So, it’s the weekend after the week before, and an alliance of gameshow fans, 4×4 drivers, suburban curtain-twitchers, BNP second-preferences, Labourphobes and the thoroughly fed-up, mostly from places that don’t even count as London, have foisted a Thatcherite mayor on our generally left-leaning city. Continue reading…

Ah, those Hitchens boys and their messianic resolve. This time, it’s the runt of the family:

I sometimes wonder why I bother being a prophet. All my predictions of horrible things come true, and nobody does anything about any of them.

The BBC have discovered that there are now quite a lot of grannies in this country in their 30s. They interviewed Tara Bailee, 36, who goes clubbing twice a month, has (of course) split up with the father of her daughter Rickeita, who got pregnant at 15 and has (of course) split up with the father of her daughter, Lexie.

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Have you got worries?
Are you struggling to deal with the hefty demands of modern womanhood?
Are you unable to sleep in patriarchal space?
Are you exhausted from supervising the intricate gender fuckeries of your friends, family and pets?
Are you probed by Margaret Thatcher in your dreams?

Help is at hand, as Pennyred turns feminist agony auntie. Post your woes, rants and distressed frothings in the comments, or email to laurie.penny@gmail.com and my secretary will deal with you, once he’s finished ironing my thongs.

Replies shall be swift and terrible.

Back in the day, when I were a lad in a grimy northern town, &c. &c. we used to give stuff up for Lent. Or, any road, we talked about it. I don’t recall actually giving much up personally, apart from Ferraris. Continue reading…

Happy Easter!

LOLcat, if you don’t know, has become a popular internet phenomena where pictures of cats are given speech bubbles with funny messages in pidgin English. Sometimes, pictures of cats are super-imposed on random pictures too. See: Icanhascheezburger

I have a new suggestion. LOL-blair. In this game we find pictures of Tony Blair from his latest new and exciting plan to change the world, write captions, and speculate on what he’s going on move on to next.
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Here’s another law of politics: all public service tends towards infantilisation. It’s a law in two parts.

I have a seven year-old daughter. She’s not particularly tidy. Most days her bedroom looks like how I imagine how Daily Mail readers imagine how Eastern European migrants live. You see, she can and does make the most stupendous mess without the help, input or consultation of anybody.

But when it comes to tidying that mess? Ah, that’s not a job for a single person at all. No help is begged in making the mess but much is begged in its reversal. There are tears and shouting. A team effort tidies the room but a few days later…

And so it is with government. Or at least this government. Think of all the messes it has made in the last eleven years. Now think of how little clearing up has actually been done. How much mess has been edged away from, swept under the rug of media manipulation and generally ignored? Because all public service tends towards infantilisation. Someone will be along at some point to clean up for them.

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This image above is actually a parody of this latest idiotic campaign dreamed up by the Metropolitan Police. See odd looking people taking a picture? Call the police! Rohin has the original and some more parodies.

I don’t often write about my own life here but the most extraordinary thing happened to me yesterday afternoon and I want to share it with you. It was a lovely crisp sunny day, the sort of day which reminds you that spring is on the way, so I went for a stroll around town. With the light twinkling off the granite buildings, Aberdeen city centre looks good in the sunlight.

Passing by HMV, I decided to pop in and pick up some Blackadder DVDs. I’d been meaning to get the full set for a while now so I was pleased to see that they were all available. They also had the Planet Earth DVD box set so I got that too. All things considered, it was turning out to be a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. (It’s the small things in life…)
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Some of you may find this more amusing than others, but its worth highlighting as an example of how one “leading blogger” is trying to strangle any criticism of his activities.

Last week Tuesday Aaron linked to this blog post by Tim Ireland on Bloggerheads, which accused Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes) of getting up to all sorts of things, including using the Conservative Party’s email systems for himself (incidentally, a security breach), using other people’s images without attribution and nicking their bandwidth.

Quick off the mark, although I didn’t read it until much later, I was sent an email by Staines threatening to take me to court for the link. He was: “not minded to not pursue this just because you withdraw it at a later date.” That is quite a threat. I was asked to get in touch soon or else. “And I won’t leave the pistol in the holster this time,” he ended.
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The second video (NSFW) from Lee Griffin and now Gavin Whenman (also one-half of the very good Realpolitik podcast team): -

Original text here.

Credit: Beau Bo D’Or

Or maybe this is perhaps the final word? Should there even be a final word given he’s been given a slap on the wrist for what amounts to worse corruption than what Peter Hain did.

Following Barack Obama’s surprise victory at the Iowa caucuses, how will Hillary Clinton recover to confirm her place as Democratic frontrunner? Exlcusive to Liberal Conspiracy, we can reveal extracts drawn from advance copies of speeches the junior senator from New York intends to make over the next few months as the primaries roll on…

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Yes, it’s that time of year again. No sooner does an important traditional religious holiday roll around than the PC-brigade feel the need to strip-mine it of its original significance, just so’s no-one’s feeling get upset. Fuck that.

For many years now, it’s become unfashionable to talk of Geola, as Muslims, atheists, and Christians have all attacked our traditional holiday.
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It’s common knowledge on the left that Christmas is a pernicious racist-imperialist construct, an unholy alliance of Catholicism, Coca Cola and capitalism whose only function is the exploitation and repression of the international working classes. Well, bollocks to that. Christmas is a right laugh, a time for family, friends and frolicking whether you do the God thing or not.

But if we want those doey-eyed little ones looking up at us to have a future free from acid rain, hurricanes and summer floods, it’s time for a festive fightback. No, I don’t mean making common cause with the fundies, but what better day than the feast of Santa Lucia to publish a cut-out-and-keep guide to an enlightened Winterval.

Here are fifteen ideas to get us started; feel free to add your own below.
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