Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Take an article Miss Failygraph - by Richard... Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Akin to inviting A Hitler Esq to write a guest column on the need for an effective policy on the Jewish Question, the Failygraph has given up any pretence that its crapournalists are capable of writing about serious subjects, and given over its space to Chris Huhne to write on energy policy.

That's what it has come to - a once respected newspaper is reduced to sending its girlies down to Whitehall to take dictation.

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Well, we're totally shocked - by Richard...


It appears that the market refuses to be baffled with bullshit any longer, says Zerohedge, as theGuardian grudgingly diverts its attention from "self", to report some of the details. European leaders, it tells us, "bowed to the inevitable" and conceded that Greece is likely to default on its massive debt burden.

So, for all their high salaries and expenses, their poncy titles, airs and frigging graces, these Mighty Captains of State have finally recognised that which we mere plebs he been telling them since the dawn of time. In the meantime, god knows how many slap-up meals they've had at our expense, how much damage they've done and how much grief they have caused.

And now, with the euro in freefall and these vainglorious poltroons moving on to do their magic elsewhere – is it Portugal or will it be Italy, Spain or even Ireland? – the Failygraph and the rest of the crapedia continue to play their games.

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Opportunities lost - by Richard...

Portraying themselves as the guardians of democracy, what is beginning to emerge is the lengths to which the media are prepared to go – up to and including illegal acts, such as corruption – not to discover information in the public interest, but to acquire low-grade tittle-tattle, gossip and private details about pols 'n' slebs.

Compare and contrast the extraordinary resource devoted to gathering and processing their low-grade tat, with the resources allocated to stories such as this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this,this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this - all stories we've broken on EURef and our other blogs.

The further point, of course – which we have made before – is that crap sells. If the media didn't make any money out of it, they would stop doing it.

But the one favour they could do us all is for them to get off their high horses and stop pretending they are doing this for any other reason than to make money and pursue their own personal agendas. These people are so far from real journalism and the public interest that most of them wouldn't recognise serious stories if they leapt up and bit them.

If they achieved a fraction of what we blogs achieved, with the resources we have at our disposal, it would be a miracle. And given what we have achieved, I think we have every right to look down our noses at these ghastly creatures. While we have been looking after the real news, they have been pratting around with the tat - never missing an opportunity to lower their own standards.

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Past neglect - by Richard... Monday, July 11, 2011


After a run of detailed pieces on energy, in September 2008 we wrote a long article about the need for a coherent energy policy from the Conservatives – to the stunning silence of the chatterati, the media and the political classes. And now, almost three years down the line, we have them all piling onto the bandwaggon, too little, too late.

This is where true failure lies. By late 2009, it was very evident that we were heading for a train wreck on energy policy – which could only result in long-term shortages and increased prices. But there was no action.

One reason was that those in the politico-media bubble only think in the short-term – insofar as they can ever be accused of thinking. Another was (and is) that they are reactive, responding to events rather than pre-empting problems and heading them off at the pass.

But by far the greater problem is the sheep-like mentality. None of them want to be too far out on their own. They huddle together, massaging the same stories, the same issues and the same thoughts. And three years ago, "energy" wasn't on the group running list.

Thus, when we needed action those years ago, there was none. The political parties were allowed to go into a general election without energy policy being a high-profile issue. Yet, incredibly, the same dire, mindless nexus could prattle about climate change, the effects of which might be apparent is twenty, fifty or hundred years – or some time never.

And that is the biggest problem of them all. Faced with real, serious problems, the chatterati prefer to side-step reality, and indulge in fantasy and trivia, relying all the time on group-think to see them through.

Now we are paying the price – and we will continue to pay, as the media and the politicians obsess about "self". Even now they fail seriously to address issues which will have too many in early graves, as the combination of fuel poverty and cold weather cut down the impoverished elderly.

Thus, much of the damage caused by the politico-media nexus arises not from what they do now, but what they should have been doing years ago and didn't. As always though, this is far too complex an argument, which few critics will address. There is no longer an institutional memory to tell them they were wrong.

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Double bubble - by Richard...

Nick Clegg says in The Independent that the "pillars of the establishment are tumbling", not perhaps understanding that, as deputy prime minister, he is one of those "pillars".

Amazingly, instead of looking for the nearest bunker and hiding in it, Clegg tells The Independent that he believes the NOTW "crisis" offers an opportunity to clean up Britain's "rotten establishment". "The anger people feel", he says, "is almost palpable. The question is how we harness that sense of outrage to build something better for the future".

This is a man who really doesn't get it. He is so unreal that only one trapped in a fantasy life could exhibit such a delicious lack of self-awareness. He can see what is going on around him, but finds it impossible to apply his own observations to himself.

An almost exact mental equivalent would be a concentration camp guard condemning his colleagues for being part of a brutal regime. The lack of connection is that absolute, for a man who has to be driven around in a £300,000 armoured limousine to ensure his safety.

Clegg is trapped in a bubble of his own making, within the larger media-politico bubble – a double bubble, so to speak. From that, there is no escape. He will go to his grave transfixed by the very ignorance that he has on display today.

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Carbon dictator - by Richard...


A prime minister went to an election promising no carbon tax and is now imposing one. The Guardian has a report on this Australian charade, reproduced in part here with a few amendments and unauthorised additions:

The Australian government has unveiled foisted on its people one of the world's most ambitiousinsane schemes to tackle climate change destroy its economy, a plan to tax carbon dioxide emissions from the country's worst polluters most productive industries.

After a bruising political battle to win support for crush opposition to the measure, the prime minister, Julia Gillard, said on Sunday that from July next year, 500 companies would pay $23 (£15) a ton for their carbon emissions in the largest emissions trading scheme episode of collective suicide outside Europe.

The government predicts that by 2029 the plan will lead to a reduction in emissions equivalent to taking 45 million cars off the road. The government will fix the tax for three years, before moving to a market-set price in 2015.

"It's time to get on with this; we are going to get this done", said Gillard. "If we're going to commit suicide, 'tis better it's done quickly".

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Posted by Britannia Radio at 10:35