Ugh! She's Naked!

Vladimir Putin, is still gay:

Hat tip to Mark Wadsworth for the latest addition to the "Putin is in the closet" file.

Judging Lady Thatcher By Her Enemies.

Gerry Adams, Arthur Scargill, General Galtieri, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, George Galloway, Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Billy Bragg, Vanessa Redgrave, Bobby Sands, Yuri Andropov, Ted Heath, Morrissey......

Legacy: Margaret Thatcher

1. Confronting the Unions. They were literally subverting parliamentary democracy by refusing to allow elected governments they didn't like to function. After bringing down the Heath government they had shown that they were intent on making Britain ungovernable.
2. Winning the Falklands War. There is some justified criticism of her government for lowering the defences of the islands prior to the invasion but the resolute manner in which she conducted the war was a huge success. It was also done with great competence. The Argentinian junta collapsed after this and most of Latin America democratised from this point onwards.
3. Privatising public utilities. It used to take months or even weeks to have a phone line put in, the modern world would not be possible in a pre-Thatcher Britain.
4. Defending Salman Rushdie. Rushdie was a horrible little man who sneered at her, but when the Iranian Ayatollah's put a bounty on his head for his supposed blasphemy her government responded forcefully by offering him protection and breaking off relations with Iran. An awful lot of politicians of the time tried to justify Muslim anger.
5. Confronting Saddam Hussain. She stiffened George Bush resolve after Saddam invaded Kuwait.
6. Big Bang. Unpopular now but still the right thing to do.
7. Cutting marginal tax rates. 
8. Ensuring a peaceful but positive resolution to the Cold War. She was not the main figure in this but she certainly played a role.
9. Humiliating terrorists- her performance after the Brighton Bomb was simply masterful.
10. Winning the rebate from the EU. Refusing to bow to the Hunger Strikers was also impressive.
11. Inspiring British Euroscepticism- her Bruges speech was the inspiration for the new wave of Tory Eurosceptics who helped ensure Britain didn't join the Euro.
12. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act. I hadn't considered how revolutionary this was before today but it was.
13. Speaking out about the genocidal policies of Slobodan Milosevic. She was out of office by then but it was welcome nonetheless.
14.  Being the first elected woman leader of a major Western country. This aspect has been overplayed a bit today but it is still a big achievement.
15. Agreeing the peaceful transfer of Hong Kong to China. This was about the best deal that could have been achieved.
16. A very good environmental record- acting fast to recognise that action was needed to be taken to protect the Ozone layer for example. Her views on global warming were also correct and prescient. 
17. Creating soft scoop ice cream. This was before she entered politics but a legacy in itself.
18. Keeping the lunatics out of power. In the 1980s the alternative to Thatcher was Foot and Kinnock.
19.  Building a strong alliance with the USA that was neither subservient- when they disagreed such as during the Falklands she stood up to them- nor confrontational.
20. Reforming employment laws.
21. Enraging the Guardian even 23 years after leaving office.

Although there were a  handful of things she got wrong especially in her final years in office such as the poll tax and joining the ERM, she was a far better leader that we have any right to expect.

The Greatest

RIP Lady Thatcher.

Who Made Mick Philpott?

Is Mick Philpott a product of our welfare system as many have suggested and an equal number have rebutted?

It's a bit like global warming you can't pin any particular storm on the phenomenon  but it isn't unreasonable to say that it makes them more likely. The way our welfare state along with the criminal justice system work does make it more likely that sociopath's can thrive.

When he was convicted of the premeditated attempted murder of a girlfriend who rejected him he was released from prison after just three years. A functional criminal justice system  should not let a man who does that out of prison before he is even 25.

When he decided to not to work the welfare system provided for him. When he decided not to have a vast number of children that he could not support, the welfare system picked up the slack and effectively rewarded him with an income of £60000 a year for this antisocial behaviour.

The women he preyed on and controlled seem to have mostly been the results of broken homes, girls who have been failed by social services.

There will always be bad people, but a parasite like Philpott could not have thrived without a system that is broken. 

Philpott And The Far Left

In the light of Mick Philpott's conviction for killing six of his children it seems like a good opportunity to revisit the buffoonish Owen Jones's take on Philpott - the victim of hatred against the poor.

The simple fact of the matter is that people's instinctive reaction is correct- people who have lots of children with no intention of supporting them and are defiant about claiming benefits from the public purse are engaging in sociopathic behaviour.

This isn't a general 'hatred' of people on benefits, I know people who are looking for work, I know people who are genuinely disabled and they are decent people.

 But I also know people and know of people who do abuse the system and have no intention of doing anything but claiming everything they can- in one instance a mother who looks up conditions on the internet and then makes her children learn about them to con the doctors to claim more benefits (this is not someone I know personally or I would inform on them).

The people who make martyrs of all benefit recipients- which is much of the anti austerity movement- don't acknowledge that there is a difference between someone who has fallen on hard times and somebody who expects other people to support them indefinitely.

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.