Foxtrot Oscar. "The Met, which was criticised for its use of kettling during last year's G20 protests, provided portable toilets and water for the contained protesters, who kept themselves warm by making fires with seized police riot shields" ... as one does.
We only said it a few hours ago. And now they've gone and done it. That didn't take long.
COMMENT THREAD
The Daily Express tells is that it is the first national newspaper actively to campaign for Britain's withdrawal from the EU. To that effect, it it mounting a crusade and asking the public to join it.
We are very pleased to see this, and hope that the newspaper of Beaverbrook prevails on this important issue. However, there is a small but important niggle. Getting out of the EU is not solely an Express campaign and the newspaper doesn't own it. In fact, it is very much a Jonny-come-lately.
The problem is – and this is not a small problem – is that we've seen this all before. The Sun, for instance, is notorious for waving the anti-EU banner when it suits it, then dropping the issue when it gets bored, or changes its political alliances.
Thus, if this newspaper tries (as it seems to be doing) to impose a proprietary stamp on the campaign (excluding the likes of UKIP and this website), then the campaign will wither on the vine. It will fail to attract support; the paper will get bored and move on, as they do so often.
We would, therefore, very much like to see the "crusade" continue, but The Express must recognise that it is joining us, not the other way around. We need a team player that will reach out and work with the broader "out" community, such that it is. The last thing we need is another solo player which has caught new religion and thinks it can run the show.
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With Cameron playing the immigration card and promising "to do such things ... ", we pointed out that The Boy (he had not by then acquired his euroslime label) was playing games – as always.
This strategy, we ventured, might "hold the line for the moment, as a gullible and uncritical media fail to press him on precisely what that means in numerical terms, compared with the massively larger influx of legal migration under the umbrella of EU law."
But, we also said, "the fact is that, as long as Cameron buys into the EU, he is as powerless as Brown and all the rest of his acolytes." All Cameron was doing was deferring the day of reckoning. And, we said, reckoning there will come.
Well, it is here after a fashion, although the message is massively diluted by the dire Christopher Hope and Richard Edwards telling us that this case will "raise fresh questions about the monitoring of offenders released back into the community".
That, of course, is the least of the problems, so why is it given top billing? And, although there is reference to the Human Rights Act, which Cameron pledged to deal with, there is not a single word about EU law – which actually drives this issue. The Human Rights Act is secondary.
The Telegraph, however, is not on its own. The Sun report is just as dire, addressing much the same points, again without reference to the EU. In fact, not one of the media reports we have seen mentions the EU.
All of this demonstrates that there are no lengths to which the clever-dicks will go to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room, doubly necessary to conceal Euroslime Dave's curious inaction on the whole area of deporting EU criminals back to their home countries.
But, as the people are not being fully acquainted with the issues, it is unsurprising that they remain ill-informed. That, is sometimes seems, is the true role of the media ... to keep the populous ill-informed.
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Of course, this is just weather - and its just started to snow here in Bradford. This is the third consecutive winter where we have had snowfall before Christmas and we're fresh out of riot shields. We'll have to use the central heating.
Despite that, it is only a matter of time before some fool (many fools) tell us that it is the warmest year since Noah built his ark, warning that we are going to fry unless we pay zillion of dollars into the kitty for development corporations such as Oxfam. And we can rely on the likes of Louise Gray faithfully to record their exudations, while our fatuous, time-wasting excuse for a prime minister prattles about wellbeing.
Yet, we do ask How many bad winters in a row do you have to have before it ceases to be just weather and becomes climate?
This man is even more stupid than we imagined.
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(From The Independent, on yesterday's demonstrations.)
COMMENT THREAD
As they award themselves a pay rise, we see demonstrated exactly how a government behaves when restraints are missing. MEPs will see their salaries rise from £81,401 to £84,412 while van Rompuy takes home almost £12,000 extra. Baroness Ashton sees her pay increase by more than £11,000 to almost £325,000.
The pay rises come as a result of the EU commission taking a case to the ECJ, seeking (successfully) to set aside a veto imposed by the Council of Ministers on increased salaries. Commission officials are included in the settlement, as indeed are ECJ judges, who now get back pay to July 2009 and interest.
And when their carcases litter the streets of Brussels and elsewhere, slaughtered by populations which have finally had enough, the verdict will be the worst case of collective suicide in EU history. These people have lost the will to live.
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I am asking that the Irish people unite, as our forefathers did, and take to the streets at 11am Saturday 27th from Wood Quay Dublin, to voice our anger and concern over the actions of our politicians and what is happening to Ireland.
COMMENT: IRISH THREAD
... again. Gove says, according to The Guardian, that violent activists should be denied "oxygen of publicity" – as opposed to pols, of course, who could just be denied oxygen.
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The strain of keeping up with the twists and turns of the euro must be getting to the poor little chap – that and being a crook. But it takes different people in different ways and to M. Le president it comes in the form of sounding off at journalists, calling them a bunch of "paedophiles".
Apparently, this came during a furious off-the-record exchange at the Nato summit in Lisbon last week, after a journalist had asked him a question about the latest developments in the "Karachigate" affair: allegations that the cancellation of commissions on a French submarine contract led to a bomb attack in Karachi in May 2002 in which 11 French engineers and four Pakistanis died.
Sarkozy is reported to have launched into a tirade about press ethics and the use of unnamed sources. "You say ridiculous things. You check nothing," he said to the journalist who had asked the question. "I have nothing against you but it seems that you are a paedophile. I am personally convinced of that fact. I have spoken to the security services but I won't tell you which ones. I have seen someone but it was just a verbal exchange. But now I am personally convinced that you are a paedophile."
After a stunned silence, we are told that journalists at the briefing at which the insult was delivered then moved on to other subjects. Before he left, Sarkozy is reported to have said to the journalists: "So long paedophiles, see you tomorrow."
Sarkozy, of course, is part French and part Hungarian, which perhaps excused his outburst ... that and being a crook, but what price UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom who has neither of the first two excuses?
This has not stopped him indulging in equally oafish behaviour, calling the altogether unspeakable Socialist MEP Martin Schulz an "undemocratic fascist" in the EU parliament. Bloom, apparently, did so in an exchange after he had interrupted Schulz, calling out the infamous Nazi slogan, "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer". Thus did he demonstrate that, when it comes to subtlety and wit, you can always rely on Bloom.
Predictably, this behaviour has got him thrown out. England Expects tells the whole story - two turds together, really. Nevertheless, this should give Bloom all the time in the world to discuss with Sarkozy the merits of stuffing the press corps with paedophiles. We thought that applied mainly to Belgian politicians, but since Belgium hasn't had a government for six months, presumably they've taken on additional jobs for something to do.
With the political classes upping the ante in this way, though, we're very soon going to run out of insults. Next it will have to be "fascist paedophiles", I suppose. But where do you go after that?
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