Politicians Category
Politicans and world leaders making news and in the news, and spouting hot air
Lip Service: Gordon Brown Calls Voters
IT’S lonely at the top. Gordon Brown is lonely. That’s him on the phone.
The Anorak has learnt that Brown routinely telephones voters at home to talk about Labour policy.
The prime minister whiles away the moments between presenting gold hearts and plutonium combat medals at tabloid award dos, and episodes of Taggart, to dial down to the No 10 switchboard and asked to put through to people who had written or e-mailed with concerns.
PR Week says it is part of a new campaign to generate positive “word of mouth” about no-spin Mr Brown.
Says a Downing Street official: “The PM takes a great interest in correspondence that comes in. He likes to keep in touch with voters who take the trouble to contact him.”
We look at the phone. It’s not ringing. Gordon has our number, it’s embossed on our letter about how we are worried that Mars bars are shrinking, Britain’s Got Talent will be won by an untalented minor in a display of mawkish public sentimentality, and Madeleine McCann. All are matters close to the PM’s heart.
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Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (7)
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation
THE Tony Blair Faith Foundation (Why didn’t we think of it first? Oh well…):
On May 30 in New York, Blair, 55, formally unveils The Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which, among other things, is dedicated to proving that collaboration among those of different religious faiths can help address some of the world’s most pressing social problems.
It’s an “inter-faith encounter through action”. Really, it is…
Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (3)
An Interview With Home Secretary Jacqui Smith
“THESE are terrifying times to be a parent,” says Julie McCaffrey, the Mirror’s woman with her ear pressed to the street and pulling a knife from a stabbed kebab.
“There are worries about whether your child is binge-drinking or having under-age sex – and then there is even greater fear that they might end op the innocent victim of a violent knife crime.”
Given the choices on offer, most parents would opt for A) binge drinking over B) under-age sex over C) being stabbed, although if their children were the stabber rather then the stabee, the list may be C, A, B.
And C might not be around for long because stay-at-home Jacqui Smith is making it her “personal mission” to put an end to knife crime. Jacqui Smith is the new-Labour rag-and-bone man walking the streets asking parents to bring out their knives for blunting.
Before that Jacqui will get tough on knifers by unveiling a £1million advertising campaign to tell knifers that it is wrong and remind knifees that it bloody well hurts.
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Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (6)
Amsterdam Approves Sex In The Vondelpark And Outlaws Dogs
TO Vondelpark, Amsterdam, where 21 people per square meter come to relax.” As the city’s website claims: “In comparison, Central Park in New York is visited by approx. 5 people per square meter.”
With space at a premium, what are the rules?
Councillors have decreed that heterosexual and gay couples are permitted to have sex in the Vondelpark.
But they promised to clampdown on dog owners who let their pets walk in the park without a lead.
Says one dog owner: “As long as the park has existed, we’ve been allowed to let our dogs run freely. It’s outrageous that we will be punished from now on but public sex won’t.”
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Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Politicians, Strange But True | Comments (4)
Joined At The Lip: Brian Reade, Diane Abbott And Joey Barton
DESPERATE link of the week comes via Brian Reade, the Mirror’s columnist at large, who manages to implicate Diane Abbott MP in the matter of footballer Joey Barton’s incarceration for six months for a “violent and cowardly” attack on a man outside a McDonald’s restaurant.
Was Abbot in the Liverpool eatery at the time of the attack? Not exactly.
Abbott’s crime is to have said: “In any other profession, an out-of-control thug like Barton would have lost his job. Newcastle United should be ashamed of themselves for even considering taking him back.”
Reade says that Abbott opposed private education until her son to £12,000-a-year City of London school. This, he posits, makes her a hypocrite, much like Newcastle United?
Reade is pictured with a cartoon bell beside his head. Ding-dong!
Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comment
Reasons Why We Invaded Iraq: No.1 – Afghanistan Is Boring
SCOTT McLellan, a former press secretary – think a piggier version of Alistair Campbell -attacks George Bush’s White House in his new book.
The Politico says McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war. As a revelation that’s right up there with news that nine out of then US porn stars sleep on their backs and the Pope has three children living in a beer cellar in Salzburg (everyone knows that, right?).
The book is making big news on the web and in the US media.
The book and its treatment reminds us how mind-numbingly dull politics can be, and how the leaders are just the ones who can feign interest the longest.
Picture: Why the US invaded Iraq – because Afghanistan is so boring and it makes for good telly…
Posted: 28th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (2)
BNP In Stoke
THE BNP has gained ground in Stoke:
“The men and women of the BNP look like your neighbours,” says Michael Tappin, the former Labour group leader and ex-Stoke MEP who lost his council seat on May 1. “They are not the mythical 25st men with body-piercings and tattoos as portrayed by antifascist demonstrators. They are respectable. It’s impossible to demonise them. They wear suits, they look tidy.” As Tappin says, they pick up old ladies when they fall over in the street, shop for the elderly and cut people’s lawns. “It’s like that saying about Mussolini – ‘at least he made the trains run on time.’ Here, it’s ‘at least they get your grass cut.'”
Stoke in the Premier League – any black players?
Posted: 28th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment
Hillary Clinton Is The Best, Says Hillary Clinton
HILLARY Clinton: “I’m The Better Candidate ‘Based On Every Analysis, Every Poll”
Candidate to beat Obama. Well, no…
Posted: 28th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)
Gordon Brown Is Not Yellow, He’s Green
“DON’T be yellow Gordon, be green,” says the Independent on its front page – the Independent that supported the yellowy LibDems at the last election.
Here’s a video of Gordon going green…
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Posted: 28th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comment
Vote Barack Obama Because He Was Born On An Island
BARACK Obama was born on an island. He’s one of us, Britishers! Vote Obama!
But Obama can’t be leader of the UK – well, not in name, only in spirit (unless we can be the 51st state of the USA?) – but he can be leader of his fellow island peoples: the Puerto Ricans:
Hillary Clinton was born on the mainland. More people live there. She might win…
As Tony said, or someone:
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Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (3)
Barack Obama: The Making Of A Murder
THE media plot about the plot – not yet finalised, nor known – to kill Barack Obama is underway and gaining momentum.
ABC news reports:
“There is no question that the possibility of violence directed at presidential candidates, especially Obama, is the elephant in the middle of the room,” says Peter Fenn, adjunct professor of political management at George Washington University, to describe the media’s careful coverage of the issue. “There is a hypersensitivity about this issue. And in one sense, there should be because you don’t want to put the idea out there. But you also get overanalysis, like with Hillary’s comments about RFK [Robert F. Kennedy]”…
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Phut!
Fenn says that he was catching a flight at Dulles International Airport last year when an African-American woman told him that Obama shouldn’t run. “She said, ‘They’re going to kill him.’ African-Americans are more worried about it.”
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Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (3)
Ogaffa: Obama’s Uncle Was At Auschwitz
Ace of Spades and HotAir noytice the Memorial Day Ogaffa and Gateway Pundit spots another crazy uncle:
…Obama also spoke about his uncle, who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz…
Says GP: This uncle must have truly been crazy and not just an America-hater like Wright… Since Auschwitz was freed by the Russians and not the Americans.
Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)
Ogaffa: Barack Obama’s Bushisms
BARACK Obama is proving that politics doesn’t have to be boring, kids. If you pay attention, and really listen to the players you might just hear him day something stoopid.
It’s great fun – listen out for Hillary Clinton sounding like a compelte arse when she says Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry very fast, and John McCain mistakes Angola for a shopping mall in Leicester.
Barack the master says:
On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.
Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (6)
Death To Mengistu Haile Mariam, In Zimbabwe
FROM our African despot correspondent:
“The Ethiopian Supreme Court has sentenced the country’s former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam to death…The former leader is, however, unlikely to face execution as he has lived in exile in Zimbabwe since he was ousted from power in 1991. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s government is not expected to extradite him“. Source
A brief anecdote to give the man’s measure: “He shouted “Death to counterrevolutionaries! Death to the EPRP!” and then produced two bottles of what appeared to be blood and smashed them to the ground to show what the revolution would do to its enemies“. Source
Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment
Richard Desmond Restores Pride To Gordon Brown’s Britain
“GORDON BROWN HAS BEEN ACCUSED OF RELYING ON AN INFLUX OF MIGRANT WORKERS TO FILL BRITISH JOBS,” says the Express.
The Express sees “latest figures” that show how nine in ten jobs created under Labour have been taken by foreign workers.
Gordon Brown (Scot), Alistair Darling (Scot), Jacqui Smith (Tennessee – Fried Chicken)), Hazel Blear (La-La Land) and so on.
Blessedly, Express owner Richard Desmond is doing it big to keep Britain standing proud by employing exclusively British staff for his Television X – “The home of British Porn packed with all the biggest UK porn stars in the best shows on TV, online and on your mobile”.
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Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Politicians, Tabloids | Comment
The Gordon Brown Nail Biter
AGW writes in the forums:
The USA prison population, that is guards and prisoners, have a neat expression for convicted murderers…Dead Man Walking.
It is one of the rare and beautifully-coined phrases which sometimes grace the English language, and I use that term in the broadest sense in the USA’s case. It sums up the dreadfully short prognosis and inexorableness of a system which IS going to carry out another killing…this time judicial murder… to punish the guilty and salve (allegedly) the anguish and pain of the victim’s bereaved friends and family.
It must be like that at number 10 Downing Street this morning. There sits the UK Prime Minister brooding as his health and mental vitality is drained away. The once coy cameramen are showing the strain Gordon Brown is feeling by openly photographing and subtlety screening the Premier’s finger nails cut and bitten to the quick. I am not decrying the nail chewing habit but it is a highly visible indicator of stress.
Premier Gordon Brown’s fingernails as seen by The Telegraph six months ago…they are much worse now
The disastrous showing for his Labour Party in the English and Welsh local council elections and then the Crewe and Nantwich by-election fiasco where a massive rout in a once cast-iron Labour stronghold showed just how far the Labour star has sunk in the heavenly plane.
The UK Premier looks to be a man in severe health decline; the job has aged and depleted the man’s undoubtedly huge mental and physical reserves and the wolves in his own pack are turning on him. Already the denials of plots to oust him are starting. Even worse there is a “We’re backing Gordon” campaign under way. A sure sign the end draws nigh.
Anorak warned over and over again that Brown’s continued backing of lieutenants such as the Scotland Labour disaster, wide mouthed frog, Wendy Alexander, Peter Hain, Harriet Harman and others were not good ideas. Brown seems have adopted the Alexander techniques of saying:”It wasnae me. It were a big girl wi’ pigtails who ran away”. It may work for the good-looking ones. The fragrant few…the Tony Blair’s of the world but the ploy is not holding up for the Scottish Manse-raised and, fatally for him, dour humourless Scot Gordon Brown.
If you read any of the heavies today you will see the rallying cries, the “We’re Gordon’s buddies” drivel.
Were I in Gordon’s black polished shoes I’d be extremely worried by that and my finger-nails would be bitten back to beyond the quick and somewhere around the elbows.
Gordon needs a charm offensive which, regrettably, most would find offensive. He needs to produce a rabbit out of his dark top hat the size of Bob Hoskin’s mate Roger in the 1988 film “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
Ask yourself this first series of questions: Who framed the dark-man from the North? Is there a rabbit in anyone’s hat anywhere? Every oil-price hike means greater and greater pressure on an over-stretched British tolerance and we are all aware every oil increases brings in another tranche of massive taxation for the UK Government which appears to be too thick to realise the game is up and the great unwashed has seen what it is about.
My in-box is filled with messages from “sensible” people asking me to boycott this or that petrol outlet because of higher than acceptable prices. Why can’t I just boycott politicians? All politicians.
The answer to Gordon’s mental anguish is not too hard to find but before you start feeling warm gushes of sympathy it may be as well to understand this Dead Man Walking is as guilty as everyone else who sat in that disgraced and shameful Westminster place and voted for a war (in my and your name). A war based on lies and tenuous transatlantic friendships.
The second question has to be:
Is the finger-nail biting due to pressure or guilt? I hope it not a combination of both because unless Gordon Brown can practise what we all have to do sometimes, that is, ignore the danger and press for the winning line, then the execution shed does await. At least in Gordio’s case it is likely to be a metaphorical rather than a Saddam Hussein literal political drop.
The Herald’s page one lead today is worth a read as is The Independent’s: Ministers Deny Plot
Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (5)
We’re Not Going On An Olympic Holiday
ALL change. The No. 16 to Beijing will not be stopping at Beijing.
Proposals to send a red double-decker bus by road from London to China, to coincide with the Olympics, have been dropped after critics derided the idea as a gimmick and a waste of almost half a million pounds…
Taxpayers will still pay more than half the bill for the project, lauded by Ken Livingstone, because of the expense incurred in planning the journey and hiring bus drivers.
The move comes as Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London, launches an Olympics cost-cutting drive and says that as few officials as possible would be attending the Games.
Mr Livingstone claimed that the Beijing trip would highlight London’s public transport system to the world, via one of its most recognisable symbols, and help to forge ties with China.
It was cancelled last week by London 2012 organisers and Transport for London (TfL), which funded the journey, in the wake of the earthquake in Sichuan province.
The trip, which was to be undertaken by eight drivers at a cost of £450,000, was considered to be unsafe and in bad taste, given the scale of the disaster. However, given that Mr Johnson had denounced it during the election campaign as a publicity stunt and a “ludicrous waste of public money”, the decision was regarded by his aides as a “happy coincidence”.
A spokesman for Mr Johnson said: “He was already very sceptical about it and in need of persuading, but TfL and the Olympics board reflected on the earthquake and decided to pull it anyway.”
Mr Johnson scrapped another facet of Mr Livingstone’s legacy when he axed a controversial tie-up with Venezuela, and half-price bus and tram travel for some of the capital’s least well-off. Mr Livingstone signed a deal with the South American nation’s state-owned oil company last year, agreeing to provide transport advice in return for a 20 per cent cut in TfL’s bus fuel bill.
The savings were used to offer discount fares to around 250,000 people on income support.
At the launch of his successful campaign to oust the two-term Labour Mayor, Mr Johnson called the deal with Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez “completely Caracas”.
No room up top – although it’s empty…
Posted: 26th, May 2008 | In: Back pages, Broadsheets, Politicians | Comment
Barack Obama Death Cult: Germany Calling
THE Barack Obama death cult is waiting.
Der Spiegel declares:
Berlin political circles — both liberal and conservative — are fawning over US presidential candidate Barack Obama. Many in Germany see him as a cross between John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., but expectations may be exaggerated.
JFK and Martin Luther King – whatever happened to them?
Posted: 26th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment
Sexism And The City Of Washington DC
HILLARY Clinton might be a woman:
Gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind has been shamelessly peddled by the US media, which – sooner rather than later, I fear – will have to account for their sins…
More women hating here:
Shaker Pocochina covers at her place the two articles Bill Clinton Has “Never Seen a Candidate Treated So Disrespectfully Just for Running” and Clinton Sheds Pantsuits for Puerto Rico, both of which can be found at ABC News’ Policial Radar, juxtaposed without a trace of irony.
Posted: 26th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment
Northern Ireland: Prosecuted For Not Registering To Vote
SLUGGER notes: “Win or lose an Antrim man will be setting legal history as the first person to be prosecuted for not registering to vote. There are an estimated 200,000 people not registered in Northern Ireland.”
Ian Withers of Potterswalls, Antrim faces a fine of up to £1,000 if convicted in the case, which may be the first of its kind in the UK. He has already denied a charge of failing to provide information to the Chief Electoral Officer under the requirements of the Representation of the People Act. A date for his full trial before Antrim Magistrates is due to be set when he next appears on June 3.
Posted: 26th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)
Barack Obama Osama Death Cult: Fox News Joins
THE plot to kill Barack Obama gathers pace with each passing day.
Now on Fox News, Liz Trotta, former New York bureau chief of the Washington Times, mistakenly calls Obama “Osama,” and jokes that it would be nice to see them both killed:
TROTTA: And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that sombody knock off Osama — Obama. Well, both, if we could.
HOST: Talk about how you really feel.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Firing blanks
Posted: 26th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (4)
Daily Kos: Vote Obama Or Enlist For War
OVER on the Daily Kos the woolly thinking ai that a no vote for Obama is a vote for war. You may recall Tony Blair’s ethical foreign policy and his subsequent wars…
If you’re going to help McCain get elected, you need to take responsibility for your actions. This election is bigger than you. It’s bigger than Barack Obama. It’s bigger than Hillary Clinton. Lives will be saved or lost depending on who is elected in November, and if you’re going to willfully help prolong the war, it’s time to do the honorable thing and enlist.
Click here to locate a U.S. Army recruiter in your area.
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Posted: 25th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment
Hillary Clinton Joins The Barack Obama Death Cult
THE Barack Obama death cult is gathering acolytes.
Here’s Hillary Clinton reminds one and all that Robert Kennedy was doing well until he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, so bad they named him twice:
Posted: 25th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)
UN Ban-ki Moon’s Final Nail In The Coffin Of Global-Warming Sceptics
GLOBAL warming is a UN fact for Ban-ki Moon:
“Addiction is a terrible thing. It consumes and controls us, makes us deny important truths and blinds us to the consequences of our actions. Our world is in the grip of a dangerous carbon habit“.
And:
“Our dependence on carbon-based energy has caused a significant build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Last year, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change put the final nail in the coffin of global-warming sceptics. We know that climate change is happening, and we know that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that we emit are the cause“.
Posted: 25th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (4)
Moving Britain Forward: Selected Speeches 1997-2006, By Gordon Brown
GORDON Brown has new book out . It’s called Moving Britain Forward: Selected Speeches 1997-2006, By Gordon Brown.
Thankfully, it comes wrapped in a hardly dust jacket can be lined up with Brown’s other works: Courage: Eight Portraits -Gordon on his big heroes; Britain’s Every Day Heroes – Gordon on his little heroes; Where There’s Greed: Margaret Thatcher and the Betrayal of Britain’s Future – Gordon on his miniature heroes.
Collect all Gordon’s works and by placing the books spine out on a shelf, see the message “I HATE TONY”. Fold in the covers and see an image of Brown being stabbed in the back by a man sipping a Granita.
One reviewer’s favourite passage from Gordon’s new book is:
“- if I might put it this way – the man from Whitehall always knowing best, it is the woman from the WRVS or Sure Start or Community Service Volunteers or any of the NCVO organisations, that knows better.”
In other words, they all know better than you do…
Posted: 25th, May 2008 | In: Politicians | Comments (4)
