Mandy’s McAvity memory loss on the origins of the Euro crisis

Posted on November 15, 2011

Peter Mandelson has been industriously digging himself a hole over the Eurozone crisis. Normally a fervent debater and a nimble performer when it comes to picking his words carefully, he got a bit of a shoeing from Paxo on Newsnight last night.

It can’t have been comfortable for the Prince of Darkness, but there are further troubles ahead if he sticks with the line of attack that he has chosen.

We’re choosing to be outside [the Eurozone] and not showing up at those Councils and bodies where the decision-making and economic discussions of the Eurozone are taking place

The problem he faces on this one is a curmudgeonly, sociopathic Scotsman called Gordon Brown. Back when Brown was Chancellor he was notorious for not bothering to attend the meetings of ECOFIN – the council of EU Finance Ministers. When the group met, McAvity Brown more often than not was nowhere to be seen.

As the FT reported in 2006:

Gordon Brown, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, has not been to Brussels for a single meeting this year….Mr Brown has the worst attendance record, going to barely half the meetings since 1999. In 2004 he made it to a little over a third of meetings.

The difference between then and now is that while today’s Government are refusing – rightly – to take part in building a new Euro bailout package, which would be as expensive as it would be unpopular, back then Brown was skipping the very meetings which sowed the seeds of the current Eurozone crisis.

Around that table in the late 90s and the early years of the 21st Century a consensus developed that it was acceptable for the vast majority of Eurozone countries to brazenly breach the Stability and Growth pact, running huge deficits and piling up vast national debt mountains.

Now that is crashing down on all our heads leaving Britain, Europe and even the whole world to pay a heavy economic price.

Brown opted out of those meetings, passing up a chance to warn of the consequences of the Eurozone countries’ actions. Then, of course, Mandelson went on to help him limp on as Prime Minister for three miserable, costly years.

Does the good Lord really want to start this argument?

Unlikely lookalikes – Harry Cole and Seb Coe

Posted on October 06, 2011

One 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

 

 

 

 

 


Shaun Woodward says cuts are Northern Ireland’s “new troubles”

Posted on September 29, 2011

Shaun Woodward is the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland – a job that requires unusual levels of historical understanding and diplomatic language. Given that, I couldn’t help but wince at his speech to the Labour conference. It started with a flourish of historical references, mentioning the Croke Park Bloody Sunday of 1920. Unfortunately, he then moved on to the economy:

But there are new challenges. New troubles. For the whole island. The crisis faced by the economy of Ireland. Compounded by austerity cuts by the Tory Coalition, felt as harshly in Northern Ireland as any other part of the UK.

The word “troubles” isn’t really the most appropriate for Northern Ireland, given the history of the Troubles with a capital “T”. Shaun Woodward cannot be ignorant of the meaning of the word, so is he just insensitive or is he deliberately joining Guido’s Order of the OTT by comparing the cuts to the Troubles?

Thank you

Posted on September 14, 2011

Total Politics have started to publish the results of their annual Blog Awards, based on votes from the blog-reading public. I’m delighted to say that this blog has been voted Number 5 in the rankings for Right Wing Blogs, up there with the big beasts and full-timers of the political blogosphere. Thank you to each and every one of you who voted for CrashBangWallace, I’m really chuffed and will do my best to live up to the ranking over the next 12 months.

Here’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

Guardian runs adverts from tax avoidance experts

Posted on September 06, 2011

The 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, 2011

Ken 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, 2011

Guido 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.

JobCentre Plus – “we wouldn’t run Laurie Penny’s advert”

Posted on January 20, 2011

Guido had a corker of a story the other day on Laurie “PennyRed” Penny – as a crusader against underpaid internships and for a gender equal society, she was advertising a job that a) came in below the minimum wage, b) came in way below the “living wage” she champions and c) stated a preference for a “female researcher”, making clear that men would start at a disadvantage.

Naturally, she’s been up in arms about the supposed legitimacy of the advert, so I thought I’d check with the professionals. I emailed the key details of the ad to Employer Direct, the employer end of JobCentre Plus, asking them whether they’d run it or whether there were legal problems with it.

Here’s my email, along with what they had to say in red:

“Hi

I am considering posting a job advert through JobCentre Plus but wanted to check a couple of technical issues first. I hope you might be able to advise me and I’d really appreciate any guidance. The two key issues are:

1) The job is offering £500 for 85 hours work, which averages at £5.88 an hour. That’s obviously just below minimum wage but because it’s almost minimum wage would that still be ok?”

Employer Direct: “We would not advertise a job which would pay below National Minimum Wage. We would ask that you provide us with a written guarantee that you will always pay NMW for the hours an employee works for you.”

“2) The advert does state that “I’m probably looking for a female researcher, and if you have a background in feminism or activism, all the better. However, any males who wish to persuade me that they can do the job just as well, I’m open to all suggestions.” Is it ok/allowed to advertise preferably for a female? I wasn’t sure if equality law might ban that.”

ED: “If you state that you are looking for a person of a particular gender or you have a preference towards a particular gender then we would ask you to fill in an Equality Stencil stating your reasons for the request. Once you return the form it will be considered if your request would be covered by a lawful exception, if this is the case then we would advertise it and if not then we would not process your vacancy any further.”

So, it seems that the pay grade is indeed a legal no-no, while to get away with the proposal to discriminate against one gender she would have to fill in a form to request a special exemption. But then again, as an ardent supporter of bureaucracy, presumably she’d be okay with that…  Either way, it turns out the pay and hours aren’t acceptable at all – not a legal wage, never mind a “living” one.

Sign the Eric-Illsley-must-go petition

Posted on January 11, 2011

After 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.