Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Forced Marriages Courtesy Of The Law Commission..

The Law Commission's proposals about co-habitation have been presented in an extraordinarily misleading way:

Cohabitees could be granted some of the same legal and financial rights as married couples in the event of separation or death, under proposals unveiled today.

What is being proposed is not an extension of rights but rather a curtailment. Currently couples have the right to either get married and assume both the obligations and benefits that go with it or to co-habit. Co-habitees have not signed an agreement to share their finances with each other in the way that married couples have, so how on earth is it an extension of their rights to suddenly lumber them with that obligation?

Labour Are Still Corrupt So...


...Why not buy yourself a copy of The Little Red Book Of New Labour Sleaze? Available from Amazon, Waterstones and of course Politicos. Just in case you forget.

John Prescott- An Apology.

EU Serf correctly guessed that the "greedy, two faced, incompetent pervert" was Prezza. But I now think calling him a pervert was wrong, whilst some female staff members of his have claimed to have been sexually harassed, a great many have said differently. Indeed by all accounts his Junior minister, Rosie Winterton, is said to have greatly enjoyed the time she spent under him.

Connecting the Dots.


The banner at the top of the front page of the Daily Mail yesterday was divided into three seperate headlines, the middle one was "Why Stress Could Be Making You Depressed". So what could be causing this stress? Well the flanking headlines of "How Safe Is YOUR Favourite Painkiller?" and "The Danger Lurking In Your Toothbrush" may provide a clue.

Incidently what is YOUR favourite painkiller?

Monday, May 29, 2006

Quoting Myself.

On another blog today I referred to somebody as:
a greedy, two faced, incompetent pervert who is clinging on by his grubby fingers to the trappings of office

A shiny tuppence to the first person who can guess whom I am describing. Answer will appear later if no one gets it.

Colombia- Uribe Wins.

I'm glad to see that President Uribe has been re-elected in a landslide. Most of his support seems to be a result of public gratitude towards his unbending stance against the FARC, the terrorist group whose murder toll exceeds that of Al Queda, which has cut Colombia's murder rate in half. As Strategy Page notes:

For the first time in memory, FARC is encouraging people to vote, against the reelection of president Uribe. FARC is urging or, when they can, coercing, voters to choose any leftist candidate opposing Uribe in the election on May 28th. Uribe's policies have brought FARC to the edge of disaster, and their only hope is for a leftist candidate to win an upset in the election.


The violence of Colombia is legendary and it troubles me is that we, the UK and the West in general, are contributing to it through our incoherent stance on drugs. We demand that the mostly poor drug producing countries eliminate the supply of cocaine whilst failing to cut the consumption of coke by wealthy Westerers. The inevitable high prices make it an enticing business for illegal organisations like Colombia's left wing terror groups who are extraordinarily wealthy and powerful because of this.

If we do not have the political will to tackle drug use, then the only serious option is to legalise the growth and supply of narcotics so that the money at least goes to people who aren't gangsters.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

George Galloway's comments that killing Tony Blair would be justified have gotten a lot of comment. To be honest I've felt the same way since 1994 and no ones complained.
Seriously though, Galloway's views on the assassination of the political leaders* in a conflict seem to have changed somewhat since Israel offed Sheikh Yassin.

The assassination by Israeli forces of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, spiritual head of Palestinian militant group Hamas, produced an immediate condemnation from Respect MP George Galloway.

'It's an act of criminal insanity from the criminally insane (Prime Minister) Sharon. It will add petrol to the flames already burning from the Mediterranean to the Gulf,' he said


* I'm not implying that Yassin was just a political leader.

Militant?

So how to describe someone who takes part in a massacre of hundreds of school children?
Beslan militant gets life sentence

Friday, May 26, 2006

The Drugs Do Work!

Like many people I am tremendously concerned about the NHS's failiure to offer people the best available medicine. So why oh why is the miracle drug Panexa not available on the NHS? It's treats a wide range of conditions including:
metabolism, binocular vision, digestion (solid and liquid), circulation, menstruation, cognition, osculation, extremes of emotion.

Not to mention its effectiveness against syndromes like Coronary Heart Condition (CHC). It is typical of scandalous inefficiency of NICE that we are denied cures for thes awful diseases.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

A Right Pair.

TWO topless female protesters have attracted crowds of male admirers outside NSW Parliament in Sydney.....Another protest held at the same time outside Parliament by half a dozen anti-logging activists, one of whom was dressed as a koala, failed to attract as much attention as the art students. suit no match for breasts

  • On the subject of Australian tits, two of them are thoroughly skewered by Tim Blair here. Left wing bloggers Tim Lambert and John Quiggin were understandably thrilled when they caught Mark Steyn plagiarising. Except it soon became abundantly clear that they were wrong and so two different coping strategies emerged. Quiggin goes for a gradual retreat subtlely modifying his accusations:
    Mark Steyn has a way with words. Particularly other people’s
    • The charge later becomes that Steyn is:
      giving little or no attribution
      Which is still obviously incorrect, so later Quiggin forlornly confesses:
      Plagiarism is not really the right category here.
      Lambert on the other hand adopts the Saddam strategy of getting annihiated and simply declaring victory. I have to confess to a certain awe at the brazeness of the Lambert strategy, but his commenters seem sufficiently gullible to believe him.
  • Last week I wrote about why MPs shouldn't be doing so much constituancy work. Labour Lord, Clive Soley, has been talking about the issue in Parliament and I have to say he is completely correct in my view.
  • One thing that has not been widely discussed in all the coverage about the landmark divorce ruling is why on earth judges get to implement what is pretty obviously a policy change. Either there were rules put in place by elected governments which the judge arbitrarily changed or Parliament was too useless to pass laws which adequately covered a very common scenario.
  • Pat Finucane's killer was released from prison this week. It is worth just reminding everyone who has been taken in by the spin that Finucane was not an innocent victim, he was a terrorist. Of all the thousands of people who died during that period, it is perverse that vermin like Finucane are even remembered let alone celebrated.
  • On the subject of Northern Ireland, I see that their football team was met by a sectarian mob of make believe Irishmen in Chicago this week. It isn't a huge surprise that people who define themselves by their ethnicity are invariably unpleasant and it shouldn't reflect on the reputation of Chicago in general, but it is still a sad state of affairs.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

New Format Launched.

I've decided to amalgamate all my shorter posts into one daily bundle. I will still do longer individual pieces from time to time. So here it goes-

  • In Tesco's today I saw on sale a paper shredder, except it wasn't called a 'paper shredder' it was a "Multimedia Shredder", so presumably you can dispose your iPod in it. As I was pondering why they gave it such an absurd name I spotted a virtually identical product that was actually called a Paper Shredder on sale for half the price, the only difference was that the colours were less stylish. Whilst I am aware that differential pricing takes place I thought this was a little bit transparent.

  • Comment is Free is a popular, left wing, group blog. As this is an unpopular, right wing, solo blog it is in many ways the antithesis of Comment is Free. So what better way to spend my time than trawling through their articles and taking the piss? First up is Julie Bindel who takes the seemingly uncontroversial position that peadophiles aren't really child lovers. Not controversial, except to CiF readers and only 7 comments in 'Gomer 'mocks:
    If it were upto me we should all rally behind the Bindel Brigrade and take to the streets shouting rapist, rapist! That would show them, just like we showed that peadiatrician.
    Because clearly that is the only alternative to not being nice to child molesters.

  • Ming Campbell was demanding that the government establish a UK gun registry at Prime Ministers Questions today..The experience of Canada may be instructive here, the Liberal government set up a registry which they estimated would cost (Can)$2 000 000, it ended up costing $2 000 000 000. A thousand fold increase.

Little Red Book.


Wouldn't be good if there were an affordable compendium of Labour sleaze? Why yes it would and one has been compiled. I wrote the article about the parliamentary betting ring that coined it in when the Speaker was elected. My only complaint is that they used my description of the article "Speaker Betting Furore" as the title, when really I was expecting the editors to think up a snappier title....

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

The Moral High Ground.

From the BBC:

Kate Allen, Amnesty's UK director, said the world's leading democracies would surrender the moral high ground if they entertained the use of torture or "outsourced" torture as the Americans were doing.


Kate Allen is the former partner of Ken Livingstone. So what do great defenders of human rights do in their free time? Well....

Friends said the pair were a devoted couple. He took her by Eurostar to a Paris restaurant to celebrate her 43rd birthday and they spent a holiday in Cuba.


Well at least no one can accuse Fidel Castro of outsourcing the torture.

Religion & Politics Don't Mix!

I presume the Guardian, Indy et al will be lining up to remind us that religion should not intrude on politics.

Why It's OK To Kick Blair Whilst He's Down.

Sometimes over the last few months, I see Labour getting into trouble and I begin to feel sorry for the Prime Minister, combined with an antipathy towards Cameron it makes me wonder whether it is worth voting against New Labour. Then I cure myself of such unworthy thoughts by rereading his hate filled 1999 Labour conference speech which was so drooling in bile it sounded like Robert Mugabe or Kim Jong Il:

The forces of conservatism allied to racism are why one of the heroes of the 20th Century, Martin Luther King, is dead.

It's why another, Nelson Mandela, spent the best years of his life in a cell the size of a bed.

And though the fact that Mandela is alive, free and became President, is a sign of the progress we have made: the fact that Stephen Lawrence is dead, for no other reason than he was born black, is a sign of how far we still have to go.

And they still keep opposing progress and justice.

What did they say about the minimum wage? The same as they said right through this century.


Do not forget what a vicious, spiteful demagogue he was when he had the power to be so.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Is Murder Wrong? Depends Where.

If Ian Huntley was appointed to run Cambridgeshire's education system there would quite obviously be outrage. Not appointing child murderers to run schools is generally considered a good thing, except when it comes to Northern Ireland, where for many years Martin McGuinness's blood drenched hands controlled their schools. It seems that the civilised people of Northern Ireland are expected by London and Dublin, to treat as equals the unreformed savages of the armed republican movement, this pressure is even greater now that Peter Hain, who was formally a member of the IRA front organisation Troops Out, is Northern Ireland Secretary. So it is with some relief that I read that the DUP have refused to play along with the latest games of Sinn Fein. They should hold firm, there must be no terrorists in government.

Grasping Moo.

My first crack at blogging began in May 2002 and ended a few weeks later. The blog was called "Fountain of Ignorance" and the reason I stopped it after half a dozen posts was because I felt that I came across as being more boorish and abusive than I actually wish to be. My final post was this:

Cherie Blair has a moan in the Guardian about the USA not signing up to the ICC. Despite the cunning use of her alter ego Cherie Booth, I think Mrs Tony Blair "Human Rights" lawyer extraordinaire, does not have the right to expect other governments to alter their laws to provide the money grasping moo with more money.


At the time I thought I had been a little harsh on Cherie, now I realise I was merely prescient.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Leave Those Kids Alone.

New research indicates that-
Only 3 per cent of 12-year-olds are read to, the research, commissioned by Scholastic Book Clubs and Fairs, found.

This could be because THEY'RE TWELVE NOT SIX!!!!! When I was 12 I had better things to do between the sheets than listen to a bedtime story.

God I Hate This F***ing Programme!

Anyone in the UK who has had insomnia recently cannot have failed to see what occupies ITV1's late slot nowadays, the braincell depleting The Mint. On some programmes they have phone in quizes to act as the filler in between the good bits. The Mint is basically that filler spread over 4 long painful hours. As they make their money from people phoning in the questions are designed to be both lacking in any kind of intellectual stimulation whilst simultaneously being difficult to get, hence the questions are designed to have several dozen right answers, but you don't know which they have as the answer. So you get something like name a city beginning with B and the calls will flood in:

Presenter: Hello who's on the line.
Caller: It's David from Watford.
Presenter: OK what's your answer.
Caller: Barnsley
Presenter: Good answer! Let's see if it's there...... No bad luck. Who's next?
Caller: It's Danielle from Spalding. Is it Norwich?
Presenter: Let's see... Oh no it has to begin with B. Who's next?
Caller: It's Kevin from London.
Presenter: You sound like you've had a good night eh.
Caller: No.
Presenter: What's your answer:
Caller: Is it Barnsley?

And this continues for hours on end. The presenters are evidently under instructions not to allow any dead air time so they constantly babble about inconsequential drivel that a Radio 1 DJ might consider inane, when they aren't taking calls. The right to run terrestrial television companies came with a responsibility to produce programming of a certain quality and that obligation should be enforced until the switch to digital is complete, at which point ITV will be able to show any pap they wish as they no longer have a captive market.

Czech Mates

The Czechs are, it seems a nation of Prescotts.

Eurovision

It seems that following Eurovision's return to the baltic, the balkans are retaliating by creating another voting country.

On a related note how come when I say, "isn't Croatia's entry the woman whose sex video was on the internet a couple of years ago", everyone pretends they weren't aware of it until I brought it up?

Friday, May 19, 2006

The Human Rights Act- Upholding Our Liberties Again.

In a previous post I asked for "a single example of where the Human Rights Act or the European Convention on Human Rights have been used to actually protect what reasonable people would regard as fundamental liberties?"

Unsurprisingly no one came up with one. There is however another example of the act being used to let out some more suspects on very dubious grounds.

A judge has accused Grampian Police of tricking suspects to gather evidence against them after an armed robbery.
Since when are police not allowed to 'trick' someone?
Lee Higgins, David Scott and Adam Murphy were freed when their trial at the High Court in Aberdeen collapsed.They were accused of being part of an armed gang which carried out a £100,000 robbery at the Bank of Scotland in Greenwell Road, Aberdeen, last July.Lord Macphail said detectives should not have put two of the men in adjoining cells and listened to them.


So the cunning 'trick' actually involves putting them together and listening in.
Lord Macphail said: "In my opinion the methods used by the police in this case can only be described as a trap.

They weren't entrapped into commiting the offences, they were simply left to speak to each other as they saw fit.

"The trick worked. The accused would not have spoken as they did if they had known that the officers were listening."

That is kind of the point. Why the police should be expected to make life easier for thick suspects is a mystery to those of us who aren't as enlightened as Lord McPhail.

During the trial, advocate depute Peter Hammond, prosecuting, tried to defend the police action by saying the crime was serious, other suspects were still on the run and a large sum of money was missing.Lord Macphail said in a report on Friday that the crime was serious but "regrettably not uncommon".

Yes and but it is likely to be less uncommon when sleazy judges like Lord McPhail do their best to enable [alleged] armed robbers to go free. But why should a legal demigod concern himself with such trifles as gangs of bandits on the loose?
"It is clear that the police subterfuge in this case was a form of covert surveillance," the judge concluded.
Standing at the end of a corridor in a police station is 'covert surveillance' spare me. So the list of Human Rights now includes the right not to be eavesdropped upon.

Entrance & Exit

Ambitious plans to develop Gretna as the "Gateway to Scotland" could deliver nearly 600 jobs to the area.

A good plan but one which I could improve vastly. Replace the word 'Scotland' with 'England'.

The Little Red Book of New Labour Sleaze.

I've contributed one article to this book. I have to confess that I'm worried that a top 100 Labour scandals will become dated rather quickly.

Heather Mills McCartney

I don't have an opinion on her marriage or the allegations that she is a fantasist, but I thought this, from 'Phantoms in the Brain' by V.S. Ramachandran, might be worth quoting:

Recall that in the Penfield map {of the brain}the foot is beside the genitals. Therefore if a person loses a leg and is then stimulated in the genitals, she will experience the sensations in her phantom leg.

Racism

Congratulations to the Seattle Public School system for their helpful cut out and keep guide to all forms of racism.

Racism:
The systematic subordination of members of targeted racial groups who have relatively little social power in the United States (Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, and Asians), by the members of the agent racial group who have relatively more social power (Whites). The subordination is supported by the actions of individuals, cultural norms and values, and the institutional structures and practices of society.

Individual Racism:
The beliefs, attitudes, and actions of individuals that support or perpetuate racism. Individual racism can occur at both an unconscious and conscious level, and can be both active and passive. Examples include telling a racist joke, using a racial epithet, or believing in the inherent superiority of whites.

Active Racism:
Actions which have as their stated or explicit goal the maintenance of the system of racism and the oppression of those in the targeted racial groups. People who participate in active racism advocate the continued subjugation of members of the targeted groups and protection of “the rights” of members of the agent group. These goals are often supported by a belief in the inferiority of people of color and the superiority of white people, culture, and values.

Passive Racism:
Beliefs, attitudes, and actions that contribute to the maintenance of racism, without openly advocating violence or oppression. The conscious or unconscious maintenance of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that support the system of racism, racial prejudice and racial dominance.

Cultural Racism:
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.

Institutional Racism:
The network of institutional structures, policies, and practices that create advantages and benefits for Whites, and discrimination, oppression, and disadvantages for people from targeted racial groups. The advantages created for Whites are often invisible to them, or are considered “rights” available to everyone as opposed to “privileges” awarded to only some individuals and groups.



Continues for some time (hat tip to this guy), but suffice to say only one group is capable of racism. On the subject of race kookery a lot of people have been linking to the Guardian's Joseph Harker:

Flag-waving patriotism before the World Cup is fair enough, but is the BNP secretly smirking?
If they aren't smirking after reading that tripe then they must be the only ones.

Gay TV

When Oh When will gay people finally be represented in the entertainment industry?

Politicians What Are They Good For?

The most impressive politician I have ever met in person was Eric Forth, even though it was only once and at a meeting/discussion he addressed. Obituaries of the MP for Bromley who died this week have noted his supreme ability as a parliamentarian. Often "great parliamentarian" is a respectful way of saying he didn't do much but had been around a long time, but in Forth's case it was true and it had been widely recognised long before his death, when after the 1997 election with the Tory party in disarray he along with his colleague David Maclean, organised much of the real opposition to the government from the backbenches. The reason he was able to master the Commons well enough to frustrate the Labour government's super majority is surely partly explained in this description by his friend Iain Dale:

Eric had a 19th century approach to constituency politics. He never, ever held a surgery, yet his majority increased at every election. He believed he was in politics to be a Parliamentarian, not a quasi-social worker.

And quite bloody right too. MPs are supposed to scrutinise legislation and question the government not act as a branch of Citizens Advice Bureau. We, the voters, employ MPs, but somehow suppose that the best way establishing someone's fitness to be an MP is how time he spends being a dogsbody for his constituents. I suppose I might be tempted to vote for some chump like Stephen Byers if he washed my car every Saturday, but it is not really an effective way of selecting competent people. If you tried to foist the tasks people give to MPs onto any other group of people they would tell you where to go, if you don't believe me try telling your bank manager that you will go elsewhere unless he fills in a tax return or a housing claim for you.

This isn't about MPs being remote, they should find out how government legislation affects their constituents, they should be available to people who want to express their views on relevant matter to their elected representatives.

Most constituency work is an informal way of campaigning, a permanent job interview and it renders MPs less effective at doing their actual job. It is also used to justify the extravagant expenses and salaries that MPs take home, they whine about how they have to do so much work and they need a large office staff when they don't need anything of the sort, Eric Forth certainly claimed very low expenses, they just use it to campaign.

Ultimately a good MP will be more valuable to their constituents in parliament than as a glorified odd job man.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Live long and prosper.

Ruby Muhammed, the widow of Nation of Islam wacko Elijah, is apparently 109 years old, which surely means she is the oldest person famous for something other than being old. No particular point to this it just struck me as a very impressive age.

Er No

Was Jack The Ripper A Woman? Screams the Independent. I'm not sure why so many ridiculous notions about Jack the Ripper are given serious consideration, when the 'suspects' bear absolutely no relation to the sort of people who we know do commit serial killings.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Edjookaysun

Former Education Secretary Estelle Morris is worried that:

The government's education reform plans could enable wealthy men to "buy control of schools"

Aside from wondering why they would do that for any motive beyond philanthropy, as it isn't as though they can run schools into the ground whilst pocketing the cash, who controls schools now? Largely unelected quango's (LEAs) stuffed with political appointees, I'd rather take my chances with wealthy men.

Painful

Just saw some of the highlights of 2Jags's performance in Parliament, where his own backbenchers were hasking him whether he was going to take a 'hands on' role. He himself announced he would be overseeing domestic affairs. It is almost enough to make someone feel sorry for the man.

Almost.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Innocent Man Died In Jail.

Any honest person has to accept that sometimes innocent people are wrongfully imprisoned, but this case seems particularly shocking to me:

A WEST Yorkshire teacher who died in prison after being convicted of raping one his pupils has been cleared posthumously.
Timothy Gee was jailed for eight years when he was convicted at Leeds Crown Court in 2001. He fell ill and died from an undiagnosed blood cancer the following year......
.....While the study cast doubt on the girl's mental state, it emerged that she had also made similar accusations against another man, whose conviction was quashed earlier this year.


So she's sent two innocent men to prison on the basis of no real evidence at all. The other thing that shocks me is that virtually no attention has been given to this case by the national media despite the awful circumstances, is there an explanation why this isn't considered newsworthy? I cannot think of a good one.

Actually one of the few websites that does mention the case is Falsely Accused Carers and Teachers, an organisation I had not previously heard of, if these allegations are commonplace enough to warrant a specific organisation to cope with them, then it must be even worse than I could have guessed.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Human Rights Act

When I think of Human Rights I think of things such as having the freedom of speech or the government not having the power to drag me off the street and lock me up without trial. This is reinforced by people who are supposedly expert in the field of Human Right when they claim that:

The values in the act mirror those found in Bills of rights throughout the free world. Free speech, fair trials, respect for private life and the prohibition of torture are the values which distinguish democrats from dictators or terrorists.

Yet the curious thing is when we actually hear about people winning cases based on the Human Rights Act it turns out to be nothing like that, and instead is about the wishes of someone not to wear a achool uniform trumping the wishes of those who are trying to run a school with a standard uniform policy or where the desires of plane hijackers to remain in a country trumps the desire of the public in general not to be put at risk by giving incentives to hijacking. Numerous other perverse verdicts could be given.

Defenders of the HRA claim that whilst these incidents might well be unfortunate, it is a price worth paying to defend our liberty. All of which brings me to this question-
-Can anyone give a single example of where the Human Rights Act or the European Convention on Human Rights have been used to actually protect what reasonable people would regard as fundamental liberties?

Help

Does anyone know whether it is possible to cut and paste something in a post when using blogger? If so how?

When Sociopaths Fall Out

Tell me this isn't funny- Hunger Strike Memorial Crockery.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

The A List

The Conservative Party's 'A List' of potential MP's was announced this week, although bizarrely the contents were kept quiet, most of the headlines were about former soap actor and pop star Adam Rickitt making the list. If he does stand at the next election does anyone else think Labour or the Lib Dems should put up this man.

Self Esteem Part Two.

Of course it should be said that there is such a thing as too little self esteem.

The rich men who wanted wives bid against each other for the prettiest girls, while the humbler folk, who had no use for good looks in a wife, were actually paid to take the ugly ones, for when the auctioneer had got through all the pretty girls he would call upon the plainest.... and then ask who was willing to take the least money to marry her.


From a description of a Babylonian tribe by Herodotus. It doesn't sound like the best way t kick off a marriage.

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Ruth Kelly

A lot of people have been worrying about whether our new Equality Minister will allow her personal disapproval of homosexuality to supercede her political duties. This is unfair, she's probably personally against paedophiles too, but that didn't stop her letting them work as teachers when she was Education Secretary.

Self Esteem.

From Thomas Sowell's Inside American Education:

an international study of 13 year olds found that Koreans ranked first in mathematics and Americans last. When asked if they thought that they were "good at mathematics," only 32% of Korean youngsters said "yes"- compared to 68% of American 13 year olds.


The moral is- There is nothing particularly praiseworthy about unmerited self esteem. There is a lot more good stuff in the book and I intend at some point to compare his descriptions of the excesses of American teachers Unions to the recent threats and tantrums by some of Britain's.

Wiping Their Arses With Banknotes.

Every once in a while the newspapers will out some chav family with 12 kids who have 2 or 3 council houses and are demanding yet another one. At no point does it occur them to exercise a modicum of restraint with other people's money. In Wales it appears that these people are considered role models, at least by the political class.