Getting It Wrong

It's not just the news, but the media struggle with details regarding sport particularly football - despite being a lucrative staple of the MSM and Sky Sports.

So given the high profile nature of Swindon Town's manager you would think some fact checking would be done regarding his name, at least. But no, above is an image from Sky Sports regarding Swindon's recent promotion.

And in the Telegraph last year:

It's Paolo not Paulo, his name is easily found on Wikipedia. And this is a mistake describing a former Premiership player who's on the list of best goals scored since its inception.

Amateurs.

Because They Can...

With local elections looming, it's becoming clear that, rather than a temporary blip, the rise in Ukip's poll ratings is a little bit more concrete. Whether that turns into actual council seats in May is something we'll have to wait and see for. What's obvious though, as England Expects notes the rise in Ukip is enough to start rattling the TPTB:

This has brought forth a small deluge of mostly hostile commentary in the press, some from commentators, others from largely Conservative politicians. The insults have flown "Swivel eyed" etc, the condescension dripped. "'UKIP were relevant 15 years ago", said George Eustice MP on Newsnight, "But now we have a robust Eurosceptic as Prime Minister they are irrelevant".

The immediate default response to a perceived threat to the cosy consensus, is not to listen, but unsurprisingly to turn the guns on the little guy even if he represents largely majority views. England Expects darkly warns:

However I am certain that this will not be the last story of its sort. Birds have told me that an edict has gone out from the coalition headquarters to friendly editors that UKIP must be hit hard. So I expect that in the next couple of weeks we will see a few more stories like this, dredged up, polished and presented to the public.

Naturally the MSM will oblige albeit with an additional bizarre and contradictory mixture of hostility, bewilderment and belated 'chin-stroking-what-does-it-all-mean' commentary, such as this from Iain Martin in Standpoint (my emphasis):

This is not just a Conservative problem. All the large mainstream British parties are in trouble and do not know how to respond to deep unpopularity, public resentment and the erosion of traditional boundaries. The Conservative response seems to consist mainly of pointing out that Labour leader Ed Miliband and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg are more unpopular than David Cameron.

This seems to be more than just a blip. Those in the Westminster village who say that the British have long mistrusted their leaders are underestimating the scale of alienation and potential for further fragmentation in a system that is so widely mistrusted. Turnout at the last general election was only 65.1 per cent; until 2001, turnouts were above 70 per cent. Britons have long moaned that voting changes nothing, but a greater number believe it true enough to not bother taking part than did even 20 years ago.

Iain Martin gets it wrong. That the 'mainstream' British parties are in trouble is true, but they do know how to respond to the problem. They are perfectly aware of the public resentment and the causes for it. Opinion polls, canvassing, letters to MPs, focus groups all tell them the details, as do comments under MSM articles. Trevor Kavanagh in today's Sun notes regarding the threat to the Tories due to Ukip (my emphasis):

UKIP will do well in the 2014 European poll, but it would be bizarre if David Cameron allows it to pinch Tory votes in the General Election.

The PM could kill the threat stone dead.

All he needs is an IN-OUT referendum on Britain’s EU membership to be held at the same time as the General Election.

Cameron's 'phantom veto' last year lead to a dramatic poll rise for the Conservatives made it perfectly clear what it takes to respond to resentment. They know. So it's utterly revealing that Cameron et al don't kill the issue stone dead. The lack of response to public anger is not ignorance by the main parties, but through choice...and crucially it's a choice for them because they can. And therein lies all that is wrong with our system of government.

Democracy is often seen as a positive process, basically you vote for a party who is more likely to be on your side, whereas in my view it's a negative process - a power to vote them out to force them to listen. To paraphrase Lincoln;

"[the] government of the people, by the people, for the people...or else"

And it's the rapidly deteriorating power to prick the consensus means that sadly I'm coming to the conclusion that our system has gone beyond reform within. While I wish Ukip good luck in the local elections, in order to win they have to play the game - where the odds are very heavily stacked against them. Even if they managed to, eventually, form a coalition or even form a government they face a very hostile establishment which will hamper them all the way. Just leaving the Lisbon Treaty alone requires 2 years of negotiations - a daunting task for any party let alone one that is inexperienced in the process of government and dealing with a pro-EU civil service. Instead I increasingly feel we need a 'cold' reboot of the system.

And it's for this reason I will be an attendee at the meeting in July for the Old Swan Manifesto. Its outcomes or influence is not yet clear. But politics like nature abhors a vacuum, with rapid disengagement from the political process we have to somehow fill that vacuum with something workable and reasonable. The consequences of the failure to do so doesn't bear thinking about.

Happy St George's Day

Above is the flag of St George flying proudly from the flagpole in my garden this morning.

Beware Of The Leopard

As regular readers will be aware I'm currently in the process of moving house. This has meant I've had to tidy my current place up a little - basically finish off those little DIY jobs that I'd always intended to do but never got around to completing. And as I'm downsizing slightly a couple of trips to the local rubbish tip recycling centre is required.

Now what used to be sometime ago a relatively simple visit is no longer. No way. There are more signs telling you what you can't do than there are rubbish skips. Everything, but everything has to be sorted into the correct bin of which there are countless numbers of them; a process which means disposing of your rubbish takes many times longer and turns you effectively into an unpaid council worker - the length of time needed creating long queues of cars waiting to get in. The landfill skip is made as inconvenient as possible to get to - so much so they might as well have a 'beware of the leopard' sticker on it.

Knowing this, I thought I would be cunning (or so I thought) and turn up as soon as they open this morning when it wouldn't be busy. Now as it turned out that was a big mistake. Being the only car there, I was significantly outnumbered by copious numbers of chaps in hard hats and fluorescent uniforms manning each bin, one of whom took a great deal of interest in what I was disposing of. At first he wanted to inspect every black bag I had and 'helpfully' direct me to the correct bin...then we got to my old television:

He asks: "Have you cut the plug off? We can't accept it without the plug being cut off".

Me: "Er no I didn't know you had to. I don't have any wire cutters on me, do you have a pair I can borrow".

Him "No, you have to use your own. We won't accept it with a plug. What's that?" (pointing at something else in my car)

Me: "A couple of sheets of Plasterboard"

Him: "We can't take that, it's recyclable  and we don't have the bin for it and it can't go in landfill - you'll have to take it to [a centre that's 30 miles away]. What are those, are they car batteries?

Me: No, they're UPS ones.

Him: "You can't dispose of those here, we only accept car batteries, you'll have to go to [a different centre altogether which is 15 miles in the opposite direction]"

At this point I was very tempted to chuck him in the landfill skip. So more than half of my rubbish was refused and I was directed to go onto two different other places that are 45 miles apart. Lucky petrol is dead cheap these days isn't it?

Don't Panic!

This is now getting silly, as we have yet another anti-UKIP piece in the Telegraph, by Europlastic Daniel Knowles. This from the same man who believes Thatcher brought in VAT.

"Ukip is an irrelevance" they keeping saying failing to appreciate the irony of continuously mentioning it. The recent coverage does however illustrate a neat point. This is what it's like when Ukip have a relatively modest rise in some opinion polls, imagine what the pro-EU MSM coverage would be like during an 'in/out' referendum campaign.

The 'outers' will lose.

Judas Goats And Other Stories

Master Hannan's rather pathetic apologetic piece for the Tories in the Telegraph is rightly getting a thorough kicking in his own comments and across the blogosphere.

Ultimately his conclusions are, albeit expressed slightly more opaquely than his colleagues usually do, is that it's Ukip's fault the Tories are in trouble and thus we should all be ashamed of ourselves. This is tribal loyalty at its most deluded as Hannan claims the Tories are Eurosceptic. The Talking Clock highlights this to be the fallacy that it always has been. Indeed, Labour has a better history of Eurosceptisim than the Tories.

Eureferendum calls the piece the return of the Judas goat. I really do like the term Judas goat. Not only does it sum up Hannan et al wonderfully concisely and accurately but it sounds deliciously rude - particularly if preceded with robust terms meaning 'move along quickly please'.

The Devil's Kitchen does a great fisking of Hannan's piece, well worth a read in full here. You really do have to wonder (if not admire) the levels of cerebral twister required to justify the following as a defence of your party and criticism of others not to vote for it:

It’s true that most Conservative voters would withdraw from the EU tomorrow. So would most party members. And so, I suspect, would most Tory MPs in a secret ballot. That, though, is not party policy.

But soon it's local elections and Hannan has to do his bit for the party like a good little boy. And given the dramatic increase in anti-UKIP rhetoric for the Tories, it does suggest that they are getting confirmation via internal polls, of their electoral problems.

UKIP In 3rd Place

The Sun reports:

UKIP has ousted the Lib Dems as the third most popular political party, a Sun poll reveals today.

The anti-EU party led by Nigel Farage has nine per cent support — with Deputy PM Nick Clegg’s lot on just eight.

This anti UKIP 'swivel eyed' rhetoric in the Telegraph recently seems to be going well then, almost as well as Cast-Iron's reforms of the European Court of Human Rights.

Belligerent Icebergs

The Daily Mail has a typical article bemoaning the lack of education by highlighting ridiculous twitter users who didn't know the sinking of the Titanic was real:

But the event has evidently proven more educational for some than others.

A number of tweeters have used the micro-blogging site to confess that they were unaware that the Titanic was a real ship.

However it rather undermines the sanctimonious tone of the piece when it then writes this, letting us helpfully know that:

RMS Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15 1912, after being struck by an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

Now I'm sure that's what the owners of the Titanic put on their insurance claim form, however the iceberg didn't strike anything. There it was in the middle of the sea minding its own business until some buffoons came along in a large ship and didn't watch where they were going.

"I Actually Believe My Own Bullshit"

It's very difficult not to take great pleasure in the heightened anxiety of the Tory party over the impact of Ukip on their poll ratings. As Richard North notes, there's a whiff of panic as the Cameron friendly media try desperately to mitigate the potential damage.

The Tories of course thoroughly deserve this, arrogantly taking their core support for granted in the belief there was nowhere else to go, they've increasingly been caught out by the 'Cameron-lite' and 'policy by Mumsnet' obsession of Notting Hill. It's such a joy to see those that supported Cameron from the start finding out that he's not quite what he seems, even though the rest of us had worked that out ages ago.

Naturally, as a form wagon circling, we can expect the usual tired mantra in response; a vote for Ukip allows Labour in, it splits the Eurosceptic vote etc etc.

So in the spirit of above I can't resist this from Fraser Nelson regarding the Cameron project:

Exactly two years ago today, David Cameron launched the Conservative Manifesto — one of those rare moments in the Tory campaign where it all seemed to make sense.

Don't laugh, he continues:

When he launched the Tory manifesto in Battersea Power Station, Mr Cameron was pleading to be taken seriously. This is not just a politician’s promise, he said, but a solemn pledge to bring in a new style of politics: “people power not state power”.

But whoops...

If he meant it, he should tell his Chancellor that charities, the vehicles of people power, cannot exist without their benefactors – so a Treasury assault on these benefactors is intolerable. This is not just another Budget hiccup, it’s a question of whose side Cameron’s government is on. As the old Tory poster put it: social responsibility, or state control. The choice is his.

 And in the Spectator he concludes on the same point:

The raid on philanthropists is the precise antithesis of what Cameron claims he came into politics to do.

Barack Obama, during the campaign, warned a reporter that ‘I actually believe my own bullshit’. Does Cameron believe in his own BS? We’ll soon see.

Given the recent polling most have already made up their own minds regarding that question. Nevermind though, the Telegraph continues its anti-UKIP message today:

What we hear here is not only the sound of panic but the closing of ranks.

Ten Out Of Ten

I've made my feelings known about blogger Guido Fawkes before - a blogger that claims to be against the establishment but is a tedious and fundamental part of it. With this in mind I spot a post from his on Wednesday (I'm not linking to it) on rumours that at least two Tory MPs are seriously considering jumping ship to Ukip,

Guido therefore gives the possible riders and runners. One of the 'runners' according to him is (my emphasis):

Bill Cash Cash has a history of causing trouble over Europe, and was famously part of the Maastricht Rebellion that did for John Major. He has a fractious relationship with Dave and led a rebellion against the Coalition last year. Said to be reaching the end of his tether, though has stated on the record he does not want to quit the EU.

And Guido's 'Eurosceptic rating of Bill Cash? 10/10.

Oh dear.