Eric Joyce - A Disgrace

Before becoming the Labour MP for Falkirk, Eric Joyce was in the military. I know the MOD is famed for its wastefulness, but these figures are a disgrace.

Eric's Expenses (never outside the top 2 for travel)



Eric racked up the highest travel expenses of any MP in the 2005/6 financial year. His travel expenses are well over £5,000 higher than any other MP.

This ongoing exorbitant waste of taxpayers money is a matter of public interest. I want to hear from Eric whether these travel expenses include transport for domestic staff. His au pair used to travel very regularly up to Scotland with Eric and his family and the Joyces would pay for her to return to fly in style back to Slovakia several times a year. Can someone who knows more about what MPs can and can't claim for give me some clarity around this issue? Eric's generosity was legendary, but was it at the taxpayer's expense? By the way, even if this spending is all legitimate, it shows a level of incompetence that makes him unfit to be an MP.

Prague Policing Strategies

A clairvoyant called the police yesterday and told them she sensed there would be a terrorist attack at Prague airport. Police sent an armoured vehicle and officers armed with automatic weapons to the airport. Right, I'm off out to stretch my legs.

How MPs Can Help The Environment

As the anti road-pricing petition heads towards 2 million signatures and Labour Transport Minister Douglas Alexander is saying inaction is not an option (Note - that was official policy when Prescott was in charge of transport) I thought it was a good time to ask what are our MPs doing personally about these issues?

The MPs 2005/6 travel expense lists has just come out (I’ve still to set a date for my interview with a lady friend of mine in Prague who was an au pair to a high-spending MP) which is always of interest. Dizzy makes a good point that MPs should car-share more to ease congestion, help the environment and save taxpayers’ money. This could be a cross-party initiative. I decided to do some off-the-cuff pair ups. First of all I thought of Rob Wilson and Martin Salter who are the two MPs for Reading could share cars. Tony Blair and William Hague are also in adjoining seats – by sharing cars they could make a great contribution. Can you suggest any other groups of MPs who could carshare?

Losing An Argument? – Break The Golden Rule Of Blogging

COUNCILLOR BOB PIPER

A long time ago, I dropped a note to Cllr Bob Piper. Soon after, he got in a whole bunch of trouble and lost the online argument. Impolitely, he passed the name in my email to every online Leftie he could muster. In a typical example of Lefties trying to equalise downwards, Bob attempted to out me on his climbdown post and then only retracted in return for technical assistance. Of course, he has named me since, causing me to follow through on my promise to publish his angry email threats.

IRISH UNITY?

And check out this recent double-header from Unity and the blogging policeman Tim "Manic" Ireland when they were out of their depth in the argument.

The inaccuracies in your comments about me are laughable. - Praguetory

Fair enough - I’ve checked and you’re not the Dominic Fisher cited as co-author on a number of ESOL text books. Do excuse me for having accused you of achieving something with your life. It’s not a mistake I’ll make again. - Unity

LOL - Dominic, your bluster means nothing here… stop wasting it... - Tim Ireland

TOM WATSON MP

My comment on yesterday's post by Dizzy’s hit a MASSIVE nerve with MP Tom Watson. As if to prove he can dish it out, but he can’t take it, he did an entry outing me last night. Me, I was celebrating Valentine’s Night, but I suppose Tom’s been married for a while. How does the saying go? "You can take the man out of the Whip’s Office, but you can’t take the Whip’s Office out of the man."

CONCLUDING COMMMENTS

Of course, apart from possibly endangering the livelihood of the blogger, this behaviour doesn’t improve democracy. I had to dive in to make this precise point over at Labour blogger Political Hack’s place only a few days ago. Outing anonymous bloggers are the actions of a brute who has lost the argument. Tom also did a piece on how to spread an internet rumour. I’ve got one involving Tom Watson, SS and an elderly Tory MP. I’ve held it back until now. I bet it will come out in due course though.

Interesting to think that the idiots above want bloggers to conform to a set of rules. Feel free to tell them where to go.

9am Update - Tom's mate Mike Ion is up early. Anyone who would listen to Mike, doesn't have me on their blogroll anyway, but thanks for the plug, Mike. I wander if we can expect any more spontaneous postings today?

Praguetory Schooldays Part Two

Standing For Election

At the age of 17, I stood for the Conservatives in the 1992 school election. I didn’t have any particular inclination to stand, but when the Head of History asked our general studies class for volunteer candidates, I was thrust forward. As the most vocal defender of the Tories and capitalism in classroom debates, I felt obliged.

Campaigning

My tactics were fairly orthodox. Me and my small team produced posters suggesting that Labour would be profligate with taxpayer’s money, we campaigned in the playground and had a Q&A in the main hall. The only bit I remember of that session was a Labour supporter heckling that I was against the working classes for not putting state support for mud-wrestling on a par with more established art forms.

Labour Smears

The Lib Dem and Labour candidates were both good blokes (deep down), but the Labour campaign had a secret weapon – the school’s best cartoonist. This gifted chap (who has since designed album covers for some major bands) took to preparing caricatures of me. Nothing wrong with that, but the taglines were bizarre. In the school dining room was a cartoon of me with the quote "PT says I don’t do drugs" and there was another somewhere else that was just a simple insult.

School Allows Drug-Taking To Be Promoted

School elections are a bit of fun and nothing was at stake, so I was a bit surprised about the negative response when I complained to the Head of History about these posters. He thought it was OK that someone was allowed to put a poster up on school premises advocating drug use. To use a Jowellism, it was pretty bewildering.

Casualties Of Drugs

One of my classmates died in his mid 20s of a drugs overdose. My mum was acquainted with his mum and it must have been horrible for his family who thought that he had finally kicked his dependency. I hear on the grapevine of other bright kids from school who have not yet fully recovered psychologically from drug experimentation in their younger days.

Backing Cameron

I held back a little on this post because I wanted to hear Cameron give a similarly unequivocal anti-drugs message. He has, and I endorse every word from this article.

Concluding Comments

For the record, I smashed the Labour candidate in the election getting double their votes, but the Lib Dem beat me. But as I think the saying goes (and I may have got the wording on this quote slightly wrong), kids like Lib Dems. Anyway, Valentines Day duties call.

Labour's Attitude To Democracy

Open primaries are a great way of enhancing the democracy and an eye-witness blog entry describes how she believes that the evening helped enthuse the public. Therefore, it is with concern that a well-connected Labour blogger who is running the Hillary Benn for Deputy on-line campaign would openly boast about fraudulent activity at the selection. The fact that Labour supporters would call Alex Hilton of Recess Monkey to crow about their behaviour tells you all you need to know about his attitude towards democracy. Labour's counter-attacks against popular Downing Street petitions, their concerted attacks on bloggers and this latest co-ordinated interference in a selection process are just some of the many symptoms of the deeply sick patient which is the Labour Party.

Muck-Raking Again

Possibly as a result of the ongoing cash for peerages and ongoing Home Office travails, I think that the blogosphere didn't do enough analysis on the conviction of Clive Goodman. Clive Goodman was News of the World royal editor and he and a "co-conspirator", Glenn Mulcaire were sentenced to prison for crimes related to intercepting phone messages.

As well as the royal household, the investigation found that targets for tapping included David Blunkett while he was home secretary, David Miliband, Sol Campbell and Rebekah Wade.

There's something pretty rotten in a system where people will go to these lengths to get material and to bug the Home Secretary deserved a stiffer sentence in my opinion. I have a few points to make. Firstly, I hope that both these criminals' media careers are over. They ought to be shunned and if I hear that they are employed in any capacity by a newspaper, I will make a song and a dance over it.

Secondly, it was only greed and some good fortune that led to the criminals' capture after they revealed information that only a very limited number of people knew.

Thirdly, do you agree with what the Information Commissioner said?

"The current very low penalties under the Data Protection Act for "blagging" offences which do not involve telecoms interception are not a sufficient deterrent to stop the widespread illegal trade in personal information."

And finally has this legal decision opened the way to prosecution of other cases as previously blogged? Or will these other cases be dropped in the public interest?

London's Baby Tax

I think I have mentioned before that I used to be a resident of Hammersmith & Fulham council before it went blue.

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, West London's main maternity unit, is inside the extended zone whereas most of its catchment area: Hammersmith & Fulham is not. Councillors from the borough are joining with the West London Residents Association in a go-slow protest on Saturday (17th February 2006) against the extension. This is an 11th hour attempt to force the Mayor of London to reconsider implementing the scheme.

Cllr Nick Botterill, Cabinet Member responsible for Transport, said:

"This scheme is cutting residents off from vital services, of which maternity units are just one example. Do we really expect women in labour to jump on a bus? And should they really be fined if they forget to pay the charge whilst in labour? The Mayor of London should call a halt to this costly, unnecessary and damaging tax on West Londoners."

And to link to the previous post about media bias, and whilst we're talking about Hammersmith & Fulham, I'd like to point readers to this excellent post by one of my favourite blogging councillors, Cllr Paul Bristow. He's quite right that the BBC should be ashamed of themselves.

Former Czech PM Outed As A Communist Collaborator

Mlada Fronta Dnes, a Czech daily, appears to have documented quite well that Josef Tosovsky colloborated with the state police in the final years of Communism in the late 80s. Tosovsky was the Czech Prime Minister in 1997-8 as part of a caretaker government and was also governor of the Czech National Bank during some very difficult times. Rather than admitting to the extent of his involvement, Tosovsky has issued a denial. Fleet Sheet (see below) bills this an implausible denial and suggests that it makes matters worse and raises further questions.

Another Czech newspaper Hospodarske noviny goes one further in its editorial suggesting that Tosovsky was blackmailable for all his years of power. It's worth pointing out that the banking industry lost 100s of billions of crowns during his time in charge. The banking system practically collapsed and became almost fully foreign-owned, but that's a story for another time.

Hat tip to Fleet Sheet, a daily English-language news bulletin devoted to the business and political activities in the Czech Republic.

British Higher Education

Innovation within higher education is something to be encouraged. Indeed many of our universities are financially dependent on overseas students paying full fees. Some of our august institutions have even built facilities abroad.

Here's a picture of John Prescott, officially opening The University of Nottingham Ningbo, China campus last year. It was reported that John met quite a lot of students and they were delighted to talk to him (is this code for they couldn't understand him?). I have a friend who works in a Business School dealing with applications from abroad. Here's an unabridged email.

--------------------------------

:-) Mrs Ponting ?

Hehe,I am so amazed by your letter. First,you can read my chinese name,and it seems that you know the writing order of given name,family name because you call me Mr Hong not Mr Dinpeng,that's incridable! And i think it's funny that your colleges like to pass my letter arround one by one,so you are the by far fourth people to see my letter probably.

Well,i like the gym you mentioned and i won't worry about it any more. What i am now worring the most is the program itself,is it suitable for me? Cause i only major in English,and what i've learned in university is totally rubbish having nothijng to do with investment,wait,maybe something belongs to,like i returned a lot of textbooks to the booking center and used the money returned,bought a necklace to my girlfriend.A good investment,indeed,right?

But i am not afraid to take chanllenges, i am counting the day that i can be your student. Are you also teaching? Maybe not,in China,teacher is to teach,no second jod permittion. I am wondering that if you can tell me something concerning with the program,such as its recruitment perspectives in UK,and whether normally a oversea student can easily find a job there,of course except for the labour work?

Besides,can i apply for homestay? I was told that it is just for student under 18 ?Why? That's really a good way for foreign student learn about UK and English language more quickly! Oh,my god .i have to go back dorm for the stupid dorm-check at 23:00 !!

Talk you later.
Keep in touch!
I need you!
hahaha :-)
PS: try not to pass my letter to someone again,if possible!
Have a good day!!!
And good night to myslef!

FAREWELL!!
handsome mike

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The names have been changed. If you liked that one, let me know as there are plenty more.