A short comment on Mme Sarkozy and ‘that’ picture

The Sarkozys are on a state visit to the UK. President Sarkozy really seems to be looking to improve/upgrade the relationship between the UK and France. He looked smart, hansom and businesslike, his wife Carla, a former model, looked beautiful, cool and sophisticated when meeting the Royals.

As mentioned she is a former model and there is in existence a tasteful enough nude photo of her, taken before she ever imagined she might ever became the ‘first lady’ of France, that is going to be auctioned at Christies.

There is nothing she need be embarrassed about, she was honestly making her independent way in the world and that was a part of it. It owes something in style to the French artist Georges Seurat. If it were in oils no one could argue that it wasn’t tasteful art.

But the good old UK tabloids seldom fail to make us look like lowlifes. The visit proved and opportunity too tempting for them miss. They published the picture together with a leering two faced “Welcome to Great Britain, Madame Sarkozy”.

If it was not intended to be a calculated insult it could easily be taken as such. It could certainly be represented as such by anyone so inclined. Especially if they considered the politics of the tabloid and the government.

If a paper wished to publish the picture, maybe it would perhaps have been better to have done so before the visit, or wait until it was done. Or better still just printed an article to accompany it rather than trying to be ‘clever’.

Drudge report risks coalition trops lives in Afganistan

The fact that Prince Harry has been serving with the UK’s armed forces in Helmand Province has been blown by the Drudge Report.

The fact is that he - and the troops he leads can only function effectively, at normal risk levels if he remains anonymous. Without that, the risk escalates astronomically.

So what is the difference between an enemy spy and Matt Drudge?

I am not sure what else you could call it - making sensitive military information available to enemy forces via the internet.

Information that affects the security of operations and could cost lives. It’s not as if there is even an overriding moral factor that might justify it. He knew it was going to be widely known once it was safe to release the information, but it was time sensitive.

He knew that, but apparently disregarded it, just to get a grubby scoop. But this isn’t really politics, or scandal, this is brave, mostly ordinary, people with integrity just trying to do a difficult and dangerous job.

At the very least it is dangerously irresponsible and done with little concern as to the possible ramifications, or the welfare of others.

So - The difference? Well Drudge makes a profit out of it, rather than doing it for merely ideological reasons.

He is reputed to be doing very nicely out of it, owning a luxurious Mediterranean-style home on Rivo Alto Island in Florida's Biscayne Bay, a condo at the Four Seasons in Miami and reportedly drives around in a black Mustang.

It is the way of the world that he will probably continue to enjoy them - and is unlikely to suffer any doubts, or be bothered by the consequences to others, such as troops who are just trying to do their jobs in difficult circumstances.

PM’s Kiss of death for Martin

It’s been looking as though the red faced one, Michael Martin, Speaker of the house of Commons, bearer of the huge chip on his shoulder, would be able to ride out the scandal over his expenses - Especially as he is in charge of investigating them himself…

“Oi me! Did you do it?”, “Wot me guv? Naah.”, “Well that’s OK then, I’m convinced”.

Martin is the chairman of the Commons members estimate committee, who are conducting a ‘root-and-branch’ review of expenses following the discovery of Derek Conway’s dodgy expenses.

And we wondered why he had been so keen on blocking details of MPs' travel expenses being published under the Freedom of Information Act…

His spokesman, Mike Granatt, has now resigned for ‘ethical reasons’ apparently after cottoning on to the fact he had been parroting what has delicately been described as ‘incorrect information’ concerning actual details of Martin’s wife’s taxi fares.

No stranger to being accused of playing fast and loose with taxpayers money - in October 2007, Martin was criticised for blowing over £20K of taxpayers' money on lawyers to silence negative press coverage. Being a ‘class warrior’ didn’t put him off employing posh libel firm Carter-Ruck .

Martin must surely realise that if people criticise his conduct it could simply be because they genuinely find his conduct is open to question, still class is always a good smokescreen, bound to guarantee a knee jerk reaction with the more bigoted left.

But he may be doomed after all, as Gordon Brown has given him his backing. Talk about the kiss of death ;-)

Winston Churchill and Sherlock Holmes. Many voters don’t know who was real and who wasn’t

According to a survey 47% of those surveyed thought Richard I (the Lionheart), was a myth. Worryingly 33% thought the same about Sir Winston Churchill and Florence Nightingale.

Conversely 59% though Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were real people.

Did the people conducting the survey especially look for thick people, or is it yet another indictment of State Education?

Possibly both - but more likely the latter, as even the those of the most modest mental ability, exposed to a half decent education would be more than likely to get such simple questions right.

More worrying, what else don’t the respondents have a clue about - and how does this affect important decisions they make in daily life, based apparently on completely mistaken information.

More worrying still ;-) These people can vote...

UK PM says Hain’s fate is out of his hands

Permier Gordon Brown has said of Work and Pensions and Welsh Secretary Peter Hain’s ‘poor administration ’ of the donations for his deputy leadership bid "He took his eye off the ball and he has apologised. The matter must rest with the authorities, who will look at these matters,"

Now Shadow Chancellor George Osborne is being counter attacked with a claim he did not declare £487,000 of donations.

As soon as you look at the details of the attack on Osborne it is quite clearly what amounts to a bogus attack. The money was in fact declared in good time when it was donated to the Conservative Party. George Osbourne just didn’t declare that he had received it from the party a second time in the Register of Members' Interests, apparently after checking with the party weather he should or not and being advised by their experts that he didn’t need to. There is a clear paper trail, so why the fuss.

Presumably as a cynical, but partly successful, red herring to take heat off Hain.

Now, regarding Hain, I must admit, at first sight, it did look like a cock up rather than anything more sinister.

That is until you look at the donors. One of them was an organisation called the Progressive Policies Forum (PPF) that appears to have channelled more than £50,000 to Mr Hain.

It was created 3 months after Hain announced he was running for New Labour’s deputy leadership as a limited company. The sole director is a solicitor and it has never filed any accounts with companies House. A key figure in Hain’s campaign, John Underwood, a former Labour communications director, is thought to be strongly associated with the PPF.

So we have a limited company that appears to have done nothing and have no reason for existence, except as a proxy to funnel money to Peter Hain.

Where did this cash the PPF ‘donated’ actually originate? Apparently from people like Rumanian born diamond dealer, Willie Nagel. Coincidentally it seems he had previously been approached by Underwood for cash - but had said he would not contribute unless it was kept private.

Then there was Isaac Kaye, ex South African, now with Irish citizenship, an ex supporter of South Africa's Afrikaner-led National Party, who’s company has been raided by the police.

This begins to look rather familiar. In fact it looks a lot like another try at the same trick of concealing the identities of the real donors.

One that resulted in the New Labour donations scandle that Gordon brown admitted had been illegal. That was over a ‘laundered’ donation from David Abrahams and forced the resignation of New Labour's General Secretary, Peter Watt.

New Labour set these rules up. Why set them up in the first place only to try to circumvent them. Were the rules ill thought out? They made their bed now they lie in it ;-)

So it is clearly not a case of just being a bit late in declaring his donations. He still has John Underwood to throw to the wolves if need be, but if It was illegal enough for Abrahams to take the bullet then it should be illegal enough for Hain to do likewise.

Cheap as chips? Will the UK ePassport work for more than a couple of years?

Remember the ePassport introduced in 2006, to comply with new international requirements? An absolute rip off snip at only £72 and rising.

The Home Office's Identity and Passport Service (IPS) are no doubt congratulating themselves for apparently accomplishing the unlikely feat of bringing in the scheme, on time and on budget. Note 'Identity' in the name – another brick in the wall of Nu-Lab's total surveillance society.

But wait – These are ten year ePassports and they contain a microchip with your data on it.

That microchip is only guaranteed for, wait for it, two years.

That’ll be fun then, when it packs up after 6 years while you are trying to go through US customs and they think you are a terrorist sneaking in on a fake passport.

And exactly who is going to pay for a new one when it stops working?

Bomb plot Drs qualifications not good enough to work in Oz

Amid all the furore about the UK cell of Islamisist Terrorist ‘Doctors’, there are some points that the great and good of the mainstream media - and our political classes seem to have failed to pick up on to any extent.

We know that at lease two of those implicated in the terrorism, Khalid Ahmed and Sabeel Ahmed, applied for employment in Western Australia, one applied more than once under slightly different names.

The reason they were not in Oz, instead of breaking their solemn oaths to ’do no harm’ in the UK, by providing Terrorism, free at the point of delivery?

Must have had their fingers crossed behind their backs when the too those oaths, or would that be crescented? – can you do that?

Yes the reason - Because their qualifications weren’t up to scratch.

Now this begs the question. If they weren’t good enough to be let loose of the Australian public how come they were good enough to ‘practice’ their ‘skills’ on the poor old unsuspecting British Public?

One must also wonder just how low the NHS goes qualification-wise and why exactly is it necessary to stoop to what ever level it is, when there are British trained Drs unable to get posts? It conjures up (hopefully inaccurate) images of half trained foreign vets trying their hand at brain surgery.

Also ;-) does Michael Moore Know?