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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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03 December 2007 |
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The only website Gordon relies on.
David Miliband, the Foreign Office and our Khartoum Embassy have been as useless as usual in defending our Teddy Bear naming teacher. They`re far too politically correct to send a Teddy called Mohammed to every child in Darfur. At the very least, they could have demanded consistency from Sudan`s crazed courts. Why not chop off the hands of every child who voted to call the wretched bear Mohammed?
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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27 November 2007 |
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Sunday. Watched Blair`s Apologia Pro Disaster Suaon BBC. Soft questioning by David Aaronovitch (son of Sam) but Blair came across as absolutely right in his terms, however wrong in the long view. The real problem is why weren`t the Cabinet, the Party and Parliament able to restrain him? Why did no one warn of the mess we’d make? Why is power so centralised that one man was able to create such a disaster and feel virtuous and right to do so?
For Sale: Two CDs sent me anonymously in a TNT jiffy bag. Sounds like Radiohead to me. Offers?
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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19 November 2007 |
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I used to be invited to the Spectator Awards every year while I was still alive. Not this year. But I didn`t miss the small attendance, Mathew D’Ancona’s unfunny speech, John Reid`s boring speech (though he didn’t head-butt anyone) or the singularly undistinguished (and mainly Tory) set of dull winners. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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14 November 2007 |
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Government failed both last weeks’ tests. The Governor wants to make us all miserable and deflate the economy and the housing market. Gordon’s programme is doubtful for housing. Nowt for the people. A hard time lies ahead.
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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06 November 2007 |
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Big Tests this week. Government’s First SAATs.
For Gordon Is he Blair heavy? Or Labour? Indications so far are that triangulation lives on, as does sitting on the middle ground, pinching Tory policies. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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22 October 2007 |
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We lost the rugby. But at least Sarkozy was forced to watch a totally Commonwealth contest. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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15 October 2007 |
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Gordon’s honeymoon has been the shortest since Mrs T. The commentariat has tired of us so they`re taking it out on Gordon. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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15 October 2007 |
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Roller coaster ain`t in it. Two weeks ago Gordon Brown was Master of the Universe. Today a deflating lilo, seven points behind, drifting helplessly on a Tory tide. Not only has the election I wanted vanished, but we`re going to lose the next. Mein Gord. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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08 October 2007 |
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The election`s off. The Tories who feared it and the media who advised against it are now yelling that Gordon`s frit. Balls. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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03 October 2007 |
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High noon at the last chance saloon. Make or break time is Tuesday. Announce a 1 November election then, Gordon, or forever hold your peace. Don`t go early and there`s little point in going next May or October. Might as well sit on into 2009. If things don`t look good then May 2010 for the bitter end. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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03 October 2007 |
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French intellectuals agonise about national identity. Mundane British counterparts preferred to worry about our ailing economy, a pessimism more debilitating than the French because it’s a phallic failure not an anxiety: the once workshop of the world can`t make it. Yet today while French anxieties remain obsessive ours are gone. Prophets of economic doom are silent just as Britain is embarked on a series of economic gambles instead of attempting to build long-term economic strength as doomsters urged. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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27 September 2007 |
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Bad Conference is degenerating into a trade fair. The unions supinely gave up their power. They didn’t trouble the leader with votes. Conference was castrated. No bookshop. No ideas. Everything passed to the Policy Forum. Which is useless. Ruthless management of the old Stalinist style without the Blair charm. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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24 September 2007 |
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Off to Bournemouth for what’s more likely to be a coronation than a conference. Indeed, under the guise of providing that conference resolutions will be dealt with more quickly by the Policy Forum and the department concerned, they’re proposing new constitutional rules which will emancipate conference by reducing the role of the unions and excluding contemporary resolutions which usually provide the only red meat we get to chew on. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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07 September 2007 |
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The Bank`s buggered it. King Merv is obsessed with retribution and high interest rates. Punish the overlenders. Punish the overspenders. Moralism as a system of economics. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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05 September 2007 |
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Citizens` Juries. Bring `em on. Gordon is quite right to go for this idea. Let’s have the first on the EU`s “Reform Constitution”. Do we want it or not? The next on interest rates. Up or down. The third on Proportional Representation.
Ontario had a jury of 100 on electoral reform. After six months of discussions and presentations they came out in favour of AMS, like Germany and New Zealand. That’s now going to a referendum in October.
Juries are easier to persuade to sense than MPs. Provided they’re properly educated i.e. by me and Gordon. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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03 September 2007 |
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When is a Constitution not a constitution? When it`s a European Constitution. Then it`s Speak no Constitution. See no Constitution. Hear no Constitution. Even though it`s more like a Constitution than, say, elephant droppings.
David Millipede says it`s elephant droppings. No need to vote on them. Just sniff.
Balls. Elephant Balls. Other governments are saying this is the essence of the Giscard Constitution. The Commission has got all it wanted. Read the proposals and see that the “Reform Treaty” is 90% of the Monster Treaty. They`re trying to fool us. Again. We promised a referendum. Let`s have it. Otherwise we`re locked in the Euro-Jail. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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29 August 2007 |
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Blog.
Bush hanging tough (and will surely hang anyway) on Iraq. Back Malaki even though he’s a broken reed. No pull out. Vice Pres. Cheney is the eil genius here, a man so determined to use America’s military might (as cheaply as possible) that when Bird Flu threatened he proposed to bomb the Canary Isles.
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The price of fame. People used to come up to me and impart useful bits of information like “You’re on television” or “Don’t tell me - you’re - you’re….” Here nothing like that. Last night a gorgeous blonde came up and said “I know you. You’re Archie’s grandfather”. His efforts at lifeguard training have made him a legend in my lifetime. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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21 August 2007 |
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TUESDAY. Today’s the funeral of my friend, Keith Jackson, who went out to New Zealand in 1956 to the University of Otago, for those were the days when NZ Universities recruited young Poms which made for a stodgy university system but was pretty good for us.
In 1960 he and I collaborated with Bob Chapman to write the first NZ election book, appropriately called New Zealand Politics In Action (N.B.two separate words). Now I’m the only one of the three pioneers left. Ave atque Vale Keith. A sad going for one of the nicest men I know. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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14 August 2007 |
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A new Italian book, La Casta, (the caste) by two journalists, Sergio Rizzo and Jian Antonio Stella, has sold over a million in a few months and caused shock horror in Italy. It reveals that the Italian political class has given itself a well heeled political niche.
Italian MPs are paid three times as much as the French. Their perks include chauffer driven, bullet proof, cars, body guards, discounted air travel, tennis coaching, comfortable pensions after only 30 months service. Between 600,000 and 700,000 Italians live off the political machine most of them well. The Italian Parliament is the costliest in Europe and a deputy`s basic salary before tax is Eu 11,703 per month compared to British Eu 7,459. They also have Eu 10,000 a month in hypothetical unchecked expenses. |
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General Ramblings
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Written by Austin Mitchell
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07 August 2007 |
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Like the IRA decommissioning their weapons, New Labour has spent ten years dismantling Labour’s Big Bertha Gun, the state, more properly called the community acting for collective purposes. |
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