Blogging Has Been Light...

Due to an excess of partying.

And now I'm off on holiday to recover from said partying! Back in week or so, hopefully refreshed, tanned and to a nation that will no longer be requiring real life Dexters to in order to discuss changing the laws on prostitution.

Oh, and hopefully Prescott will have had a fatal heart attack, falling atop Mandelson and smothering the bastard thus finally managing a useful thing, albeit unintentionally.

Tesco Backs Minimum Pricing for Alcohol

Big fucking shock.

Let's see, they no longer have to use booze as a loss-leader, no longer have to cut margins on profitable booze and know smaller shops would be unable to compete with them.

They may as well have asked "would you like to make more money and reduce the competition?"

Jacqui Smith and Unfortunate Phrases...

Jacqui has a whinefest on the BBC website I see - oh noes, I got sacked by the public.

I can't be arsed pointing and laughing throughout, but these two parts of the article juxtaposed gives me a childish giggle:

She also inadvertently claimed for two adult movies purchased by her husband, Richard Timney.

 And:

For Richard to have to literally stay in the house with the curtains drawn for weeks on end. It was hard...

I bet it was!

Scum "Not Scum" According to Scum's Partner!

Why I don't like being upstairs on buses.

Three scumbag pricks decided to drunkenly attack some poor bastard on the basis he didn't have any ciggies. And in the comments you have this:

People should deserve a second chance. and being noted as scum is wrong people make mistakes and learn from them michael josh and the other boy are not bad people they wer drunk no excuse i know but i know all of them people personaly and josh is my partner. i know that they are all sincere about wot the did and people like u lot should know that mistakes are made. you call them scum i say ur scum! Miss rigby (love you josh sumner stagg x)

I have to agree on the second chance bit, but the thing is before you get the second chance you have to take your lumps for fucking up your first one.

Oh, and I'm not quite sure how "they are all sincere about wot the did" jibes with "yesterday, Aspin — who has previous convictions for attempted robbery and aggravated vehicle taking — smirked in the dock" or indeed how "people should deserve a second chance" jibes with "previous convictions for attempted robbery and aggravated vehicle taking"

Looks like that little prick Aspin has already had a second chance and roundly fucked it up, so I think 4 years is a little low, especially as it translates to under 2 years. No wonder these fuckers smirk in court, take the bastards aside and give them a few lashes in private (I support corporal punishment in certain circumstances, but not as bread and circuses) and I doubt they'd be as quick to thumb their nose in court.

Oh, and I think Miss Rigby should be sentenced to a GCSE in English. We all make errors, but her entire post reads like a retards musings. Mind you, given how Labour pissed all over education, that probably gained her a fucking A* in English.

The Guardian Alternative Cabinet Of All The Demographics

• Minister for Children - Jon Venables (child murdering Scouser demographic)
• Minister for Housing - Bob the Builder (fictional character demographic)
• Chancellor of the Exchequer - Robert Mugabe (token black demographic)
• Minister for Schools - Dev from Corrie (token Asian demographic)
• Minister for Health - Josef Mengele (evil dead Nazi demographic)
• Minister of Justice - Todd Chav (failed-by-the-state demographic)
• Minister for Scotland - Boudicca (historical female demographic)
• Deputy PM - Little Lord Fauntleroy (undeserving, wealth-inheriting demographic)
• PM - Polly Toynbee (capitalist-loathing property magnate, foreign holiday-hating Tuscan villa owning, toff-detesting upper-class scion demographic)

FIrst Couple of Bits I'm NOT Happy With

In the main I'm quite impressed with the coalition agreement, there are some bits that are really not cool though.

The two standout ones are the 55% required to dissolve Parliament and the retention of the employees NI increase without any changes.

The first is a pretty cynical attempt to ensure the other parties cannot curtail the 5 Year Plan, it's also going to be the headlock the Tories hold the Lib Dems in, as they'll no doubt explain that an early dissolution will go badly for them at the polls and their only real hope to keep any kind of powerbase will be to woo over those embittered at them allying themselves with the Tories.

I can understand why they've done it - they're doubtlessly worried about the remnants of the Rainbow Coalition playing silly fuckers - but it's hardly a wonderful introduction to a New Politics is it?

The second, the employees NI increase, negates some of the planned increase in the Tax Allowance lower limit.

Obviously the cash needs to come from somewhere to alter that limit, but it strikes me as foolish to rob Peter to pay Peter.

One of the thing I'd like to see happen is a staged NI system, so the better the pay the person is on, the more the onus of paying it is being passed to the employee rather than the employer. Yes, it's redistributive of me to say that, but since NI is allegedly for the benefit of the employee and not Just Another Bloody Tax (realistically that is precisely what it is though), the employee should pay the bloody thing!

It would also have the twofold effect of making employers do a bit of math where salary raises could actually save them money as the NI payments would pass from them to the employee, and the employee noting just how much NI costs and wondering "what the fuck is this getting me?"

A rejigging of the NI system would buy them a lot of friends at the low pay level (who may then forget about Labour) and at companies who employ plenty of well paid staff (who'll see their business NI rates fall), whilst making a few enemies of the upper quartile of income (dropping the 50p band would mollify them somewhat) and providing payslip-level evidence that the whole system is something of a Ponzi scheme.

That could just provide the platform to change the damn thing.

Those Tory/Lib Dem Plans According To Crying Lefties

After hearing much FUD, bitching, moaning and tears from people - many who have never even lived through a Tory government - I have ascertained the following policies:

1) Child benefit to be scrapped, it's not needed as iDave plans to feast on all newborns
2) America is buying the NHS from us, we're getting a Death Star to target poor people with in return
3) Anyone earning under 20k a year will taxed at 100%, anyone earning over a million won't need to pay tax
4) Old people. You're all going on holiday. To Dignitas.
5) The environment. To be set on fire to fuel the Poverty Death Star.
6) Parliamentary terms to be set at 1000 years.
7) Being poor to be punishable by death.

I don't like the Tories, but it seems I'm doomed to defend them at times until some of the fucking idiots out there realize the coalition isn't between Dr Doom and Hitlers brain wired into a cyborged great white shark. That's going to piss me off.

If You've Been Saving A Drink For A Special Occasion...

Now is the time!

Tomorrow I can fret over the Shiny Foreheaded Twats plans, but today? Eating, drinking and being merry are on the cards.

Fuck Brown - I Went Seeing KISS

Not my favourite band, but given they don't have a surplus of brilliant tunes they put on one hell of a show and well worth going to see - certainly in the "bands to see before you (or they) die" bracket.

Oh, and some sweaty sock resigned.

I can only assume Mandelson has photos involving Brown, a Henry vacuum cleaner, pink rubber tubing, soon-to-be-defiled and greased-up rodents and a shellshocked badger with a prolapsed arse.

Finally Got Around To Updating Blog List

I'm a lazy bastard, I know.

Leg Iron moved months back, Alice (UK House Bubble) has disappeared for reasons unknown and Crippen (NHS Blog Doctor) has retired.

Shortly it appears I'll having to remove Letters From A Tory, as he too is retiring from the blogosphere - although I thought much the same about Charlotte Gore but she appears to have found a new enthusiasm for blogging, one I hope LFAT finds as well.

I've added in a few as well, and as I'm having a lazy week (pub, concerts, staying in bed an awful lot) I may sniff around some for some new bloggage out there!

Are The Lib Dems Going To Do Something Really Stupid?

In their desire for a deal on PR, are they going to spurn Cameron's offer and swallow keeping Brown as PM?

And if they do that, do they honestly think Brown will deliver on that deal? Or isn't it more likely that we'll have another election before the referendum, and one where both Labour and the Lib Dems will be on the receiving end of the public's rage at Brown being propped up?

Time to discard the woolly ideology for realpolitik, it's that or lose the best chance of having some power and a platform to build upon they'll ever have, because if they do go for Brown's offer they'll be destroyed next election.

Were the Electoral Commision Expecting a Low Turnout?

Seems to be pretty chaotic in many wards, people being turned away as not enough returning officers are available to handle the number of people wanting to vote.

In Manchester hundreds have been turned away, and the BBC are reporting similar across the nation.

Looks to me like the Electoral Commission set their stall out for around a 60% turnout, and discovered quite a lot more want to vote. Which is good for democracy, not so good for my bet!

The Voting Fraud Not In The News

Well, seems that voting fraud is being investigated (at last), but in the latest Private Eye there's a story that would help nail Labour if was given the attention it merited.

It would seem that our wonderful Government have seen fit to ensure that UK troops - the ones registered to vote anyway - won't be able to. Those who wish to vote directly have to use the postal system, and again they've been delayed meaning they don't get to vote. The more cynical of you may wonder why, since Gordon gave them every bit of equipment they ever wanted apparently, the Government wasn't moving heaven and earth to get their votes in, in order to reap the rewards for being so good to the troops...

I can't help but feel that such a story being bigged up in the media would horribly embarrass Labour and cost them votes, so it's a wonderment it's not been splashed on front pages.