Day 14 - Battle of Britain - by Richard... Friday, July 23, 2010

Day 14 - Battle of Britain - by Richard... Friday, July 23, 2010

The weather early on this Tuesday yielded a slight haze in the Straits of Dover. Winds remained light in the Channel. It was showery with bright intervals in most other areas.

The Luftwaffe concentrated its attacks on a convoy codenamed "Pilot" which was steaming off the Lincolnshire coast. Two raiders were shot down by fighters. In the mid-afternoon, a lone Dornier dropped bombs on the old airship hanger at at Pulham and another attempted to bomb the Vickers Armstrong aircraft factory at Weighbridge, taking advantage of low cloud. Its bombs fell on the edge of the landing strip, missing the factory.

Pity the causal researcher though ...

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Stuffed, stuffed, stuffed - by Richard...

If ever there was a necessary state intervention, it was the loan agreed by a dying Labour government to Forgemasters to finance the production of components for nuclear power stations – of which there is a worldwide shortage of capacity.

Yet, one of the first things the Clegerons did was cancel the loan – and on grounds that now look very dubious indeed, if The Guardian and the rest of the media have got the details right.

With accusations of sleaze in the air, we are looking at an administration which is on track to be just as vile and disreputable as its predecessor, only in a fraction of the time, especially with that sleazebag Huhne being accused of messing up the loan – possibly deliberately (8 minutes into the video).

The current row follows on from a report by KPMG which tells us that without more direct support from the government, it is still uneconomic for utility companies to invest billions of pounds in nuclear power.

The view is that it is unlikely that the new generation of nuclear plants will actually get built – something which has been evident for some time – simply though noting the lack of news or actual progress. As the timetable slides, and as we see the Forgemaster loan go down the tubes, there is only one conclusion – we are stuffed, stuffed, stuffed.

The Chinese, who recently reported commissioning their first fourth generation plant, and has unveiled plans to increase its 9.1 gigawatts of nuclear power to 40 gigawatts by 2020, must be lost in amazement at the willingness of British politicians to commit economic (and political) suicide.

Our expectations of the previous administration were always low, but there are some who actually expected more of the present incumbents. But it seems to be a general rule of thumb when assessing governments that, just when you think things have got as bad as it is possible for them to be ... they get worse.

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Day 13 - Battle of Britain - by Richard... Thursday, July 22, 2010

After a weekend of indifferent weather, the Straits of Dover for this Monday was set fair. The rest of the Channel was generally cloudy, with light westerly winds. There were bright intervals between showers in the east.

Readers of The Daily Telegraph were treated to headlines telling them of 24 "Nazi Raiders" shot down over the weekend. But this was to be a day when daylight activity was light, with only sporadic reconnaissance flights, occasional ineffective attacks on shipping and nuisance raids. Typical of this activity was at about 1145 hours when a Ju88 penetrated to Bristol and Cardiff and then Penarth, dropping bombs at the locations. The aircraft was intercepted and the rear gunner is believed to have been killed. The aircraft escaped across the south coast.

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Missing in action - by Richard...

The nation's favourite newspaper is having a tee-hee moment about the misuse of photoshop by BP. Photoshop, it then says, has been used to commit "some outrageous crimes against fact-based photography," offering us some more examples.

Of a certain crime against fact-based photography committed by a certain Adnan Hajj, however, there is no mention at all. Curiously, reference to the controversy is completely missing. One wonders whether this could be because it was a crime – one of many – in which the newspapers were complicit, carried out as it was by one of their own, theReuters press agency.

And, while the newspaper is devoting considerable space to slagging off BP over this misdemeanour, one cannot recall it being so strident way back in 2006, even if its then picture editor was on the case. It is thus sometimes very hard to avoid walking away with the idea that double standards are being exhibited by the media

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