The Offside Rule Explained...

...For Women:

Unelected Bodies

Colin Firth is somewhat of a favourite for my wife (something to do with some scene from a BBC drama in the mid '90s) and he's currently, and deservedly, in the running for an Oscar for the King's Speech - a fine film although not entirely accurate.

That however doesn't stop him from being an arse:

The 50-year-old star of The King's Speech who was this week shortlisted for the Best Actor Oscar, said in an interview on Friday night that he believed people should choose their rulers.

A fine sentiment and one I agree with, he then goes on to say:

Asked for his views on the Royal Family by Piers Morgan on CNN, Firth said: "I think they seem very nice", and praised The Prince of Wales for his environmental activism.

But pushed harder for his opinion he added: "I really like voting. It's one of my favourite things".

Asked by Morgan: "So, an unelected institution isn't really your cup of tea?" Firth responded: "It's a problem for me, yeah. Unelected bodies".

So Colin Firth expresses anti-monarchist sentiments? This immediately in my cynical mind raises suspicions that his objections to unelected bodies is probably not all encompassing. Normally these objections are in conjunction with support for other more powerful 'unelected bodies'.

And so it proves. This would be the same Colin Firth who before last year's general election gave his backing to the Lib Dems. This is the party who said; "no, yes, maybe then we'll give a different referendum on the EU - anything to get the Lisbon Treaty through". Mr Firth's response? Er nothing. He later withdrew his support from the Lib Dems. Why you may ask? For his party's support of unelected bodies? Nope. For the Lib Dem betrayal on student tuition fees instead.

Then in 2005 Mr Firth lobbied the EU for fair trade, in particular the then EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson:

Mr Firth said that he wanted to lobby for the cause as a "European citizen..."

As a European Citizen, not a British one:

However, asked by the EUobserver whether he would get involved in promoting the EU, Colin Firth said without hesitation: "No."

But it wasn't a "no, because EU unelected bodies are not my cup of tea" response, nor was there any criticism of Peter Mandelson as an unelected EU Commissioner - instead Mr Firth is happy to lobby and engage with unelected bodies if it suits his purpose.

It always seems odd that the Queen, though granted is unelected but has relatively very little power, comes under criticism yet this criticism rarely extends to other unelected bodies, such as the EU Commission, the Council of the EU, the President of the European Council, Baroness Ashton or the European Court of Human Rights which passes judgment on prisoner's right to vote against the wishes of the UK people.

If republicans such as Mr Firth really cared about "unelected bodies" perhaps they would be better off starting with the bodies which actually have real power over public policy and the lives of real people, such as judges, quangos or international bodies like the EU.

Instead they waste their time fretting over an old lady who has a love for dogs and horses, her jet-flying climate change worrying son and the Privy Council.

But then some unelected bodies are more equal than others it seems.

Does The Daily Mail Read The Boiling Frog?

Probably not...

Iran has been embroiled in another censorship row after a top worn by Baroness Ashton was doctored in state media because it was too revealing.

Photographs of the EU foreign minister with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili at talks in Istanbul on Friday appeared the next day in Iranian media - but showed her wearing a top with a much higher neckline than she actually had on.

...but you heard it first:

Know Your Place

Sky Sports presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys ignore a fundamental rule of broadcasting by failing to treat every microphone as a live one, and engage in off-the-air sexist comments about female assistant referees:



Personally I thought that not knowing the offside rule was a fundamental criteria of being an assistant ref anyway, or at least that's how it always seems in practice.

BBC Bias

I've come a bit late to this article in the Daily Mail by BBC newsreader Peter Sissons regarding BBC bias. In truth he was never my favourite newsreader; he always seem to read the news as though he wanted to break through the television screen and punch me in the face. However his article on BBC bias, as a former employee, is a must read:

In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the ­pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’. At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.

By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. ­Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on ­running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’.

And surprise surprise the BBC supports the usual suspects:

Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good — it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN. Soaking the rich is good, despite well-founded economic arguments that the more you tax, the less you get. And Government spending is a good thing, although most BBC ­people prefer to call it investment, in line with New Labour’s terminology.

All green and environmental groups are very good things. Al Gore is a saint. George Bush was a bad thing, and thick into the bargain. Obama was not just the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House, he was the BBC’s. Blair was good, Brown bad, but the BBC has now lost interest in both.

Of course none of this comes as any kind of shock as Autonomous Mind points out. It's a shame, as is always the way, that the truth only outs from the inside when those concerned have left positions of responsibility.

For some time I've contemplated withdrawing from paying the license fee. Partly because I no longer watch much television, particularly because the news has become so much more vacuous, but mostly because of precisely the issues that Sissons' raises. The BBC will only listen via their wallets:

Complaints from viewers may invariably be met with the BBC’s stock response, ‘We don’t accept that, so get lost’. But complaints from ministers, though they may be rejected publicly, usually cause consternation — particularly if there is a licence fee settlement in the offing. And not just ministers, if a change of Government is thought likely.

The only thing that stops me is that my wife is less keen, and nervous of a license fee battle in court; not surprising as they adopt bullying tactics and go for the innocent and more vulnerable members of a non-paying family.

Baroness Ashton's Too Sexy For Iran

Baroness Ashton, the UK's, EU's foreign Minister is currently attending talks in Turkey over Iran's controversial nuclear program.

It would seem though that her top was too 'low-cut' and so Iranian newspapers have altered it to make it appear more Islamic. This is the original:


And these are some of the Iranian front pages:

Sshh!

I've said before and the Talking Clock notes as well today, why, in the UK, do we have to rely on a Russian news site for televised coverage of the UK and the EU?

Ireland Prints Its Own Euros

A great spot by the Talking Clock, the Irish Independent reports (my emphasis):

EMERGENCY lending from the ECB to banks in Ireland fell in December, the first decline since January 2010, but only because the Irish Central Bank stepped up its help to banks.

The Irish Independent learnt last night that the Central Bank of Ireland is financing €51bn of an emergency loan programme by printing its own money.

Wow! This is desperate stuff, the ramifications of which are potentially enormous. It surely defeats the object of a single currency having individual member states printing money on a whim. What is now obvious is that the issue of Ireland and its bailout is far from over:

In hindsight, the attention of the market moving to Portugal or Spain was a misdirection of where the real attention needed to be, and that is Ireland still.

The bail out of Ireland, funded currently from their own retirement savings, has not been ratified by their government. The ECB has not started to poured funds from the Stabilization fund into Ireland yet, as they await ratification of the bailout.

The bailout, like a ticking time bomb has not been ratified yet, and if Fianna Fail’s 1 vote coalition collapses before the vote, all bets are off as to it ever being passed.

And it's not even clear that Ireland have permission to do this:

Ireland Central Bank was allowed, with or with out permission, to print up up new Euros without new sovereign debt issued behind them.

As Ireland have now set a precedent will Greece, Portugal and Spain do the same? The inflationary pressures of doing so will greatly increase. So how will Germany react to this, given that they are obsessed with keeping inflation low at all costs for very obvious historical reasons.

The crisis affecting the Euro has just deepened.

'Legal Difficulties'

Much is being made this morning that the Government is introducing minimum pricing for alcohol, although in reality no such thing is actually being proposed. Instead of a blanket minimum price per unit, it is being linked to the duty and VAT paid:

Under plans to be unveiled by the Home Office today retailers will be banned from selling drinks for less than the value of duty and VAT owed on them.

But the announcement means the Government has stopped short of setting a blanket minimum unit price for alcohol – such as 50p per unit – which would have pushed up the average price of all products.

And there's a very good reason for this, a blanket price per unit would have been challenged in the European Courts as I blogged here and here. Don't expect the Telegraph to mention this though:

It is understood officials were concerned such a move would run in to legal difficulties. Similar proposals in Scotland were dropped.

No elaboration on what those legal difficulties are, and not for the first time has the Telegraph stayed quiet. In contrast even the BBC managed to get around to mentioning the EU in its report, albeit briefly:

Last September, the Scottish Parliament rejected plans for a minimum price per unit of alcohol of 45p, after opposition MSPs said the move would penalise responsible drinkers and could be illegal under European competition law.

Predictably the usual fake charities are not happy:

Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, said: "Duty is so low in the UK that it will still be possible to sell very cheap alcohol and be within the law.

"The government needs to look again at a minimum price per unit of alcohol. That is the only evidence-based approach that will end cheap discounts once and for all."

How about the evidence based approach that our real government lies in Brussels not in London?

Global Warming: BBC Bias

A short video on the less than impartial reporting by the BBC on global warming, via Autonomous Mind: