³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

On the intelligence cuts it does seem a crazy area to cut back as I assume that affects Afghanistan where we appear to need more not less intelligence - and of course Iraq. If its "consultants" then that changes things for me though.

On the WMD it may be the cynic in me but was the intelligence really why we went to war? Like many others I think it was an excuse and not a reason.

On the G20 I would have thought decisions before the analysis of what went wrong - assuming as I do that a lot of things did go wrong - is like putting the cart before the horse.

It sounds as though the not very bright father of Baby P was "Nazi obsessed". We had the paedophile nail bomber a while back. The "Waffen SS" bomber at Lowestoft train station recently. Is it time to get tough on these people?

You only have to read between the lines of what some posters put on this site to see what these sicko's are capable of.

It now seems likely that Gordon Brown was badly briefed by Ed Balls. Will the latter, who has made rather too many mistakes recently, become Labour's 'Osborne'; standing in the corner. Or will Brown's gratitude for Balls' earlier role, as the attack dog which forced out Tony Blair, continue to protect him from the results of his incompetence.

Even so, I think that there may ultimately be some mileage in Brown's accusation (that Cameron was indulging in the lowest form of politics by capitalizing on the public outrage), in that it will resonate with the general public's image of Cameron. After all, isn't that true of all politicians at PMQs?

In any case, Cameron may have been veryclever, and impressed the lobby journalists with his political savvy, but why wasn't he chasing the real story of the continuing economic crisis.

So the intelligence community made "mistakes" and Blair et al told the complete truth and nothing but the truth?

It must be so, because a member of the cosy establishment said so.

I suppose we should expect nothing less than this from the state broadcaster.

Good, solid journalism.

WESTMINSTER ILLUMINATIONS

What a starkly lit tableau of political amorality at its worst. The spat between Cameron and Brown, a layer cake of odious politicking and 'fortuitous caring'. "I know that you know that I know that you know that" - to infinity. Sides will be taken in this shameful contest, but there is no right and wrong here, only Westminster governance.

We need a monarch with a voice.

First, We have always been told that interest rate decisions do not produce any result for a year or eighteen months.

So what makes the Bank of England project a turn around before that. Are we not in for eighteen months of agony and we will have no upturn until early, mid 2010. Or perhaps the Bank has been selling us a 'load of baloney' for years!

Second, announcing to the financial World that you will be cutting rates further soon is going to force the pound down even further and cause imported products such as oil (and gas) to be more expensive and depress the UK economy.

Third, it is now widely understood that interest rates were too low for far too long and this contributed to asset price inflation (the housing bubble). What steps is the Bank proposing to prevent the re inflation of his bubble as it is now having even lower interest rates?

Nobody asked these questions- why?

I'm happy to see Mervyn King predicting something about the economy after such a long period of head burying. I can't help but think that he could have been sending out warning signals during the last year - but I suspect that for all his independance from the government he would not have been thanked by Mr Brown for pointing out the obvious. Sadly, it is now fashionable to say how bad things are going to get, so stating the obvious - so long as G Brown has already said it of course.

The case of baby P is truly shocking. I think D Cameron is right to be angry for one simple reason - one child death cannot possibly indicate the size of the problem with serious child abuse. The death has occurred while the family was involved with the caring services. I can well imagine that other parents are far more careful not to draw such obvious attention to their actions. I would expect other parents to be equally deceptive with the caring services to keep their abuse secret. The death is a sharp tip of an iceberg - how can the caring services reassure the public that children are not being systematically abused under their noses? A death is a very public event, but how many children are actually suffering in silence, watching their helpers miss any telltale sign?

Child deaths will happen from time to time at the hands of their abusers, but how do we really make a difference to the lives of all the other children being looked after by the caring services? The public needs to have some confidence in these services and the services need to have confidence that their interventions lead to a halt of the abuse.

The occasional death - as horrible as this is - is caused by daily abuse, the severity of which is suddenly brought to public view. We must employ methods to stop the thousands of other youngsters being abused, who continue to live - in terrible misery.

Reality Bites

Seems to me like the politicians and bankers are now trying to find increasingly more desperate ways to get us to swim.

Forgetting it was their job to stop the ship sinking in the first place.

I don't know whether the circling sharks help or hinder.


Lost touch with reality.


The economy is the modern 'opiate for the people'.

Substitute economics for religion.

"Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man—state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

Karl Marx

While the economic actors take centre stage and the mislead media shine their light so a fooled audience is transfixed.

Outside the theatre -the real world dies.

It's the ecology.............


Celtic Lion

# 5 John from Hendon

Nobody asked these questions- why?

The Marquis de Sade

Juliette to King Ferdinand

"Though nature lavishes much upon your people, their circumstances are strait. But this is not the effect of their laziness; this general paralysis has its source in your policy which, from maintaining the people in dependence, shuts them out from wealth; their ills are thus rendered beyond remedy, and the political state is in a situation no less grave than the civil government, since it must seek its strength in its very weakness. Your apprehension, Ferdinand, lest someone discover the things I have been telling you leads you to exile arts and talents from your realm. You fear the powerful eye of genius, that is why you encourage ignorance. Tis opium you feed your people, so that, drugged, they do not feel their hurts, inflicted by you. And that is why where you reign no establishments are to be found giving great men to the homeland; the rewards due knowledge are unknown here, and as there is neither honor nor profit in being wise, nobody seeks after wisdom."


Celtic Lion

Enquiries into social and other services could ask why the media restricts most of its references to children to their bad behaviour or their abuse by adults rather than the positive.

Another question is why as a country we dislike children who are not alwats welcome in public spaces?

Why do adults set such bad examples of behaviour to the children?

Might it be more profitable for anti-abortionists to concentrate their efforts on seeking care for children already alive rather than abortion.

We are more than bodies and material things whether we have a religion or not.

Can representatives of the government be interviewed in a less belligerent manner?

Social services pick up the messes our families make within a society we all create. The media no longer offer anything questioning or demanding in drama.

Outstanding interview by Jeremy with Minister for Children, Beverley Hughes on the torture and murder of Baby P. It's astounding to hear that it took 15 months for the report on Baby P to come out, and from the same council as Victoria Climbie. Is the council fit for purpose? Clearly not. Who knows how many other children are being subjected to abuse right now. It seems apparent that social workers cannot detect abuse, so why not employ nurses or doctors who can detect it? A 17 month old child is unable to defend itself, so protect the most vulnerable in society properly.

Also enjoyed the priceless studio debate with Irwin Stelzer and his line "I know it's hard to think of taxes coming down in Britain," and Gillian Tett & Co too.

Watching Jeremy Paxman trying to bully the childrens' minister over the perceived lack of Governmental response to the BabyP case was unedifying
He demonstrated an unfamiliarity of the Law and social child protection practice and a scant knowledge of the background to this particular dreadful case

Anger has its place in public life, even in Parliament (especially in Parliament?) but it should be directed towards the person or body causing the need to be angry. There was no sense whatsoever in Cameron's directing his outburst against the government. Better for all parties to join together and to go and yell hell at that complacent local council.

Barrie at no. 4 says we need a monarch with a voice. I think we need common decency - with teeth.

Jeremy did NOT bully the Minister for Children, Beverly Hughes over the Baby P fiasco at all. He asked pertinant questions which needed asking. If it were not for David Cameron's launch into Gordon Brown today, then Ed Balls would not have begun an enquiry into the matter. Anger from David Cameron is completely justified.

Also enjoyed the priceless studio debate with Irwin Stelzer and his line "I know it's hard to think of taxes coming down in Britain," and Gillian Tett & Co too.

My personal views -

The World Has Gone MAD !

Since when do you chose to negotiate a New World Order when you are Weak ?

Since when do you send a failed Government to negotiate, on your behalf, when it was their new institutional structures and inactions over the last 4 years that has made us so Vulnerable in the face of a economic downturn ?


Could the Bank of England had Moved Sooner

Paul, might the MPC have been mislead by the strange CPI inflation measurement figure and over reacted ?



Trade Figures

Deficit narrowed to £3.9bn in September.


I think it's a shame these figures don't get on the news any more, pre 1997 if they were in deficit it was on the news and the Government of the day got a good grilling.

Defence Intelligence Cuts

Defence is the one area I would like to see more Government cash go into. Since the 1998 SDR I think Labour have used the Defence budget as a cash cow, they seem to be ignoring what they agreed in it.
It was only on Tuesday a coroner said our troops .
I think It's a disgrace !

It was like watching an early episode of Prisoner Cell block H:

Paul Masons late in coming graph was a sign of things to come. Pauls gulp and sudden stage fright was not helped by Paxo's "ad-lib your way out of this tight spot buddy" routine; thank God the arm has an elbow. Is the video edit suite getting redecorated at the moment or what? And who was operating the gallery?...the cleaner!..." Bob, just press that button and talk into that mic, the boys on the cameras know what they're doing, and if it all goes wrong, just press that big red button...it pulls up the test card...there's a new mop and bucket in it for yer...see yer later Bob".."errr."


Paul, try this.. a 40 minute jog and 30 mins meditation - binural beats are good, very cosmic - and get yourself a dart board... that signed photo of Paxman...you know what to do with it.....trust me, you'll feel a whole lot better!!!

2. At 6:54pm on 12 Nov 2008, mercerdavids

Just saw Mr. Balls in the kind of challenging interview that only ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Breakfast News can provide, which might have gone out to an audience of a few more than anything covered by Newsnight.

'Lessons have been learned' over night, obviously, and the main 'defensive offense' now seems to be to nit-pick on minor matters, such as a protagonist's actual age or whether this was the 'best time' to raise a matter of national interest and concern. If an adult, and even if not 'legally', I'm not too clear how that relates very much to the main issue at hand, namely the death of an infant overseen by an entity that patently did not learn any lessons after the last one and, other than providing a mechanism to ensure no one is held to account... again... seems unlikely to prevent another.

A point rather made on SKY just now by some grey, suited committee member more concerned by Mr. Cameron's behaviour than anything perhaps more pressing. His reaction to the fact that this latest outrage was committed on the same council's watch, under the same government of the last decade:...' 'but that was 8 years ago, and we're looking into it'.

But if the powers that be and media bubble cheerleaders think them obsessing on semantics and insisting 'they' be left to discuss away unchallenged, endlessly, is the best way to dig out of a deep hole, go for it!

Lessons patently have not, and are not being learned, and weasel words are no longer enough, save to protect the pay and pensions of the clearly incompetent and self-serving at the expense of those they are in theory in place to protect.

It's not a playground, but school needs to be out and a new term needs to bring those who serve the public and not their own and other's petty careers. From where I don't know, but if it's clearly broke it's obvious something fresh is needed to try and fix it.

thegangofone (#1) "It sounds as though the not very bright father of Baby P was "Nazi obsessed". We had the paedophile nail bomber a while back. The "Waffen SS" bomber at Lowestoft train station recently. Is it time to get tough on these people?"

Should the police and CPS get tough with all indictable offenders or do you think they should give special attention to those who are not very bright AND have a liking for 60 year old 'Nazi' memorabilia?

What if much of the nasty imagery is just vestigial wartime allied propaganda? Watching the first episode of 'Behind Closed Doors' this week, there were moments when one might have been forgiven for thinking one was watching one of the satellite channel 'nazis were baby eaters' history programmes with wailing women recalling something terrible that was done to them nearly 70 years ago. Dramatised documentaries like this make for great anti-state (pro-liberalism) propaganda.

Take note.

THE WESTMINSTER PHENOMENON (#12)

I have made no study of UK governance but bits have come my way. From these, I draw the conclusion that Westminster is a game, played by an odious distillation of individuals whose commonality is acceptance of unpleasantness that is not tolerated in normal (advisedly) society.
They have PMQs presided over by 'Mr Speaker' who says: failure to answer is none of his business. There are professional bullies (the whips) whose activities are, presumably, lawful because Westminster is 'outside the law'. The code of conduct for MPs (qv) is predictably insulting to the misguided dupes who still vote for these ciphers. All MPs practice, overtly and without shame, the maddening 'non-answer' to questions of every sort, and a slavish partisanship (and leader sycophancy) beyond anything found among normal people.
In short, Westminster is like some antechamber of Dante's Inferno. Is it any wonder that such governance has given us War on an abstract noun and magical disappearing money - to name but two?

My appeal to a 'monarch with a voice', above, was because that was the only person, (quasi) senior to Parliament, I could think of who might call "ENOUGH!"

I also saw the interview of Ed Balls on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Breakfast this morning - I was truly appalled at his flippant attitude and his foolish attempts to make the conservatives look like the bad guys. His comment that it was "difficult" for agencies to stay in communication with one another is outrageous - the agencies are set up for this purpose and are paid to do this job, this is not a voluntary set up. This is not an "Oh dear, poor professionals" moment.

We can again see Labour in its true colours now the focus has moved temporarily away from the credit crunch.

The loss of a life in this situation, to me, is like the loss of data we have seen so often just recently. The loss is suggestive of systemic failure - and by that I mean an attitude failiure. There may be rules and procedures in place, but if they are not used "because it's difficult" then we see the final result - the loss of something really valuable.

18. At 12:00pm on 13 Nov 2008,
THE WESTMINSTER PHENOMENON (#12)
I have made no study of UK governance

Possibly not, but what I read here is about as succinct a dissection as I have read of the situation... and problem.

Worth recalling when various Westminster insiders and their Village Useful Idiots in the media glee clubs try one of their frequent "Why are the people so disengaged with politics (like we really care so long as the '5p' power/pay/perks/punditry/pension gravy train still runs)" faux breast-beating exercises.

Nice one.

SYNCHRONICITY - IDS - WAR - CHILDREN

How poignant that, just after my posting @ 18, Iain Duncan Smith, the man with a child-care brief (who also gave Tony his war, that killed so many Iraqi kids - on a lie) put the blame for the recent atrocity at the door of a "Dysfunctional Base". To my mind, those two words amount to a succinct summary of my description of Westminster (which he tolerates in silence).

UK governance is enacted at Westminster - a quintessentially DYSFUNCTIONAL BASE.
Every four to five years we can 'start the music' and our politicians play musical chairs'
but Westminster continues as before.

#21 Taking the P

Well Barrie you gone and done it, the p word-poignant.

Just how many times was that word used. If words have a finite supply of use we have now run out of that one.

Every thing about the Armistice was 'poignant'. Did the media not have access to anymore adjectives?

It was very poignant that in celebrating the end of the "War to End All Wars" no mention was made of those lives lost in vain.

We are still fighting 2 wars.

Celtic Lion.

Dear Newsnight

Don't Mention the Olympic Bid.

While I have the computer on can I just issue a warning.

Please do not attempt to cover the Tessa Jowell "we wouldn't have had the Olympics if we had known about the economy" story.

It was the decision to have the Olympics which was instrumental in bringing down the UK and global economy.

In 2001 it was known that the UK and global economies 'could' crash. When they would and the magnitude involved.

The Government were made aware of this through the competition to run the Dome, as a global environment centre.

This would have put £50 billion per year into the UK economy. ie no recession in UK.

The information and management outputs of the project would have had a homeostatic self regulating affect on the global economy. ie no boom and bust, a sustainable development.

The UK Government decided they didn't want these benefits. So in December 2001 when Lord Falconer announced the winning proposal was the AEG venue casino. The Government also made a decision to crash the UK and global economies now.

The causality is that simple.

By using the Dome as part of the Olympic Bid the Government caused the present recession.

At £50 billion per year over 7 years= £350 billion to UK economy=no recession.

Even the Government don't dispute the facts. They would prefer the public not to know due to the embarrassment.

Yours faithfully

Celtic Lion