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In the early days of the Blair government they stumbled on the idea that putting out lots of ideas made people think you were working hard on behalf of the electorate. The concept had some legs for a while, at least that is while it was managed well (not least by Peter Mandelson!), but eventually the public recognised what was going on. In any case even Blair had lost control of it, and much of the PR releases (with every junior minister getting on the band-wagon) became plain silly. It became a sign of chaotic government; haedless chicken syndrome.

Peter Mandelson, as the best strategist New Labour has got left, is right that - not least in the present crises - we need one or two good solutions rather than a dozen or more half-baked stunts. The test will be can Brown bring his ministers (not least Ed Balls who seems to have completely lost his marbles) back into line!

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if we were to learn that Robert Peston is a Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne type character with a nocturnal crime fighting alter ego... How else to explain all the scoops he keeps getting, and how he bring financial miscreants down to size ? ?

"Is it a bird ? Is it a plane ? No, it's SpiderBat Peston !!"...

If only we could persuade him to 'rid us of that dastardly fiend Gordon Brown'.. with a 'BIFF' and a 'BASH'...

(AND

See

For teh UK, give some thought to the published by HM Treasury in 2006 in the wake of OECD data.

As before, some context and

Question: Do we have the raw human capital, or are these Lysenkoist/Lamarkian pipe-dreams?

Bear that in mind when you hear grand sounding words like accountabilityand especiallytransparency.

BEADS AND THE CAUSES OF BEADS

It isn't money that went wrong, it is what some individuals felt driven to DO with money that has caused our problems.

Were does human motivation stem from? In my view, The Ape Confused by Language.

With cleverness running rampant, the current wave of complex life ('civilisation') gained new insight into both the physical and the psychological worlds. The former discoveries gave us the equivalent of coloured beads to a primitive culture, and the latter the possibility to stabilise the globe, even with a burgeoning population. We chose beads. And the 'natives' are driving themselves, and one another, mad while ignoring the facility to stay sane.

Doing mad things with money has put us on the wrong side of sanity. The answer is not more beads; but no one is going to propose a paradigm shift towards contentment without beads.

Just a thought, but what do people normally spend Bonuses on? Holidays, a new car, house furnishings, electronic goods, childrens toys, books music et al. hmmm that said, i could easily ask the question why shouldn't the bankers get thier bonuses, but in the form of shopping vouchers, haha, non redeemable.
Might help the economy a little if the bonuses that were expected, were paid out among the lower paid staff, that way it would have an impact on the local economy in that region.
Or am I being too optimistic in my assumptions. If the banks aren't lending then ordinary people need a little more cashflow. Bonus anyone?

It would be good if the Newsnight team could ask Israel whether they know anything about this disappearing evidence given a) the talk of war crimes b) the interesting assertion by Israel that it must be Hamas as Hamas was guarding the munitions!

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ could ask Israel whether they deny using in civilian dense areas. This would be timely given the coverage of the (where allegedly, those concerned about Islamophobia were not invited) shown on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ NEWS today.

It's all a bit too contrived I fear.

"Just a thought, but what do people normally spend Bonuses on? Holidays, a new car, house furnishings, electronic goods, childrens toys, books music et al. hmmm that said, i could easily ask the question why shouldn't the bankers get thier bonuses"

The same logic should perhaps have been used to stimulate the economy by 'giving' each individual a 'cash injection' instead of wasting £12.5 bn on reducing VAT!

At least we may just have seen something for our money!!!

#7 daibach1952

See this post 13

/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/2009/02/the_anger_out_there.html

lordBeddGelert #2

And Evan Davies as Robin?

On deep reflection...what is all that wrong with the occasional shooting of a messenger? If Robert had fallen off the Clapham Omnibus we may have been all blissfully unaware.....just think of it Gordon wouldn't have told us and certainly not Alistair. Who else would have blown the gaff? Nobody tells Cameron anything especially in matters of high finance after his 1992 debacle so we could just about winged it.....

I love watching news 'packages' these days, they really are so entertaining.

Even News Night, which was once filled up with irksome pieces of 'in-form-ation', is now nice and easy to digest.

Like last nights piece interweaving Mandelson at the CFR with New York Fashion Week. A genius piece of 'lifestyle' journalism.

But wait a minute, was I missing something? What is this 'Council on Foreign Relations'? And why is the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ only offered a snippet of a speech delivered by one of our public servants? Maybe it was all too difficult to understand for us ikle people at home?

COME ON ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳. Why, oh why, has rigorous investigative journalism been discarded for the sake of wrapping pieces up in vacuous fluff???

ASK DIFFICULT QUESTIONS! That's all I (and many others) ask of you.

ALMOST TO DISPIRITED TO POST (#11)

"COME ON ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳. Why, oh why, has rigorous investigative journalism been discarded for the sake of wrapping pieces up in vacuous fluff???

ASK DIFFICULT QUESTIONS! That's all I (and many others) ask of you."

Don't do a Blue Peter with Your Green Man, traipsing round America. Do some cutting edge (edgy?) science that tests the comfortable concensus. Science is not belief - that is religion. Science is the TESTING of hypotheses. Fix me up a debate with Susan Watts.

Govt in short term daily headline chasing frenzy?

another reason why we need an election.

Kirsty seems to revel in the Madame Guillotine style? Maybe she could wear a nice red white and blue bonnet and do knitting through the show. ;)

How come Paul didn't get the Miami winter sun gig? All he got was an awayday to Wigan.

bookhimdano (#13) "Kirsty seems to revel in the Madame Guillotine style? Maybe she could wear a nice red white and blue bonnet and do knitting through the show. ;)"

Excellent!

Mandelson as a diplomat expresses his

' Speaking at a diplomatic cocktail reception in New York, he said: "Why should I have this guy running down the country? Who the " [heck] " is he? How the hell are they [Starbucks] doing?" '

Whereas he the head of the Starbucks coffee empire should have been saying "They never had it so good! I wish Gordon Brown was President!".

There is propaganda and there is denial. You can't possibly talk up the economy right now.

#3 & #6 JadedJean

As ever I feel the need to make sure that readers know you think "Hitler did good and bad things", you don't like democracy and you are a race "realist". Not a Nazi and not a BNP member. You are hazy about the Holocaust but do like your statistics on 30's survival rates of Jews. You like eugenics ideas.

99% of scientists know that climate change is happening and is affected by human impact.

>99% know that there is no scientific basis for race "realism" as genetic variation is greater within a race than between races.

>99% of this country do not share your views and would never vote for candidates who did. You are a pariah and you don't care.

There is overwhelming evidence on every level that the Holocaust happened.

When I have asked before why you don't pull your race "realism" "evidence" together into a scientific paper I seem to recall that you responded that mainstream scientists are "all Jews".

I am not an anarchist or a Trotskyite but I am happy to be described by you as that when I "paint Hitler as darkly as possible for party political reasons".

Its more Adolf than Aristotle with you.

tehgangofone (#16) "When I have asked before why you don't pull your race "realism" "evidence" together into a scientific paper I seem to recall that you responded that mainstream scientists are "all Jews"."

Your posts are bizarre, offensive and untrue as you persist in asseting propositions even when these have been corrected.

Please click on the highlighted text above and read the paper(s) before posting in this way again.

Go1 #16

You continue with your spam and repeated personal assault on another contributor. You continue to make utterly unsubstantiated claims despite being shown that they are wrong in almost every case. You never respond with any evidence when challenged. You have no credibility.

Here's a quote from Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish scholar. "Much of the literature on Hitler's Final Solution is worthless as scholarship. Indeed, the field of Holocaust studies is replete with nonsense, if not sheer fraud." Now if a Jew is moved to make this comment, should it not raise doubts in the reasoning mind?

My jury is still out on this one but solid evidence on the validity of holocaust claims is pretty difficult to find - especially from such supporters as yourself. Can't you see the damage you are doing to your own cause?

this clip reminds of the Govt's attempts of finding the way out of the credit crunch? ;)

This one goes to eleven !



I see gold is riding high today !

Pity Gordi sold it all.