More lies

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7757170.stm

Such arrogance. "Listen to me proles, this is what you are now instructed to think and believe happened."

As far as I see it, there are three options:

* Labour ministers, most definitely including Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown, not only knew the arrest it was going to happen, but requested it did.
* Labour ministers, most definitely including Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown, knew the arrest was going to happen, but didn't request it.
* No Labour minister knew that this was going to happen, frankly incredible given the other ministers that did.

Neither option is good.

Spot the liars

Gordon Brown:


But the winner is CLEARLY Jacqui Smith.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7754473.stm

How fucking arrogant is this woman? Look at the way she speaks to the camera. She clearly knew this was happening, she probably ordered the fucking arrest in the first place. She'll be rumbled, eventually. And what the fuck is the Demon Headmaster doing hanging around in the background like some senile old pensioner? He barely looks like he knows where he is.

Of course he fucking knew!

So, quite rightly, everyone's talking about the arrest of Damian Green. But just fucking watch as the arrogance of the government gets ever worse...

But the Home Office said ministers were not informed until after the arrest.

...

Downing Street insisted ministers had not been given advance warning and Prime Minister Gordon Brown said it was purely a police matter. "I had no prior knowledge, the home secretary had no prior knowledge, I know of no other minister who had any prior knowledge," he told Sky News, adding: "I knew about it only after it had happened."

I'm sorry, but what a load of fucking BOLLOCKS. Of course you knew, Gordon, you fucking arrogant, snotgobbling cunt. How dare you think you can pull the wool over our eyes again?

As Old Holborn said, either he and ministers did know, in which case we're living in an authoritarian state, or they didn't, in which case we're living in a police state.

Ahhhh!

Am I the only one that fucking hates this call in the House of Commons, usually during PMQs? Both sides of the house do it, as soon as one of their respective speakers says something that's supposed to be pertinent or interesting.

"Ah!" "Ah!"

They sound like a right bunch of pompous cunts. Which I suppose they all are.

Obo and Guido have also covered a revelation that Gordon Brown is paying whips to shout down the opposition. What a fucking disgrace, but I'll be honest, I expected no different. He knows his (and his parties) days are numbered. They surely haven't got a hope of winning the next election...have they?

Pay-As-You-Throw

Source here

From January English councils will be able to bid for pilot schemes to incentivise people for recycling more and deter them from throwing stuff away.

Previous pay-as-you-throw pilots were abandoned, but the survey showed 79% of women and 70% of men saying they should be rewarded financially if they create less waste and recycle more.

That can be translated as "people will be punished financially if they create more waste and recycle less".

I will hopefully get the definitive answer as to whether Bristol plans to implement this tomrrow.

Kerry McCarthy speaks sense

On her blog comments here

The problem is, that some of these people are unemployable - not just because of lack of qualifications, but more because of lack of social skills or any awareness of what is right or proper behaviour.

Christ, is this the first time ever a Labour MP has identified the workshy feckless chav underclass their Socialist governance has created?

Southwest One Part I

Welcome to my first posting on Southwest One - in what I hope will be a long series, fueled with all the information I am able to dig up on this highly suspect organisation.

The Bristol Blogger, James Barlow and MP Ian Liddell-Granger have done excellent work on it, hopefully I can continue.

A bit of background (mainly from the above sources)...

What is it?
Southwest One is a joint venture Shared Services Company formed of two Councils - Somerset and Taunton Dean, Avon and Somerset Police Constabulary, and IBM.

Why the controversy?

Take your pick from any number of reasons. Secrecy - The governance structure of Southwest One was branded "confidential" yet the company is funded by over £400m of public money. IBM have tried particularly hard to dodge the Audit Commission Act, which doesn't have the "commercial confidentiality" clauses the Freedom of Information Act had (but now doesn't, muahahaha). The Staffing Agreement document was kept from UNISON and other members of staff, and the document was apparently signed at 4am on a Satuday morning! IBM - they own 75% of the company, meaning they reap 75% of the profits (if Southwest One ever make any, which currently looks pretty unlikely). Finally, a wealthy of other dubious issues, including the fact that Avon & Somerset's Chief Constable's wife was in charge of the procurement/tender process on Taunton Dean CC's side. Hmmmm.

Is Bristol affected?

Yes, potentially. Southwest One has a framework agreement, covering all local authorities in the southwest (including of course Bristol City Council) and several public sector bodies signed up, which could become a large regonal shared service project. This means that they can utilise services provided by Southwest One without going through a tending/procurement process. Notice that whilst 22 authorities/public sector bodies are declared, 14 have chosen not to.

This could mean that Bristol City Council's IT and other shared services could be outsourced to Southwest One, along with quite possibly many other dubious/dodgy transfers. Only time will tell.

Admit it, you useless snot-gobbling mong

...you're fucked, and you know it.


I'm interested to hear, but also slightly dreading, the economic announcement due tomorrow. Whatever it contains you can guarantee the general gist of it will be bribing the lazy, the work-shy, and the feckless (who are after all the only people left that will vote Labour) with lots of tax cuts in an attempt to preserve Gordon's image. Everything that's happened so far has been to preserve Gordon's image rather than in the public's financial interest. Whether it's the fact that the cash injections into Northern Rock have lost us a load more money or cutting VAT, they're deliberately avoiding talking about the fact that this will mean huge, huge tax rises later - regardless of who's in power.

This Marxist cunt along with his badger-browed Trotskyist sidekick is going to send this country to the fucking wall.

I just despair.

Ford Ka Drivers

How is it such a guaranteed certainty that if you are sat at a junction behind a Ford Ka wanting to turn right onto a main road, that you'll be stuck there for 10 minutes whilst gaps big enough for an articulated truck to pull out come and go?

What is it about the Ford Ka that attracts the kind of inexcusably-timid morons who should have never been rewarded with a driving licence?

What a fantastic FOI Request

http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/employment_within_council#incoming-7022

Dear Sir or Madam,

What numbers of people are employed by the Council with the
following words in their job titles:

1. Community 2. Equality/equalities 3. Diversity 4. Cohesion

What is the total salary bill for these employees?

Yours faithfully, Steve Woods

...to which the reply is:

Dear Mr Woods,

As at 6th October 2008:

- There are 238 Bristol City Council employees that have community, equality/equalities, diversity or cohesion in their job titles.

- The total salary bill for these employees is £3,355,257.54.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Wright
Bristol City Council

I wonder how many would be eligable for OH's Pointless Jobs Competition?

BNP Membership list leaked

It's available on Wikileaks.

193 members in Bristol. Hmmmm. I'm not in any way a supporter of the BNP (plus I generally find their public figures to be utter cuntwafts, Nick Griffin for starters) but leaking names/addresses/phone numbers/children's names of members of a generally disliked (and often hated) organisation is possibly quite dodgy.

Still funny though.

Whadda load of old SHIT

Seriously, how terrible is this? I assume these leaders are paid extraordinarily large sums of (tax-payers) money to learn all those ridiculous phrases:

• "Every single member of the council is a leader" (Oh, please)
• "Green shoots of change" (wtf)
• "Transformational Chief Executive" (on £180k)
• "Clarity of purpose"
• "Right across the piece" (?)
• "Appetite for change"
• "Push boundaries, be radical, take risks" (Yeah, that really sounds like a typical council worker)

But where was "synergy", "blue-sky thinking", "touching base", and "paradigm-shifts"? What a load of pointless management gumph.

Jan Ormondroyd sounded like she really didn't want to be there.

First step...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7734712.stm

Maybe finally we'll see the Channel 4 Drama "The Trial Of Tony Blair" come true! I love how Blair and that cunt Jack Straw were always so defensive of Lord Goldsmith's "independence". Yeah, OK then.

Hopefully he'll take all his Blairite supporters, including that awful cow Dawn Primarolo, who voted very strongly for the Iraq war and also very strongly against an investigation into the war. Funny, that. She's also voted strongly for introducing ID cards, student top-up fees, and very strongly for Anti-Terror laws.

I wonder if she could get her tongue any further up Blair's/Brown's arse? I wonder if she's ever even been spoken to by a whip?

The Iraq war was blatantly illegal, immoral, and has cost us countless billions of pounds, as well as lost lives. What's been gained? I really fucking hope we get an PROPER, INDEPENDENT investigation into the legality of it. Even the Conservatives should be able to pick up on it, despite voting for the war, by claiming they were misled.

Tony, you arrogant cock-knocker, you're going down.

What a post!

Old Holborn speaks the truth.

Bristol an Anti-Car city?

I was reminded of some letters I've seen the ABD write into the evening post about Bristol being an "anti-car" city, as well as information about a meeting on the subject being held by the ABD in Bristol.

I'm torn on this, because I am a devout petrolhead and deeply disagree with the villifcation and arbritary taxation of people who are simply choosing the cheapest, most reliable, most enjoyable, and most practical form of transport.

However:

1) I think the ABD are a bunch of (in the main) Daily Mail-reading Jaguar-driving cunts who spend more time campaigning against 30mph speed limits than they do actually supporting the cause of petrolheads.
2) I don't think Bristol (as a city) is anti-car.

Quite the opposite, I feel at the moment for travelling between certain parts of the city a car is essential because public transport is so woeful, and so FUCKING EXPENSIVE. There are certainly some anti-car residents (mainly fucking hypocrites living in areas like Redland and Bishopston where car ownership is very high), anti-car blogs (a few have commented here), and certainly with RPZ's, Congestion Charging, etc planned Bristol could turn into an anti-car city.

The problem is, and always has been, lack of alternatives. Public transport in Bristol, and I choose my words very carefully, is fucking appalling. How Bristol City Council can have the sheer temerity to claim anything else I simply do not know. First Bus's prices are shocking, to the extent if there's any more than one person travelling, it's far cheaper to take a car - even taking into account running costs other than petrol - tax, insurance, etc. I'm still at a complete loss why Bristol City Council doesn't tell First Bus to sort their fucking act out - after all, they are the ones that give First Bus permission to operate in Bristol. Even worse, they subside some of the routes!! Jesus H Christ on a tricycle, what do First Bus "have" on BCC that they're still allowed to operate, and still allowed to charge such obscene fares?

Because I can tell you now, piss-poor public transport is NOT a UK thing, it's a Bristol thing. Go and use the tube or the buses in London, or the trams in Manchester, or the buses in Sheffield, and you'll soon see what I mean.

On other alternatives, I'm pleased to see the cycling grants awarded to the city - I cycle to work and back every day to save money on petrol and to get fit. Seperation is the key - anything to keep the buses and cars out of my way whilst I'm struggling up a hill, and anything to get the lycra-clad, arrogant, rules-don't-apply-to-me-especially-traffic-lights cycling twats out of my way when I'm in my car. Yes, I see the contradiction here too. I hope it makes sense.

Maybe I should class myself as a "more reasonable than the ABD" petrolhead then, as I love driving, would never sell my car, but want much more investment in public tranport and cycling?

How funky is this?

http://www.tramdev.clara.net/parrypic.htm

Why was this never introduced? Bristol needs trams again!

Europe in recession

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7729018.stm

No shit.

I simply don't understand how Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling can have the temerity to stand there and state that we're "well placed" to survive it. Maybe in their crazy, Trotskyist minds we are. But ask anyone who knows what they're talking about and they'll tell you we're truly fucked.

How are we "well placed"? We have rocketing levels of unemployment, not to mention the public debt we have (which conveniently doesn't include a lot of debts "off the books" such as PFI schemes, public sector pension guarantees, bank bailouts, etc)

I think now is the time to start worrying.

Missing Posts?

"Avid" readers of the blog may notice a few posts missing. Don't worry, there's no major conspiracy, it's just one of the chain of 2 or 3 people that passed on the information got "cold feet", wasn't sure if the information should be published, and asked for it to be removed. Concience? Who knows.

Anyway, out of respect to her, I have done so - though I'm not sure the information is really very sensitive and I'm confident Bristol City Council would of course have told us eventually. Fear not readers, I will be replacing the content with quality bile ASAP.

Having said that...

Sometimes I wish PMQs could end up like this. Gorgon wouldn't last 10 seconds (mind you, I'm not sure Dave would either).

PMQs

This week, bloody hell, t'was a good one.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7724844.stm

I've never seen Cameron so angry. Brown just ended up looking like the mong that he is. And why does he look like he's having a stroke every time he smiles?

UPDATE:

I'm also not quite sure why Brown is so happy to have Lord Laming heading up the inquiry, given the controversy over the Climbie case when it was noted that when Laming was head of Hertfordshire County Council's Social Services when they were accused of misconduct.

Joined

The only political party I've found so far that I think is actually worth joining.

Absolutely fucking horrifying

H/T Obo for this one, I am genuinely staggered to read this.

Britain's security agencies and police would be given unprecedented and legally binding powers to ban the media from reporting matters of national security, under proposals being discussed in Whitehall.

Interesting how you can already guess that the definition of "matters of national security" is going to be infinitely flexible isn't it.

Fuck me, it's remarkably telling that the BBC haven't reported this anywhere. Maybe they're not planning on reporting it until the legislation has been passed and it'll be too late.

The ISC report said the DA-Notice system "provides advice and guidance to the media about defence and counter-terrorism information, whilst the system is voluntary, has no legal authority, and the final responsibility for deciding whether or not to publish rests solely with the editor or publisher concerned. The system has been effective in the past. However, the Cabinet Secretary told us ... this is no longer the case: 'I think we have problems now.'"

So the fact that the media can still lawfully ignore a D-Notice (as it's only "advice and guidance") isn't good enough for them. They want to force press with legal threats not to publish anything.

D-Notices have already been used to great affect, including (allegedly)

• Two high-profile (apparently "household name") Labour MPs implicated in Operation Ore - if anyone knows who these MPs are (it was leaked onto certain sites at the time) let me know
• Airport Security breaches in the 80s
• Prince Harry's excursion to Afghanistan (though this was eventually leaked)
• In fact, probably Prince Harry's paternity (doesn't stop numerous Mock The Week references though)

Two questions arise from this:
1) What else have D Notices been used for? The suspicious circumstances surrounding the deaths of many, many people, not least Robin Cook and Dr. David Kelly?
2) What the fuck has been leaked that they're not happy with, and what would be stifled in the future?

Christ all fucking mighty, we really are living in Soviet Russia now aren't we.

You're being watched...

Here's another reason why 1984 needed to be sent to the 646 - whether they take note or not - the state of CCTV in Bristol, which I'm guessing is replicated in most cities across the UK. I have been sent some rather interesting statistics and info.

The City of Bristol has 347 CCTV cameras, and a further 43 traffic cameras. All of the CCTV cameras have very powerful zoom, and ALL footage from ALL cameras is recorded, 24 hours a day. Don't think Bristol City Council don't have the capacity to do this, because they do. The BNET fibre network goes all over Bristol and takes the CCTV pictures in Digital back to a central HQ where they're monitored and recorded.

Furthermore, ALL of the traffic cameras are running ANPR, so any car they want to track can be.

Take a look at the amount of cameras just in the city centre:



That big blob in the centre of the map is at the new Carboot Circus development.

You might say; "Well, that's fine. The cameras will catch all the chavs that try to nick stuff from shops, and all the pikeys driving without insurance".

That's probably all it's used for now. But the point is, the capability exists for some serious abuse of power. Think about it, you can be tracked anywhere, pretty much, in the centre. Worse than that, if they spot you and want to know where you've been, they can find that out too. Oh, but they aren't interested in little old me, are they? After all,

If you've got nothing to hide, you needn't worry.

And are you actually, seriously, suggesting that you TRUST the government, local or national? Given everything that's happened? Fuck me, take the example of recent data losses, of which there has been ridiculous amounts. These are just the ones we know about! How many countless other "breaches" do you suppose have occured? (I love the word "breach" by the way, an attempt to make it sound better than it is. A bit like "abscond" instead of "escape").

The public sector has proven, time and time again, that they are simply not fit to deal with any kind of sensitive data. And yet Jacqui Smith still thinks we trust her plans for ID cards. The private sector fucking manage it, why don't the public sector? God knows they have enough cash thrown at it. Is it just Council "laziness"? Or is it more than that?

I've always thought the Public sector purely exists to give jobs to those who are otherwise unemployable in the private sector. I'd hope I would be proved wrong, but it seems pretty fucking unlikely so far.

Kerry McCarthy, you stupid cow

Hat Tip to Old Holborn for this one

The second MP to respond to the LPUK's excellent 1984 campaign is Kerry McCarthy, who's blog comments in response to a very important item being sent to her are just fucking atrocious. Talk about proving the point, Kerry! She's now disabled comments on her blog. Maybe scared of going the way of Tom Harris?

And at 10.51 yesterday morning the order went out to UKLP members on their website to swamp my blog with comments.

Hmmmm. Not according to the LPUK. Think I'll trust my instincts on this one, Kerry.

Given that she was quite happy to claim £155,487 in expenses on top of her £60k+ salary a year, and then have the fucking front to whinge about the reaction to the MPs expense row, she is in no position to lecture anybody.

And now she's put her fingers in her ears.

Well Kerry, let me, as someone who has lived in Bristol all my life, give you some advice.

The LPUK's action was not a stunt, it represents, genuinely how people in this country are feeling about how the government acts. Don't think for one second that there aren't many, many people in Bristol alone that feel like this. Your attempts to justify the increasingly draconian legislation YOU want introduced are just pathetic.

Public support of CCTV - hmmmm. I think if people in Bristol truly knew how many CCTV cameras were watching their every move throughout Bristol (as I'll reveal here very soon) they might be asking a few questions.

Your voting record tells us all we need to know about your ideas of freedom, and your contempt for the British Public.

Two people that may not be remembered today

Terrorism threat growing, apparently

According to a secret intelligence report the Telegraph have got their hands on.

Fucking YAWN. How big can the threat grow?

How long have we been on a "high" state of a alert for? And then every time the government feels like people are complaining a bit too much about anything, they use that old "govern with fear" chesnut and the BBC (who are basically now Pravda) run a report on how scared we are all now instructed to be, with pictures of armed police.

Or maybe they want to increase support for ID cards and think this is a good way to do it.

Newsflash, Jacqui, you fucking arrogant cunt, nobody in this country believes you when you say that ID cards will help combat terrorism. Why is this? Because we're not as fucking stupid as you think we are. Do try to remember this with any future dealings with the public.

And you can ram your ID card, and it's associated costs that we'll have to pay for, up your fucking arse.

Yeah, I wondered when you'd pop up

I was wondering when this odious little turd would pop his head up managing to put some UK-negative spin on the US Presidential elections. Seriously, unless we have a black person (notice not Asian or any other minority race) in every position of authority this guy will not rest.

He described what he saw as "institutional resistance" to selecting black and Asian candidates. It was no coincidence that there were only 15 ethnic minority MPs, he said.

It's always easy to blame apathy within the black and Asian communities on institutional racism. Always someone else's fault, isn't it Trevor, you fucking whinging cunt.

However, this bit is a little confusing:

However, he said he believed the Conservatives had performed better than Labour in increasing the number of black and Asian parliamentary candidates.

"[The Conservatives] are less democratic. They are happier to impose candidates on the local parties."

What the fuck - so he thinks the Conservatives have done better than Labour in increasing the number of BME parliamentary candidates, but this is due to them being less democratic? So now political parties are supposed to impose black and Asian candidates on people? This guy seriously is not living in the real world.

P.S. Lose the glasses. You look like Howard from the Halifax adverts, you fucking twat.