More news of interest.
Responding to the “news” that David Cameron has pressed his wife into service for the upcoming elections, Splinty says:
God help me, I was never a fan of Iris Robinson, but you couldn’t ever accuse her of not being her own woman. For substantial modern women to transform themselves into props for their husbands, because that’s what the sexist assumptions of the political-media game require… that’s actually even more depressing than desperate husbands pressing the wives into service.
It certainly seems so, if this is to be believed:
Gove did a decent job fielding Jon Snow’s questions and then beetled over to the BBC to face Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark. Gove’s tactic was to keep repeating that the other main parties were bankrolled by men with equally poor senses of civic duty and ignore Wark’s point that Ashcroft’s role as deputy chairman made his case different. Then, at the end, Gove went on to the attack.
“We’ll be watching, Kirsty,” he said darkly (although it’s not as if he ever sounds like Bagpuss) and then, in a significant tone: “The broader question will be, ‘Is the BBC failing in its duty to hold other parties to account?'”, leaving Wark to wrap up the interview in a fluster ill-concealed by a pretence of being hurried. Maybe she had the director general screaming in her earpiece: “Tell him we’ll get rid of CBeebies if he’ll just leave us alone!”
In completely unrelated news, new polls show that Labour is now level with the Tories in marginal seats, despite the Tories’ strategy of targetting these must-win seats for the next election. The mastermind behind this strategy? Ashcroft…
On an even more unrelated note, did it really take ten years for anybody to notice Ashcroft was still a non-dom, after having promised to start paying taex if only he could be a lord? Realy? And do we think that’s due to incompetence or malice?
Let Alex explain why this poster works and is so spoofable
Somehow, that poster seems almost designed for satire. There are excellent reasons why it works so well; it’s possibly the most stylised example of a political advert I can think of. In a sense, it’s a movie – not at all original, but highly competent in a limited way, and therefore a perfect subject for parody. You only need to identify a small number of controls, or variables, that define it, in order to produce a message that matches the requirements of the format perfectly but has an entirely different payload.
(Yes, he does think a bit too much about these things, but that makes his blog a must read…)
[Pic from Adventures In Historical Materialism]
If it wasn’t grim enough up North before it certainly will be once that odious prick Nick Griffin and his sidekick, former politics lecturer and National Front leader Andrew Bron take office in Brussels – but not for them. No credit crunch for Griffin and Bron. They’ll be doing quite nicely thank you.
No wonder candidates are desperate to get elected:
In the last five-year term of the parliament, it is estimated British MEPs have been able to claim more than £1.8m in expenses and allowances.
They have been receiving more than £363,000 a year in expenses without receipts including £259 a day for “subsistence allowance”, the infamous “sign in and sod-off” payment.
Travel expenses of £87,407 a year are permissible and there is £3756 available as an additional annual travel allowance.