In case anyone's wondering why Damian Green was arrested by 'anti-terror' police - it's because all investigations involving potential breaches of the Official Secrets Act are dealt with by Special Branch, which was renamed to Counter Terrorism Command when it was merged with the Met's Anti-Terrorism Branch in 2006. As with the freezing of Landsbanki's … Continue reading Terror police, arrest this man
Banditry
BBC City Diarist 'Stephen': During the chancellor's pre-Budget report and the opposition's response, there were alternate gasps of disbelief and jeers of contempt across our trading floor. It's utterly bewildering how our political system has managed to put such innumerates, however well-meaning, in charge of our economy. Hmm. Perhaps, after you - not the politicians … Continue reading World of Chutzpah
Inspired specifically by this piece, but more generally by the dozens of such pieces, left and right, which perpetuate ludicrous myths about the cost of travelling on the trains. The fact is, in Great Britain, train fares rise at a couple of percentage points above inflation every year. This isn't surprising - most of the … Continue reading Generic response to generic ‘oh no, the trains are so expensive’ wittering
BNP apologists frequently claim that supporters of the group aren't necessarily racist, they're just misguided working-class souls who've been abandoned by the mainstream parties and feel the BNP speaks for them. Non-apologists suggest, with equal frequency, that perhaps if people weren't racist then they wouldn't vote for a party whose primary feature was racism, even … Continue reading ‘How Racist Are The BNP?’
Once again, they're running with the sort of content I'd normally put up here - an excellent piece on understanding debt/deficit statistics. God-damn public sector bureaucracies crowding out private enterprise, etc etc...
("in t'front room watching telly, what's it to you?") An apparently valid study has shown that 25-34 year olds are best at using apostrophes correctly, while over-55s are worst. While this doesn't fit with the traditional narrative of 'it's all gone to the dogs since trendy liberals took over teaching', it does fit with the … Continue reading Traditional ‘where’s your grammar?’ line
Sure, we've all been making this bad joke for years, but none of us never got around to recording the song:
Two things are going to impair my analysis of this election: brennivin, and my landlady's inability to make the wi-fi work. On aggregate, however, I'd rather be spending it in Iceland than pretty much anywhere else. update: yeah, that pretty much worked. been liveblogging on lc, will link sometime. Yay Obama, yay the American people, … Continue reading Electoral impairment
5CC wins: At least the Daily Mail is doing its best to ensure this sort of thing never happens again. Its asylum coverage is working towards there never being any future Andrew Sachses by making sure they die in a war zone rather than be allowed in the country. Just like it tried in the … Continue reading Final word on Teacupgate
This is a fantastic song: Not to come over all Mark Steyn or anything, but does anyone know if either of the UK performances of The Last Five Years are available in any kind of video bootleg format? Everything I can find on YouTube is either cameraphone footage of the mediocre off-Broadway version, or really … Continue reading Unlimited time