Doggies, poppies and Pex - by Richard...

Doggies, poppies and Pex - by Richard...

A long time ago, I got the job of writing the regular farming column in Private Eye calledMuckspreader. It was my first regular journalistic job and, while I had plenty of experience of writing, it was quite another thing keeping up a regular flow of original stories for a national magazine.

For advice on how to handle this, I turned to the first editor of Private Eye, my then partner in crime, a man better known as Christopher Booker. Amongst the tips he gave me was that, by taking two different stories already in the public domain, bringing them together, either to make or reinforce a point, could itself qualify as a genuine, original piece of work.

In that context, and using the shock effect of undisclosed links, we can bring together this story, illustrated by the picture above, and contrast it with this story - illustrated right.

Now to disclose the stories, in the first we see a pensioner was slapped with a £50 fine as she mourned by her father’s grave – because she came with the family dog. Val Brogan, 65, was tending the resting place of her late dad James Eyres when she was approached by two police community support officers.

Val – who was with her daughter, Nicola Erlan, and Nicola's cocker spaniel, Bailey – was told the cemetery had a strict no-dogs policy and slapped with the on-the-spot fine, despite her tearful protests. The fine has now increased to £80 because she has not paid immediately.

What is especially chilling is the leaden response from Manchester Police, who are responsible for this piece of inspired community relations. They have defended the action at St Joseph's Cemetery in Moston, saying "they were only following council orders".

And now for the contrast ... we have Emdadur Choudhury, who milks British taxpayers for benefits which include a free council flat in Bethnal Green and almost £800 a month state handouts, who last week "laughed at justice" as he was handed a paltry £50 fine for setting light to poppies on Remembrance Day and yelling "British soldiers burn in hell".

Further comment is largely unnecessary, other than to wonder at what precisely was going through what passes for the brain of District Judge Howard Riddle, the man who made the decision to impose the fine on Choudhury. Perhaps he should have some quiet discussions with the plastic police in Manchester.

We will permit ourselves the observation though, that any society which permits this contrast – and whose officials and elected representatives do not actively seek to remedy the matter – are party to terminal decay. But just to rub this in, we have another contrast – the fate of Pex, again highlighted by Booker, compared with the treatment of Emdadur Choudhury.

One could start getting seriously angry here.

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Pictures - by Richard... Monday, March 14, 2011

Something the Daily Mail site does extraordinarily well. The first image is especially haunting. Meanwhile, Dellers is taking on the nuclear issue, with his customary verve. The picture of the mutant pony is terrifying.

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And then what? - by Richard...

Yet another half-baked campaign for an EU Referendum starts up today, this one supported by The Daily Mail. Allied with the Democracy Movement, we are told by the "People's Pledge" that there are five key reasons why we should have a referendum:

• No one under the age of 54 has had the chance to vote on our relationship with Brussels
• The EU now makes a majority of the laws we must obey
• The UK has less than 10% of the votes in the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament
• The EU is costing Britain more and more money
• The EU wants to give itself new powers of 'economic governance'

Fine. So we have a referendum. Then what? The question, of course, isn't answered. It isn't even addressed. But, in the unlikely event that we ever have a referendum – and Euroslime Dave isn't setto rush into the breach – that will be the reason why we lose it.

The truth is that this is another make-work scheme for the Democracy Movement, yet another funding vehicle to keep the boys and girls going until the next half-baked idea lurches onto the horizon. But until someone is able to come up with a "positive object, it will do no better than the last attempt.

Speaking strictly personally, I am getting sick to the back-teeth of these ill-thought-out campaigns, and just a look at the campaign team and some of the supporters tells you all you need to know about this one. And I know it is terribly old fashioned to suggest it, but unless you devise anintellectual base before you set up a campaign, you will fail.

But then, these campaigns are in many respects designed to fail. They give the plebs something to do, make a few of them feel important and stop others actually thinking about what they should be doing - all the while soaking up funds that could be better used to drive a genuine campaign. And soon enough, there will be another one along ... so sign the pledges while you can folks! You know it makes [no] sense.

UPDATE: Raedwald isn't thinking, but Edward Spalton, on his comments, most certainly is. What is it about heroic failure which makes it so attractive to the Eurosceptic community?

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Ah! - by Richard...

Catastrophic Clegg tells us: "We still have a soul". But what sort of soul?

In a Napoleonic sense, he is an unlucky general. He has been wiped off the front pages by Japan, so his message has been completely drowned. But perhaps that is just as well. The Eurotrash want to reposition the Lib-Dims from being a party of protest to becoming the voice of Middle England.

Certainly, with that YouGov poll, he is going to be struggling. At ten percent of those who expressed a preference, he is only three points ahead of UKIP. And he thinks he can take the Middle England slot? He must be out of his tiny little mind.

But, as the a lone protestor at the conference said, offering a parody of David Steel's much derided conference proclamation of 1983: "Go back to your constituencies and prepare for oblivion."

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Fukushima for dummies - by Richard... Sunday, March 13, 2011

A concise, very simple explanation of why the world is not going to end this evening ... or even tomorrow. As they say, fuk-u-shima.

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