Crash Bang Wallace
Libertarian political blog from Mark Wallace; political opinion, breaking news and exclusivesUnlikely lookalikes – Harry Cole and Seb Coe
Posted on October 06, 2011One of the Party Conference season’s favourite sports is blagging – by hook or by crook getting into private parties and receptions to which only the great and the good are invited. Each conference has its legends of truly heroic blags, but possibly the most impressive in conference history occurred earlier this week in Manchester.
Guido Fawkes’ mini-Guido and News Editor Harry Cole decided to try to walk brazenly into the Telegraph’s star-studded bash in the Midland Hotel despite not being on the guestlist. He was promptly flagged down by the security on the door, leading to the following exchange:
Security: ‘Scuse me, what’s your name?
Cole: Harry Cole
Security (consulting guestlist): Lord Coe?
Cole: Err, yes…
And in he strolled – no longer Harry Cole, twenty-something blogger and gossip-monger of note, but newly ennobled as 55-year-old Sebastian Coe, Knight of the British Empire, Baron Coe of Ranmore, Olympic Gold medallist and Chairman of the London Organising Committee of the 2012 Olympic Games.
An impressive blag which will be hard for anyone to top. If you still doubt it, compare the two gentlemen in question:
Harry Cole Seb Coe
Guardian runs adverts from tax avoidance experts
Posted on September 06, 2011The Guardian’s view on tax avoidance by others is well known – they regularly and deliberately conflate tax evasion (a crime) and tax avoidance (not a crime), and take the position that everyone should go out of their way to pay as much tax as possible. Regardless of how whether you pay what the law demands, the Guardian will be the final and ultimate arbiters of whether you pay your “fair share”.
However, their own affairs are less than consistent with the high standards they demand of others – as Guido has documented in the case of Polly “you should pay more tax, but why should I?” Toynbee, and their own record of careful tax avoidance through offshoring and other mechanisms.
Not content with hectoring others whilst practicing tax avoidance themselves, the Guardian has now taken things a step further – profiting by running advertising for firms of specialists who offer advice to tax avoiders and even how to deal with an HMRC tax investigation. This is a screengrab of their “Reading the Riots” web page – take a look at the ad circled in red at the bottom right:
Appleton Richardson, the advertisers in question, describe their service as “tipping the scales of justice in your favour”, will help you learn “how to play the game” and offer help to “survive a tax investigation by HMRC”. They absolutely rightly say that tax avoidance is perfectly legal, but in Guardian land it is unacceptable – how do the champions of high taxes square taking advertising from a firm like this with their crusading morals? Or is it just yet another case of Guardian double standards?
PS you’ll note that with further delicious irony the other two adverts are for Personal Injury Lawyers and, yes, a Scientology magazine. The Guardian: where Comment Is Free, but principles can be bought.
Ken, rape sentences aren’t large enough to salami slice
Posted on May 18, 2011Ken Clarke could probably have got better publicity today by touring the TV and radio studios with a sack full of kittens and strangling them to death, one by one, whilst singing the soundtrack of Cats. A lot of attention has been focused on his sickening and frankly incomprehensible comments about the supposed difference between date rape and “serious, proper rape”.
Those comments are important and serious, but verbal idiocy should not divert attention away from the true problem here – these woeful proposals themselves. To my knowledge, no-one has done an opinion poll on whether sentences for rapists should be increased, but that’s because the answer the public would overwhelmingly give is “Yes”. Opinion testing on the subject would be a waste of money because the outcome is obvious.
Instead of realising that he was speeding, (allegedly) Chris Huhne-like, to disaster Ken Clarke seems to have just focused on process and ignore the outcomes. A Minister who is about to go public with a proposal to let convicted rapists out after 15 months should surely realise that however logical the process might be, the place it has led them to is utterly wrong.
Clarke’s rationale for considering these massive cuts in prison time is that offering a sentencing incentive to rapists will encourage them to plead guilty and thus reduce the trauma for victims. There’s a debate to be had about whether that will work, but in a situation where the standard tarriff for rape is a measly five years (English translation: 2.5 years) there simply isn’t any room to further reduce the sentence.
Until that is fixed, this should be off the table entirely – no tinkering around the edges could or should be done until the central problem of weak sentencing is fixed.
If Ken Clarke really wants to introduce a system where rapists get to barter about their prison time, then he can only do it – morally and politically – by starting from a higher sentencing base in the first place. Radically increase the basic sentence for rapists – something which the public and the media would support – and then start asking whether there should be a discount for confessing early on.
Stat Prawn – breaking records in March
Posted on April 04, 2011
It’s that time again – the Stat Prawn is here to update on the ebb and flow of traffic. I’m pleased to say March has gone really well – helped by exclusive stories on the failures of various Conservative Associations and the revelation that Ed Miliband freely confessed to some pretty massive foreign policy blind spots.
Pageviews: 23,477
Visits: 19,965
Absolute Unique Visitors: 12,361
That makes March this blog’s biggest ever month in terms of Visits and Pageviews, and second biggest month ever in terms of Absolute Uniques.
Particularly interesting is the fact that Twitter has overtaken ConservativeHome to become the 3rd biggest source of traffic after Guido and Iain Dale – this shows the growing power of social media. The fact that it is closely followed in the rankings by Google shows the growing amount of word-of-mouth referral to this blog. That’s down to you lot out there, so thanks for your support, comments and Tweets.
Raponomics
Posted on March 25, 2011Guido drew attention yesterday to the new Andrew Lansley Rap, a viral hit that is storming its way across the internet thanks to the unexpected marriage of Grime and the politics of NHS reform:
As much as I disagree with its message, it’s a brilliant example of a pretty complex issue being communicated well and amusingly through Youtube. This is the shape of political campaigning to come.
While we’re on the topic, this is the perfect opportunity to plug the best example of a geeky topic being communicated in this way – the John Maynard Keynes vs F.A.Hayek rap battle:
Definitely the quickest and most catchy way to learn all about the economic divide…and worth it just to hear someone rhyme “Austrian perspective” successfully.
Sign the Eric-Illsley-must-go petition
Posted on January 11, 2011After spending years of my life campaign for - among other things – justice to be done on MPs’ expenses, it’s brilliant to see the first culprits appearing in court. After the brilliant news of David Chaytor’s prison sentence, this morning we had Eric Illsley pleading guilty to three counts.
Illsley is still a sitting MP, which is a huge stain on our democracy. The Sunlight Centre for Open Politics have launched a petition demanding his immediate resignation from Parliament. I’ve signed it, and I would urge you to do so too – it’s online here.
Thank you
markwallace | 7 Comments » Posted on September 14, 2011Here’s the Top Ten (with last year’s ranking in brackets):
1 (1) Order Order
2 (3) Conservative Home
3 (4) Spectator Coffee House
4 (26) Archbishop Cranmer
5 (81) Crash Bang Wallace
6 (5) Daniel Hannan
7 (-) The Commentator
8 (18) Talk Carswell
9 (17) EU Referendum
10 (10) James Delingpole