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Thursday 23 July 2009

Verity Murphy | 19:19 UK time, Thursday, 23 July 2009

Here's Gavin Esler with what is coming up on tonight's programme:

Today's Quote for the Day comes from the leader of the country which produced, among others, Cicero, Ovid, Catullus, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Verdi, Rossini and... Berlusconi.

"I am a person of good taste, culture and elegance" - Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-ridden prime minister of Italy, who also admitted he was not a saint.

In tonight's programme:

Unfortunately we have no room for Signor Berlusconi but we do have room for the Norwich North by-election - what will be the impact of this by-election result on Gordon Brown and the Labour party?

Michael Crick will join us from Norwich where the polls will have just closed.

We also will have the latest on swine flu and a troubling film about the unintended consequences of the government trying to avoid forced marriages taking place in Britain.

One of the apparent victims is a Canadian woman who married a Welshman and has been told she has to leave Britain and go back to Canada.

Since her marriage was not forced and was perfectly legal, not surprisingly this raises quite a few questions which - again - we would like the government to answer.

Plus Newsnight has been given special access to the memoirs of Anthony Blunt, the man who spied for the Soviet Union for years. What have we unearthed? Watch Newsnight at 10.30pm to find out.

Gavin

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    I suspect the age limit on ILR-M visas has less to do with wanting to prevent forced marriages than Phil Woollas' desire to grab a quick headline. 'Look, we're making it even tougher for those 'orrible furriners to come here and steal your benefits'. Unfortunately UK immigration policy seems to be increasingly focused on persecuting easy targets (ie. law-abiding immigrants from Anglophone countries who go through the correct procedure) because frankly it's too difficult and expensive to actually go out there and do the investigative work needed to identify and repatriate those who shouldn't be here, and risks inflaming the wrath of inner-city communities in the process. Apparently Mr. Woollas has previously stated that he believes immigration policy should in itself act as a deterrent due to its expense and complexity; a short-sighted view which will result in many Brits with overseas partners taking their skills abroad whilst lowering the stakes for those thinking of bypassing the correct channels and staying here illegally.

  • Comment number 2.

    Following my series of ditties, I wonder whether it would be possible to have another one added on and which deals with the recurrent theme of:
    The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Cats and Mice
    Selfish and greedy the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú mice
    A game called 'thrice' invented once
    Cheese in the morning and once again twice
    Sprinkled with chaos which they call spice.
    But who is the leader and who are the vice
    And is the leader really that nice?
    Or are they just stuffed full of vice?
    The issue remaining is that one of cats -
    And whether they're comfy on Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú mats -
    The fat cats, the nice cats and catholic cats
    And who is their leader and where are his hats?

  • Comment number 3.

    Anthony Blunt collaborated first with the KGB and then with MI5/6; his most important achievements however, were his work at the Courtauld Institute and his priceless research and authoritative commentary and critique on the works of Nicholas Poussin; his clear and succinct style is a template for all writers on history and art - Schama take note.

  • Comment number 4.

    Nos2/3

    We dont count mimpromtu, we dont register, we now have a
    situation where we're just shut out, adjunct's to a feudal society
    wrapped up in a one shot vote democracy. Paxman et all can
    almost ask what the hell they like and were forced to cough up
    and be ignored. Its laughable to hear the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú going on about
    equality of opportunity and MP's expenses.

    WHO THE HECK ARE THEY TO TALK ?

    The patheticness of the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú type political correctness, go away
    and "reflect on his behaviour" public humiliation against the lock
    down discrimination from all sides on almost everything that keep
    the poor powerless under a social thumb and bleeds them to
    death to pay for their expenses.

    But the most complete acceptance legalisation of an affinity fraud
    has got to be the art world. This world is about who has the power
    to give value and therefore make money. The curators of the major
    art institutions have this power and the rich dealers and collectors
    hang on their every word. None of this as far as Im aware comes
    under the FSA or any other regulatory organisation. Its just amazing.

    Brown, Darling and Mandelson are finding out that the banks want it
    the same way. It will all go one way until our society implodes.
    Because they locked us into the banks and now its too late to try
    to escape the event horizon black hole of the money pimp whore god.

    Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú will just have the usual chat about it and watch the words stretch
    out longer and longer, slower and slower as we are dragged down the
    oblivion hole.

  • Comment number 5.

    Blunt - what could he possibly have told the Soviets? People forget that Britain's relationship with the USSR kept changing. To many in Britain of the 30s, the USSR was a model society (see the Webbs' book on this). Before that, in the 20s, Ford was helping set up the car factory Gaz in the USSR, and other US companies were heling out in the 5 year plans too. After June 1941, until a few years after WWII, the USSR was Britain's allie.

    As Orwell famously depicted in 1984, having a bogeyman with which to scare an electorate is a very useful tool for reinforcing domestic politics.

    Thatcher hyped-up the Cold War and Evil Empire just as she began wreckng the British Welfare State, i.e. re-selling the family silver as shares to British public whichalready collectively owned it and had payed for it via taxes!

    Most of us are pretty stupid, as we still haven't learned, so politicians are still at it - and as a consequence, look at what's happened - now we're swamped with narcissists.

    The (A)H1N1 'plague' has got to be involved in all this somehow... - I guess it'll help the FTSE a bit because of the SKB weighting just as Roche will help the DOW JONES, and I guess it gives Civil Servants some Civil Defence practice whilst letting New Labour play caring nanny..

  • Comment number 6.

    Addendum (#5) As I've said before, when teh Credit Crunch hit, our liberal-demcoratic politicians were exposed as 650 odd Wizards of Oz, and ever since, they have been desperate to make out that they actually do anything other than erode the state in the service of the masters of market-forces. They are worried because the like of the BNP are being listened to just as Hitler was listened to in the 1930s.... In fact, it's the PRC which offers the most workable model, and they're national socialist like Old Labour (which is now long gone).

    HMG's latest effort is to dole out millions of pounds worth of clincially all but useless anti-virals...(which work more or less like the stuff you put on cold-sores), meanwhile, millions are losing savings, equity if not homes, jobs etc....

  • Comment number 7.

    Matched and Despatched, or A Hitch in getting Hitched. The latest farce from Home Office.

    Yet another example of the problems caused for the innocent as a result of trying to accommodate alien cultures into our society.

    On yesterday's NN it was the problems caused by the UK trying to accommodate polygamy, even though it is illegal. Tonight it is problems arising from attempts to prevent another alien importation - forced marriages.

    Having encouraged such diverse cultures under the social engineering failure of multi-cultural Britain, deportation or at least imprisonment for those who break our existing laws, should have been the message, not more ill-considered legislation, tinkering yet again with immigration law, apparently ignoring advice received.

    From the 'the Telegraph' link supplied by JJ yesterday, it would seem that the government had not exactly turned a blind eye to polygamy, but dealt with the problem by allowing benefits for multiple wives. This news was hushed up, knowing the adverse reception by the UK public.

    One wonders what other changes in immigration rules are being modified in attempts to accommodate cultures that clash.

  • Comment number 8.

    Can I just point out that Rochelle's situation would not have happened a few years ago - because the immigration rules were actually stricter then! She would not have got as far as being able to marry here as a visitor to the UK. Rather she would have had to return to Canada, apply for a fiancee visa, and hope the High Commission agreed to grant that visa. As I understand it the rules on Certificates on Approval were liberalised as a result of a High Court decision in 2006, and it was with such a certificate that Rochelle was able to get married here. So she benefitted from one liberalisation of the rules, then she suffered from a tightening of the rules. I hope the Home Office allow her to stay though. I am amazed the relevant MP didn't refer the issue straight to the Minister! Why on earth go via the civil service in a case like this?

  • Comment number 9.

    #7 correction
    It was post #79 on 22nd July blog by pithywriter that contained the link revealing that the government clandestinely approved payment of multiple benefits for multiple wives. JJ's link was on another aspect of government deception and spin. NN insulted our intelligence once again by getting the same spinperson to 'explain away' the unintended effect of this latest piece of Home Office tinkering with the rules.

    Home Office again found 'unfit for purpose' so its time Newsnight considered a Vaz-ectomy.

  • Comment number 10.

    Here's an interesting report on the Home Office site... Don't know if I'm allowed to put this up.

    It states that people DO come here for the benefits and black market work. The other main draw was having a pool of your own ethnicity already here, to help you on your way.

  • Comment number 11.

    #6 JJ

    "In fact, it's the PRC which offers the most workable model"

    Though I accept your critique of market driven capitalism which seems to have become a cult whose authority cannot be questioned. I do have to also question your statement above.

    This can only be your opinion. In a NN studio debate last year Andrew Simms of the New Economic Foundation,



    referred to our work on the new development model.

    The PRC is very similar to free market capitalism in that it is still consuming the resources and stability of the earth's ecological systems into economic growth.

    The PRC model is still unsustainable. Celtic Lion has one of the leading workable models, now in the process of contributing to the quest for the the 'new development model', to supersede both the aforementioned methods and ideologies.

  • Comment number 12.

    BLOOD IS THINNER THAN DOGMA (#7)

    The importance of the British family is often on political lips. Odd then, that it no longer exists in terms of 'family doctor' and any sibling privilege when sickness strikes a brother or sister.

    Might it be that governance is more about the party-of-power getting re-elected, than governing with integrity?

    SPOIL PARTY GAMES

  • Comment number 13.

    VAZECTOMY (#9)

    Apt. I always turn my craft detector up full for Mr Vaz. Have we all forgotten how he simply disappeared a few years back (was it the Hindujas thing?) until the meeja forgot what they wanted to ask?

  • Comment number 14.

    woodhouseian (#8) Excellent, an informative, intelligent contribution - thanks.

    If the couple had been two S Asians (the husband a Bangldeshi Briton from Tower Hamlets (Bangladeshi/swine flu central it seems) and his young bride was from poor, rural Sylhet (NE Bangladesh where most Bangladeshis come from) I bet many viewers would have had a very different reaction to this carfully presented Adam-Rochelle affair. That of course would have been an act of unfair racial discrimination. So, first of all, hats off to the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú NN team for cleverly highlighting a difficult issue.

    Second, the Forced Marriages Act is also a way of dealing with a quite outrageous practice whereby S Asian Britons (for example) do unfairly bring in wives from say Bangladesh. I'm not sure it's still broadcasting, but there used to be a Bangladesh TV satellite channel here where callers openly phoned in (from UK and Bangladesh) saying they wanted spouses for residence in England.

    If there was ever such a programme with Canadian and English parties, or even USA and English parties (with UK citizens angling for Green Cards for instance) I wonder how that would have gone down?

    I don't think it's ever really colour, colour/nationality just makes a class of opportunistic (often unwitting) behaviour more obvious. I think it's people taking advantahge of other people's hospitality (Welfare state) which offends. I don't believe that most even see what they are doing and how it is taking advantage, either. That's what makes it so hard all round. Those who take state benefits here as an 'entitlement', even when they make no contributions also behave like narcissistic children - this is th problem of having a society so tilted towards rights rather han duties I suggest. This is what needs to change, which is why I keep linking to the as a good model (rather than the BNP). It's basically if you think about it.

    PS. KCL I think the GlobalWarming/ecology angle is a con. It's politics to beat the socialists with. They use coal or have lots of oil. See last section of the RollingStone article on Golman Sachs. Be careful not to behave like a 'useful idiot' ;-)

  • Comment number 15.

    #14 Oh there's plenty to be concerned about Jean. Not just coal and oil, although oil will be gone in a hundred years, not that it will bother me. ; )

    What is running out as well, are all the minerals, and natural materials to build and make things. Look at all the wonderful hardwood forests cut down in the far east to make shuttering for the building of Japans skyscrapers. And now the huge land grab that's going on by rich countries from the poorer ones.

    Not to mention water, that will be fought over and already is in some areas. And desalination eventually destroys land as it leaves other mineral deposits, although I suppose you can still bath in it.

  • Comment number 16.

    #14 JJ

    Unfortunately it may be you hoisted by your own petard, and unwittingly become a 'useful idiot' for the free market capitalists. Straight away you wrote global warming. I have only ever said GW is a symptom and the real danger is collapse of the ecological life support systems.

    Climate change is a smoke screen or decoy. By constantly churning it about, people believe that it is fully representative of the global ecological imperative. It isn't

    Ecolizzy made a very short post #15 and didn't need to mention climate change. Don't get fooled by the pantomime divide and rule, (oh yes it is oh no it isn't) that id foisted on the public.

    The real danger is buried slightly deeper.

  • Comment number 17.


    They keep splashing the headlines.
    I see this week they leapt about when it hit 29 deaths.
    but soon switched to a global figure when not many more deaths
    in the UK were happening.

    So, it looked much better to say 700 have died worldwide.

    How many die on the roads in a single day worldwide?
    it must be millions.

    The man from the BMA was excellent
    life is a risk from the day you are born.
    People have forgotten how to live with risk.

    To get it all in perspective:
    700 people a day die from Malaria.

    ----------

    YOU SAY SWINE FLU AND I SAY BLUETOOTH

    You say Swine Flu and I say Bluetooth,
    You say injection and I say protection.
    Injection, protection,
    Bananas, Havana,
    That's what's the world's about.


  • Comment number 18.

    KCL (#16) In your own best interests, you need to become far more realistic about what you are actually able to do, as at present your ambitions (and thus posts) are far too grandiose. What I have been referring to for some time now is based on practical work in the management of behaviour. What you post is eogotistical and grandiose, and it is extremely bad for your own self-image/esteem.

    Take this advice, which is well meant, and sound. You are misdirecting your energy, which could be put to better use.

  • Comment number 19.

    # 18 JJ

    You are plugging away in this blog and others seemingly trying to bring down the free market capitalist system, and replace it will another one -PRC and national socialism. Which will not work either.

    "(are You) misdirecting your energy, which could be put to better use"?

    You opined on my attitude, so I can have one back.

  • Comment number 20.

    Dear gordon Find A Bog, Look in2 It, Find A Boot Ooops

  • Comment number 21.

    JadedJean

    (i) Mrs Thatcher wrecked the welfare state
    - Only after it was bankrupted in the mid 1970s
    - With the marginal rate of income tax at over 100%, the then Labour government was on the verge of asking the IMF for a bail-out loan, as the nationalised "treasures" had been pinched from the private sector and then badly managed until they effectively bled the country dry
    - It was the governments of the 1970s which wrecked the welfare state

    (ii) The 1960s were responsible for the spread of social freedom in Britain
    - Only after the youth of the 1950s dismantled the British empire during their national service
    - It was the youth of the 1950s who actually put in all the hard work
    - Without the empire, the Civil Service was no longer needed
    - Once the established order had gone, the way was clear for the youth of the late 1960s to climb on the band wagon, grow their hair long, and take all the "glory" for themselves

    (iii) Post war socialism brought a better standard of living to the British working class
    - Only after the industrial revolution had for 250 years brought down the unit cost of production, which reached a larger market of relatively lower paid workers, which saw production volumes increase, which further brought down the unit cost of production, which reached yet more lower paid workers, etc
    - Only after two world wars shook the social order, and caused the european empires to be dismantled

    (iv) Before Elvis there was nothing
    - Only Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Benny Goodman, Cole Porter, Ray Noble, Al Bowlly...
    - And a wealth of classical music

  • Comment number 22.

    when will the guardian name the journalists?

    for most people their in no enigma about what kind of person Blunt really was? Someone who for personal ambition was happy to have blood on his hands? For 20 years no russian agent was ever caught yet every british agent behind the iron curtain was caught tortured and executed. At the time it was dismissed as 'bad luck' as it seem inconceivable that 'one of us' would work for foreign agendas.


    in the same way then it looks like there is a similar case at work today with the so called 'war on terror'? Look at at the make up of the FO? Look at the people who resign from the FO? Makes a clear philosophic pattern? of people working for foreign agendas?

  • Comment number 23.



    KingCelticLion (#19) 'Seemingly' being the operative word. You're not reading what I'm writing carefully enough perhaps? You're 'going beyond the information given' and imputing. Why?

    Most of the time I'm describing/explicating. Do you not see the crucial difference? If one can see what is going on more clearly/accurately, it becomes easier to act productively. Misread the situation and one goes awry. It's all about assumptions i.e empirical evidence. The logic flows naturally.

    Your reach extends your grasp. That's why you have to 'big yourself up'. It won't work. It never does for anyone in the end.

  • Comment number 24.

    erratum (#23) WHY IS TU QUOQUE A FALLACY?

  • Comment number 25.

    still nothing on the afghanistan wounded numbers.



    19 years ago joe biden is mentioned in the second episode/ series 1 of have i got news for you [see ytube] where they show he copies neil kinnocks speech. they also go on to say that he never achieved high office.

  • Comment number 26.

    #5; "..having a bogeyman with which to scare an electorate is a very useful tool for reinforcing domestic politics";
    - a tactic which some try very hard to deploy, with their dysgenesis this and their Gaussian that, or with their febrile cries, also heard on this blog, of "immigration, that's the problem."; what will the panic merchants do when the penniless UK emigre pensioners return from the most recent attempt at empire building in Spain?

    #5 ctd.;"most of us are pretty stupid..." I should say so.

    #23; "most of the time I'm describing/explicating." The rest of the time, diatribing/exprobating.

    Have the North Britsh cleared off? Someone must have told them it was a flag day.

  • Comment number 27.

    #23 Jaded_Jean

    "Your reach extends your grasp. "

    You are somebody whose explanation for your attitude to Jews is more or less the allegation that the Jewish Communist International ran things in the thirties and therefore Hitler had to do what he did. As I said this is almost the same argument that an SS Officer uses on "Auschwitz .. and the Final Solution" where he tries to explain how his belief that Jewish grocers in Berlin were crooked related to shooting Jews in Russia. You could have looked at the racial component of the "anarchists and Trotskyites" that Stalin ejected or the eye colour. Each is as valid as the other.

    Hitler may have been related to the Salomons and there is anecdotal evidence that Himmler may have had a Jewish grandmother.

    You also maintain that there was no Holocaust and what killing was done was done was done by the Russians.

    Notions of mass murder are made to frighten people, who are presumably anarchists and Trotskyites, off "statists".

    The Soviets were "statists" in your world.

    Your statistics imply there was no Holocaust as many Jews survived - but you are agnostic and so unpersuaded by your own statistics.

    I can't recall the chaps name but a BNP figure the other month blessed Hitler and claimed to be half Jewish - entry to the death camps related to Heidrich's one sixteenth rule. He also claimed Beckham was black - thats not an insult just stupid.

    The BNP readily propagate lies like the London Assembly character who is going to have to explain murders that never were - and is off work with "stress".

    The BNP are "not a Nazi party" they are a "modern and progressive" party. They cited a Spitfire and Churchill on their literature.

    Yet their supporters would do away with democracy in favour of the tyanny of National Socilaism.

    But then Hitler was amoral with his ideology - it was a tool to obtain power and the illogical xenophobia bound people together.

    It is no more than a thuggish replacement of aristocracy with a "cuckoo" ideology that will cheerfully steal any policy or tell any lie in the pursuit of power by its leaders.

  • Comment number 28.

    Could Newsnight do a piece on the alleged Nazi war criminal Djemjanjuk from the perspective of why all of the far right internet "experts" who proclaim there was no Holocaust are not going to offer their "evidence" to the trial?

  • Comment number 29.

    #16 kingcelticlion

    There is nothing "useful" about jaded_Jean.

  • Comment number 30.

    A good piece on the "forced marriage" and inevitably I would have liked more on Blunt - but we'll never get it.

    On Norwich tonight is the story going to be the apparent chaos in the Labour machinery?

    The "ghost" in the machine has disappeared and the Stalinist control freakery of the elite prevents the loony left returning - but also stifles any ideological debate that could enhance political recovery.

  • Comment number 31.

    #23 JJ

    I have just written on the cruelty of rat glue traps. Plastic covered in strong adhesive. An animal gets stuck on them either starves or dehydrates and dies or rips or bites it's own legs off trying to escape.

    These in the main are just cheap imports from China, just to make money.

    Apart from the cruelty to the individual animal. What does this say about the degradation of our own societies ethics etc. Lack of compassion, acceptance of cruelty etc.

    Now a group in Ireland contacted me having read my article. They have notified their members and our checking shops in Ireland.

    I am not in Ireland checking shops and raising awareness of this obscene product. But a small change is being brought about. Reach didn't extend grasp. It is the idea, the project, which exists separately to the project manager who initiated it.

    Perhaps now these traps are being grasped and taken off the shelves in Ireland. But it is not my hand that is doing it, nor did I command those who are doing it to do it. It is the the idea the concept, which is important. It is this which people associate with their values and motivations. And causes them to take action of their own volition.

    What have you done today to improve this world?

  • Comment number 32.

    MrTweedy (#21) "Without the empire, the Civil Service was no longer needed"

    I'm not sure why you included that line. As you know, the Civil Service is our Public Sector. If there had been improvements in efficiency through Market Testing (and it has many names, all euphemisms for demolition) I wouldn't object, but whilst automation has led to minor improvements in some areas, the overall impact on Britain over the past three decades has been negative in areas I'm a familiar with.

    As to things getting difficult under Labour in the 60s and 70s, I suspect that had much more to do with 'friendly fire' from the USA and trouble making 'evil-ones' here after WWII (now the elite). Even so, life was better in my view. I am not surprised by the depression statistics today. The female:males twice the prevalence, 1 in 4/5 lifetime risk of MDD. Even taking genetic risk into account, the overall stats are indicative of a very sad, political system I suggest. Especially the birth-rate.

  • Comment number 33.

    kashibeyaz (#26) "a tactic which some try very hard to deploy, with their dysgenesis this and their Gaussian that, or with their febrile cries, also heard on this blog, of "immigration, that's the problem.";"

    Your posts are becoming as silly/wrong as thegangofone's and as self-centred as KCL's. I won't be the only one to make this assessment.

    You need to learn how to read science. Perhaps then you'll start to see the folly of much that you write. You write histrionically/dramatically, like a brain feminized male. Am I correct to infer that you have an arts background and no formal background in science beyond school?

  • Comment number 34.

    In advance of Newsnight's Review tonight, which I'm hoping to watch, I wonder whether the following couplets could possibly be made public? They may yet get polished a bit after a bit of twirling so I may send a modified version later on.

    Satanic verse - tonight's subject to be
    With Martha and guests on Newsnight's Review

    Will Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú mice be in attendance
    And what's therein their presence their pretence?

    Who is it they are keen so to impress
    And with which mouse to which puppet guest?

    Is pizza to be served beforehand with drinks
    Or cheese with holes next to the sinks?

    Aqua and qua qua and qua qua and aqua
    And will they discuss the issue of fatwa?

    Will they condemn it or will they ignore
    Preferring to give in to aqua galore?

    Wake up, dear people, don't let them do that
    So I might be able to raise off my hat.

    Why not be yourselves, for a change at least?
    It would be for me a marvellous, true feast.

  • Comment number 35.

    THE LUCIFER EFFECT (men do as much as circumstances allow - Zimbardo)

    Leaving Hitler aside, let's look at Blair. He had at least one more-or-less unhinged close aide, and was quite prepared to exterminate 'others' - en masse - to herald in the New American ("can I be the man who holds your coat") Century - millennium even - Reich?.

    The Holocaust - whatever the numbers - was about man's inhumanity to man - JUST BECAUSE HE COULD. The trick is: don't lose the war under whose cloak you commit your atrocities. Today's British are blood-related to slave traders and slave owner - not to mention a plethora of massacres down the ages. It is MAN - indeed the MALE - who is opportunistically NASTY. The great error lies in elevating deluded juveniles to positions of power; this we continue to do. Blair was the epitome of such, and the stupid war rolls on . . .

    It is Mote and Beam time, yet again. But fool-or-knave, nominal Christians do not LIVE their religion, just observe it (from afar).

  • Comment number 36.

    thegangofoneone (31) " have just written on the cruelty of rat glue traps. Plastic covered in strong adhesive. An animal gets stuck on them either starves or dehydrates and dies or rips or bites it's own legs off trying to escape."

    Did you have anything to do with making the fly spray I've bought inert? It just make flies move further out of range when I spray them. It say on the can that it 'kills flying insects in seconds'. Flies are insects aren't they? I have used nearly half a can, can hardly breath myself, but the flies are fine! Is it just air freshener? It also says on the can 'SOLVENT ABSUSE CAN KILL INSTANTLY' Bet that bit's true!

    If you want to be loved, you're not going about it the right way. Trust me. I'm not taken in by your world saving rhetoric. It's self-serving.

  • Comment number 37.

    Hi,

    May I put to Mr Crick something that he might find quite startling?
    Is it possible that the Norwich by Election has no significance whatsover, to Norwich or anyone else, but perhaps it might if after taking soundings the former MP puts his hat in the ring again, in a years time? But who am I to say such things?
    best wishes

  • Comment number 38.

    erratum (#36) "thegangofoneone (31)" = "KingCelticLion (#31) - What's in that fly spray?? No wonder the flies won't leave, they're probably happy to get high and come back for more...hmm thegangofone.....is it masochism?

    Now... if you could aerosol him.....

  • Comment number 39.

    With just 18.1% of the electorate voting for the eventual Conservative "victor", surely this by-election is less a victory for the Tories and more a victory for people who would not trust their elected representatives as far as they could thrown them. Hopefully that question will get put to whichever smug representative of the Tories is interviewed tonight!

  • Comment number 40.

    This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

  • Comment number 41.

    I can't believe Harman of the Labour Party could describe the Tories as "arrogant" for saying the next election is in the bag and not laugh.

    Firstly when you think of the numerous Labour policy failures where public opinion was at odds with policy the list is enormous. Iraq, nuclear power extension, 10p etc etc.

    Labour are still half heartedly talking about how Gordon "saved the world economy" but are keeping quite quiet about Osbornes plans to improve financial regulation.

    But the first past the post system and the failure by Labour to pull up from there poll nose dive can only mean a Tory victory - but maybe not by as much as they want or Labour deserve.

    The Lib Dems should have done better and in my world the fact UKIP were so close is that the Lib Dems' Europe policy is too "happy clappy" and unthinking.

    The European ideal was based on rebuilding Europe after the Nazis and making sure we never went through the trauma of WWII again. But now, with too rapid an expansion, we have countries like Hungary who could elect fascists. Berlusconi is not a fascist but "one you would watch".

    Incidentally he was seen with Blair on holiday (who also took money for Labour from Ecclestone who has form).

    Serbia could become members sooner than is wise and you would not want people like Mladic, who clearly did do a deal to stay free, influencing some of the more extreme parties.

  • Comment number 42.

    Shame my aside about using aerosols to kill flies.... broke house rules

  • Comment number 43.

    #38 Jaded_Jean

    "Now... if you could aerosol him....."

    I think you will find that the Nazis went for an arsenic compound in the camps - that did exist.

  • Comment number 44.

    Given the far rights "reverence" for Hitler what do we know about the BNP's Griffin and his attitude to women? He is married I think.

    Jaded_Jean for instance thinks there are too many educated women and that more should stay home.

    Hitler thought "a highly intelligent man should take a primitive and stupid woman".

    If you saw "Inside the Mind of Adolf Hitler" the other week or have read the literature that comments on his brutish father and fawning mother you'll see the reasons for being interested in the profile.

    But then would a highly intelligent man put a shotgun cartridge into a fire and then sit about wondering what would happen?

    Would a highly intelligent man make an obscure racial link to Stalins ejection of anarchists and Trotskyites (they were all Jews) in the thirties?

    Of course not.

  • Comment number 45.

    thegangofone (#44) Do you understand why most readers find your posts nonsensical/uninteresting? That isn't me being unkind/abusive, just informative. Try to make your posts more informative. I think we all know now that you don't like Hitler, Nazis, BNP, etc etc. The problem is, it's all about you and your likes and dislikes, have you noticed? KCL is a bit fond of that too - much of what he posts focuses on him. It's like someone posting what flavour yoghurt they like and don't like.. relentlessly, and when they find someone who doesn't like, say, strawberry yoghurt, they go all potty and start abusing them.

    PS. Do you write the scripts for those SKY HISTORY programmes on the Nazis?

  • Comment number 46.

    I suspect the ADL will be looking into on the ?

  • Comment number 47.

    erratum (#46) "on the part of the FBI?"

  • Comment number 48.

    #47; thought that part was secret.

    #33; nope.

    #41; agree with comments on LibDems; if only Cable could be persuaded to take the helm, a more radical, pragmatic approach would be sufficient, possibly, to increase their share to Parliament hanging proportions.

  • Comment number 49.

    #14 JJI "I don't think it's ever really colour, colour/nationality just makes a class of opportunistic (often unwitting) behaviour more obvious. I think it's people taking advantage of other people's hospitality (Welfare state) which offends.

    I don't believe that most even see what they are doing and how it is taking advantage, either. That's what makes it so hard all round. Those who take state benefits here as an 'entitlement', even when they make no contributions also behave like narcissistic children - this is the problem of having a society so tilted towards rights rather than duties I suggest.

    This is what needs to change, which is why I keep linking to the socialist constitution of the PRC as a good model (rather than the BNP). It's basically Old (1945) Labour if you think about it."

    Sorry to repeat your earlier post at length - I've been out all day; in any case it's worth repeating, if only to allow me to disagree somewhat.

    No argument with your first two points, which I always state in response to the race jibe, except your words 'hospitality' and 'offends' rather understate the depth of feeling that I and others feel, having paid UK taxes over a lifetime of work, still have their pension income taxed (for a second tax on our earnings), and without any benefits cheques.

    With regard to your further points, either you are displaying our much abused English tolerance, or I'm getting cynical in old age. I was never sent to Sunday School, so don't wear that 'they know not what they do' or 'turn the other cheek' stuff. The average UK benefits 'blodger' knows when he is cheating the rest of society. 'narcissistic children' sounds like a cop-out, having just read some of the links, such as #10 ecolizzy posted.

    The PRC may well be a good model, though not apparently for the many Chinese immigrants who gamble(and often lose)their lives to enter UK.

    on a lighter note #21 Mr Tweedy: you left off Ken Colyer, Barber, Ball and Bilk in your para (iv)! Sadly Colyer died earlier this year but the others were at O2 Dome last night, sill playing traditional jazz. (that's the sort of cultural import we could do with more of)

  • Comment number 50.

    Following on from my comment #7 and the kind remarks about it in #14, I have now rechecked the situation. Apparently you only need to be 18 to get a Certificate of Approval (COA)to get married on a tourist (visitor) visa, however you then need to leave the country and apply for a spouse visa, which you have to be 21 to obtain. So I'm not clear what is special about Rochelle's situation. Surely this anomaly will just continue for ANYONE aged 18-20, until the immigration rules change to equalise the ages for COA and Spouse visas? Didn't they realise this age diference (COA=18 and Spouse visa=21) when they wrote the rules? And by the way, the minimum age for fiancee visas is now also 21, so if Rochelle had been forced to use the old system now, she'd be unable to get married here until she is 21.

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