Slinging Ink

BBC's diversity policy compromises quality

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:16:00 +0000

Just a quick detour from our usual subject matter....

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Jacqui Smith....Strike two

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 12:22:00 +0000

Wrong again, Jacqui, but you left yourself with no choice once you'd backed yourself into a corner over Geert Wilders. Read more...

Oh do get a grip

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:50:00 +0000

It's called humour, you appalling termagant. Read more...

What can you possibly mean?

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:49:00 +0000

Of course we don't live in a surveillance society. Read more...

A load of Papal Bull

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:21:00 +0000

Desert superstition adherents among our loyal and diverse readership will be delighted to learn that His Holiness the Pope™ (brought to you in association with Whirlpool, emancipators of the distaff side since 1906) has hit the headlines again. Read more...

Ahmedouttajail

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:49:00 +0000

Man, that was stitched up with indecent haste!

Everyone's favourite text pest peer is free to bother us again. Read more...

Internet enemies

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:49:00 +0000

Reporters Without Frontiers yesterday launched their annual Enemies of the Internet report.

None of the countries highlighted in the report are exactly renowned for their tolerance of opposition or their commitment to the free flow of ideas, so its contents will come as no surprise to anyone. Read more...

Some dates to remember....

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 17:55:00 +0000

....and one for your diary.

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Mandy - The Green Slime breaks her silence

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:50:00 +0000

And we thought Draper was bad.

The monstrous regiment of spare ribbers has taken over at Labour List, where we're overjoyed to report that Leila Deen has taken up an invitation to put her side of the green slime story. Read more...

And talking of splendid ideas....

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:48:00 +0000

One of today's Greatest Living Englishmen, Pat Condell, had an interview published in AD (Netherlands) at the weekend. Read more...

A rather splendid little idea....

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:03:00 +0000

....which we hope may, in the fullness of time, become a big one. Read more...

Mandy and the Attack of the Green Slime

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:07:00 +0000

Pretty dim witted stuff really. In the unlikely event that this woman is any kind of success in her life she won’t recall this incident with any pride. If she doesn't amount to anything, well that just goes to show what sort of witless twonk goes around egging ministers. Read more...

Knighthoods through the ages

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:53:00 +0000

Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, England's greatest naval hero, had four orders of knighthood conferred upon him and commanded the 100 gun ship of the line, HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. He died there. Read more...

The Idiot In Chief....not waving but drowning

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:57:00 +0000

Tim Worstall, bless him, thinks the Perfect Latin American Idiot and sugar daddy to the region's cocaine trade, Hugo Chávez, needs a lesson in economics. Read more...

Special Relationship....reqiescat in pace

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 11:07:00 +0000

So, Iain, this lunch that the Prime Minister wasn't offered....
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Martial law? Surely not!

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:55:00 +0000

The Devil raises a profoundly disturbing story, originally told by the redoubtable Ian Parker-Joseph, about the possible use of the army to quell disturbances during the forthcoming Summer of Rage™ (self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?). England Expects fans the flames with a link to this unconsidered trifle. Read more...

Did somebody say something about populism?

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:04:00 +0000

We're sure they did.... Read more...

Ah yes, it was us.

Well, it was Iain Martin actually but he got the free plug so he can button his lip.

Boris' acid quill is really on form here....

She is meant to be Labour's deputy leader. She is a solicitor, and an alumna of Hammersmith's highly regarded, fee-paying St Paul's School for Girls, and she can sometimes be perfectly pleasant and rational. But here is a sample of Harman's ravings on the subject of Sir Fred and his pension: "He should not be counting on being £650,000 a year better off as a result of this, because it's not going to happen," she told the BBC. "It will not be accepted."

There. Savour the bleating leftie inanity of that sentiment: it will not be accepted. By whom will it not be accepted, Hattie, and how will it not be accepted? Since she agrees – in the same breath – that the details of Sir Fred's severance from the Royal Bank of Scotland may, in fact, be watertight, her highly trained legal mind must envisage some change in the law.

Does she really imagine that parliamentary draftsmen should be now at work on the Fred Goodwin Pension Reclamation Bill? In which case, exactly how much of Sir Fred's pension does she think should be recouped? All of it? Or just 95 per cent of it? And what about all the other cock-up artists who used to be in charge of the Royal Bank, and what about the people who made a hash of Northern Rock, and all the bankers who have been kicked out of institutions in which the state has been obliged to take a share?

Will their assets be expropriated under the same Act? How will their guilt be determined, or will Hattie just put on her leopardskin accessories and stomp and jingle through the City, waving her calabash rattle and sniffing out the culprits?
Sir Fred's settlement is nauseating; it is unbelievable. But it will be accepted, and it must be accepted, because it already has been accepted – by Harriet Harman's ministerial colleague.

Certain people who like to characterise Boris Johnson as buffoon (we bet Northern Monkey likes to show that one off to his friends) need to haul their necks in.

It should be perfectly clear to anyone with a brain that he is anything but.

Serious men with serious purpose

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:26:00 +0000

CIF has a clip of former Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham of Cornhill's speech to the Convention on Modern Liberty. Read more...

A trumpet blast for liberty and truth from a very angry patriot

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:47:00 +0000

A tug of the forelock to Bloggers4UKIP for drawing our attention to this Philip Pullman piece, which was originally published on timesonline, but was, apparently, very hastily pulled. Read more...

We quote in full....

Are such things done on Albion’s shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake’s prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don’t know who you are

You’re mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasises about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don’t want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation’s dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don’t mind if we are. They don’t think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum

© Philip Pullman 2009

That is all.

Caption competition

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:35:00 +0000

The first in a (very) occasional series.... Read more...

Matt's got a little list

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:13:00 +0000

It's here. Read more....

Godless™

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:12:00 +0000

As if they had nothing better to do with a shade over 1300 days before the next presidential election, Harris conducted an interactive poll last week, in which Americans were asked who they admired enough to call a hero. Read more...

Palin hits ground running! Ground shudders as End Times approach

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:52:00 +0000

Here's a story to gladden the hearts of everyone who knows the End Times are just around the corner. Read more....

Ahmedinajail

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:38:00 +0000

Curious Snippets, among a host of others, returns to the Geert Wilders controversy following Lord Ahmed of Rotherham's motorway texting death crash trial. Read more...

Nothing to disagree with here....

noreply@blogger.com (the ink slinger) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:37:00 +0000

........move along please. Read more...