Politicians Category
Politicans and world leaders making news and in the news, and spouting hot air
Free Speech Watch: Maria Miller, Leveson And State Bullying To Keep The Facts Secret
MARIA Miller is the Tory MP and Culture Secretary. She is involved in discussions over the future of press regulation. She wants more of it. She is just one of the cross-party elite (and you can include artists in this illiberal group) who like free speech but want to insert a “but” after it. She wants limits on freedom.
Mrs Miller’s in trouble over her expense.
Kathryn Hudson, the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner looked at Miller’s expenses. She did the sums and found that Mrs Miller’s claims for mortgage interest payments exceeded her allowance by £44,000. Mrs Hudson made her report. Mrs Miller issued a 75-word apology. Miller agreed to repay £5,800 in over-claimed allowances and apologised for her “attitude” to the official inquiry.
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Posted: 5th, April 2014 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
2004: The ‘Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US’ Memo
FLASHBACK to April 10 2004: The ‘Bin Laden Determined To Strike In US’ Memo:
Posted: 4th, April 2014 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comment
Media Should Be ‘Controlled’ To Stop BNP Demolisher Nigel Farage Says Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
NIGEL Farage has achieved nothing in his time as Ukip leader other than promote himself. His mission is to gift the two biggest parties an identity and sense of purpose. His comments, such as a recent sense of pride in having “taken a third of the BNP’s support”, seducing those bigots “frustrated” and “upset” by their changing communities, serve to demolish the once feared BNP and make Ukip wholly unelectable.
If Farage leaves, perhaps under a scandal, what then for Ukip?
Nothing. The party will disintegrate.
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Posted: 2nd, April 2014 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment (1)
1987: When Charming Hans Klein Danced With Big Haired Elke Koska
FLASHBACK to November 14 1987:
West German Minister for Economic Cooperation, Hans Klein, right, dances with Elke Koska, wife and muse of German conceptual artist HA Schult, at the annual federal press ball on Friday, November 14, 1987 at the Beethoven Hall in Bonn, Germany.
It’s cracking photo.
And it’s her we’re looking at, isn’t. It;’ what she hoped we’d do. Here’s Elke in 2009:
This is her husband and his work:
German performance artist HA Schult, right, holds a small model of the famous Cologne Cathedral, which he along with engineers and trainees of the Ford company rebuilds by assembling car fittings in Cologne, Germany, Tuesday, March 21, 2006. The sculpture, seen being assembled in background, will be auctioned to raise money for victims orphaned by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The auction will be held in New York at the end of 2006.
People view sculptures by the German environmental artist HA Schult at the Grand Place in Brussels, Friday April 1, 2005. The 1,000 different sculptures of ‘Trash People’ are intended to draw people’s attention to environmental problems. The exhibit opened on March 31 and runs until April 4, 2005.
And here’s Hans Klein. We were looking at Elke’s gigantic hair and HA’s zany art. But it’s Hans who turns out to be the one to watch:
Former Munich Summer Olympics chief press officer, CSU member of parliament Hans “Johnny” Klein, smokes a cigarette on May 2, 1977 in Bonn, Germany.
German government spokesman Hans Klein, dressed in carnival costume, left, smiles surrounded by dancers at a carnival party on February 21, 1990 at the Chancellery in Bonn, Germany.
If you spot a recurring theme, do say:
Hans Klein, the old charmer, died on December 2 1996.
A trained journalist, a diplomat, press officer of the Olympic Games in Munich, close friend of Franz Josef Strauss and development minister. He became Helmut Kohl’s government spokesman in April 1989. It was job he called: “The worst suicide mission to which I have ever gotten myself into.” After the Berlin Wall carbon let his chancellery minister Rudolf Seiter inform the media. ”
We need more charmers like him in politics.
Posted: 1st, April 2014 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comment
Nebbish Rap: Dave In Charge Takes His Ghetto Rhymes To The Mean Streets Of Hampstead
“I DISCOVERED rap from a young age,” says David Palmer, 25, who performs under the name Dave In Charge. He’s the grandson of Monroe and Susette Palmer, now life peers Lord and Lady Palmer of Childs Hill, Barnet, London.
The nebbishy looking rapper who recorded his song from his parent’s The Vale, Golders Green crib and the video on the mean paths of Hampstead Heath, goes on:
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Posted: 30th, March 2014 | In: Music, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Winner Of Nick Clegg And Nigel Farage Debate To Fight Chocolate Teapot
WHEN Nick Clegg took the Yellow corner and Nigel Farage the purple one, LBC radio realised it had a fight on its hands, the likes of which we have not seen since chocolate teapot fought a glass hammer. To the winner the glory of being the second least likely leader of a mainstream political party to be Prime Minister.
Michael Fabriant, the Tory MP with the made-for-TV hair (and please note his twitter profile photo), nailed Clegg with:
@Mike_FabricantNick Clegg claimed ‘3 million jobs depend on EU membership’. That was a back-of-the-envelope figure invented by Tony Blair. Not factual
Nick Clegg claimed ‘3 million jobs depend on EU membership’. That was a back-of-the-envelope figure invented by Tony Blair. Not factual
— Michael Fabricant (@Mike_Fabricant) March 27, 2014
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Posted: 27th, March 2014 | In: Politicians | Comment
The Vladimir Putin Butt Plug And Enema
VLADIMIR Putin, scourge of gays, is now a homosexual act prevention device.
It’s not yet Government issues in Russia, but give it time…
But do use the enema before serving:
Spotter: Nimrod Kamer @nnimrodd, Animal, PoliticalSculptor
Posted: 24th, March 2014 | In: Politicians, The Consumer | Comment
It’s EU, Stupid: Apple And Amazon Get Stung By Osborne In The Budget
THAT’S what the newspapers are reporting this morning, that Osborne has stung the big internet companies like Amazon and Apple by changing the rules on VAT rates. Although it’s not actually Osborne who has done this, it’s the EU:
Multinational companies such as Amazon and Apple will be forced to add VAT to all UK downloads including music, film, smartphone games and e-books from January 2015 in a move that may drive up the cost of music tracks from 99p to £1.19.
The move forms part of the Government’s “international efforts to develop tough, new global tax rules,” George Osborne said in his Budget address last week. From next year, download services will be subject to VAT in the country where the consumer is located.
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the change will attract an extra £300m in VAT revenues in the first year.
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Posted: 24th, March 2014 | In: Money, Politicians | Comment
Idiotic Turkish Prime Minster Bans Twitter And Twitter Use In Turkey Rises
A man photograph a placard with the name of Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul during a rally against a bill which would allow Turkey’s authorities to block web pages for privacy violations without a prior court decision, in Istanbul, Turkey, late Saturday, Feb. 22, 2014. Police in Istanbul have clashed with hundreds of protesters denouncing a new law that increases government controls over the Internet. About 90,000 people have stopped following Gul on Twitter after he signed a controversial bill increasing government controls over the Internet into law on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)
YOU’D think that people would have worked out about these internet things by now but apparently there are none so dumb as politicians:
Shortly after the Twitter ban came into effect around midnight, the micro-blogging company tweeted instructions to users in Turkey on how to circumvent it using text messaging services in Turkish and English. Turkish tweeters were quick to share other methods of tiptoeing around the ban, using “virtual private networks” (VPN) – which allow internet users to connect to the web undetected – or changing the domain name settings on computers and mobile devices to conceal their geographic whereabouts.
Some large Turkish news websites also published step-by-step instructions on how to change DNS settings.
On Friday morning, Turkey woke up to lively birdsong: according to the alternative online news site Zete.com, almost 2.5m tweets – or 17,000 tweets a minute – have been posted from Turkey since the Twitter ban went into effect, thus setting new records for Twitter use in the country.
The ban came from the Prime Minister, pissed off that people were disagreeing with him in public. One of the first people to breach the ban on using Twitter was the Turkish President.
We might have to start saying that there’s a Turkish variant of the Streisand Effect.
The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.
Yep.
Posted: 21st, March 2014 | In: Money, Politicians, Technology | Comment
Bez Joins The Happy Anti-Frackers At Barton Moss
SO. There was the Happy Monday’s dancer Mark ‘Bez’ Berry kicking off his campaign to run for Parliament by joining the Barton Moss anti-fracking site, Manchester.
Bez, famous for winning Celebrity Big Brother, playing the maracas whilst white-and-not-drunk-in-a-Spanish-pub and being the subject of the line “Everyone thinks Bez has about two pounds of coke up his nose all the time and he’s on about eight E’s”, aims to “stir things up” in the Commons. His manifesto is concise:
“If you want to do something about things you’ve got to get into the corridors of power and take them on. If you’re voting for me, you’re voting as a protest about what’s happening in the world at the moment.”
It all seems impossible until you realise that the politician in Bez’s sights is the Labour MP Hazel Blears, a woman whose twin political ambitions are to be more irritating than Harriet Harman and to make Ed Balls look self-conscious. She’s half-way there.
Bez might just win…
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Posted: 17th, March 2014 | In: Celebrities, Politicians | Comment
Tony Benn Screwed This Tribute To Suffragette Emily Davison In A House Of Commons Broom Cupboard
THIS is the plaque Tony Benn placed illegally in a broom cupboard in Parliament, in memory of suffragette Emily Davison:
You can see our gallery of Tony Benn here.
Spotter: @alicebell
Posted: 14th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comment
Photo: Murderer William Rutherford Benn, Great-Uncle of Politician Tony Benn And Margaret Rutherford’s Dad
FLASHBACK to 14/09/1983:
William Rutherford Benn, great-uncle of politician Tony Benn and father of the actress, the late Margaret Rutherford. A graphic account of how Tony Benn’s ancestor murdered his own father, twice attempted suicide, and years later died in an asylum is recorded in a new book to be published by W.H. Allen. The story is related in great detail in “Y Tony Benn- The Making of a Politician”, by Alfred Browne, Weekend Editor of Press Association.
Margaret Rutherford who becomes a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the New Year Honours, celebrates with a cup of tea at her home in Buckinghamshire.
Date: 01/01/1967
William Rutherford Benn murdered his father, the Reverend Julius Benn, a Congregational church minister, by bludgeoning him to death with a Worcester Spode chamberpot.
Posted: 14th, March 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Politicians | Comment
1957: Topless Tony Benn Decorates the Labour Party Offices At St. George, Bristol
FLASHBACK to 19/06/57.
Tony Benn decorating the Labour Party offices at St. George, Bristol.
You can flick through our pictorial tribute to Tony Benn here.
Posted: 14th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comment
Leader of Camden Council @Sarah_Hayward’s Excellent One Word Response To A Question On Twitter Use
LEADER of Camden Council @Sarah_Hayward’s excellent one word response to a question about twitter use.
Councillor Paul Braithwaite (LD):
Given the gravity of the role of Leader of Camden Council, will the Leader consider creating a separate Twitter account for matters relating to Camden as separate from reporting on her personal interests in Arsenal, the X Factor, restaurants and dishes she’s enjoyed and B-movies she watches on TV, which represents circa 80% of her 21,800 tweets?
Sarah Hayward (Lab):
No.
Posted: 13th, March 2014 | In: Politicians | Comment
Hurrah! The CIA Spies On The Senate!
THIS is excellent news really, that the CIA has been spying on the people in the Senate over in the US. OK, in one sense it’s a bit naughty as the CIA isn’t supposed to ever do anything domestically. And the Yanks also tend to frown a bit on one part of the Executive part of government trying to interfere with a part of the Legislative side of government. They’re supposed to be quite different. But this can still be seen as cheering news:
A bitter dispute between the CIA and the U.S. Senate committee that oversees it burst into the open on Tuesday when the committee chairwoman accused the agency of spying on Congress and possibly breaking the law.
Veteran Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said the CIA had searched computers used by committee staffers examining CIA documents when researching the agency’s counter-terrorism operations and its use of harsh interrogation methods such as simulated drowning or “waterboarding.”
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Posted: 12th, March 2014 | In: Money, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
10 Epic Failed Political Photo-Ops
Failed political photo-ops
DAVID Cameron is facing ridicule once again. His latest gaffe was to tweet a picture of himself looking serious and statesmanlike while having a serious statesmanlike phone call with Barak Obama. The problem, aside from the typically patronising pomposity of the gesture, was that he looked singularly un-statesmanlike. In fact, he resembled nothing do much as a perplexed pudding.
Of course, he has plenty of competition in the failed phot-op stakes.
Here’s George Osborne, Chancellor and Chelsea fan, in ‘man of the people’ pose, manfully working late while snacking on a burger and fries. His tweet backfired when said burger was identified as coming from posh nosh joint Byron.
Oh, hello! Talking of burgers…
Hey presto – instant ridicule. What a Gummer.
But frankfurters are even more risky. Republican Presidential nominee Michele Bachmann has been dubbed Palin 2.0 thanks to her numerous factual and logical gaffes. On this occasion, however, she was guilty of nothing more than innocent naivety, and chomped on a corn dog in full view of the press without considering the consequences.
Best to stick with a beer. In Nigel Farrage’s case almost literally so, as he clings to his pint prop as tenaciously as Tony Blair clung to his ubiquitous ‘ordinary guy’ coffee mug. Asked about it, he replied: ‘I’ll tell you something. I work an 18 hour day most days and I think I’m entitled at lunchtime to a pint.’
William Hague famously claimed to have regularly drunk 14 pints a day as a schoolboy, and he wasn’t averse to being pictured pint-pot in hand. But his most risible moment was this fashion faux pas which was intended to make him look cool, but didn’t.
Even without the banana, David Miliband achieves the extraordinary feat of making his brother look normal.
But what the hell – normal’s overrated, right? Just ask Francois Hollande. Actually don’t ask him, as he appears to be a bit sensitive about it. In fact, two French press agencies even took the unusual step of withdrawing this unflattering portrait of the French president.
Ask former US Congressman Chris Lee instead. Or better still, just admire this picture of himself that he utilised in the services of his reply to a sex ad on Craigslist.
Of course anyone can have an off-day. But for one man, it happened to be Groundhog Day.
In the end, you just have to laugh along and rise above it.
Posted: 10th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Photojournalism, Politicians | Comment
1978 Letter About Vermin In Jimmy Carter’s White House
IN 1978, there was an infestation of mice in Jimmy Carter’s White House:
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Posted: 7th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comment
February 28 1986: Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme Is Assassinated
ON February 28 1986: Swedish prime minister Olof Palme was assassinated on a Stockholm street.
A bouquet of flowers is laid down at the pool of blood on a Stockholm City pavement where Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated shortly before midnight on Friday, Mar. 1, 1986 in Stockholm.
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Posted: 28th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comment
This Is What George Washington Drank At His Constitution Signing Do
THIS is what George Washington drank at his leaving do:
…we still have available the list of beverages served at a 1787 farewell party in Philadelphia for George Washington just days before the framers signed off on the Constitution. According to the bill preserved from the evening, the 55 attendees drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, eight of whiskey, 22 of porter, eight of hard cider, 12 of beer, and seven bowls of alcoholic punch.
That’s more than two bottles of fruit of the vine, plus a number of shots and a lot of punch and beer, for every delegate. That seems humanly impossible to modern Americans. But, you see, across the country during the Colonial era, the average American consumed many times as much beverage alcohol as contemporary Americans do. Getting drunk—but not losing control—was simply socially accepted.
Chin-chin. Never trust a tea-totaller…
Posted: 25th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comments (4)
Sleep It Off: Rebekah Brooks Email About Advice From Tony Blair Re-Hacking Scandal
QUOTES of the week: Rebekah Brooks email about advice from Tony Blair re-hacking scandal:
1. Form an independent unit that has a outside junior council, ken macdonald, a great and good type, a serious forensic criminal barrister, internal counsel, proper fact checkers etc in it. Get them to investigate me and others and publish a hutton style report.
2. Publish part one of the report at same time as the police closes its inquiry and clear you and accept short comings and new solutions and process and part two when any trials are over.
3. Keep strong and definitely sleeping pills. Need to have clear heads and remember no rash short term solutions as they only give you long term headaches.
4. It will pass. Tough up.
Posted: 23rd, February 2014 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
