I have been thinking over the weekend of what the Archbishop of Canterbury has been saying. First of all – as I made clear last week – I would say that he has a right to consider in public such contentious political issues. Whether it was well judged for him to do so and whether he was right in his comments are very different matters. Indeed, he might recollect that when Archbishop Runcie made not dissimilar remarks in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher was re-elected with a hugely increased majority not long afterwards.
It is not so much that I disagree with his criticisms of Gove’s educational reforms, or Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms, but that the Archbishop seems unaware of the rising tide of illiteracy and innumeracy, as spending on schools was increased over many years, and of the rise of welfare dependency which has been rotting society.
Of course he was right to be concerned at the very nature of coalition government. However to say that it is undemocratic without turning his attention to the far, far, greater loss of democracy to Our Unelected Masters in Brussels, and to NuLab decision to inflict uncontrolled, uncounted immigration and the so called multicultural society on the British people against their overwhelming opposition is a failure on the part of the Archbishop to have spoken out when he should have done.
…
Well, once again it serves me right. I thought that two uncontentious blogs would result in less of your comments to read, but I have only just finished wading through a thousand or so. Thank goodness for some good laughs to keep me going.
On the subject of the Balls leaks, I have to say that my comment on the “mystery” of why my Party failed to win the last election was a touch ironic, as I think many readers of my blogs may have guessed. Nor was that failure entirely attributable to the bias in the constituency boundaries as christopher_bowring suggested. It was simply that Mr. Cameron could persuade no more than 10.7 million electors to vote for him, and that is 3 million less than a well directed campaign usually gives a successful Tory leader.
The reason for that, said Aasvogel, was that after Thatcher the Tories lost their way, or as bubbles 15 put it, “they (the Tories) were them (NewLab)”. That was more or less the theme echoed by Benedict Carter, sheumais, vaselino, jeffersonian, boudicca, george204 and others.
I think darkseid asked a very good question: “Who leaked the Balls papers?” Well, it would not have been the Conservatives, nor the civil service, who would not have been copied into the Labour Party plotting. We have to assume it was a Labour colleague of Mr Balls. Perhaps a friend of Blair, seeking to settle old scores or to mark the publication of a paperback edition of Blair’s book.
Of course struggles for the leadership of a Party, or even for its soul if it has one, are not confined to Labour. However, the sheer nastiness of this puts even Heseltine’s plotting against Thatcher into the shade.
There was an odd post from duckham who says he cannot tell the difference between Brown and me, which I think puts him into a rather small minority and another from sparkflash who thought that Mandelson was more of a Conservative than Cameron.
Turning to my blog on the inability of the BBC to understand that humour and obscenity are not synonymous, I should say that the headings to my blog posts are not written by me. I would never have used the word “gaffe” in writing of The Duke of Edinburgh.
A good many of you, including Ped, andre michel, JimmyB, eviltory, ladymoneypenny, roberteve Londonistar, sanctimony and alex the tory, sided with me as did peterbj7, who said he had never before been in total agreement before. I hope it becomes a habit.
There was something of a consensus that at the right time and place there is not much wrong with a touch of bawdiness, or even lewdness in making a good joke, but that what is objectionable is the use of obscenity as a substitute for humour.
To be fair, some of you took the view of Hughand Freddie that swearing is effective communication, whereas I normally swear only to relieve tension (as when I hit my thumb with the hammer). It seems to me that to say swearing is effective communication is to confess to a lack of communication skills.
The star turn of the day was, by a country mile, GW74. What a towering giant of a man! He told us ‘I am very clever’, I am right’ ‘I am very intelligent’, ‘I always win the argument’ and that ‘anyone objecting to racist remarks to whites is mental’ and that he is a Lib Dem supporter. We also learned that he is rich, hip, cool, a seducer of aristocratic young women and a black single mother.
Oh,yes, he also told us that there is not a Left-wing establishment in the BBC or this country. What a pity that the Archbishop promptly proved him wrong on that.
I am afraid that I think that some people, bersher in particular, took him a bit too seriously and crownarmourer sent up both him and poor deluded fabian unmercifully, which was a great laugh. However, I was slightly uncertain whether to regard him as a figure of fun or someone in desperate need of professional help.
I agreed with the dashingcaptaindan that the BBC is simply hypocritical, as I fear I thought some of you were too. To demand the right to use in public language long held to have been offensive, not least by its sexual connotations, and then demand that words long in use should banned since they may be offensive to other people is the essence of hypocrisy. Even worse, to rewrite hisorical facts in order to make them compliant with contemporary standards is a pefect example of the thinking at the root of Orwell’s 1984.
Happily there was some grown-up discussion of the integration issue, particularly by vaselino, Laveen Ladharam and bf2. I should apologise for converting Laveen Ladharam to Islam. He is, of course Hindu by birth, but spoke not just for those of that faith but Muslims who, whatever the tenets of their religion, have found it possible to integrate into a Western culture.
For a moment or two bf2, also a Hindu, and spearofodin were on common ground. The latter asked what are the values left in our society which we expect immigrants to adopt, whilst the former, a political Right-winger who loves his adopted country, said he could not bear to see what it is doing to itself.
Finally, my thanks to those of you like boudicca who are working within political parties as she is in UKIP. Do not give up. Conservatives can take over Conservative Associations and simply decline to support Central Office clone dummies as Parliamentary candidates. It can be your party.
And look at what Ed Balls achieved. Elected to Parliament only in 2005, by 2007 he was a leader of the plot to topple Blair and change the Labour Party. Poor Ed Miliband! It can be only a matter of time for him.
It is not so much that I disagree with his criticisms of Gove’s educational reforms, or Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms, but that the Archbishop seems unaware of the rising tide of illiteracy and innumeracy, as spending on schools was increased over many years, and of the rise of welfare dependency which has been rotting society.
Of course he was right to be concerned at the very nature of coalition government. However to say that it is undemocratic without turning his attention to the far, far, greater loss of democracy to Our Unelected Masters in Brussels, and to NuLab decision to inflict uncontrolled, uncounted immigration and the so called multicultural society on the British people against their overwhelming opposition is a failure on the part of the Archbishop to have spoken out when he should have done.
…
Well, once again it serves me right. I thought that two uncontentious blogs would result in less of your comments to read, but I have only just finished wading through a thousand or so. Thank goodness for some good laughs to keep me going.
On the subject of the Balls leaks, I have to say that my comment on the “mystery” of why my Party failed to win the last election was a touch ironic, as I think many readers of my blogs may have guessed. Nor was that failure entirely attributable to the bias in the constituency boundaries as christopher_bowring suggested. It was simply that Mr. Cameron could persuade no more than 10.7 million electors to vote for him, and that is 3 million less than a well directed campaign usually gives a successful Tory leader.
The reason for that, said Aasvogel, was that after Thatcher the Tories lost their way, or as bubbles 15 put it, “they (the Tories) were them (NewLab)”. That was more or less the theme echoed by Benedict Carter, sheumais, vaselino, jeffersonian, boudicca, george204 and others.
I think darkseid asked a very good question: “Who leaked the Balls papers?” Well, it would not have been the Conservatives, nor the civil service, who would not have been copied into the Labour Party plotting. We have to assume it was a Labour colleague of Mr Balls. Perhaps a friend of Blair, seeking to settle old scores or to mark the publication of a paperback edition of Blair’s book.
Of course struggles for the leadership of a Party, or even for its soul if it has one, are not confined to Labour. However, the sheer nastiness of this puts even Heseltine’s plotting against Thatcher into the shade.
There was an odd post from duckham who says he cannot tell the difference between Brown and me, which I think puts him into a rather small minority and another from sparkflash who thought that Mandelson was more of a Conservative than Cameron.
Turning to my blog on the inability of the BBC to understand that humour and obscenity are not synonymous, I should say that the headings to my blog posts are not written by me. I would never have used the word “gaffe” in writing of The Duke of Edinburgh.
A good many of you, including Ped, andre michel, JimmyB, eviltory, ladymoneypenny, roberteve Londonistar, sanctimony and alex the tory, sided with me as did peterbj7, who said he had never before been in total agreement before. I hope it becomes a habit.
There was something of a consensus that at the right time and place there is not much wrong with a touch of bawdiness, or even lewdness in making a good joke, but that what is objectionable is the use of obscenity as a substitute for humour.
To be fair, some of you took the view of Hughand Freddie that swearing is effective communication, whereas I normally swear only to relieve tension (as when I hit my thumb with the hammer). It seems to me that to say swearing is effective communication is to confess to a lack of communication skills.
The star turn of the day was, by a country mile, GW74. What a towering giant of a man! He told us ‘I am very clever’, I am right’ ‘I am very intelligent’, ‘I always win the argument’ and that ‘anyone objecting to racist remarks to whites is mental’ and that he is a Lib Dem supporter. We also learned that he is rich, hip, cool, a seducer of aristocratic young women and a black single mother.
Oh,yes, he also told us that there is not a Left-wing establishment in the BBC or this country. What a pity that the Archbishop promptly proved him wrong on that.
I am afraid that I think that some people, bersher in particular, took him a bit too seriously and crownarmourer sent up both him and poor deluded fabian unmercifully, which was a great laugh. However, I was slightly uncertain whether to regard him as a figure of fun or someone in desperate need of professional help.
I agreed with the dashingcaptaindan that the BBC is simply hypocritical, as I fear I thought some of you were too. To demand the right to use in public language long held to have been offensive, not least by its sexual connotations, and then demand that words long in use should banned since they may be offensive to other people is the essence of hypocrisy. Even worse, to rewrite hisorical facts in order to make them compliant with contemporary standards is a pefect example of the thinking at the root of Orwell’s 1984.
Happily there was some grown-up discussion of the integration issue, particularly by vaselino, Laveen Ladharam and bf2. I should apologise for converting Laveen Ladharam to Islam. He is, of course Hindu by birth, but spoke not just for those of that faith but Muslims who, whatever the tenets of their religion, have found it possible to integrate into a Western culture.
For a moment or two bf2, also a Hindu, and spearofodin were on common ground. The latter asked what are the values left in our society which we expect immigrants to adopt, whilst the former, a political Right-winger who loves his adopted country, said he could not bear to see what it is doing to itself.
Finally, my thanks to those of you like boudicca who are working within political parties as she is in UKIP. Do not give up. Conservatives can take over Conservative Associations and simply decline to support Central Office clone dummies as Parliamentary candidates. It can be your party.
And look at what Ed Balls achieved. Elected to Parliament only in 2005, by 2007 he was a leader of the plot to topple Blair and change the Labour Party. Poor Ed Miliband! It can be only a matter of time for him.
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