Tuesday, 12 May 2009
The Door Into Summer
is the title of a book by Robert Heinlein that I liked a lot when I was much younger. It is about a cat (sort of), and the title comes from the cat asking to be let out and when it rains asking at different doors, hoping to find the door into summer. Anyway, this post is not about that book, but about another book of his, which is going into the personal library I am building, Stranger in a Strange Land. Norm has this by the Australian clever bloke Russell Blackford on that book. I used to read a lot of science fiction, them days. My brother and I used to get the Gollancz ones with the yellow covers out of the library and devour them every week. Not now. But some of it can change your life. An easy question for you lovely readers: what film was based on a book called (my favourite science fiction title I think) "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"?
Reading West selection
Let's have a look at the candidates (see my little poll on the right)
Raj Chada - Asian. He's out.
Kelly Edwards. The girly stooge a la Anneliese. Might just be in with a shout as the one they can tell what to do.
Paul Gittings. Decent bloke (not what they want), and of course white and male (which they do want) and well known in the party. However Reading West has very few members - most of the Reading party members are in Reading East and have no vote - so there could be a rogue result.
Denise Headley. Girl. Not wanted. Not white either. Can't have that. But with the party members expressing their own views rather than being guided by councillors and Salter, maybe, just maybe.
Lisa Homan. Girl. Definitely not.
Ann Moore-Williams. Girl. Definitely not.
Naz Sarkar. Wrong sort of Asian. Is personally odious. This is usually an advantage in Reading West. The party members might just go for him, see Gittings.
Richard Williams. White and male. From Southampton, whose Labour Group and one of whose MPs (the unpleasant one) is hero-worshipped by Salter (who also has a vote in the process) - but will the few members in Reading West listen to Salter as much as he tells everyone they do?
What do readers think? My poll closes on eve of poll in Reading West. If postal voting is allowed in this selection and you are a Reading West member who is voting that way my advice to you is get someone you trust to take your ballot in person - the postal workers' union can get up to some very funny stuff.
Oh and ignore both the Gavins. They are not worth it.
Raj Chada - Asian. He's out.
Kelly Edwards. The girly stooge a la Anneliese. Might just be in with a shout as the one they can tell what to do.
Paul Gittings. Decent bloke (not what they want), and of course white and male (which they do want) and well known in the party. However Reading West has very few members - most of the Reading party members are in Reading East and have no vote - so there could be a rogue result.
Denise Headley. Girl. Not wanted. Not white either. Can't have that. But with the party members expressing their own views rather than being guided by councillors and Salter, maybe, just maybe.
Lisa Homan. Girl. Definitely not.
Ann Moore-Williams. Girl. Definitely not.
Naz Sarkar. Wrong sort of Asian. Is personally odious. This is usually an advantage in Reading West. The party members might just go for him, see Gittings.
Richard Williams. White and male. From Southampton, whose Labour Group and one of whose MPs (the unpleasant one) is hero-worshipped by Salter (who also has a vote in the process) - but will the few members in Reading West listen to Salter as much as he tells everyone they do?
What do readers think? My poll closes on eve of poll in Reading West. If postal voting is allowed in this selection and you are a Reading West member who is voting that way my advice to you is get someone you trust to take your ballot in person - the postal workers' union can get up to some very funny stuff.
Oh and ignore both the Gavins. They are not worth it.
local newspaper week
yes really there is such a thing. His Master's Voice thinks it is just great. They publish the following quote, apparently without irony:
He said: “Local newspapers hold local authorities to account. Whether you’re reporting the local court or council, local papers bring the way the community works into everybody’s home. If we don’t have local newspapers who is going to do that? If people don’t know what is going on in their community, how are they going to hold to account the people that run their lives? In the end, that is the point of local newspapers. They are essential.”
who do you think said that?*
and here is an example of that "holding to account" HMV is famed for:
http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2050384_minister_visits_kennet_water_meadows_wildlife_area
an uncritical story about Mr Salter and Cllr Ruhemann having "protected" the Kennet Meadows - when a few years ago they were campaigning to build houses on it. I remember Dictatorship Dave Sutton appearing at Reading Labour Party to inform us moronic members of the public that we must all support housing on the meadows, and Mr Salter doing his bidding - but that was then and the Post has forgotten.
* It was John Humphrys. Hah!
As a postscript, RIP muckspreading, presumably Cllr Swaine is now otherwise engaged, in the savage struggle for the hearts and minds of the LibDem group on Reading Borough Council as they wait for the puff of smoke which announces a new leader.
He said: “Local newspapers hold local authorities to account. Whether you’re reporting the local court or council, local papers bring the way the community works into everybody’s home. If we don’t have local newspapers who is going to do that? If people don’t know what is going on in their community, how are they going to hold to account the people that run their lives? In the end, that is the point of local newspapers. They are essential.”
who do you think said that?*
and here is an example of that "holding to account" HMV is famed for:
http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2050384_minister_visits_kennet_water_meadows_wildlife_area
an uncritical story about Mr Salter and Cllr Ruhemann having "protected" the Kennet Meadows - when a few years ago they were campaigning to build houses on it. I remember Dictatorship Dave Sutton appearing at Reading Labour Party to inform us moronic members of the public that we must all support housing on the meadows, and Mr Salter doing his bidding - but that was then and the Post has forgotten.
* It was John Humphrys. Hah!
As a postscript, RIP muckspreading, presumably Cllr Swaine is now otherwise engaged, in the savage struggle for the hearts and minds of the LibDem group on Reading Borough Council as they wait for the puff of smoke which announces a new leader.
the worst hymn ever
might be the one including this verse:
Lord of our diversity,
unite us all, we pray;
welcome us to fellowship
in your inclusive way.
Andrew Brown's blog in the vile Guardian suggests this might be the worst. He is referring to the Anglican Consultative Council, which meets every three years and (to me at least) is a rather obscure body. It is meeting in Jamaica at present, which gives pause for thought when inclusiveness is being considered, hein? Someone else on the Andrew Brown blog suggests this as a hymn verse:
we will gadda in mobay,
To read da book a different way,
so Da batty man one day,
Wid us all can come an pray.
Well, as the hailstorms rage on this Alsace morning, thoughts do turn to these matters...
Lord of our diversity,
unite us all, we pray;
welcome us to fellowship
in your inclusive way.
Andrew Brown's blog in the vile Guardian suggests this might be the worst. He is referring to the Anglican Consultative Council, which meets every three years and (to me at least) is a rather obscure body. It is meeting in Jamaica at present, which gives pause for thought when inclusiveness is being considered, hein? Someone else on the Andrew Brown blog suggests this as a hymn verse:
we will gadda in mobay,
To read da book a different way,
so Da batty man one day,
Wid us all can come an pray.
Well, as the hailstorms rage on this Alsace morning, thoughts do turn to these matters...
Monday, 11 May 2009
the oxygen of publicity
is rather a tired phrase maybe, but it is what the latest idiotic pronouncement from Mr Salter and Zim One Lovelock, dutifully copied out by His Master's Voice, has given to the BNP. If you don't believe me read the comments - and those are just the ones His Master's Voice has let through. Its message is, if you don't vote Labour you are voting BNP - and that message legitimises a vote for the BNP, which of course is a legally constituted political party, which as one of the comments on the HMV story says is far left not far right. Mr Salter has form on this, and gets strangely over-excited at any mention of the BNP. I lived in lower Caversham in 1996-99, which at the time, and I think still, was a mainly white, mainly working-class, largely elderly area. A youngish bloke who lived around there used regularly to put pro-BNP stickers on lampposts. Whenever I saw them I took them off; it was just one bloke, the BNP never stood for the council in that ward and would have got no support if they had. However, the cerebrally-challenged then-councillor Steve Waite saw a sticker and excitedly informed Mr Salter, who rushed into Reading East (actually he rarely leaves the place) and did photocalls helpfully pointing out the stickers in case anyone had missed them. Mr Salter is the best publicist the BNP has ever had in Reading.
still clanging
all that noise will not drown out the truth:
this from the website of Mr Salter, who told the media he was campaigning for the Gurkhas and then told them he "didn't want to vote against the Government" on the issue:
Mr Salter, who set up and chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Gurkha Rights with Ann Widdecombe (Con) and Bob Russell (LibDem), negotiated a Government pledge not to deport any former Gurkha soldiers from Britain who failed to meet their new criteria and for the much-criticised settlement guidelines to be re-written by the summer. This climbdown was achieved two hours before the non-binding vote on the Liberal Democrat motion, and was welcomed by politicians of all parties and the Gurkhas themselves. Mr Salter addressed the Gurkha rally outside Parliament on Wednesday on details of the climbdown and received a warm reception
so what is a non-binding vote then? In eight years in the House I never heard of such a thing. A vote second class? A pretend vote? A children's vote? One that comes with a warning in Hansard "Please note: this vote Does Not Count. Any MP who told the media they were voting one way and voted another or abstained is Let Off."
No.
I think rewritten was last spelled with a hyphen in about 1943.
John Howarth is 59.
One Labour MP, Stephen Pound, resigned as a PPS because he said he "couldn't look his Gurkha friends in the face" unless he voted against the Government on this issue. Is Mr Salter going to condemn Mr Pound for that course of action, given that the vote was "symbolic" and "non-binding"?
this from the website of Mr Salter, who told the media he was campaigning for the Gurkhas and then told them he "didn't want to vote against the Government" on the issue:
Mr Salter, who set up and chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Gurkha Rights with Ann Widdecombe (Con) and Bob Russell (LibDem), negotiated a Government pledge not to deport any former Gurkha soldiers from Britain who failed to meet their new criteria and for the much-criticised settlement guidelines to be re-written by the summer. This climbdown was achieved two hours before the non-binding vote on the Liberal Democrat motion, and was welcomed by politicians of all parties and the Gurkhas themselves. Mr Salter addressed the Gurkha rally outside Parliament on Wednesday on details of the climbdown and received a warm reception
so what is a non-binding vote then? In eight years in the House I never heard of such a thing. A vote second class? A pretend vote? A children's vote? One that comes with a warning in Hansard "Please note: this vote Does Not Count. Any MP who told the media they were voting one way and voted another or abstained is Let Off."
No.
I think rewritten was last spelled with a hyphen in about 1943.
John Howarth is 59.
One Labour MP, Stephen Pound, resigned as a PPS because he said he "couldn't look his Gurkha friends in the face" unless he voted against the Government on this issue. Is Mr Salter going to condemn Mr Pound for that course of action, given that the vote was "symbolic" and "non-binding"?
Thursday, 7 May 2009
a clanging symbol
this from Mr Salter's Westminster Diary today:
By Wednesday morning, I and a number of other colleagues were sending out emails to three hundred Labour MPs urging them to withhold their support from the Government in the division lobbies later that afternoon unless we were promised a policy rethink. Pressure mounted during the day, not least thanks to the Speaker giving me the opportunity to raise at Prime Minister’s Question Time the appalling prospect of former Gurkha soldiers who did not meet the criteria being deported from Britain. By 2pm the Government’s position was shifting and after intense negotiations we got them to commit to review the policy (yet again!) before the summer recess in July and to promise that there will be no deportations of Gurkhas currently in Britain fighting their cases. At 3pm I addressed several hundred Gurkhas outside Parliament and told them the good news. None of this stopped the Government losing the symbolic vote later that afternoon but it is clear now that we are well on the way to getting justice for Gurkhas at last.
so the vote was only a symbolic one, so it was OK not to vote? Is a symbolic vote like being symbolic naked?
By Wednesday morning, I and a number of other colleagues were sending out emails to three hundred Labour MPs urging them to withhold their support from the Government in the division lobbies later that afternoon unless we were promised a policy rethink. Pressure mounted during the day, not least thanks to the Speaker giving me the opportunity to raise at Prime Minister’s Question Time the appalling prospect of former Gurkha soldiers who did not meet the criteria being deported from Britain. By 2pm the Government’s position was shifting and after intense negotiations we got them to commit to review the policy (yet again!) before the summer recess in July and to promise that there will be no deportations of Gurkhas currently in Britain fighting their cases. At 3pm I addressed several hundred Gurkhas outside Parliament and told them the good news. None of this stopped the Government losing the symbolic vote later that afternoon but it is clear now that we are well on the way to getting justice for Gurkhas at last.
so the vote was only a symbolic one, so it was OK not to vote? Is a symbolic vote like being symbolic naked?
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