A real book – not yon ‘memoirs’ splashed across the MSM!
The ‘biggest publishing scandal’ since the invention of the printing press has provided our lovely MSM with more fodder to make us peasants look away from real news. I refer of course to the ‘memoirs’ of a certain prince which were going to be published on the tenth of this month.
Not only were they leaked, as reported yesterday, they have already been translated into God knows how many languages, one of them being Spanish. And the Spanish published yon book yesterday …. Thus all the breathtaking pieces littering the online pages. The Times took first place in this littering competition, seeing up a ‘live blog’, apparently publishing those snippets as soon as they had the translation from Spanish.
And thus Auntie Beeb’s daily compilation of the dead tree press’ front pages, shows that and how the Westminster press is obsessed with this item. At least some of those news editors have grasped that the great British public has had enough of this unmitigated tosh coming out of Prince H’s mouth, or rather: polished up by his US ghostwriter. Only the FT has omitted any mention of this ‘event’ on their print front page.
If you have the time to indulge in the guilty pleasure of seeing for yourselves what all yon prince has spewed forth, check out the DM where every single instance has been squeezed dry to provide yet another ‘report’. Of course, this means people won’t need to shell out for the book now – surely another dastardly plot by the meejah yon prince so despises!
One final observation before I leave this royal mess: there’s a sort-of analysis by a BBC reporter which inadvertently points out the dilemma the royal family is faced with. Pointing out that ‘no comment’ by any government office answering on such allegations like yon prince has made, he concludes:
“So is it true that the office of William and Catherine briefed against Harry and his wife? No comment, says the palace.” (link)
Oh c’mon, Al Beeb: surely if that office did brief thusly, you’d have known, the Westminster MSM would have known, because you’d have received said briefing, correct? Are the combined minds of those news writers so bereft of memory that they need ‘a comment’ about something they must already know, something which they surely have in their archives? Really? Words fail me!
And so to the real news: that Starmer speech yesterday. He must be so pleased that his ‘big event’ was overshadowed by that other ‘event’. After all, what stuck in the sketch writers’ minds were the glitches. The effervescent Quentin Letts didn’t let us down:
“Starmer gave a speech while standing in front of an orange robot that had its arms crossed in a mildly sceptical gesture. The high-tech prop was intended to promote the Labour leader as a man of the future, a champion of tomorrow’s ideas and whizzo mechanisation. Almost inevitably, things went wrong. He had got off to an energetic start, waving his limbs, gobbling his consonants and pulling faces of incredulity at Conservative incompetence, when the connection started to sputter. The screen went wonky at the edges. The sound quality drifted, as if some fluff had collected on the needle. Then the nasal knight started pixillating before he froze completely.” (link, paywalled)
This can only have been due to some dastardly crypto-Tories messing things up because no such glitches happened when InvisiRishi spoke a day earlier at the same venue! There’s more:
“For a while we could see him still speaking but the sound had gone. Some may have found that a considerable improvement. Poor Starmer, who was now caught on screen pulling a visionary expression, had just been talking about the need for “change — real change, lasting change”. […] The BBC News channel’s presenter did some valiant filling for a while, telling us how Labour was doing well in the opinion polls. On screen our hero was swimming in and out of focus, sometimes jerking forwards a few frames before his voice was reduced to something that sounded like a Dalek. He himself might have been envisaging a “new Britain” but the viewers were being treated to the dreaded pizza wheel of reboot.” (link, paywalled)
So what did Starmer actually say? The Times, doing duty as ‘paper of record’, has this summary:
“He said that if Labour won the next election it would present a Take Back Control Bill to devolve power to local areas on employment support, transport, climate change, housing, culture and childcare provision. He also suggested that councils would be given more flexibility over their finances.” (link, paywalled)
If this ‘programme’ doesn’t scare the living daylights out of everyone then I do not know what will. After all, who hasn’t had to do battle with their local council, Labour, Tory, LibDem: no difference. Who hasn’t experienced the scissors between ever higher local council taxes and ever more reduced services the council is obliged to provide. And these councils would be given more powers by Starmer? God help us!
Here’s the summary of Fraser Myer’s ‘take’ on that speech, sent out as email newsletter yesterday evening. Thus – no link (my emphasis):
“Few things seem to excite the wonkish Sir Keir Starmer quite like ‘devolution’. Dispersing power away from Westminster seems to be the Labour leader’s answer to everything. It was the key idea he set out in his big new year’s speech today. It is central to his gratingly named Taking Back Control Bill. […] I’m starting to think that Sir Keir is only so keen on devolution because he is reluctant to wield power himself – perhaps because he doesn’t actually know what he wants to do with that power if he ever gets it. Rather than handing back control to the British people, his real aim is to pass the buck. And there is nothing positive or democratic about that.”
Amen to that. I’ll not even mention how ‘exciting’ the title of that Starmer Bill is, after he, his party and his acolytes int he MSM have poured scorn over the slogan ‘take back control’. We all know by now that Whitehall and Remain have done their best to turn this into a joke. Anyway, you can read Fraser Myer’s article in ‘spiked online’ here.
I leave you with weather ‘news’ – sort of. There’ll be rain and stuff over the weekend and ‘authorities’ have been putting up flood barriers and warned people to prepare. It appears to be ‘precautionary’ because:
“[…] it was confirmed that Environment Agency workers will strike for the first time this month. Thousands of staff who help to protect communities from floods will walk out over pay on January 18.” (link, paywalled)
Hands up all who knew we had ‘thousands’ of ‘Environment Agency workers’, helping to ‘protect’ communities from flooding! Are they employed by Defra or by local councils? Shouldn’t we be told?
That’s all I have for today. Don’t overdo it making sandbags for your homes and if you do, wear a face nappy because the flu might catch you. You don’t want to end up in hospital. Alternatively, make another cuppa and enjoy the rest of the “news-free” day.
ColinH- As someone who has demonstrable experience of fighting an election, can you give us some pointers to timeframe to get yourself organised, and the major costs? Maybe an article for Big Viv and Big Bev would be good.
Things I see:-
Fixed costs – deposit, parachute if main party entrant, office material – printer, puter and similar.
Unseen or unquantifiable costs – transport, hall/venue rental, time and effort – contacts, presentations, gathering helpers and so on.
Accepted 9/2 against an election this year.
Biscotte……….to answer your question, costs all depends whether you are standing under a party banner or as an independent. When I was a UKIP candidate on five occasions it was the local constituency association that bore all the costs, and if we stood ten candidates or more as we often did, you could easily kiss goodbye to at least £3000.00, so it was very important raise funds When I was a Reform UK candidate we didn’t know how or where the money would come from to finance an election campaign. Everything was organised from the centre and we weren’t allowed to hold a bank account locally, and that is one of the reasons why me and another Reform candidate set up an Independents party local to where we live and stood as candidates under that banner. At least then we were in charge of our own destiny, rather than relying on vague promises. Individually we spent £800 each out of own pockets. That was to set up a company limited by guarantee, to get the party the party registered with the Electoral Commission, to set up a website, to purchase leaflets and posters, and the list went on, but with petrol costs that took the final bill over £1000.00 each. We used our own computers and printers so didn’t incur extra costs there, but if the two of us had persisted with the local independent party we would have had to purchase party office equipment, which again would have come out of own pockets as we had no members And of course if you are standing as a parliamentary candidate somebody has to stump up the deposit of £650.00. In UKIP’s case the local association paid those deposits, but as an Independent, well that is another cost that would be borne out of your own pocket. Standing for election doesn’t come cheap, and there is absolutely no guarantee whatsoever of electoral success. Was it worth it in the end? Well yes it was because we believed in what we were saying and doing even though we didn’t get elected. Standing as a UKIP candidate in the party’s heyday prior to the EU referendum there was a very real sense of camaraderie within the party as we all helped each other out both within our own individual association and other associations, and of course we had an inspirational leader in the form of Nigel Farage, and we all felt at some point the party would make a political breakthrough, something I never felt with Reform UK.
Also, I am pretty sure there are more qualified people out there who could write an article for Independence Daily than me. Maybe even some of the regular contributors. I can think of one person who might write an article along these lines, I shall contact him and see…….
With regard to the ‘price’ sorry meant ‘prince’, I have often wondered who he looks like in the Royal Family.
Even Princess Anne has the Royal ‘horse face’ (sorry) look – but not ‘our Arry’?
The boy by his actions and his looks has always given me reservations.
Following Bliar’s edict that guilty or not your prints and DNA will be taken and stored forever should you be arrested – I look forward to knowing who ‘Arry’s father is.
Such a revelation, ignoring the scandal, would get shot of him, plus the gold digger permanently.
Will Carling, Dobbie Fyedd, James Hewitt, Barry Manatee, James Gilbey, Oliver Whoare, Hasmat Khan, and Uncle Tom Cobbly an’ all in the frame.
Who else? . . . as Will Carling said – paraphrasing, how many times in life does a bloke get to . . . a Princess.
My money is on Jimbo.
I’m sure the result known or not known will never, ever, be revealed. I doubt it was Chas.
Biscotte. Similar thoughts had crossed my mind. After all, if Chas was at it, why not Di?
They say every person has at least six doppelgängers, but in this case the coincidence would be astronomical.
JH, no question; your money is safe. Harry Fitzjames; hazza ring to it, no?
This is not the time to fall into the trap of being fearful of what Starmer would do but to give everything we have to support centre Right challenger parties. We all should know that all establishment parties will deliver exactly the same agenda albeit at a different speeds. All establishment party manifestoes are worthless electoral propaganda. Let 20224 be the year that those of centre Right vote for what they really want rather than playing the MSM fear politics.
So much to say, so little inclination to say it. EA=quango. We never did have that bonfire did we?
Spanish eh? It was the Spanish Armarda that Elizabeth 1 defied !!
Council taxes higher in North than in London. It was the Poll Tax that was Thatchers undoing. I remember associates in the North (Derbyshire), explaining at the time that the po;; tax would hit much harder up here.
Talking of memoirs, it has been observed that the memoirs written by Bliar, Cameron and others omit the really huge elephant in the room that has ultimately caused everything wrong with Britain since about 2000: the only thing that explains it all: Soros, and their own involvement with this maggot.
I can’t understand why anyone would be interested in the memoirs of a psychotic prince. I guess my opposition to royalty started when Lizzie signed us into the EU without a word of opposition.
On a different subject, having worked in the water industry for many years, the Environment Agency is a real pain in the backside yet achieves nothing. Of course now they have morphed into climate change disciples.
Presumably the Environment Agency were the ones enforcing the EU edict of not dredging waterways to prevent flooding. Sounds like we’d be better off without them – permanently. Get dredging folks. Anyone know how to do it?
I’m tempted to say something about finding a certain politician dead in a ditch.
Funny (not) this subject should come up again at this present moment – your comment `get dredging folks`
The reason I say funny is in today`s Daily Telegraph there is a panoramic photo of the flooded Somerset Levels.
There was a horrible problem there a few years ago where a certain Owen Patterson won his spurs against the EA(?) or the EU or some organisation who were `wilding` that area and certainly not dreging.
Whatever, Patterson certainly took the issue in hand and arranged for local rivers to be dredged – the present picture makes me wonder since his demise that opportunity has been taken to return to the previous status quo..
I`m certain the long knives were out for Patterson, both on his levels handling and his Brexit stance.
I was very sorry to see him go for such a stupid reason (his only crime (in my eyes) – getting caught)
That E.A lot have lovely uniforms for their ‘officers’ too. Very clean and bright yellow adds a touch of class to work area near you.
Conjures images of Margo, in her overalls and marigolds, picking her way through the mud in Tom and Barbara’s back garden.