Polly

Carrying on the Greek's Good Work... as he is off cavorting in Ireland...

When will Polly realise - he's just not the sort of man you thought he was.

You thought he was a god but he is merely a mortal full of flaws.

He is like that handsome bit of fluff that you see at the Labour Conference, Polly, but he isn't handsome at all... rather it is the sherry goggles that have distorted a plain, bland man into something worth getting excited over.

He is the man you take back to your room imagining hour upon hour of glorious lovemaking, a sexual beast capable of giving you orgasm after orgasm - each better, more intense and enjoyable than the last but, when the lights are off, he is no such thing. He is simply a pump-pump squirt. He, like Nick Clegg, has received many complaints over his technique.

RS

When business calls, the clunking fist turns into a wee tim'rous beastie - May 2nd 2008

Stop tinkering, Gordon. Be bold, and show whose side you are really on - April 25th 2008

This buffeted prime minister must stop scrambling at every puff of wind - April 11th 2008

Now Brown can rediscover his natural political fire - January 1st 2008

Balls's bold plan to end child poverty could revive Labour - December 11th 2007

Labour must go on the offensive to get out of this vortex of failure - November 30th 2007

Be bold: show us the red thread running through your policies - November 9th 2007

Now the crisis is over, ditch the muzzle of consensus - October 9th 2007

A conviction politician, but where, Gordon, is the edge? - September 25th 2007

Now Brown must show exactly why he was so impatient to take control - September 21st 2007

It's a truly decent, clever team - but now they must excite - June 29th 2007

High risk can yield high rewards. Brown's real enemy is over-caution - June 22nd 2007

Finally ministers are free to say the rich are too bloody rich - May 18th 2007

Just imagine what might be, if only Labour dared - December 26th 2006

Brown's intellect is beyond doubt. Now he must show political genius - December 8th 2006

Blair's party is crying out for Gordon the Viking - March 21st 2006

EU Treaty

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Have a look at this sordid exhibit. (Focus your attention on these lines... ''The EU now has 25 members and will continue to expand. The new Constitutional Treaty ensures the new Europe can work effectively, and that Britain keeps control of key national interests like foreign policy, taxation, social security and defence. The Treaty sets out what the EU can do and what it cannot. It strengthens the voice of national parliaments and governments in EU affairs. It is a good treaty for Britain and for the new Europe. We will put it to the British people in a referendum and campaign whole-heartedly for a 'Yes' vote to keep Britain a leading nation in Europe'')

Now have a look at this. Oh, and maybe have a look at a bit of my own work...

Now having read all those, think how one could come to this opinion?

The Federal Union is a europhile organisation - they admit that the Treaty is largely similar to the vetoed EU Constitution. Parliament's all-party European Scrutiny Committee called it 'Substantially Equivalent' to the Constitution.... but still, Polly will try her best.

Our old friend, Polly, may well be excused for not perusing my rants online. She may not be excused for not recognising a Parliamentary Committee telling us that the Treaty is almost exactly the same as the Constitution which the Labour Party promised us a referendum upon.

This is not merely as she puts it 'relatively minor piece of EU good housekeeping will be forgotten by the next election by all but Ukip' this has major effects across the EU - she admits this further down her article.

Furthermore, as if we should be surprised, the issue shows exactly how stupid Labour think we are (and we prove it time and again by letting them off the hook) and exactly how much contempt they hold us in.

The government is now in for a perfect press storm. The dysfunctional dominance of four newspaper groups, with four fanatical Europe-hating owners, will try to force a referendum.

A referendum which the Labour Party promised us in their election manifesto.

The question is, will Labour stand firm in the face of press bombardment? Rumours of a wobble on holding a referendum are alarming - but almost certainly wrong, or perhaps deliberately misleading, to frighten the Lisbon summit into submission.

They shouldn't be frightened into holding a referendum. They should be holding it because it was part of their manifesto pledge - either the Treaty is 'substantially equivalent' or it isn't. I'd like someone, anyone, Polly, Barroso, Brown, the barman in The Albanach, whoever to tell me what the major substantive differences are between the Constitution and the Treaty.

There was never any need for a referendum.

Ah so the fact that you, with your palsied mind, thinks that there was never any need for the referendum means the idea can be completely forgotten. Let's forget the quaint notion of a prospective government using it's manifesto for telling us what it plans to do. Let us not expect them to even attempt to tell the truth. And when they lie, or renege on a promise, we'll just let the fuckers off shall we...

It is a legacy of Jack Straw, always Euro-dubious, when he bounced Tony Blair into it before the 2005 election.

Are we really going to believe this utter rot? That Jack Straw, that all-powerful being, managed to 'bounce' Tony into this? That this managed to get passed Gordon's roaming eye! Utter hogswash.

The treaty shifts power back the other way. National parliaments have new powers to pre-scrutinise EU legislation. They can send back legislation, if a third of them oppose a new law with a yellow card warning or a red card veto. That's new.

Ummm they were promised 6 weeks to scrutinise legislation under the Constitution. Now they'll get 8 weeks (a change from the Constitution). So only slightly new new, as it happens.

Both that and the idea that all EU legislation would be subject to the prior scrutiny of national Parliaments and the double approval of both national governments (in the Council of Ministers) and directly elected MEPs – a level of scrutiny that exists in no other international structure... were in some form in the original Constitution.

Contrary to more outrageous myths, Britain loses no power over its foreign policy, embassies or UN seat.

Ah hello straw man! Nice to see you back in Polly's repertoire. As it happens, The EU’s foreign policy High Representative and the Commissioner for External Relations have been merged. In the original Constitution the new job was called “Foreign Minister”. In a sea change, it is now to be called “High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy”. Nobody is arguing we'll lose a UN Seat.

With the Parliament being capped and with Croatia due to be let in, we will, however, almost certainly lose MEPs and with the change in Commission rules we will often be without a Commissioner (no great shakes to see that fucking twat Mandelson out of a job) but still, our influence is waning.

With 27 members, qualified majority voting is essential. But "qualified" means nothing passes without a majority of countries that also represent a majority of EU citizens. At last, the European parliament gets more power: until now it could only accept or reject the entire budget, but now it can reject particular items.

What the budget that hasn't been signed off by the auditors for twelve years?

Watch it vote down the CAP it has always opposed. And, for the first time, there is a mechanism for a country to quit the EU.

At fucking last - let's hope that we use it.

To have influence, the EU's foreign diplomacy needs putting together under one minister. Javier Solana can't at present put pressure on a foreign government over, say, human rights, when trade, aid and defence belong to other commissioners acting alone.

Hang on, I thought we weren't losing any sovereignty over foreign affairs...

The irony is that this treaty marks the victory of the British vision - and yet here we go again, pretending it is the work of devious foreigners from which our valiant leaders will rescue us with red-line lifebelts.

It's the fucking same as the fucking constitution. Or, should I say, substantially e-fucking-quivalent!

That is why if Britain voted the treaty down in a referendum, it would lead rapidly to the EU exit gate.

Oh no!

Referendums can only work on matters of simple and profound principle. Since the treaty is about many technicalities, the government can only reply to the Euro-hysterics with dull technical explanations.

Oh so when you said that it was not necessary to have a referendum what you meant was that on Eurocrats would understand? That the British public is to fucking thick to understand?

This is not referendum material but the stuff of representative democracy. The very word Europe in any vote is toxic, thanks to Murdoch and company, who would ensure few ever knew what they were voting on.

You certainly don't have a clue by the looks of things, love.

We need the treaty to act on terror, crime, climate change and foreign aid. Europe needs an effective voice to stop any US madness in Iran. It is the only collective voice on global warming.

So.... is it a piece of good housekeeping and just a constitutional tidy up? Or is it vital to help us act on huge global issues. Do we keep sovereignty over foreign affairs under the treaty? Or do we need to cede sovereignty to help us act on these issues? So Polly, is a referendum is not necessary because it isn't important? And if so, why is it so vital? Is a promise in a referendum a promise or just something to get some votes? Should we trust these corpulent Labour bastards one fucking inch?

RS

Boris Johnson

The only thing more predictable than Polly's response to Boris Johnson's attempt to become London's mayor was the reaction to that response from the Blogosphere. Well, I'm a predictable old sod and I hate the mendacious, lying fuckrat so I'm going to have a pop at her whilst I exclude some working class people (I'm not sure how I'll exclude them... perhaps I'll send my children to private school, erm, like Polly).

She is a class warrior - she despises Boris because he is clearly, despite his japes and gaffes, becuase of what he is. How often does she toff, Etonian or posh in the article? She cannot stand the man's background - that is what motivates her to write these pieces. Not only is she a hypocrite (she, herself, went to Oxford and sent her kid to private school) but it makes her, in my opinion, the sort of person one would rather not have a decent glass of vino with of an evening.

What does it say about the desperate state of the Conservatives that they will put up a clown to run a great global city?

My dearest Polly. We currently have an anti-semitic mayor who cosies up to Islamist nutters, dictators and is openly anti-American. Do you think this is great for a global business city? Is this better than someone who annoys Papua New Guineans and Scousers? Those notorious international business groups...

Even Conrad Black called him "a duplicitous scoundrel", and he should know.

Ah! The Mark of Pol! She will quote anyone, even her most hated foes, to help her prove her point. Can you imagine the hay she would make if one her critics quoted Conrad Black...

But it would be a disaster for London if a charming fool, with no interest in ordinary Londoners' lives, were to win it as another feather in his celebrity cap.

Does he have no interest in the lives of ordinary Londoners' lives? Ah, I forgot he's a toff and now that fox hunting has been banned he must spend his weekend harpooning obese children on council estates,

...but Livingstone has earned respect with the bravery and skill of his congestion charge, his London bus revolution and his imposition of 50% affordable housing on every development.

His bendy buses? His congestion charge? These are 'good things'...

The Standard's never-ending campaign against Livingstone led to a famous fracas when he likened one of its reporters to a concentration camp guard: the reporter was Jewish.

Is that all you have to say about that? I mean genuinely.

Jokes make outrageous views acceptable, but the general tenor of Borisisms reveals his political cast of mind - the endless mock cockney attacks on "elf'n'safety", on children's car seats or, notoriously, Liverpudlians wallowing in their victim status.

Are these outrageous views? Compared to, I don't know, saying a Jewish person that he was a Concentration Camp Guard?

He hints at utter contempt for the NHS, with USSR comparisons. Though liberal on matters of sex (what else could he be?) and drugs ("I'm instinctively inclined to liberalise"), his politics are right off the Cameron scale. Here he is on education: "I am in favour of selection ... So is every member of the British ruling classes"; and on universities: "I believe passionately in academic inequality."

Can one not have a pop at the NHS - the third largest employer in the world, if you believe pub bores everywhere? It is an expensive white elephant that is poorly run. Everyone can see that. We put more and more money in, our return seems to be the same.

Most believe passionately in academic inequality, I would contend. That's why we have exams. The eleven plus that, erm, Polly failed to the A-levels that she presumably passed to get into Oxford are examples of educational inequality. We do not believe that people are equal academically.

We realise that Oxford is better than than Oxford Brookes. We realise that Oxford Brookes is probably better than, I don't know, than the University of Cambridge and so on. We realise that some students are academically equipped to study law (the thickos) and others are not (the clever types who understand maths and so on). Most people with a brain realise that universities are an academic elite in the same way that the England football team is a footballing elite. Most people with a brain realise that there is an innate academic inequality in our system.

I don't think he means that that poor people should be educated in the Poor House and that rich people should be educated at private schools where they roast poor children over an open fire lit with twenty pound notes. Does he you silly hag?

Just before the grammar school row he complained: "We have taken away the old ladder of social mobility, the academic selection that used to form a way out for the bright children of poor families."

We have taken away the ladder of social mobility. It did give millions of bright poor children a way out of average schools that could not nurture them significantly.

I'm not saying Boris is the perfect candidate. He isn't. He has faults. He is, however, better than Ken Livingstone.

RS