Blair gone? Don’t believe it until you see his corpse dangling from a lamppost – or see him in the dock at Den Haag. But since he is making noises about finally resigning, might it be because he doesn’t want to be the first sitting prime minister to be indicted on corruption, for his part in the cash for honours scandal? Because surely he could count on his friends in the Metropolitian Police to tip him off once a charge is likely, yet still give him enough time to bollix up Labour’s chances in the upcoming election, to spite Gordon…
UK politics
” Mr. Blackadder assures me that this will be the first honest vote ever in a rotten borough”
The 18th century is alive and kicking down in the West Country, due to the lethargy of the electorate:
Voteless politician to win nine seats
An estate manager will this week win a place on nine different councils without receiving a single vote.
Chris Byrne, 40, will be automatically elected because he is the only candidate.
It means he will win seats on Axbridge town council, Cheddar, Rooksbridge, Compton Bishop, Weare, Banwell and Draycott parish councils and two on Sedgemoor district council, reports the Daily Mirror.
But Chris, who nursed comic legend Frankie Howerd in his last years and still lives in Frankie’s old home in Axbridge, Somerset, faces a contest for two more on North Somerset council.
An Independent, Chris insisted he will not be overstretched: “I’m very organised and even if I can’t make all the meetings I’ll always be available to do my duties. It’s scandalous that more people don’t care about politics.”
I’m sure he’s a very nice and able man, but that’s not democracy.
Heh. Indeed.
Mass Killer: New Facts Emerge
“He blamed almost everyone except himself” – BBC News this morning.
Oh, and he liked posing with guns.
# posted by Ellis : 7:17 AM
Dulce Et Decorum Ain’t
Seems to me a certain senior RAF officer is a lot more than half in love with easeful death… provided it’s someone else’s.
Meet General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett VC KCB DSO, Air Vice-Marshal David Allan Walker OBE MVO FRAeS:
RAF pilots asked to consider suicide flight
Lee Glendinning
Tuesday April 3, 2007
The GuardianA senior RAF officer asked fighter pilots whether they would consider suicide missions as a last resort to stop terrorists if their weapons had failed or they had run out of ammunition.
During a training exercise, Air Vice-Marshal David Walker put it to newly qualified pilots that they should think of flying suicide missions in a “worst case scenario” when a terrorist attack was imminent.
The head of the RAF’s elite One Group who is in operational control of Typhoon, Tornado, Jaguar and Harrier fighters and bombers, is reported to have asked the pilots: “Would you think it unreasonable if I ordered you to fly your aircraft into the ground in order to destroy a vehicle carrying a Taliban or al-Qaida commander?”
According to reports in today’s Sun, he told them they knew when they signed up that they would have to risk their lives.
The Ministry of Defence last night confirmed that the training exercise had taken place but stressed it was a hypothetical question to provoke thoughts as to what pilots would do if they were confronted with a situation in which they might die.
[…]
“The idea of officers ordering personnel to commit suicide is disgusting,” an unnamed officer told the Sun.
Another said: “His idea of leadership is to suggest that it is within his power to authorise the first example of an ordered kamikaze attack in the RAF’s 89-year history. He is subtly suggesting that if he wished he could order anyone in his command to die.”
It’s one thing to put your life at risk but it’s quite another to have a senior officer say he’d kill you on a whim. It’s a situation Walker’ll never face though: he’s too busy yukking it up at guest nights with royalty, celebrity and the Red Arrows. All that ceremonial Master of the Royal Household stuff to see to, doncherknow.
It’s hard work, just like the field of military expertise that led Air Vice Marshal Walker to reach the eminent heights from which he now pontificates to fighting women and men – administration:
Air Vice-Marshal David Allan Walker OBE MVO FRAeS has been Master of the Household of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom since 2005.
He was born 14 July 1956, and educated at the City of London School, and the University of Birmingham (BSc, 1977). He joined the Royal Air Force in 1974, and served in the Administration Branch. He is a MIPD and staff qualified (qs).
[…]
Walker became an Air Commodore in 1998 and was appointed Director Corporate Communications (RAF), 1998–2001, and later was Director Personnel Policy (RAF) then Personnel Training Policy 2001–2003..
So. He’s a professional suckup to royalty, policy wonk and spin merchant. The most serious danger he’s been in in his life was probably at a No 10 dinner party. If this is the calibre of officer in charge the UK forces truly are fucked.
Revenge of The Civil Service Cat-Lovers
Apparently the former head of the Civil Service has called Gordon Brown a Stalinist in the Financial Times. Oh dear, how very uncivil of him.
It’s revenge postponed, and personally I hink it all started when the Blairs got rid of Humphrey the Downing St. cat…
My efforts at political prediction are, like everybody’s, hit and miss. But even when my dire prognostications prove horribly right it’s still very satisfying. I predicted back in 2004 (good grief, is that 3 years ago already?) although I’d been saying it l since long before, that it would be the civil service that’d eventually finish New Labour and damned if that hasn’t come true.
One of the things that has fascinated me about New Labour in power has been their relationship with the civil service. It’s essentially been one of contempt; Blair and co swiftly installed their political apparatchiks in control of key departments, elbowing aside career civil servants and all pretence at impartial and effcient administration in favour of ‘sofa government’, decisions made on the fly, unminuted and unrecorded. HM Government swiftly became a loose amalgamation of incompetent call-centres run by loyal party droids with spreadsheets full of targets and no experience of management of any kind. You could if feeling particularly sardonic make an analogy with how the Republicans sent those Heritage Foundation kids to run the Iraq Provisional Coalition Authority; only with fewer rocket attacks and less jeebus and more tea, biscuits and equal opps policies.
They’ve pretty much managed to gut every department, from health to crime and even the legal system and judiciary. The government we had pre-97, imperfect though it undoubtedly was, at least creaked away with a semblance of impartiality and adherence to law, but New Labour have managed to break government and the social contract completely. The senior civil service cavilled privately, but went along with it mostly, despite uproar from lower-ranking civil servants’ and the civil service union, the PCS.
But then they messed with Sir Humphrey’s pension. Ooops.