David Miliband- For Italian Fascists Before He Was Against Them

David Miliband has resigned from the board of Sunderland football club because they have appointed a self proclaimed fascist as their manager. Paolo Di Canio's politics are repulsive but sympathy for fascist politics is not that unusual in Italy.

Most of them see a difference between fascism and the murderous policies pursed while in alliance with Nazi Germany. Wrongly in my view, but enough Italians agree for the descendants of Mussolini's party to have been a viable party until they merged with Berlusconi's lot.

David Miliband, when he was foreign secretary, denounced the Conservative Party for leaving the European grouping that included Italy's fascists. Unlike Sunderland FC, European political groupings have real influence on political debate.

Priorities

Just listening to report on the merger of Scottish police forces into the awfully named "Police Scotland". The BBC reporter said "Priorities for the new force include promoting more women and reducing violent crime".

Well I'm glad that reducing crime is up there I suppose...

What's The Name Of The $10 Prostitute Who Fellated Hugh Grant?

Ed Miliband apparently.

Hooray Scandal Averted

The proposals for a statutory press regulator that have been accepted by all three main parties ensures that the biggest public scandal of recent years will never be allowed to happen again.

I talk of course of the parliamentary expenses scandal which was exposed when the Daily Telegraph purchased the information in circumstances which were 100% justified yet probably illegal (at least by the person selling it).

Some of the press abuses were scandalous- the harassment of Chris Jeffries and the hacking of Millie Dowler's phone were inexcusable- but this response is all about empowering every public nuisance to suppress stories which they find damaging.

The complainant to the new press regulator will have to pay none of the costs- but given the big fines the regulator will be able to impose the newspapers will have to pay for lawyers even if they are blameless. Great news if you're Trafigura, the Church of Scientology or Spanker Mosely but terrible news if you have any notion of the powerful being held to account.

I don't really blame David Cameron- because once the Lib Dems decided they would rather screw over the press than uphold free speech he simply didn't have enough MPs to resist the Labour proposals (which were pretty much drafted by Hacked Off).

 Public outrage has successfully been harnessed to censor pretty much all forms of written  speech.

Official Budget Blog

Ignore anything you read about the budget for at least 48 hours. Whilst George Osborne is not a conman in the style of Gordon Brown- whose smoke and mirror budgets frankly brought parliament into disrepute- you can guarantee that bad news is tucked away and trivia like marginal changes in the duty on beer will be front and centre.

Except last year when the Chancellor's spinning backfired and made a competent and sensible budget look like the work of a simpleton.

Alas Poor Hugo.

The Guardian currently reminds me of the Daily Star after Jade Goody died- all because Hugo Chavez has passed off this mortal coil.

I would have preferred him to leave office alive because for all his faults he was not- unlike most of his international allies- a murderer. Although thousands are dead due to his incompetence- Venezuela's murder rate soared to scarcely believable levels under his misrule.

His supporters say that he helped the poor, but really any oil producing nation should be able to lift some of the poor out of poverty during a decade long oil boom.

His electoral success, while partly achieved by taking over much of the free press, illustrates the need for politicians to engage with the poor because even if he was an incompetent buffoon, a lot of people would rather vote for an idiot who seems to be on their side than someone more effective who doesn't care.

His legacy is that he embodied revolutionary socialism- fire and fury but no accomplishments to speak of.

The Lib Dems- Wasting Police Time

This is a transparent attempt to kick the matter to the other side of the Eastleigh by-election:

Nick Clegg says a Scotland Yard investigation into allegations that Lib Dem peer Lord Rennard sexually harassed women must be allowed to run its course.

Several women have accused the former party chief executive of inappropriately touching and propositioning female party workers, which he strenuously denies.

Police announced on Monday that they will meet with party officials to discuss the allegations.

If Lord Rennard is guilty of what he is accused of- propositioning women who worked for him and stroking their leg etc- then it is a case of sexual harassment and the women in question are entitled to some redress from the party that failed to discipline him.

But it seems extraordinarily unlikely that any crime has been committed- an unwanted pat on the knee is unpleasant but it doesn't make him Jimmy Savile.

All referring it to the police does is give the party an excuse not to discuss the matter before the polls close in Eastleigh.

Legging It From Justice.

The decision to grant Oscar Pistorius bail os strange. The argument his defence and the judge have made is that because he is so famous he could not possibly skip bail.

Surely the internationally famous find it easier to escape a jurisdiction than mere plebs. Someone like Roman Polanski was extremely well known when he escaped a rape charge. Being famous makes someone more recognisable but it also opens up a far greater array of destinations to escape to than would otherwise be available- Julian Assange wouldn't have been granted asylum by Ecuador if he were just an everyday rapist for instance.

Horseplay

A friend of mine who is a butcher put up a "No Horse" sign in the shop he works at, as a jokey reference to the horse meat scandal last week. Yesterday someone asked if they could take a photo to use to illustrate media stories, and today, the BBC, Reuters and the Guardian all use the image:

They didn't actually plug the shop the sign is at though.

Spam For Two

The man contacted advertising watchdogs after being bombarded with ads telling him his penis size was a "disappointment" and that his partner might be "turned off".

I have a lot of sympathy for the complainant in this case as I've also been bombarded with emails telling me I need to increase my penis size.

I really shouldn't have given my email address to my wife.

Poverty Pimps Hoist On Own Petard

Child poverty figures have declined.

Hooray!

However the poverty industry rightly warns that the figures are misleading, because they have only declined because the incomes of middle income workers fell faster than those of people on benefits during the last few years.

They are right, but the only reason why we use relative poverty figures in the first place is because activists used them to imply that poverty levels were far higher than they appeared to be using absolute poverty figures.

In the years when we were all getting richer relative poverty was the only way to make it seem as if poverty was not declining at an impressive rate.

Preachy Pop Stars

David Cameron has declined to stop listening to the Smiths, despite being ordered to by Johnny Marr (whose banning tweet was endorsed by Morrissey).

I have a confession to make- I am also a fan of the Smiths*. Like all Smiths fans there does come a time when one has to accept that despite making some of the best music of the last 50 years, the band themselves were complete bell ends. At least the two principle men- Morrissey and Marr.

Apart from their personal behaviour- they famously got together to defraud their fellow band members of royalties (before penning a ditty about materialism and greed no doubt), the pronouncements of either of them on politics are infantile and dogmatic.

Most Smiths fans do accept this, I follow a 'Smiths' page on Facebook and even most of the comments there- a page frequented by people whose main thing they have in common is they like the Smiths- agree that Marr is being a twat.

But if Jews can listen to Wagner, conservatives can listen to the Smiths.

* It is a marmite like taste. Most people reading this will think that they're whiny and depressing.

Mugabe-Phobia

Yes, that phrase has actually been used.

Will Hutton- Doesn't Get Rent Seeking

Will Hutton writes about football in the UK. It is pretty much all nonsense but consider this passage in particular:

Britain is a rent-seeker's paradise, as many more football clubs other than Birmingham City can testify. We have created a looters' charter, with football as a playpen, within which the super-rich can do what they want. A recent flash point is the price visiting fans are charged for their tickets. (Manchester City fans protested at the £62 they were asked to pay for today's game at Arsenal.) If the price of admission, along with travel, is prohibitive, then the game is played to only one set of supporters in the stadium with one set of chants. The experience of a game shrivels.

 The idea that football attracts rent seekers is preposterous. Three days ago Chelsea FC reported their first profit since Roman Abramovich took over, but in reality it was just an accounting quirk. Overall the Russian oligarch has spent around a billion pounds on Chelsea football club. Manchester City's owners have also spent an amount they will never claw back. Promotion and relegation ensure that clubs continually have to spend almost all their surplus cash on higher wages just to keep up with their rivals.

Owning a football club is not an opportunity to seek rent but rather a rich man's hobby which he may enjoy but won't profit from.

It is different in league systems with no promotion and relegation such as the major American leagues, because there the pay roll can be capped and the scarcity value of a place in the league can be leveraged to encourage extravagant subsidies from tax payers.

Is That A Communist Manifesto In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Pleased To See Me.

Disputes among the far left are tedious to outsiders at the best of times so I largely ignored the story about the Socialist Workers Party's infighting over allegations that senior members used their positions to sexually exploit women in the party.

Until I realised that one of the men accused of doing so is Martin Smith, who also leads the Unite Against Fascism front group. So can I just point out this post by myself from 2009 pointing out the uncanny resemblance between Martin Smith and a younger "anti fascist" activist.

I was joking at the time but who knows, maybe I was right.

Quote Of The Day

I saw a copy of the Sun today and this is what page 3 girl Sylvia had to say about the forthcoming Destiny's Child reunion:

Seeing the girls sing on stage again will be amazing. In the words of the American theologian Tyron Edwards "Every parting is a form of death, and each reunion a type of heaven".

Failing To Understand The Concept Of "History".

Lester Holloway isn't happy that Michael Gove wants school history to have more Cromwell and less Seacole*:

The 2012 Olympics were surely evidence that he cannot turn back the clock to a bygone age.

Er, that is kind of the point of history.

* Mary Seacole seems to have been a remarkable woman but the apparent role she has in school history is out of proportion to her importance as a historical figure. Also school history needs to give a rough grounding in the development of the nation rather than projecting current obsessions with race and sex backwards.

Lead In Your Pencil.

The theory that the fall in crime over the last generation has been due to the phasing out of lead additives in petrol has received another airing recently.

The last time I mentioned the idea on this blog it was to ridicule the idea, but over the last few years it seems to have stood up fairly well- to the point where it is perhaps the biggest underlying global cause of long term fluctuations in crime trends. (When I'm admitting I was partly wrong I tend to waffle).

However there is a danger of neglecting cultural and policy impacts on crime levels in affecting crime levels even if they aren't the only factors. For example there has been a major difference in the homicide rate of the northern and souther United States going back to before the country was actually formed- and long predating the use of lead in petrol. Even today the much vaunted fall in crime experienced by New York cannot really be explained by lead alone, because the rate in New York fell in relative terms compared to other cities (to the point where the much small city of Chicago has more murders in total than New York). So there still is a significant role for effective policing and sentencing in cutting crime.

If the theory continues to hold water then it is a significant victory for environmentalists- at least the saner ones- because it seems that pollution caused side effects far more severe than could have been predicted based upon the best evidence available at the time. The precautionary principle has in this case at least been vindicated.