party, Ian McCartney, and Douglas Alexander, who is chair of election planning.”

Such is the bad feeling between the two that the Centre for Explosion Studies at the University of Aberystwyth has done its own calculations of what would happen if the two really fall out.

If you live anywhere closer into central London than Chiswick, watch out.’

Posted: 5th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Greasy Poll

‘MOST politicians probably feel like paedophiles most of the time.

‘People say I must be batty to want this job’

Not only do they spend an inordinate amount of time hanging round schools and kissing babies, but they are about as popular as a child sex offender on a Portsmouth housing estate.

However, most politicians know better than to compare themselves publicly to these most demonised of beings. That’s why they’re politicians.

Not our old friend Iain Duncan Smith, who yesterday reinforced his ‘gaffe-a-minute’ reputation in the eyes of the Independent by doing just that.

‘I wasn’t quite certain whether I was supposed to have had some paedophile relationship or something by the end of it,’ he says of his recent trials, ‘because the intensity and the ferocity made me wonder whether this was real.’

IDS also described it as being like ‘one of those near-death experiences when somebody sits above themselves and watches in a rather detached way thinking, ‘I am not quite sure what’s going on here and whether I’m part of this”.

If that sounds very much like a description of IDS’s leadership, then it could equally apply to his successor Michael Howard – a man permanently stuck in a limbo between the worlds of the dead and the living.

It hasn’t taken long for the new leader to drag his party further into the mire, with a poll for today’s Indy showing that the Tories have slipped three points in the polls since he emerged as the probable next leader.

Howard, who we should remember was – as well as the most disastrous Home Secretary in modern political history – one of the principal architects of the poll tax, is also perceived as less trustworthy than his predecessor.

But Howard yesterday embarked on a publicity drive to try to persuade voters that he had changed – and not just from his customary bat shape into something resembling a human being.

‘One of the tings I have learnt is that it is a very good thing to listen to people a lot,’ he says.

Ignore them? Yes. But listen to them before you ignore them.’

Posted: 4th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Horny, Horny, Horny

‘EVEN the spooks at GCHQ will find it difficult to listen into Michael Howard’s conversations, not least because he communicates with his fellow bats at an ultra-sonic frequency.

The Gary Lucy of the ovine world

But there is another reason – our professional eavesdroppers’ attention has been taken up with a mysterious signal broadcast at roughly the same time every day from a field in Scarborough.

The Daily Observer, the inappropriately named paper for the 4,500 members of staff at the Cheltenham-based organisation, takes up the story (which is reproduced in the Times).

“An investigation was quickly launched, revealing that the signal was across all the high-frequency bands,” it says. “Stranger still, only Scarborough’s aerials could pick it up.

“Even stranger it happened only in daytime. And to one antenna in particular.

“Exhaustive tests were launched, revealing the answer – a horny ram.

“In between servicing some local ewes, it was partial to rubbing its horns against the aerial mast.”

A GCHQ spokesman explains to the Times that it was all part of the ritual the ram went through after it had made a conquest – a sort of notch in the proverbial bedpost.’

Posted: 4th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Family Affair

‘SHORTLISTS of one are all the rage at the moment – it seems certain that the Tory party will have only one name on the ballot sheet for its new leader, and likewise shareholders of BSkyB.

Rupert takes Grace to her first board meeting

City institutions and smaller shareholders in the satellite broadcaster have been told they can have James Murdoch, James Murdoch or James Murdoch as the new chief executive.

And, says the Guardian, they are less than happy at having Rupert’s 30-year-old son foisted on them.

“At a time of increasing shareholder activism,” the paper says, “investors are expected to begin meeting today to devise a battle plan which could lead to demands for the departure of as many as six executives from the BskyB board.”

James Murdoch is, the Guardian reminds us, a college drop-out whose first ambition was to run a hip-hop label – but has now become the youngest chief executive of a FTSE-100 company.

The job is also likely to be more lucrative than running a record label, with his predecessor Tony Ball earning £30m in his five years at the helm.

However, the appointment as finance director of Grace Murdoch, who celebrates her second birthday later this month, has really raised the City’s hackles.’

Posted: 4th, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Robin Hoodlum

‘SCOTLAND loves its heroes, especially the ones who gave their treacherous English neighbours a black eye – Rob Roy, William Wallace, Robert The Bruce, David Sneddon…

‘I’m as Scots as Rod Stewart’

So you can only imagine that they might be quite upset to discover that one of these bravehearts was in fact a confidence trickster who spied for the hated English.

That is the conclusion of Professor David Stevenson who has spent years researching the life of Rob Roy MacGregor using records of court proceedings and estate records of the dukes of Montrose and Argyll.

“Perhaps the most controversial claim concerns Roy’s behaviour during the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 when he betrayed his clan by acting as a paid agent to help the English army,” says the Telegraph.

According to the professor, Roy (who had previously been regarded as a staunch Jacobite) took no part in the battle of Sherrifmuir where the Jacobites were finally defeated because of his close links to the pro-Hanoverian Duke of Argyll.

Worse, he sold Jacobite secrets to the chief of the Hanoverian army in Scotland.

Rob Roy’s reputation as a Scottish Robin Hood was established by Sir Walter Scott in his novel of 1817 and cemented by a Hollywood film starring Liam Neeson.

But Professor Stevenson says that the suggestion that Rob Roy was outlawed after being set up in a plot to steal money from the Duke of Montrose is rubbish.

“He was outlawed as a result of a carefully arranged swindle,” he says. “Roy deliberately planned to go bankrupt at least six months in advance and hid his assets by passing them on to his family.”

Needless to say, not every dyed-in-the-woad Scot is happy to discover that one of their national heroes was nothing better than a cheap conman.

A spokeswoman for the Clan Gregor Society said she was “shocked” by the findings.

“It is dreadful and completely untrue,” she says. “Rob Roy was the Scottish equivalent to Robin Hood, except he was actually real.”

Just as William Wallace spoke with an Australian accent and slept with King Edward II’s wife.’

Posted: 3rd, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Bashing The Bishop

‘WE are used to arguments along the lines of “My god is bigger than your god”, but now we have to listen to arguments such as “My god dresses better than your god”.

‘Have you got anything in pink?’

Yesterday, Gene Robinson became the first openly gay bishop in the history of modern Christianity when he was consecrated by the US Episcopal Church in front of 5,000 worshippers and 54 bishops on a New Hampshire ice rink.

But the decision has angered many in the Church and, says the Guardian, threatened a split in the worldwide Anglican congregation.

Some episcopal parishes have already arranged to join other churches, while others are withholding diocesan money.

And the ceremony itself drew a small group of protestors who gathered outside “bearing banners of graphic and virulent hatred of homosexuals”.

There were even protests inside with one priest, Rev Earl Fox, being cut short by Bishop Frank Griswold when he started describing the sexual practices of homosexuals.

He had just finished rimming and was embarking on a long explanation of felching when Bishop Griswold stepped in.’

Posted: 3rd, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

My Genes Are Too Tight

‘FOR years, fat people have insisted that it is not their fault that they have more rolls than Vanessa Feltz on baking day.

This island race

Now, it seems that they may have a point after scientists discovered that some people are genetically programmed to overeat.

A London-based research team claims to have identified as obesity gene, according to the Times, and hopes its discovery will help stem the worldwide tide of fat.

Researchers scanned 576 obese people and 646 people of normal weight in France and were able to identify two types of the GAD2 gene – one which protected against obesity and one which acted as an appetite enhancer.

However, in the Independent, Professor Philippe Froguel said genes alone couldn’t account for the rise on obesity levels, with only one in 10 obese people obese because of the GAD2 gene.

Britain is the fattest nation in Europe and spends £500m a year treating the epidemic.

However, scientists believe that they could reduce this figure by half if they can find a way to float Lisa Riley outside our territorial waters.’

Posted: 3rd, November 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Knight’s Time

‘JUST one day after Iain Major Hague was hooked off the Tory stage, the Times spots Margaret Thatcher at large.

Shhh!

If this were the Labour Party in action, you’d be unable to stop yourself from suspecting that the sight of the former Prime Minster weeping at her husband’s funeral was more than an accident of fate.

You’d be mentally digging up the body and checking for signs of foul play – if indeed a body is there at all and not just a gin-soaked Guy.

But it pains us to say that Sir Denis Thatcher is dead and Maggie’s tears of yesterday were not designed to garner support for a challenge for the Tory leadership.

Even if she does decide on one last tilt at the top, Maggie will have to beat Michael Howard, who the papers have all decided is the Conservatives’ leader-in-waiting.

The Independent says that gregarious Kenneth Clarke has yet to decide which way to jump but, even if he does stand, the odds are shortening on Howard.

But what can we expect from the man so famously described by Ann Widdecombe as having “something of the night about him”?

We have often thought that quote was wrongly transcribed, lacking a ‘k’ before the night, making it less a reference to Howard’s shadowy presence and alluding to a sensation that you are supping with the darkest knight of them all.

The prospect of battles between Howard’s Satan and Blair’s Jesus is tantalising stuff, but Matthew Parris, writing in the Times, wants us to look anew on his former parliamentary colleague.

Parris says that if a focus group were asked to describe Howard, it would use words like “lupine”, “dangerous”, “hooded”, prowl” and “predatory”.

“But a snapshot of the Howard soul would evince a different thesaurus,” says Parris, who, afforded such a view, employs words like “upright”, “steely”, “virtuous”, “fair”, and “gritty”.

And most definitely not Iainy, Duncanish or Smithy.’

Posted: 31st, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

FORE play

‘THE rules of golf are simple. 1) Do not allow women or ethnic minorities into the clubhouse unless they are a) cleaning or b) serving gin.

Let this be a warning to all

2) If other competitors can’t see you, kicking your ball into a better position is allowed. 3) Players must work in middle management and be called Clive.

Anyone breaking any of the above rules will be forced to wear hideous jumpers with a tartan print and forgo their ComfiSlax for some culottes.

Those who have noted the prevalence of such attire on golf courses now realise that golf is a haven for rule breakers. It’s time to get tough.

The Independent has seen a list of the new laws of the game, which will come into play on January 1 2004. So, pay attention, Clive.

Shouting “FORE” after a poor shot is now required by law. All other words are strictly forbidden. Anyone shouting another word can just FORE right off.

It’s all a question of etiquette, as David Rickman, the rules secretary at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, where these rules were drawn up, explains.

“A lot of developing counties where there are no traditions to be passed on need clear guidelines of what is expected,” says Rickman.

“There is a concern that high standards are falling. We set our standards high. We make no apology for that and we want it to remain the case.”

And just as soon as we’ve civilised these wayward foreigners, we’ll let them carry our bags and show them how an upstanding British man hits the ball.’

Posted: 31st, October 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment