A sob story about long term unemployed jobseekers offered work experience placements as Diamond Jubilee stewards being badly treated was too good to miss for the media elite of the left. Frustrated by the widespread support for the Queen exhibited by millions of ordinary people and uncomfortable with the sight of so many union flags being waved the Guardian and BBC jumped with glee into the issue using anonymous sources to buttress accusations of “slave labour”

Unsurprisingly it was also picked up in the USA by the left wing agitprop website Gawker.

Rather than do some real journalism to find out if other stewards embedded in the scheme shared a similar negative experience the Guardian hacks looked around to see if there was any dim witted pompous windbag who could be wound up and propelled into the media spotlight to give the story political legs.

They needed a pea brained dim-witted has been who would be obtuse enough to pontificate loudly and aggressively without bothering to do any homework

Enter John Prescott

They then needed a highly paid and extremely wealthy member of the soft left media elite to highlight the wages of the people who ran the Jubilee Stewards project and to then try to sandbag one of them on BBC Newsnight.

Enter Kirsty Wark

The trouble with anonymous sources, however, is that it is always difficult to validate the truth of their statements by referencing their backgrounds and checking their claims under hostile cross examination so when several fellow stewards went public with their experiences while offering up their names the BBC/Guardianistas should have been delighted.

Unfortunately these people said their experience had been positive and questioned the accuracy of the Prescott/Wark line.

Isn’t it annoying how facts can so often spoil a good left wing fantasy…

Many came into London early, some even camped out overnight….why? Because were British….and, for once, no pontificating weasel popped up to say that sort of phrase was not allowed because it’s old fashioned, xenophobic and contrary to human rights…

A solemn service at London’s own St Paul’s Cathedral, lunch with the Lord Mayor of the City of London then back to Buckingham Palace where more than a million people stood outside cheering, singing and waving union flags…thus ended an amazing three days when, for once, the voices of the normally silent majority drowned out the shallow posturings of a sneering and patronising “cultural elite”

It was a special day. Despite the rain one million people lined the Thames to cheer the Queen at the Diamond Jubilee River pageant held in her honour….and less than a hundred of sour faced anti monarchists waved a collection of agitprop banners.

The figures tell us all we need to know – this was a day when, for once, the silent majority seized the agenda from the self proclaimed “cultural elite” who are usually telling us what we should be doing/thinking via their media pulpits.

If the emotional resonance of the spectacle tightened the throat yesterday, it was surely this unaffected pride of the people in their Queen and their straightforward but no less deep love of their country that really brought tears to the eye.

This is because there is such an enormous, latent, pent-up feeling of patriotism — that most decent and inspiring of emotions which, in our degraded public discourse, has now become all but forbidden to express for fear of being damned as a racist or xenophobe.

Patriotism is thus sneered at by the kind of people who unfortunately tend to dominate our culture and who lose no opportunity to be sour and mean-spirited about the monarchy and the people it so invaluably serves.

OK Melanie Phillips overgushed a little at the close of her piece but the core premise is rock solid – and backed up, surprisingly, in a confessional from the grand panjandrum of the BBC commentariat Jeremy Paxman himself..

So here’s a toast to our flag and our Queen and a remembrance of the second verse of our National Anthem, rarely sung today but which nevertheless probably echoes the feelings of most ordinary folk in our country.

O Lord our God arise
Scatter her enemies
And make them fall
Confound their politics
Frustrate their knavish tricks
On Thee our hopes we fix
God save us all

Amen to that, say I….

Well he has said it

On Tuesday, Euro judges rode roughshod over the will of Parliament by upholding a 2004 ruling that Britain’s blanket ban on prisoner voting is unlawful. MPs had previously voted by an overwhelming 234 to 22 majority to keep the ban.
Yesterday Mr Cameron was asked in the Commons by DUP leader Nigel Dodds: ‘Will you give an undertaking that you will not succumb to the diktat from the European Court of Human Rights in relation to prisoners’ voting?
‘Will you stand up for the resolution that was passed in this House by an overwhelming majority and that you will stand up for the sovereignty of this House and the British people?’

Mr Cameron said yes.

POW!!!!!!

Cue all the BBC and Guardian bleeding hearts to say how unhelpful this and surely Cameron could have a quiet chat with the ECHR and negotiate some form of weaselly compromise that would give European judges the green light to carry on dismantling our centuries old tradition of common law and parliamentary sovereignty. Cameron has let it be known that he will also defy any “punishment” issued by the ECHR (a stiff letter or maybe a fine) so he has really left himself no room for manoeuvre.

Trouble is he is not known for translating his verbal defiance of Europe into deeds…..remember his embarrassing retreat at a recent EU summit on the question of allowing the European courts to police any infringements of a future EU Fiscal Union? His original stance of open defiance was reduced to that pathetic “watching like a hawk” squeak.

Voting is a right and those who break the law and go to prison give up that right, no matter how many GCSEs or degrees they gain while inside.

Cameron is of the metro elite, a creature more at home with the chattering classes. His Euro scepticism is a sop to the right wing in his party who he secretly despises. But even he can see the growing appeal of UKIP so a bit of red meat thrown to the beasts has got to be par for the course.

Will he do it? We shall have to see – but if he doesn’t then I predict more Tory voters haemorrhaging to UKIP and the bell will be tolling for any hope Cameron might have of being Prime Minister in 2016…..

Only the BBC would dream of digging up a graveyard full of corpses who were punks in 1977 when we were celebrating the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

“I was against the Silver Jubilee, against the symbolism and the money being spent on the festivities. My friends and I thought the royals could afford to pay for the party themselves.”

Thus one Louise Bolotin, a 50 year old “writer”, reminiscing about those glory days. A real rebel was Louise..to show her rage against the machine she wore her “Stuff The Jubilee” badge ALL DAY…tell that to the Solidarity members who were being imprisoned in Communist Poland or the Cuban dissidents being tortured by Castro’s secret police. Louise showed true defiance and, what’s more, she feels the same today.

The Beeb revived other corpses to find the same sentiment and then proceeded to inform us of the historical/sociological significance of punk

Her attitude typifies those following the punk movement at that time. Although the nation had been encouraged to have a party in honour of the Queen, not everyone wanted to come.
The rising popularity of the punks provided a snarling, spitting, sometimes swearing outlet for some of the angry youths disillusioned with 1970s Britain – a time of strikes, economic hard times and high unemployment

What a load of pretentious colour supplement drivel. It wasn’t a movement, you moron, just a fashion trend like the Teds, hippies, mods, skinheads, Goths and thousands of others. There was no political dimension, just, like me in my Teddy Boy drainpipes in the 50s, a wish to irritate my elders by wearing something that made me stand out from the crowd and to make me seem intimidating (think hoodies)…the badge of youth in every generation.

However a tiny group of student/arty types muscled in on the trend and created a style industry and bigged it up to get some PR traction and, of course, with sound capitalist motives, to make some money selling music and fashion. These, like latter day Jacobites, are sad dinosaurs still dining out on the “movement” . Most of the punks, however, like the Teds and Goths and Mods grew up and became adults with families and proper jobs.

As for the BBC’s political point, as a teacher in South London during the 70’s, I remember that the punks tended to be the spotty, insecure loners on the fringe of school social life who found out of school solace in belonging to their outlandish tribe. In full punk gear they looked violent and terrifying but they were plaster board warriors who were essentially the embodiment of Urban Wimpdom.

So why did the Beeb even bother to visit this particular cemetery? The clue is in the description of 1970s Britain.. “a time of strikes, economic hard times and high unemployment”…it’s the BBC narrative about Cameron’s Britain and they are constantly searching for signs of disaffected youth. They thought they found it in the 2011 rioters but had to pull back when the public supported belated tough police action and harsh sentences. So, at the moment, they need to go back in time…except they forget to mention that punk erupted under a Labour government and the black fog of despair that fell about the nation in the 70s and helped spawn the punks was dispelled for the ordinary people of Britain in 1979 with the arrival of the BBC’s nemesis..

cross posted at Biased BBC

The BBC lost no time in pimping the foiling of the Yemeni Underwear bomber plot.

The US has foiled a plot by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to detonate an upgraded version of the failed 2009 “underwear bomb”, US officials say.

Quotes followed from Sec of Defence Leon Panetta and Sec of State Hilarry Clinton

“These terrorists keep trying. They keep trying to devise more and more perverse and terrible ways to kill innocent people,”

Full marks to all those involved in the uncovering of this AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) terrorist attempt to blow up a plane. The US media really went to town on the story with wall to wall coverage in what became a clearly orchestrated valediction of President Obama’s record in the war on terror – and remember, it’s Presidential election year.

First the celebration of the anniversary of OBL’s termination, now this….”tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism”
As the UK arm of Obama’s re-election campaign naturally the BBC went deepthroat on the story. Except, as the days went by, it became clearer that this was much more of a Saudi/UK operation than a CIA coup.

The Guardian has learned from Saudi sources that the agent was not a Saudi national as was widely reported, but a Yemeni. He was born in Saudi Arabia, in the port city of Jeddah, and then studied and worked in the UK, where he acquired a British passport

The Saudi’s recruited him for their own security service and almost certainly kept the UK’s MI6 in the loop. However the Obama administration’s boastful publicity has probably made AQAP more aware of the threat from double agents. Experienced US intelligence operatives were certainly not impressed

Mike Scheur, the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, said the leaking about the nuts and bolts of British involvement was despicable and would make a repeat of the operation difficult. “MI6 should be as angry as hell………………………..this is really tragic,” Scheur said.
He added: “Any information disclosed is too much information. This does seem to be a tawdry political thing.”

Sorry, Mr Scheur, you obviously haven’t grasped the fact that the item at the top of the agenda was not the need to protect an existing network – it was to create a useful 2/3 day “shining moment” to maintain Obama’s re-election campaign. Kudos to the the left wing UK Guardian for posting this – to date nothing on these lines has appeared in the BBC website; indeed I wonder how much of it has been picked up by the msm in America. One thing is certain, however, if this had happened under President Bush the Beeb would have been in full Bush derangement mode.

Meanwhile, as Obama, Clinton and Panetta bask before the adulation of the media elite, British, American and Saudi agents must be bashing their heads against office walls in frustration…

….and doubtless, somewhere in Yemen, men and women are screaming in agony as they are tortured by AQAP “specialists” tracking down moles. But, as they and their families die, bleeding and broken, they must find comfort that they died for a higher cause – a nice spread of Obama boosting coverage in the New York Times and, naturally, the BBC…

Binyavanga Wainaina – you are so right

Let us imagine that Africa was really like it is shown in the international media.
Africa would be a country. Its largest province would be Somalia.
Bono, Angelina Jolie and Madonna would be joint presidents, appointed by the United Nations.
European aid workers would run the Foreign Affairs Office, gap year students from the UK the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Culture would be run by the makers of the Kony2012 videos.

Mocking the image of Africa constantly pimped by the western media – especially the BBC – Wainaina, a leading Kenyan writer pleads for a more sophisticated and nuanced approach to Africa.

Africa’s image in the West, and Africa’s image to itself, are often crude, childish drawings of reality.

He wants us to dilute the image of the mud hut and tribal dance with roads, railways, cables, factories and offices.

Fat chance, Mr Wainaina – the British Guardian reading, BBC watching middle class want mud huts and tribal dances because they need to feel superior. Not in the old Imperial way of keeping the restless natives down with a Gatling gun but because they want to trade pity for gratitude. They lust for famines, droughts, massacres so that they can distribute largesse and feel good about themselves. They have spawned a vast network of NGOs, staffed by their own children just to show Africans that they cannot be trusted to look after themselves.

If they had their way Africa would be one vast national park where the mud huts and tribal dances would be “managed” in the same way as the big game. No cables or smoking factories would desecrate the landscape because the chattering classes need Africa as a background for the frenetic pace of their own lives.

Where would all those “caring” celebs go on Red Nose day if Africa became like India and China, thrusting vigorous economies that were challenging our own sclerotic bureaucracies? Where would Madonna go for her next trophy adoption? What would Oxfam do with all those blankets and condoms?

More power to your elbow, Mr Wainaina – and the next time a rather turgid BBC left wing “comedian” arrives in some “African” village with a fleet of Range Rovers and accompanied by a bevy of mini skirted “production assistants” carrying a football so that he can be filmed for 35 seconds surrounded by grinning young “natives” why not shove his red nose right up his anterior orifice and bundle him on his way….

Pubs, by their very nature, can be lively, noisy, boisterous places especially as the evening moves on and the alcohol keeps flowing. Some, of course, because of their clientele, project an atmosphere of potential violence where a word or even a glance can generate a challenge. My father, who had been brought up in one of the tougher parts of South London and then, as a soldier, became a frequent patron of pubs throughout Britain and bars around the Mediterranean, took great pains, when I came of drinking age, to induct me into the self preservation strategies that allow a drinker to sense trouble a half minute or so before it breaks out and head towards the most appropriate exit.

So I doubt that, if I had lived in Bolton, I would have gone within a quarter mile of “The Flying Shuttle”, described by the Daily Mail as probably the “toughest pub” in Britain. It appeared to be open all the time, in defiance of the licensing laws, not because the landlord held an open house but simply because the bar staff were too frightened to call time. In the end it took thirteen police officers to close it down and even then there was a mini riot.

But in the midst of even the most terrifying indictment of human degradation something can sometimes sparkle through the darkest gloom. Although the patrons of the Shuttle appear to be a mixture of drug dealers, thieves, gangsters and whores there is at least one person who seems to have not only a rather dry sense of self deprecating humour but also (very rare amongst the denizens of our underclass) a grasp of the English language and an ability to spell…….for he or she could turn The Flying Shuttle

….into The Lying Slut…

What’s that sound? It’s Will Shakespeare chuckling up there in the big library in the sky……

h/t UK Daily Mail

OK – Fowey in Cornwall has quaint little streets.

There are delightfully quirky coffee shops (Pinky Murphys and the Red Herring) and a superb deli (Kittows)….and if you stay at Duchy Cottage as we regularly do you can pop next door to The Safe Harbour and drink as much St Austell Tribute as you want without having to worry about being breath tested.

But, above all, the surrounding countryside is….perfect….

A few years ago a lady in the small Cornish town of Fowey felt that a local bus stop shelter needed smartening up……….but instead of just sitting around and moaning she and her neighbours did something about it…

It was scruffy and horrible and the seat was broken and it is one of the first things people see when they arrive here.
All the bits of furniture and paintings have been donated by lots of different people who all wanted to see the bus stop improved

So you can wait for the bus in proper comfort – now that is what I call real community action. Moreover the shelter has an annual makeover. We took the photo above last year (we go to Fowey quite often because it is my wife’s home town) but this year, as our grandaughter discovered) it has gone all modern.

What a difference when ordinary people decide to do things themselves…..