Lib Dem supporter at Mayoral Debate an actor?

This evening they've just finished filming the London Mayoral candidates in a debate to be screened on the television on Thursday night. As to be expected the Mayor had ensured that his people were in the room to ask nothing but personal attack questions of Boris Johnson. This included raising the whole Darius Guppy incident from eons ago.

The Lib Dems joined in with attacks too of course. Well all apart from one of their number that is. Word reaches me that sitting at the back near James Cleverly was one gentleman wearing a yellow rosette who wasn't a Lib Dem at all. He was in fact an actor roped in because the Lib Dems couldn't muster a fall compliment of supporters for the debate.

The actor was apparently rather upset that he was forced to wear a yellow rosette and was subjected to some mild piss-taking from some of the people sitting around him who kept on reminding him that he just had to be a method actor and it would be alright. Isn't it good to see that Brian Paddick enthuses his own side so much they can make it to the TV studios to support him?

Update: According to "Grant from ITV" in the comments, the audience member in question wasn't an "actor", he was just a random person in the building for something else who they used to fill the seats and gave a yellow rosette too. No forcing of the rosette was involved.... it wouldn't be very liberal after all!

When they're not listening there is probably something smelly happening

A week or so ago, the Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said that she wanted to bring in legislation to ensure local Council listen to communities. She said that if a petition had 250 signature then it should be legislated so that the Council acts upon it. Power to the people and all that jazz, listening etc etc.

So isn't it interesting that the Government is pressing ahead with abolishing Cheshire County Council and its six district council and replacing it with a two unitary councils that will cost an extra £20 million a year and in MORI polling as well as local district polling the residents were over 70% opposed to the Unitary proposals.

Gwyneth Dunwoody, just before Chrsitmas savagely attacked Hazel Blears on the matter, going so far as to suggest that the decision was made for the "for the most venal and personal reasons". I wonder whether, when the new Unitary councils come into being, that certain property developers that personally donated to Hazel Blears will find planning application gliding through somewhat easier?

New Hampshire Thought for the Day

The question today is not "Is America ready for a female President?" it's "Is America ready to let two families execute political sovereignty for over 20 years?"

Two households, both alike in politics,
In fair DC, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where political blood makes political hands unclean.

Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton(?)

Money for nothing

Have you ever wondered what the Scotland Office actually does now that the Scottish Parliament controls pretty much everything the office used to do? Well it seems to be that it has one primary purpose that I can tell. It pays David Cairns MP an extra £30,000 a year for being responsible for..... well nothing.

Honestly, I'm not kidding. In recent days there have been questions in Parliament put to the Scotland Office about its staff and responsibilities. It turns out that the office has no role of overseeing anything as such. There are no regulators and/or inspectorates that come under its remit.

As for staff, it doesn't actually have any. OK, it has bums on seats, but it is not responsible for them. All of its staff are "on loan" from other Government departments. The pay is dictated by the other department, as too are the terms of employment. David Cairns, the Junior Minister there, has no actual power of them as such.

Everything leads back to the lending department. Getting a junior ministerial job at the Scotland Office looks to be just a sinecure for a bit of extra cash. Either that or the MP for Inverclyde has something on someone and he's been chucked there to shut him up whilst making sure he can't actually cause any damage.

Good work if you can get it I guess!

Road pricing work carries on apace

Road pricing? Is it on? Is it off? Who actually knows? Some people might remeber that at Labour Conference, the Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, said that road pricing was "inevitable"A month later it was reported that the Government had U-turned on the subject.

For a policy that is supposedly dead it's interesting though that since 2004 the Department of Transport has spent "£6.5 million on consultancy contracts including professional advice on possible technical designs, system architecture and cost modelling" and that "[a]nother £1.0 million is currently contractually committed through to the end of 2007-08".

Wouldn't be anything to do with ITIS Holdings that company that has the former Transport minister, Stephen Ladyman, who bigged up road pricing, consulting for it now? Worth noting at this point though that former MP and London Mayoral candidate, Steve Norris is a non-executive director of ITIS. NOt sure how that sqaures with his opposition to road pricing but there you go.

The point is though is that the DfT is spending quite a lot of money on a policy that it has been applied will not be happening. On, off, on again? Or never really off, just postponed to the right politically expeident moment?

The keyboard and mouse is going nowhere

I see that Bill Gates has been out and about at CES in as Vegas predicting the end of the keyboard and mouse. What that actually means is that he's been promoting the Microsoft Table technology which is... errm... well it's a table which is also a touch screen monitor. It's nothing particularly new or fancy, touch screens have been around for a while, they're expensive and when they break, which they inevitably will, they really do break.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not being all anti-Microsoft against the table. It's a cool gadget there is no doubt about that, and, if you felt like getting me one I would have it like a shot, but let's be serious for a moment whilst also thinking in a crude way. How long after the Table goes to market as a commercially viable alternative will it be before someone sues after the screen broke during sex and they got a lump of glass stuck in their backside?

Yes yes, I know that you might be thinking 'why must he bring it down to sex?' but the point is that a table is a multi-functional physical object already, is bolting on technology something that will catch on that well when someone can use a remote control at a giant Media Centre TV from their armchair without moving, or even a wireless mouse? That brings me on to Gates' original prediction. The keyboard may become less used if voice recognition technology actually becomes brilliantly reliable, but the point is that it will reduce in the personal computer world only.

In the BIG computer world it will not. Not even where Windows runs in server environments. Weight, space and cooling costs are key you see and you don't want to by device that require huge bloody screens to manage, espeically if you're doing remote management. So is the keyboard and mouse going anywhere? Of course it isn't and Gates knows that only too well. He does enjoy making wrong predicitons though, and why not, hels rich after all so he has got some things right.

How dare you change your name for racist Tories?

There's a great little 'all Tories are secretly racists especially Andrew Rosindell' story in the Independent Pandora column this morning. Apparently a Tory candidate called Annesley Abercorn used be Annesley Abeykoon but he anglicised his name by deed poll. Pandora says a friend of his said this was upon advice that it was 'too foreign' and the same friend cites mentoring by Rosindel. The implication in the story is of course quite clear.

First, the candidate has denied his roots, 'what a tory scumbag!'. Second, he's done it to pander to the racist Tory Party. Third he is pandering to the racist electorate and conning them about who he really is (because they can't ever find a picture of him you see). Frankly it's outrageous that someone would anglicise their name! It's not like there is a precedent for it. Can you imagine the outrage if the Royal Family anglicised their name for example?........ Oh..... errr......

Hilary blames the system

Via Andrew Sullivan the following from a Clinton Campaign email.

The Iowa caucus process is a broken and flawed process. It was designed to allow for the active party Dems generally known to one another to assign delegates and was not designed to handle a flood of students and independents. It was a system designed to give more power to Dem party loyalists. In the tension over whether the candidates should be chosen by the party or by the general public, the Iowa caucus was designed to give the party the advantage. For this reason, the Iowa system failed on Thursday.

As Sullivan says, "Translation: we couldn't control it. So it sucks."

Nuking the Christmas Turkey?

Word reaches me that Andrew Brown - brother of the Prime Minister Gordon Brown - may well have had quite a pleasant Christmas. Apparently there was a little reshuffle at EDF Energy, Europes largest single nuclear energy supplier, and he was quietly promoted to Director of Communications.

Meanwhile today we have news that John Hutton will make an announcement to Parliament on Thursday outlining Gordon's the Government's decision on new nuclear power plants. Not, just for clarification, that I'm making a connection between the two things or that anything may have been discussed over the cranberry sauce.

It's interesting that Brown knows so much about the prospect for energy prices though. Wonder what he will say when EDF put their prices up shortly? It will no doubt happen after British Gas to try and avoid unnecessary backlash though, that's what a good Director of Communications would do, right?

Lost in Space?

All you need is Google Earth to help you find your way home?

Click image for large versionHat Tip: Found on an Interweb Forum