Virgin Boss Dies Laughing

According to British Airways their new home at Terminal 5 is set to transform your travel experience.

According to the Daily Mash it also has caused the death of Richard Branson.

Meanwhile Heathrow has hailed the catastrophic opening of its new terminal five as an 80% improvement on a normal day at terminals one, two, three and four.

British Airways passengers had to wait only five hours to collect their luggage, compared to the usual 12, and only 300,000 pieces of luggage went missing over the day.Airport boss Bill McKay said an

'outstanding' first 24 hours had been marred only by a small riot and a handful of isolated knife fights.

He added: "It did turn a bit nasty when someone pointed out that the terminal was just a big shed that wasn't actually connected to any departure gates. Thank God for Alsatians, eh?"

The Daily Mash - RICHARD BRANSON DIES LAUGHING

Wendy says Soul-searching is Over

A couple of days ago I heard Wendy on the radio and wondered if she had had elocution lessons as her voice has considerably toned down.

Now we hear that, according to Wendy, Labour's soul searching in Scotland is over! Not if the image shown here is anything to go by.

One wonderful quote from the interview when asked How much support and help do you get from Gordon Brown?

Wendy Replies:

I talk to the Prime Minister when I have to. I suspect the last time I spoke to him was a month ago. It's not a daily conversation.

Seems to me she is trying to distance herself from him if at all possible.


Wendy Alexander interview: 'Soul-searching is over and we're on way back' - Scotsman.com News

Rousing the sulking, apathetic hordes

According to the veritable Polly Toynbee rousing the sulking and apathetic hordes who don't have an interest in Politics or want to vote is easy. Just give them the ability to vote for those who won't win in a straight forward first past the post election.

According to Polly

An alternative vote (AV), ranking candidates in 1,2,3 order, allows for a second preference to be redistributed from the lowest-scoring candidate's share until one candidate has more than 50% of the vote. It's hardly revolutionary, but it makes it worthwhile to vote for a smaller party as first choice, with a second-choice backstop to keep out whichever party you hate most: Greens and others can register their true support. It is such a small change it needs no referendum and should be done right now for the next election.

Notice how she says that the second vote can be used to keep out the party you hate most. Now I can't imagine that her desire for AV, as she calls its, is anything to do with the fact that the Conservatives now have a regular double digit lead in the polls.

Polly Toynbee: One small electoral change could rouse the sulking, apathetic hordes | Comment is free | The Guardian

Nimrod replacement under threat

How can we in this time of conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan continue to misrun and underfund projects in such a way that the lives of members of the armed forces are jeopardised every time they go out on Operations.

I have blogged about the problems with the Nimrods on a number of previous occasions. We cannot afford for this aircraft to be in active service for much longer without the likelihood of further casualties

The SNP MP for Moray, Angus Robertson said

"There are many legitimate questions about the increasing cost and growing delays in the Nimrod replacement programme.

"We cannot, however, lose sight of the safety dimension and the need to replace the ageing current Nimrod fleet. The tragic loss of the Nimrod in Afghanistan underlines the need for a replacement system as a priority.

"If the MRA4 is no longer the appropriate platform then which should it be, how long will it take to introduce and at what cost?"

Whatever decision is made it must try and ensure the safety of our Service Personnel on active duty.


BBC NEWS | Scotland | North East/N Isles | Nimrod replacement under threat

Ministers lay blame for Aberdeen’s cash woes on Liberal Democrats

Happily these days we are no longer living in Aberdeen as the council struggles to deal with a budget that is causing closure and cuts in a number of services, I must say I would tend to agree with the SNP who have said

...blame for the financial troubles at Aberdeen City Council was placed on the former Liberal Democrat administration yesterday.

This prompted claims that the accusation by SNP ministers will split the current Liberal Democrat-SNP coalition leading the city.

Spending watchdog, the Accounts Commission, has called a public meeting to investigate the council’s “precarious” financial position. It follows an Audit Scotland report that criticised staff absence rates, and the failure to introduce planned savings.

The furore over the council’s £27million budget cuts flared up in the Scottish Parliament yesterday.

The SNP in Aberdeen have inherited a precarious position from the Lib Dem's and now have to tighten the strings to get back to a decent financial position. Tough decisions have had to be made which the Lib Dem's preferred to brush under the carpet.


Press & Journal - Home Page - Ministers lay blame for Aberdeen’s cash woes on Liberal Democrats

Closure of "Rat Runs" in Aberdeenshire.

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

According to the Press and Journal

Minor roads in Aberdeenshire could be closed to prevent drivers using them as “rat runs” while roadworks are going on.

The proposal is one in a series of changes put forward by roads bosses at Aberdeenshire Council to address an increased number of complaints from commuters.

There are currently 27 routes temporarily closed for repairs, with around 300 closed each year — a figure “unlikely to reduce”, according to senior officers. Twenty-one complaints specifically relating to the closures have been received since 2006.

Head of roads Ken Morrison said the majority of roadworks are completed

“without incident or complaint”.

He admits problems have arisen in busy areas or where diversions have been “long and substandard”.

He said: “The disruption to traffic and the risk of a road accident has been significantly increased and is the cause of increased levels of complaint across the whole council area.”

One of the major concerns relates to the damage being caused to minor roads as a result of roadworks elsewhere.

Mr Morrison added: “There is increased concern about damage to minor roads used as rat runs when closures are in place. Signed diversion routes can often be lengthy and road users with a local knowledge will tend to use minor roads if it will save time.”

He said communities would be consulted before closures were approved.

Now this all sounds mighty sensible when shown in this context, nice orderly closing of roads whilst they are "improved" and reopening on time and without significant problems to the average motorist or the local residents. The line about complaints from commuters meaning "rat runs" will be closed is an absolute gem. I am sure the commuters who complained were not asking for the closure of the aforementioned "rat runs" but were complaining about how the closures are done and the poor planning and execution of these closures.

Let me take a quick look at one of the roads that has suffered the odd closure in the past few years, it is one close to my heart at the moment as it is a road I take twice a day on my 30 mile drive to and from work. It's a minor road and by its number, the B9119, it really sound very minor and perhaps you might think it could be one of those "rat runs".

It is in fact probably one of the busiest B roads in Aberdeenshire, or at least it would be if it stayed open for longer that a couple of months at a time. This road has now been closed on 5 separate occasions during the past three years for periods of up to 5 months. During this time 2 roundabouts have been constructed, drains have been laid on two separate occasions, and currently more work is being done to allow access to industrial premises. All of this on a stretch of road that is barely longer than a mile. It is now late opening again from what may or not be it's final closure for the current work with no sign of when the work will be completed.

Why have there been 5 separate closures, when with proper planning, this could have been done with one closure and all the work carried out in one go. This would have been cheaper, shorter and would have caused much less impact on the long suffering commuters in Aberdeenshire. The true cost of the roadworks on this single stretch of road is difficult to calculate but just in time lost for commuters it must be into the millions of pounds far less the knock on economic and environmental cost.

If as well as closing the main road the council then go on to close the "rat run" roads the cost would probably double or triple as the current "diversions" already struggle to carry the additional traffic, especially when they themselves have been subject to roadworks, some times carried out simultaneously with the main roadworks. The whole area would be at a stand still for both the morning and evening rush hours and other routes would also be brought to a stand still as the overflow of traffic moved onto use them.

Instead of closing the "rat run" roads what should be done is to make intelligent use of them by setting up one-way systems at certain times and restricting the size of vehicles allowed to use them. This would be safer and cause much less upset to people living along the roads. We have few enough decent roads in this area without taking away capacity just when it is most needed.

Of course I could also leave my car and home and let public transport take the strain. Well I could if there was any that provided a service to our rural area. The single bus to Aberdeen a day, taking roughly twice to three times as long as even my now delayed car journey. The train line was shut down by Beeching back in the far-sighted 60's. Or of course I could use the useful Park and Ride at Kingswells but it is a white elephant poorly used and now better employed as a Travellers camp site.



Move to close ‘rat runs’ during roadworks elsewhere.

Significant Failings of Browne

Rather than sort out the actual problems in Iraq I see Mr Browne of the MOD will instead attempt to stop Coroners from saying that there have been "Significamt Failings" as this Implies blame on the MOD.

What Mr Browne does not say is that there are "Significant Failings" and that the MOD should be blamed .

I cannot put it better that the Wiltshire Coroner David Masters who is currently tasked with conducting inquests into many of the deaths of British servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said

"I am unable to make any comment on this particular case"

Having said that, I do not consider that this will deflect coroners from conducting full, frank and fearless inquiries into the deaths that they are entrusted to investigate - those of people serving their country when they are killed abroad.

"If something needs to be said, I'll say it."

Browne In High Court To Stop Criticism Of Mod (from The Herald )

Dumbing Down at Cambridge

Cambridge University is dumbing down in order to try and meet it's target of having 60-63% of pupils from State Schools. In this case it will be dropping the requirement that students have passed a foreign language at GCSE ('O' level to oldies like me) level.

This is because nowadays in our dumbed down society less than 50% of Students from State Schools take a foreign language at GCSE level.

The university said one of the factors that has led to the review, was the fact that from 2004, children were no longer required to take a foreign language after the age of 14.

It said having a formal entry requirement that at least half of all GCSE students are unable to meet "was not acceptable in the context of Cambridge's commitment to widening participation and access".

Experts argue that many schools draw back from offering languages at GCSE because they are perceived as "difficult" subjects.

A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said forcing children to study languages does not motivate pupils.

"This is a position strongly supported by Lord Dearing in his review of languages in schools, and by teachers and employers.

"We are providing a more diverse range of qualifications - like Language Ladders, which work in a similar way to musical grades - and better teacher training, to motivate and enthuse students.

"There is now over £50 million a year being invested in language learning, and from 2010 every primary school pupil will learn a foreign tongue - which will help instil a love of languages at an earlier age."

All I can say is that we reap what we sow in terms of what we are going to get out of our schools. If we don't teach subjects because they are perceived as difficult how can we expect students to do well at a good University where hopefully the subjects will all be "difficult".

As the product of a state school, albeit one of the best in Britain, I can only think of the horror some of my school masters would have had at the thought of this now being the case.

My whole class of 30 achieved a grade A at 'O' level French, whilst also studying two other Languages. This cost my French Master a total of £2:10 as he had to buy us each a Mars bar having bet against us all achieving an 'A' grade.

BBC NEWS | Education | Cambridge drops language demand

Line Out

Today Malcolm was playing at the the North Midi Finals at Ellon for Aboyne.
Aboyne did pretty well for one of the smaller teams at the competition winning 3 and losing 2 games. Malcolm is lifting at the front of the lineout on the left as Aboyne win the lineout.

Prescott: A real Pig in his Sty

Nice to see that ever lovely character John Prescott has managed to cause such a mess in his grace and favour sty that it has cost us £3320 to clean up his filth.

If You or I the regular tax payer had done this to a rented property we would have been labeled as filthy chav scum, but in his world this would seem to be the norm.

As a regular mover from house to house in my younger days, I know the lengths that my family and that of my wife's would have taken when we moved house in the services to ensure that everything was left behind spick and span.

Eric Pickles, the Shadow Communities Secretary, said:

"John Prescott left behind a shambles in Whitehall. Now, we discover his grace and favour flat could have done with a liberal dose of Shake And Vac' and, as usual, he is expecting the long- suffering taxpayer to clean up after him.

"Serious questions must be asked about the growing cost of these luxury government flats left empty for long periods of time.

"And an answer is needed to one of the greatest political mysteries of all time: why does Gordon Brown's crony, Lord Malloch-Brown, need one?"

Prescott a true example of NuLab snouts in the trough.

3320 To Clean Prescotts Flat (from The Herald )

A Fairy Tale Degree in Selkies and Kelpies

The popular superstitions and festive amusements of the Highlanders of Scotland [by W.G. Stewart.]. By William Grant Stewart

According to the Scotsman you can now do a post-graduate degree in Scottish Folklore at Glasgow University.

Anyway I'm putting my wife up for this as back in 1822 her 4th Great-Granduncle, William Grant Stewart, wrote the above book.

At least there should be more truth in the book than there was in the Labour and Lib Dem Manifesto's from 2005 which are now proven to be true Fairy Stories.

Selkies and kelpies: The fairytale degree - The Scotsman

A question for my MP Robert Smith

I have a question for my MP Robert Smith. It is a simple question.

Why do you not honour your promises. Specifically your pledge to give me a Referendum on the European Constitution or as it is now known the "Lisbon" Treaty.

Back in 2003 and when writing about the then EU constitution in the Guardian, Nick Clegg, the present LibDem leader had the following to say about the need for a Referendum.

To consult the people, or not. That is the question. A question which is now setting pro-Europeans against each other. A question which is straining what is left of the cross-party pro-European alliance in British politics.

Cemented by a collective drive to urge both Tony Blair and the country towards the euro, politicians from all three major parties have worked more closely together in recent years than is often appreciated. Gordon Brown's grumpy refusal to budge on the single currency reinforced the common cause: to overcome the Treasury's myopia and allow the country to have its own say.

It is ironic, then, that the new source of internal dissent within the Europhile camp should be precisely the catalyst which brought the camp together in the first place: whether or not to hold a referendum. Yet the unity mobilised in favour of a referendum on the euro has evaporated when faced with the question of a referendum on the EU's new constitution.

Opinion on both sides is turning sour. The other day, a Labour colleague in the European parliament let slip the depth of feeling. "You're just playing straight into the hands of the Eurosceptics!" he wailed. We have worked together closely for years in an effort to drum up a bit of enthusiasm for the European project in our Midlands constituencies and rarely disagree on matters European. I admire him enormously and would almost count him a friend. This made his reprimand all the sharper.

Tony Blair, I'm told, has reacted with derision to the Liberal Democrat decision to call for a referendum on the new EU constitution. With that partly in mind, perhaps, he loftily declared in a newspaper interview this week that New Labour is "the only serious game in town". With his habitual amnesia he went on to assert that holding a referendum was out of the question since it was not consistent with British political "traditions". This from the man who gave us referenda on a Hartlepool mayor and Scottish autonomy. Never let the facts get in the way of a good political putdown.

The real reason, of course, why the government does not want to hold a referendum is the fear that it may lose. It is the same fear that has paralysed Blair on the euro for six long years. It is the same fear that led Peter Hain to camouflage the constitution with comic inaccuracy as nothing more than a "tidying up exercise". It is the same fear which has long restrained New Labour from expressing the courage of its meagre convictions on Europe. And it won't do.

The alternative, now unfolding before us, is infinitely worse: a false assumption that anti-Europeans are democrats, and pro-Europeans are not. By shilly shallying with semantic half-truths about the content of the constitution, and now haughtily dismissing all calls for a referendum, it is New Labour which is, to cite my friend, "playing straight into the hands of the Eurosceptics". By providing the hapless Iain Duncan Smith with a pretext to champion people's democracy, Blair is unwittingly doing more to reinvigorate Euroscepticism than John Redwood could manage in his wildest fantasies. Nothing will do more damage to the pro-European movement than giving room to the suspicion that we have something to hide, that we do not have the "cojones" to carry our argument to the people.

And our argument is strong. The constitution, assuming it emerges roughly in its present draft form, provides ideal ammunition to call the Europhobes' bluff. While it is no mere "tidying up exercise", it is galaxies away from the "blueprint for tyranny" laughably paraded by the Daily Mail. Even a cursory glance at the text - and I remain struck how few Europhobes seem to have bothered to read the offending document - would reveal that it is a significant reorganisation of how the EU will take decisions in the future, with some well reasoned pooling of sovereignty in areas such as a common asylum and immigration policy. It takes only hesitant steps towards greater EU coherence in foreign policy, and arguably weakens the position of key federal institutions such as the European commission. Far from being a Napoleonic plot to overturn centuries of plucky British autonomy, it represents a logical evolution in EU governance.

Compared to many of the previous steps in European integration, not least the Single European Act negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, it is fairly modest in scope. The bulk of the innovations in the constitution relate to the archane mechanics of the EU institutions themselves - the size of the commission, voting weights in the council of ministers, etc - rather than any revolutionary creation of new EU powers. The measured modesty of the constitution is precisely what is being obscured by the government's refusal to hold a referendum. In doing so, it has allowed the phobes to shift the argument away from the constitution itself and onto shriller claims about the democratic legitimacy of the whole EU. By forcing the phobes to argue on the substance of the text, a referendum would expose the hollow hysteria of their polemic.

Naive? Perhaps, a little. Inevitably, any referendum campaign is unlikely to be a scholarly examination of the legal content of a complex constitutional tome. It is possible that it will soon escalate into an unconstrained debate about the very place of Britain in the EU - in or out. So be it. A combination of outright isolationism, which remains the overriding instinct of the Conservative party and significant parts of the press, combined with mendacious claims about the constitution itself, will soon repel the vast majority of British voters. The electorate is not enthusiastic about the EU, that much is obvious from a volley of opinion polls. But, when push comes to shove, it is not prepared to countenance withdrawal, and more susceptible to reasoned support for European integration than is commonly assumed.

Blair has already jeopardised his place in history by failing to put the case for the euro to the British people. He now risks blowing it altogether.

Now in this new age when we look at the Lisbon Treaty Mr Clegg has changed his mind. Apparently the Lisbon Treaty is different, it must be, as according to him it is "smaller" despite being 8000 words longer, how did they manage this, oh yes they changed the line spacing. It is different despite being according to Parliament 96% the same (only 10 out of the 250 proposals have changed).

The following statements have been made about the "Treaty"

1. The author of the Constitution Valery Giscard d’Estaing has said that “All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way.”
2. Former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato has said that: “They decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception... Should you succeed in understanding it at first sight there might be some reason for a referendum, because itwould mean that there is something new.”
3. Belgian Foreign Minister Karel de Gucht has said that, "The aim of the Constitutional treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable… The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this treaty had to be unclear. It is a success.”
   

So all three of the above has wanted to dupe the European public into believing this Treaty was not the constitution.

I can understand why Mr Brown does not have the courage to go for a Referendum. He knows that despite his pledge in June 2007 that

“The manifesto is what we put to the public. We've got to honour that manifesto.
That is an issue of trust for me with the electorate.”
(Gordon Brown, interview, 24 June 2007)

He cannot honour Labour's Manifesto Pledge (Page 84 of the 2005 Labour Manifesto) as he will lose.

So I ask you Mr Smith why you cannot have the strength of your convictions as laid down in the Lib Dem 2005 Manifesto that

Membership of the EU has been hugely important for British jobs, environmental protection, equality rights, and Britain’s place in the world. But with enlargement to twenty-five member states, the EU needs reform to become more efficient and more accountable. The new constitution helps to achieve this by improving EU coherence, strengthening the powers of the elected European Parliament compared to the Council of Ministers, allowing proper oversight of the unelected Commission, and enhancing the role of national parliaments. It also more clearly defines and limits the powers of the EU, reflecting diversity and preventing over-centralisation. We are therefore clear in our support for the constitution, which we believe is in Britain’s interest – but ratification must be subject to a referendum of the British people.

Do you no longer believe this or are you just a stooge for the party rather than the public who elected you. Have you as Mr Hague said yesterday about the Lib Dems become

"so shrill - they have become separated from their cojones".

This despite a promise from Mr Clegg that his Lib Dems would 'prove their cojones' on the issue of Europe.

Now, Mr Smith, I didn't vote for you, I voted for a party that has held strong on it's promise to vote for a referendum, but you are my representative in Parliament and I could at least support you on your promise to give me a referendum, so why have you reneged on this.

You could have done what you promised your constituents and voted for a referendum but instead you toed the party line, despite many of your fellow Lib Dem MP's having the cojones to vote for what they had been elected on.

At the next election I will try to ensure you are not voted in again. I may just even, for the first time in my life, vote tactically to ensure you are no longer my MP.

My MP is supposed to put his constituents first, he is their representative in parliament, You have failed on this basic task, so why do you deserve to be in Parliament?


We need an EU referendum | Politics | guardian.co.uk