Andrew Neil gives a master class in eviscerating a loony left champagne socialist – this woman, Diane Abbott, MP, is standing as a candidate for leader of the Labour Party.

I especially enjoyed the “racist” moment – she didn’t like that….

Andrew Neil is no respecter of politicians…..watch here as he gave Lib Dem Vince Cable a good smacking. Also note his colleague, Stephanie Flanders with her sweet smile just before she kicks Vince in his crotch.

Just imagine Andrew and Stephanie giving the same treatment to Obama….

Am I the only person on this planet who can watch these clips and recapture those ecstatic moments of feeling I was in a whole new dimension, away from parents, teachers, bosses and that smug, suffocating, pompous world of received opinion?

Rock n’Roll came exploding out of nowhere (or so it seemed to a gangly British 15 year old going through all those frighteningly mysterious upheavals of adolescence in the 1950s). The notion of a “teenager” was still perceived by most of UK society as an American cultural phenomenon, as alien to our green and pleasant land as those other Hollywood constructs, the cowboy and the gangster.

Although there was an established record industry in post war Britain it’s output was constrained by tastes dictated by radio and that, for us, meant the BBC which had a broadcasting monopoly throughout the land. The result was a bland easy listening diet leavened, occasionally, by the odd “novelty” number.

There was, of course, jazz which had, by the late 40s become respectable and the trade mark music of the student population and it’s bohemian fringe – New Orleans style, in the main, often lovingly analysed and deconstructed by an emerging coterie of bearded cultural commentators. Strangely enough modern jazz, more inventive and adventurous than the predictable drone of trombones and banjos, never became deeply rooted amongst the mass of student opinion in the UK.

Naturally the BBC played some jazz.

Fortunately, like supporters of the Resistance in Vichy France, at night, under the cover of darkness, my friends and I could listen to a different music,  sounds that were ignored by the BBC even though they were beginning to echo across the American airwaves. These came via Radio Luxembourg, a European commercial station with a transmitter powerful enough to reach S E England and, even more exciting, AFN, the American Forces Network operating out of Germany.

Unfortunately the signal was never clear and constant from either station and the sound would fade several times during the play of one record. Nevertheless, through word of mouth at school, we were able to get some sort of fix on what was happening in US music and that was how I came across Bill Haley and the Comets.

In some quarters it appears almost de rigueur to downplay Haley’s significance in the emergence of rock music and portray him as a one hit wonder who just got lucky with Rock Around The Clock in ’54/’55. In fact this run of the mill country singer  had been experimenting with introducing elements of black rhythm and blues into a western swing style as early as 1951 and, by 1953 had gained national chart success with Crazy Man Crazy but it was Rock Around The Clock, first recorded in April 1954 that became a global phenomenon in 1955 when it was used as the musical theme for the film Blackboard Jungle.

By the end of 1955 rockn’roll was big news not just in the record industry but throughout the world’s media and Bill Haley was The Man – and before any jumped up little scribbler from Rolling Stone tries to say otherwise I WAS THERE!  Of course there were other singers and groups (almost entirely from the world of black r&b) who were cutting significant records in the early fifties and, of course, the appearance of Presley as a national star in 1956 had pushed Haley out of the spotlight by 1957 but the fact remains that it was Haley and RATC that created rock as the global culture of youth.

A few months after Haley went global Chuck Berry burst into the charts with Maybellene. Berry was an awkward and sometimes unpleasant individual with a chequered personal life but his music was lively and laced with humour. Most of his songs told little stories, vignettes of everyday life that moved to a driving beat. He accompanied himself with a distinctive guitar style that made the instrument sing.

Berry was one of the first black r & b artists to cross over into the national charts partly because he himself (like Ray Charles) was quite a fan of country music so had a feel for the best way of tailoring his songs for white audiences.

Fats Domino was another black musician who hit the charts in 1955. He was already a well established young bluesman but the driving, steady beat of Ain’t That A shame coupled with an insistent riff placed this squarely in the rockn’roll canon. Unlike Berry, Fats Domino was never suggestive, just straightforwardly cheerful.

Little Richard broke into the big time in 1956. Long Tall Sally was fiery and fierce and full of sexual induendo intertwined with almost Runyonesque humour = just the ticket for a bunch of hormonally challenged teenage boys…….

Elvis was, of course, what the emerging rockn’roll movement,  was waiting for, a good looking young white guy who sounded black. Sam Phillips watched the impact of the Comets in 1954 and realised that the avuncular odd looking thirty plus Haley could never generate an emotionally driven fan base. With Presley he found his diamond in the rough and over the next eighteen months he created quite a stir throughout the south. Once he moved to RCA at the start of 1956 he was immediately transformed into a cult figure.

We are now so familiar with the bloated, white suited Vegas image from the 1970s (why do Elvis impersonators always have to reprise that sad image?) but to me this is the Elvis I like to remember – rough, raw and slightly menacing……and that Scotty Moore guitar solo – I’d never heard picking like that before in the suburbs of South London…..

Like I said – am I the only one on the planet with these memories?

Well remember you heard it here first (I am always modest….lol…)

David Cameron will defend his decision to slash Government spending as he meets US President Barack Obama for one-on-one talks on the fringe of the G8 summit in Canada.

Publicly, of course, the mood music is all sweetness and light between Cameron and Obama but, behind the scenes the President must be a little irritated – especially as, for once, he appears to be at the receiving end of a sideswiping homily…

While countries with a budget surplus, like China, need to stimulate domestic demand, nations with large deficits need to restore confidence by “living within their means”, said the PM.

“The risk to us – and the Americans and others recognise this – is not taking action,” said Mr Cameron. “I think that the G8 will actually conclude that those countries with the worst problems need to accelerate their action, which is what we have done.

Then another twist of the knife in this article for the Toronto Globe and Mail where he hammers home the point of rebuilding the global economy through getting national national finances under control and ( another poke in the eye for Team Obama’s conception of stimulus) encouraging free trade not spooning out pork to special interests…

Third, we must continue to press for the real stimulus that our economies need: trade. Trade is the greatest wealth-creator ever known. It has lifted billions out of poverty.

Memo to the US right blogosphere – second look at Cameron?

Earlier this week The UK government read President Obama’s letter requesting that the G20 countries carry on stimulating their economies – in other words copy current US policy – and binned it.

George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, used his budget statement to force some unpleasant medicine down British throats in the shape of tax increases and cuts in public expenditure – with the promise of more public spending cuts to come.

“Our policy is to raise from the ruins of an economy built on debt a new, balanced economy where we save, invest and export. An economy where the state does not take almost half of all our national income, crowding out private endeavour,”

Naturally people aren’t out on the streets dancing with glee and there were squeals of displeasure from special interest groups. But it seems that most of us are actually behaving like political adults for the first time in years.

Despite slapping an extra £40billion of savage spending cuts and tax rises on the nation, Brits have given the Chancellor a big thumbs up.

On the issue if the chancellor has taken the right decisions for the nation as a whole 57% said yes, 23% said no and 20% were unsure.

Even when asked the question had he taken the right decisions “for you as an individual” the break was

Yes 42%
No 33%
Not sure 25%

Of course once the taxes and cuts begin to bite opinions might change. But at least we seem to be weaning ourselves off rainbows and unicorns.

Perhaps more people than usual read the gloomy comment from The Bank of International Settlements

As the Bank for International Settlements said in April, we have moved into a phase of this global drama where sovereign debt fears have reached “boiling point”.
It warned of an “abrupt rise in government bond yields” in industrial states as investors choke on a surfeit of public debt. “Bond traders are notoriously short-sighted, assuming they can get out before the storm hits: their time horizons are days or weeks, not years or decade. We take a longer and less benign view of current developments,” said the study.
“Rapidly ageing populations present a number of countries with the prospect of enormous future costs that are not wholly recognised in current budget projections. The size of these future obligations is anybody’s guess,” it said.

Chilling words for those countries whose leaders are still claiming that tackling the deficit is something that can be left on the back burner……

If you have friends or family in the UK why not send them a gift of cupcakes through the London based Small Cake Shop for July 4th. They can decorate the cakes with the US flag or most other designs of your choice.

Contact them here….

 Great news – President Obama is having a new road named after him in Orlando, Florida.

Less attention has been paid to the new road being built in Hanksville, Utah, behind Blondie’s Eatery. It won’t connect with Highway 95 and, after 250 yds will just peter out into nothing. However, as a tribute to the Obama stimulus it will be named Ozymandias Drive and there are plans to build a huge statue of Obama bestriding the road.

The famous English poet Shelley was not available for comment but his representative issued the following statement to the media on his behalf.

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The new British coalition government is about to announce a programme of extensive cuts in public spending in order to reduce the UKs ballooning deficit thus essentially giving the finger to President Obama’s demand that G20 countries, especially in Western Europe, should be wary of  reducing national debt too quickly.

So here, in very simple and easy to understand language, is a basic economic FACT to help Obama (who has never run a business in his life) grasp the essential difference between government expenditure and private sector expenditure.

Spending cuts do not destroy resources. They hand the money back to the private sector, where they generate higher returns and wealth-creating jobs. As Margaret Thatcher used to say, the government doesn’t have any money of its own: it all comes from the private sector. So, in terms of reducing the deficit, a pound cut from public spending is worth more than a pound of extra taxation.

Governments of the richest industrialised nations, including Britain, are reaching the limits of their borrowing capacity. Having bailed out the banks, they have now been bailing out each other, with the crisis ricocheting back to banks that have also been lending to the same governments. We are running out of lenders of last resort. If there is another crisis, some heavily indebted countries won’t find it easy to support the European Central Bank and the IMF.

Thank you, Mr President – now you can get back to your golf…..

The inimitable Victor Davis Hanson, as usual, cuts to the chase over Obama’s dismissive perception of the Anglo-American relationship. What spurred his piece were the reports coming out of the UK of a rapidly growing disenchantment with Obama and his administration.

There have always been Brits like myself who felt in their bones that the man was an empty suit, a construct fashioned like the Edsel from a premise that customers would buy anything as long as the PR struck the right chords. But over the last few weeks a growing number of voices, once held in thrall by the Obama myth, have suddenly discovered that this latter day American Ozymandias has feet of clay.

These voices do not just come from those on the right (like Daniel Hannan and Boris Johnson) who should, by the very nature of their conservative DNA, have simply known better but also from certain elements in those bastions of leftist rectitude, the Guardian and the BBC.

The eye opener, of course, has been the odious posturing by the lightworker over the Gulf oil spill and the decision by him and his regime to deflect criticism of their own gross incompetence by demonising BP as if its executives were receiving psychic guidance from the shade of George III himself. But, as Hanson points out, this is merely the most recent manifestation of a long observed pattern of behaviour that fits neatly into the zeitgeist of Obama and the circles of the American left from which he sprang

To be fair, the miffed British are reacting to two years of both perceived and real slights from the Obama administration. Who does not know the familiar litany? There was the rude return of the magnificent Churchill bust. The asymmetrical gift exchange with Gordon Brown — at the end of a visit in which the president repeatedly snubbed the prime minister — and the banal choice of gift for the queen the following month revealed a certain symbolic spite on the administration’s part.

…………………………………

Then there was Secretary Clinton’s unnecessary preemptory announcement of American neutrality in the next round of disputes over the Falklands. All this is topped off by the constant presidential trashing of “British Petroleum” and its mess in the Gulf, with the implication that a foreign interest perhaps does not care too much for a former colony’s ecology.

There has been some suggestion that Obama’s view of Britain has been coloured by the experiences of his grandfather in colonial Kenya where he was supposedly ill treated by British agents during the Mau Mau insurgency

I don’t buy that.

I tend to agree with Hanson that, like many on the left, Obama’s only interest in history is as a reservoir of grievance myths to buttress his own belief in the progressive agenda which seeks to construct a society of “new” men and women totally disconnected from the collective cultural inheritance of ages past.

What these curiously assorted places and people have in common is disdain for the Western tradition and, again, an unspoken dislike of Britain in particular. In such a network, one might hear of the Raj, of Mossadegh, of the Mau Mau revolt, but nothing of Magna Carta, the Scottish Enlightenment, the effort to stop Bonaparte, the terrible costs of defending liberal values against Prussian nationalism, Nazism, fascism, Japanese militarism, and Stalinism, or the largely peaceful withdrawal from empire — or the unmatched insight of Milton, Shakespeare, Gibbon, and Dickens, or the genius of Hobbes, Hume, Locke, and Burke.

I have a deep affection for the USA and, over the last eighteen months blogging at C4P and elsewhere have made many American friends. That doesn’t mean to say I slavishly support everything the USA does. As in any relationship with friends or family I am sometimes critical of and irritated by America’s attitude and actions. But the roots of true friendship lie deep and cannot be upturned by ephemeral disagreements.

Former Clinton bagman James Rubin recently appeared on the BBC blathering some cant about how we Brits needed to develop a thicker skin over Obama’s grandstanding and the vomit inducing remarks of some members of Congress.

I don’t buy that, either.

I feel offended by Obama’s posturing as I read today how more British soldiers have died in Afghanistan fighting alongside Americans in a war that we entered without question after the bloody attack on the USA on 9/11. I take comfort from the assurances of American friends that Obama is not the voice of Real America, only of an alienated segment.

Above all Hanson’s final words brought me great comfort. I only hope and pray he is right.

Obamaism is, however, not quite yet typical of American thinking.

Most Americans, across racial and cultural lines, still revere our British connection. It is what helps to explain why we are more like successful Canada than failing Mexico, why we look back at our own sacrifices at the side of Britain in two world wars with pride rather than regret, and why, for all the petty squabbling and rivalries, we usually think we are doing something wrong when Britain is not our partner.

What explains the way American Revolution unfolded and the success that followed is not just the courage and brilliance of our Founding Fathers but also the fact that we were revolting against Britain and not an Ottoman Empire, Russia, or China. Americans usually understand that, and so we blend our pride in American exceptionalism with acknowledgment that its font was British law, government, and culture.

Even as America becomes an increasingly diverse society, even as our schools turn away from traditional learning, nevertheless millions of Americans still grasp why we owe so much to Britain — and why we must never endanger our singular friendship with it, the cornerstone of American foreign policy. Our president’s cavalier indifference to Britain reflects a strain in American life, but not American life per se. We may too often take Britain for granted, but we do so because our unspoken debt to it and our appreciation for it are part of our national fiber. Barack Obama cannot change that — as we will relearn either when he shows contrition, or at such time as he leaves office.

Amen to that…..

Today President Sarkozy visited London to mark the moment 70 years ago when General de Gaulle made his defiant broadcast to the French nation from the BBC. The new French government under Marshal Petain had signed an armistice with Nazi Germany and ordered all French service personnel to lay down their arms. De Gaulles refusal was an act of mutiny as far as Petain was concerned and seen as an act of war against the new regime.

In the stirring radio appeal Gen de Gaulle declared himself leader of the “Free French”, spawning the French Resistance, which went on to play a crucial role in defeating the Germans.

He told his nation that “the flame of the French resistance must not and will not be extinguished”.

Winston Churchill also broadcast a speech from the BBC on that day, June 18^th 1940..

However matters may go in France or with the French Government or with another French Government, we in this island and in the British Empire will never lose our sense of comradeship with the French people. If we are now called upon to endure what they have suffered we shall emulate their courage, and if final victory rewards our toils they shall share the gains, aye. And freedom shall be restored to all. We abate nothing of our just demands — Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Dutch, Belgians, all who have joined their causes to our own shall be restored.

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour.

My parents listened to that broadcast sitting in their home in London. They never forgot it for the rest of their lives. Suddenly, they recalled, years later, Churchill’s stirring rhetoric at a time when things seemed totally lost, gave people a new sense of confidence – a feeling that, at last, after decades of weakness, the nation and its leader were at one with each other.

Transocean (a US company registered in Switzerland) owned and ran the rig and also the failed blow out preventer (manufactured by Cameron International of Houston)

BP owns 65% of the lease of Mississippi Canyon Block252, in partnership with Japanese company MOEX (10%) and US company Anardarko of Houston (25%)

There is also another US company involved with the operation – Halliburton – contracted to cement the well head

The BP title was adopted in 1998 when British Petroleum merged with US oil giant Amoco so,I suppose, it could  be called BP Amoco.

BP’s board has 12 directors, 6 British, 6 American. 23000 of it’s employees are American, 10000 British and, interestingly enough, shareholdings are more or less evenly split between Americans and Brits (approx 40% each) so US investors and US pensions will be hit as hard as Brits over this.

Above all nobody yet knows what actually caused the April 20th explosion so, until we do, any blame game must, by default, remain purely speculative.