The Osterley Times

Saturday, April 24, 2010

The Tea Partiers: Older, richer and more resentful.

I can't even feign surprise at this.

A comprehensive poll conducted for the New York Times and CBS News and released late Monday CBS News/New York Times essentially found what anyone watching a couple minutes of news footage of a rally would intuit: the 18 percent of the nation that identifies with the Tea Party movement tends to be white, male, older than 45 and Republican. And also hypocritical: despite their anti-spending rhetoric, Tea Party supporters told pollsters that two of the federal government’s most money-consuming programs, Social Security and Medicare, are worth the cost to taxpayers (maybe not a surprise, given the Tea Partiers’ average age).

The poll also found that they are wealthier and better-educated than the public as a whole, despite Fox's attempts to portray them as ordinary Joe's standing up for their rights. They are rich people who are annoyed that Obama is doing too much for the poor. On what planet do the rich take to the streets demanding that the government stop aiding the poor?

Selfishness on that scale is simply breathtaking.

25 percent of the movement’s supporters think that the administration favors blacks over whites (compared with 11 percent of the general public). This point is reinforced by a study released last week by the University of Washington, which discovered that people who think that “the U.S. government has done too much to support blacks” were 36 percent more likely to support the Tea Party than those who didn’t think so. Among whites who approve of the Tea Party, only 35 percent said they believe blacks are hard-working, only 45 percent believe blacks are intelligent, and just 41 percent believe that they’re trustworthy.

And I keep detecting a hint of racism in all of this? Silly old me....

Click here for full article.

College Republicans create ‘W’ Day to honor Bush.

College Republicans at Western Kentucky University have decided to honour their dear leader with the creation of a “W” Day:

“With President Bush often getting dogged quite a bit in the media, and amongst younger people, I felt it was our duty to show that there is a fair number that support President Bush and appreciate what he did for our country,” [student Timothy Gilliam] said. [...]

A booth was set up outside the Downing University Center where any supporter could sign a giant thank-you card that will be sent to Bush’s home in Texas. Passersby could also catch snippets of the former president’s most famous speeches and pick up a flier highlighting his accomplishments, Gilliam said.

Dear God, that must be a small piece of paper.

Gilliam said he’s going to share the idea with other universities due to its success. More than 200 fliers were handed out, and about 100 people signed the thank-you card, Gilliam said.

Well, that is what constitutes a roaring success. A hundred people signed the card... and 200 fliers were handed out.

Talk about aiming low....

"When you have a famed, well known Republican hitman -- Roger Ailes -- running a news network, this is what you're going to get".

Fox News personalities have endorsed, raised money, or campaigned for Republican candidates or causes, or against Democratic candidates or causes, in more than 300 instances and in at least 49 states.

It's not remotely surprising, but it does show the blatant lie that Fox News is "fair and balanced". It's not, it's the broadcasting wing of the Republican party.

And they get away with it because they are so blatant about it. It's impossible to be shocked by something when it is so in your face.

Tory claims that hung parliament would cause meltdown are dismissed.

David Cameron and George Osborne's claims that a hung parliament would result in "a sterling crisis and the intervention of the International Monetary Fund" have been utterly rejected by a leading credit rating agency and senior economists.

Analysis by The Independent suggests that of the 16 countries worldwide who currently have the top triple-A financial stability rating, 10 are run by coalition governments. The majority of nations that have taken the toughest action in recent decades to tackle their debts were also governed at the time by coalitions.

It's yet another example of Cameron and Osborne attempting to frighten people into giving them a majority government, which all of the polls say they are way short of achieving.

Arnaud Mares, its lead UK analyst, said: "A hung parliament does not in itself have direct implications for Moody's UK rating. The three main parties broadly agree on the desirability of fiscal consolidation on a scale that, if implemented strictly over the course of the next parliament, would be consistent with the Government maintaining its Moody's AAA rating."

Another ratings agency, Fitch, assessed Britain's prospects to be "stable", a view it said it had reached bearing in mind the possibility of a hung parliament.

The Standard and Poor's agency lowered its assessment to "negative" almost a year ago, when the Conservatives were in a strong opinion poll lead.

Sixteen countries currently enjoy a triple-A rating – awarded to nations deemed to have close to zero risk of defaulting on their debts – from the main credit ratings agencies. Ten, including Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland, currently have coalition governments and 12 use a form of proportional representation for elections.

History also suggests that having large majorities in government does not prevent crises of sterling. The 1949 and 1967 devaluations both took place when Labour had a clear majority. In 1985 sterling fell to just over $1 when Margaret Thatcher had a landslide majority, while in 1992 the Tories had a working majority when Britain fell out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism.

A hung parliament, especially one formed between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, could be highly effective. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats are enjoying a huge surge in their popularity and their policies are actually to the left of Labour on many issues.

I see very little chance of those two not being able to come to agreement on a way to move the country forward.

Cameron and Osborne are doing what they always do, insisting that the country vote for them... or else.

It's tiresome... and it's proving to be highly ineffective.

The country simply isn't buying what Cameron is selling. A few months ago I thought he was sailing towards Downing Street for the simple reason that he was not Gordon Brown. The nearer we get to election day - and the more people are asking what he is actually going to do - the further he falls in the polls.

Thirteen years of Labour rule have made this country far more progressive than the Tories imagine. And the person causing real excitement in this election is not Cameron or Brown, but Clegg.

And the platform he is pushing is further to the left than the Labour platform. And yet the public like what Clegg is saying. They find him refreshing.

Cameron, by refusing to ever say what it is that he is going to do, is forgetting the first rule of Thatcherism. Thatcher always outraged you by saying exactly what it was that she believed, and she enjoyed the fact that she had outraged you. But the fact that she had said what many of us regarded as unspeakable was the very thing which made a large proportion of the electorate see her as strong.

The person currently speaking the unspeakable - scrap Trident, embrace Europe - is Nick Clegg.

That's why he is soaring ahead in the polls.

Click here for full article.

David Cameron targets north-east and Northern Ireland for spending cuts.

It's like he is simply imploding in front of our eyes.

David Cameron:

"In Northern Ireland it is quite clear – and almost every party accepts this –that the size of the state has got too big," Cameron told Jeremy Paxman in an interview on BBC1.

"We need a bigger private sector. There are other parts of the country, including in the north-east. The aim has got to be to get the private sector, to get the commercial sector going.

"Over the next parliament we have got to see a faster growing private sector, we've got to broaden our economic base and we need to have a rebalancing of the economy between the commercial and private sector on the one hand and between the state sector on the other."

So, as Liam Byrne was quick to point out, Cameron is saying that "investment in the regions like the north- east was unsustainable, while at the same time saying that tax cuts for millionaires were sustainable."

It's a simply astonishing thing to say.

I've said it a thousand times now, but this is simply a rehash of the very worst parts of Thatcherism.

"With every passing day David Cameron's big society sounds more and more like the same old Tories – tax cuts for the few at the expense of cuts to essential services and to our regions."

I can see why he has spent months refusing to tell us what it is exactly that he is going to do, because every time he gives us a glimpse under the bonnet of this shiny new car he is selling us, I absolutely hate what I see.

Click here for full article.

Friday, April 23, 2010

O'Reilly: Jon Stewart Loves Us.

Billo gives his response to Jon Stewart's latest salvo... and it's weak, weak, weak.

Stewart makes mincemeat of these guys and, judging by Bill's response, they have simply no reply.

US to resume talks with Israel despite Netanyahu's refusal to halt settlements.

George Mitchell has flown to Israel to resume talks with Netanyahu, despite Netanyahu's public refusal to stop building settlements in East Jerusalem.

Today Netanyahu told Israel's Channel 2: "I am saying one thing. There will be no freeze in Jerusalem. There should be no preconditions to talks."

But there is speculation that, behind the scenes, a deal is being done.

Although Netanyahu ruled out a halt on settlement-building, he was reported to have offered other proposals as concessions to the Palestinians. There was media speculation in Israel that Netanyahu may have publicly ruled out a freeze but will privately impose one.

It's interesting that even Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper are thinking that Netanyahu's stance is hollow:

The prime minister's response Thursday on Channel 2 that "there will be no freeze [in construction] in Jerusalem," is like Bill Clinton's "I did not have sex with that woman."

Benjamin Netanyahu did not insist this time that he will continue construction in Ramat Shlomo, Gilo and Har Homa - something he is leaving for Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to do.

Based on the speeches the two gave on Independence Day, Jerusalem Day came early this year.

The two were aware that the moment they were swearing that "united Jerusalem" would never be divided, Barack Obama's envoys were packing their bags for a visit to the region.

The Israelis knew that special envoy George Mitchell was not being sent to the eternal capital just to hear Netanyahu insist on developing the real estate business in East Jerusalem.

A deal has been done behind the scenes. But Netanyahu has done himself no favours by continuing to oppose international law publicly.

That's why Israel's usual supporters, the people who normally pop up at the drop of a hat to fight Israel's corner, are being so quiet.

Obama, by choosing to make illegal settlements the battle ground, has placed Netanayhu in a dreadful spot.

Only zealots will argue that international law should be ignored, and Obama comes across as a pragmatist for allowing Netanyahu to claim that he will continue to build in Jerusalem, even though we all suspect that he won't.

Netanyahu is playing to his extreme right wing coalition, and Obama is allowing him to do so.

The signs were thick Thursday that behind the proclamations of a "unified Jerusalem," a quiet accord was in the works with the Americans. As long as the Jews are not building in Sheikh Jarrah and Ramat Shlomo, Obama and his aides don't care what the Jews say about a construction freeze in Arab parts of the city. In Washington they realized that if Netanyahu wants to preserve his coalition, he can't allow any doubts about the "integrity of Jerusalem."

As far as the Americans are concerned, let Netanyahu run around telling everyone that Jerusalem is no different than Tel Aviv. The key thing is that the Palestinians don't read in the paper that the interior minister approved new construction in the Holy City.

I can see why Obama would allow this, but the truth is that peace will never be achieved with this particular bunch of right wing Israeli loons.

They don't want it. Indeed, they are dead set against it. The sooner they fall the better.

Peace won't come as long as this bunch are in charge of Israel.

UPDATE:

A senior Democrat has come out against Obama's stance regarding Netanyahu's obstructionism.

Schumer, a hawkish ally of Israel since his days as a Brooklyn Congressman, described "a battle going on inside the administration" over Middle East policy.

"This has to stop," he said of the administration's policy of publicly pressuring Israel to end construction in Jerusalem.

"I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk," Schumer told Segal. "Palestinians don’t really believe in a state of Israel. They, unlike a majority of Israelis, who have come to the conclusion that they can live with a two-state solution to be determined by the parties, the majority of Palestinians are still very reluctant, and they need to be pushed to get there.

"If the U.S. says certain things and takes certain stands the Palestinians say, 'Why should we negotiate?'" Schumer said.

The notion that the Israelis want to negotiate and that it is the Palestinians who are being obstructionist is so far from reality as to be laughable. And, behind all of this rhetoric, Schumer is basically saying that Obama needs to respect Netanyahu's right wing coalition and take on board the fact that they don't want to do any deal with the Palestinians.

"You have to show Israel that it’s not going to be forced to do things it doesn’t want to do and can’t do."

In other words, respect the fact that Netanyahu is in bed with a bunch of right wing loons. Schumer sounds as unhinged as the coalition he is speaking out to defend.

UPDATE II:

The Huffington Post:

Note to Senator Schumer: you have certainly unloaded a lot of blame on the White House today. I have done a quick lexis and Thomas search and have been unable to find a single instance in which you criticized the behavior of the Israeli government at any time on any issue.

If we are wrong, we would very much like to be corrected. Please let us know.

(Tumble-weed blows by.......)

Click here for full article.

Lib Dem leader narrowly won debate, Guardian ICM poll finds.

I watched the last forty minutes of it on TV last night, and will watch the whole thing on line later today, but the polls are saying that Clegg won the debate.

I thought Brown looked much better than he did last week and that Cameron continued to talk about the rise in national insurance as if it was the greatest threat to the recovery that anyone could possibly imagine. He sounded ridiculous and was clearly playing to what he considered his strong point, which made him seem partisan in a way in which the others somehow avoided.

But all the party leaders appeared to have upped their game from last week.

Gordon Brown, giving a far more prime-ministerial performance, opened by admitting: "If it is all about style and PR, count me out." But he made some pointed attacks and rounded on Clegg in particular over the Liberal Democrats' stance on nuclear disarmament, telling him to "get real".

David Cameron was noticeably more relaxed, although he failed to deliver the key knockout blow against Clegg that he needs at some point if he is to secure an overall majority at the election. The Tory leader repeatedly argued that his was the only party that could deliver change.

"It's clear from last week's debate that the country wants change but the question is: what sort of change and who is best placed to lead that change? If you vote Conservative you will get a new team and you won't be stuck with what you've got now," he said.

At the only point in the debate in which he appeared to get angry, he accused Brown of sanctioning leaflets full of lies over Tory plans to cut pensioners' benefits.

Last night's outcome suggests that the dynamics of the campaign – which saw the Lib Dems emerge as a powerful third force in the election – have not been reversed.

As soon as the debate ended, George Osborne popped up to repeat Cameron's point about Brown supposedly sanctioning leaflets telling lies about Tory plans to cut pensioners benefits - he even waved leaflets around as he spoke - so it's clear that they think this should be the next big story.

But all three were noticeably better than last week, with Brown even managing to look more prime ministerial than the others.

An hour after the end of the debate, a Guardian/ICM poll of 504 voters who watched the broadcast gave Clegg a narrow win, with the Lib Dem leader on 33% and Cameron and Brown on 29% each.

Brown, however, was considered the best potential prime minister of the three: he was on 35%, with Cameron on 33% and Clegg on 26%.

The Sun instantly announced Cameron as the winner, but we expected that nonsense from them.

The truth is that all three did much better than last week, with Cameron still failing to deliver any kind of knock-out blow.

I have always been of the opinion that the guy leading in the polls is an idiot if he agrees to unnecessary debates, as I argued when McCain was trying to get Obama to debate more. Cameron was foolish to agree to debate Brown and Clegg when he was so clearly ahead in the polls. He had everything to lose and nothing to gain.

These debates have not helped his cause. Indeed, they have positively hindered him. Brown, on the other hand, used the debates to turn one of his weaknesses into a strength.

"This may have the feel of a TV popularity contest. But in truth, this election is a fight for Britain's future. Your future and your jobs. If it's all about style and PR, count me out. But if you want someone to make decisions, and with the judgment and a plan for the future, I'm your man.

"Like me or not, I have a plan for Britain's future. And the way to do it is with a majority Labour government."

He played his cards as well as he could. Cameron continues to under perform, and Clegg is still using the fact that no-one believes he can win to his advantage. This election remains too tight to call.

UPDATE:

This is how bad things are looking for the Tories. UK Polling Report are predicting Labour fall short of being able to form a government by 59 seats, whilst beating the Tories by 267 seats to 255.

At that point I presume we have a Labour/Lib Lab pact and Cameron slinks off to obscurity.

UPDATE II:

Johann Hari:

The British media is overwhelmingly owned by right-wing billionaires who order their newspapers to build up the politicians who serve their interests, and marginalise or rubbish the politicians who serve the public interest. David Yelland, the former editor of The Sun, bravely confessed this week that as soon as he took his post, he was told the Lib Dems had to be "the invisible party, purposely edged off the paper's pages and ignored". Only a tiny spectrum of opinion was permitted. Everyone to the left of Tony Blair (not hard) had to be rubbished – even when their policies spoke for a majority of British people.
Both TV debates, then, have been a very rare moment in which a slightly more liberal-left voice could speak to the public without the distorting frame of pre-emptive abuse and smears. When, for example, have you ever heard the EU defended as plainly and clearly? The window of permissible opinion was opened a little – and people responded with a wave of enthusiasm. It could've been opened wider still – to the Greens, say – and found a receptive audience too.
These debates might prove more important than any of us could have predicted. Those crazy progressive notions have made most Brits rather giddy with excitement.

Click here for full article.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

How the Tories are screwing it up.

Now even some Tories are admitting that Cameron is not winning this election.

We shouldn't be losing, and I admit, from every friend fighting a safe or target seat, everything I hear tells me that we're not. Everything, that is, except the opinion polls. And whether or not we're losing, we're definitely not doing what should have been as easy as pie: we're not winning. No leader of the opposition has been as lucky as David Cameron, to have had flawlessly combined for him a monstrously maladroit prime minister and an economic crisis almost out of memory in its scale. And still we can't seal the deal, and still we're closer to our thirteen year run of low 30s rather than the lovely low 40s. Or, to put that rather more accurately, still he can't seal the deal. There was always a danger in literally rebranding the party "Cameron's Conservatives" and now the leader's seeing it good and hard.

Channel Four interviewed constituents in one of the swing seats last night and one of them branded Cameron's call for a small state and a big society "facile". I thought that the perfect example of where Cameron is failing to resonate with the voters.

He's offering sound bites where the public are eager to hear actual policies. Yesterday, he even dared to allow George Osborne out from whatever cave he has been hiding him in.

Call off the search – George Osborne lives! Given he had been entirely absent from public view for a week, the logical assumption was either that the Tory party had covered up the shadow chancellor's death in a bizarre croquet accident, or that he had been vanished somewhere to avoid repelling the voters.
Considering that Osborne himself is coordinating the election campaign, the latter would have indicated an almost admirable self-awareness – so do imagine the thrill when he called a press conference this morning, acting as though nothing had happened. It was like Bobby Ewing coming out of the shower and saying: "Morning, Pam. Let's talk about these unemployment figures."

So it's fair to say that even Cameron probably realises that this is not going as well as he must have thought it would. His campaign is a bloody mess because no-one knows what the Hell he is actually proposing.

Clegg's lead is of course a bubble. The tragedy for the Tory party is, so was Cameron's. A flimsy, shiny lead, pumped up purely by Gordon Brown's premiership, and with the prospect of that ending, Cameron's lead has gone pop too. It will take more skill than Cameron, and his campaign manager Osborne have shown to date to make the Liberal bubble burst before it's lights out.

Cameron's leadership has been all style over substance. Now that people are approaching the point where they actually have to put a mark on a piece of paper and elect him, they are left wondering what it is exactly that he is for.

Cameron still appears to find it impossible to give any answer to that question.

UPDATE:

This is their latest campaign poster. Talk about a panic amongst the ranks. They have spent years trying to lose their image as "the nasty party" and then dump this on billboards all over the country.

To go from "Hug a Hoodie" to this is quite a leap.

Click here for full article.

Mika acts like a child and the Right mocks Joan Walsh.

I am with Joan Walsh here.

EMMANUEL (V/O): ...I think it helps us all to say there are extreme voices on the left, there are extreme voices on the right, and it's our responsibility to call out people, I believe, on our side.

JOAN WALSH: Who would you have me call out? I mean who would you say on the left is comparable to Rush and...

SCARBOROUGH: Don't do it.

MIKA BREZEZINSKI: Mmm-mmm! No thanks, Joan. We're good. We're good.

SCARBOROUGH: Can we talk about the Chinese now?

MIKA: I think it's all very obvious.

WALSH: Is it obvious? Who on the left is comparable to Rush and Glenn on the right?

MIKA: Okay, Joan, if it's not obvious to you I'll talk to you off-set. I mean, my God! Alright so let's read from the Washington Post...

SCARBOROUGH: We'll talk off-set.

WALSH: Okay...

MIKA: Seriously, it's like BLIP... BLIP... BLIP... right in front of you and you're like [imitates willfully clueless Walsh] "I'm sorry, I don't see it!"

Maybe I'm as thick as Joan Walsh, but I'd love to know who the equivalent person on the left is. By which I mean someone who takes as extreme positions as Rush and Beck do, and who are as casual in their relationship to the truth as both of those men are.

I am assuming that Mika and Scarborough have Olbermann in mind, but does he seriously go off the rails as consistently as Beck and Limbaugh do? Is there anything he does which is remotely equivalent to the hatemongering which Beck and Limbaugh indulge in on a daily basis?

UPDATE:

Jon Stewart gives a musical example of how the satirists on the left always appear much more balanced than their right wing opponents.

You like to pretend that the relentless conservative activism of Fox News is the equivalent of the disorganized liberal influence you find at NBC, ABC and CBS.

You may be able to detect a liberal pathogen..in their bloodstream.. however faint.

But Fox News is such a crazy overreaction to that perceived threat, you're like an auto immune disorder.

I'm not saying the virus doesn't exist in some small quantity.

But you're producing way too many antibodies.

Fox News. You're the Lupus of news.

I just can't see Limbaugh or Beck ever being that funny or balanced. They appear to trade on anger and fear and very little else.

GOP chairman: African-Americans not given good reason to vote for party.

I honestly wonder how long Michael Steele can soldier on if he keeps saying things like this.

Why should an African-American vote Republican?

"You really don't have a reason to, to be honest -- we haven't done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True," Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night.

And the reasons he gives for saying this?

"We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans," Steele said. "This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don't walk away from parties, Their parties walk away from them.

"For the last 40-plus years we had a 'Southern Strategy' that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, 'Bubba' went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton."

I don't disagree with the sentiments that he is expressing, Nixon did indeed implement the "Southern Strategy".

However, I am puzzled that he can make this entirely sensible point whilst also espousing the need to listen to the Tea Party movement.

"I have advised our state chairs: Don't turn your nose up, or turn away those who are active in the Tea Party movement. Embrace them. Welcome them. Talk to them," Steele said. "Those activists have now become a very large part of our voting bloc. They represent a third or more of the voting age population, so they're going to have a profound impact on elections and in some cases in the primaries this November and this spring. Both parties had better pay attention."

What are the Tea party movement, if not a collection of disgruntled whites wanting to "take back our country" from the first ever black president?

Steele is making the sensible point that the Republicans have for far too long centred their message on the white Southern vote, but then he asks that the party listens to the Tea Party movement who seem, to me, to be the latest manifestation of that strategy.

It's a contradictory message. He appears to be trying to ride two horses which are moving in opposite directions.

Click here for full article.

Fury as Ryanair refuses to pay stranded passengers' costs.

The skies around Osterley are once more filling with planes as the fallout from the Icelandic volcanic eruption finally appears to be coming to an end.

However, Ryanair are now trying to get out of having to pay for the hotel bills of customers who were left stranded at destinations all over the world.

The budget airline Ryanair today sparked a furious response from politicians and risked a consumer backlash by refusing to pay the hotel and food bills of passengers stranded by the volcanic ash cloud, in a blatant refusal to abide by strict EU consumer rules.

As Britain's skies opened for business at last after a catastrophic six-day shutdown, the carrier's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, told passengers his airline would not meet hotel and subsistence expenses incurred while they were stuck abroad. Ryanair would reimburse travellers the original price of their air fare and no more, he said.

Europe-wide regulations demand that airlines provide food and drinks and hotel accommodation if appropriate when passengers are stranded. There are no time or monetary limits on the commitment, which Ryanair repeats on its website. Pressed on the legality of his stance, O'Leary challenged Ireland's airline regulator, the Commission for Aviation Regulation, to take him to court. It is estimated Ryanair's stance could affect as many as 400,000 passengers, and potentially save the airline millions of pounds.

I have listened for days to people talking about relatives "stuck in the Maldives", with the clear implication that this is a nice situation in which to find oneself "stuck".

However, I thought most people were missing the point here. Whenever I go on holiday I take a certain amount of spending money. Over the last six days I have been thinking that these people stranded will have certainly spent whatever funds they took away with them, and will probably now be charging everything they need to credit cards.

Ryanair are now insisting that these individuals also take on the additional hotel costs which were run up whilst they were unable to get off whatever island they found themselves stuck on.

Mike Carrivick, chief executive of the Board of Airline Representatives (BAR), which represents more than 90 airlines including British Airways, Virgin and BMI, said the relevant regulation was intended to apply when airlines had individual delays or cancelled flights. "It was never intended to apply to wholesale shutdown of the airways system imposed by governmental rulings and without any limitation of time."

The regulations, said the BAR, were "draconian, disproportionate and impractical".

O'Leary said: "There's no legislation designed that says any airline getting a fare of €30 should be reimbursing passengers many thousands of euros for hotel accommodation. It's absurd. I don't have a problem with everything being grounded for a day or two but there should have been a much faster response by the governments and transport ministers and by the regulators. This is one of these issues we want addressed – why exactly are the airlines expected to be reimbursing people's hotels, meals and everything else when the governments are the ones who made a balls of this?"

I can see the point which is being made here. If the individual airline is not responsible for the cancellation, why should they pay the price for the delayed persons accommodation?

But I also know that if I was the person being delayed I would greatly object to being asked to pay for my own imprisonment, even if it was on a sunny island somewhere.

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat transport spokesman, said the airline's position would make passengers think twice about future travel with Ryanair.

"This is shocking behaviour and rubs salt into the wounds for those who have been stranded overseas," he said.

Whether one thinks the rule fair or not, it was a promise which Ryanair had publicly made. It was also one which they advertise on their website.

They are really pushing their luck with the public to refuse to honour such a deal at this time. People are angry enough that they have been stranded in places where they no longer wished to be for the past six days, asking them to also foot the bill seems, to me, to be asking for outrage.

Click here for full article.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

The Strangest Election of my Lifetime.

You just know that in years to come this election will be re-examined to find where all of the parties went wrong.

High-level cabinet disagreements are starting to emerge over the conduct of Labour's campaign, including how open the party should be to the idea of a coalition with the Liberal Democrats after the election, the Guardian has learned.

There is also concern in some circles that the campaign is not highlighting fairness, families or women's issues, and is instead dominated by men over 50 warning about the risk to the economic recovery from the Conservatives.

One cabinet source said: "There is a danger we look like the staid incumbents, as two other parties fight it out for the change vote. We need more edge." Another source described the lack of women in the frontline of the campaign as "truly shocking", and said the party needed to take a more distinctive approach.

Labour's problems are manifest. The country is sick of them. But the country is also not ready to elect the Tories.

Which is why this is the strangest election I have seen in my lifetime.

The apathy out there is overwhelming.

There is simply no political choice out there which unites the country. Which is why Nick Clegg has elicited such excitement. He has, at least, identified the two main parties as staid choices.

I blame Cameron for all of this. He is supposed to be the leader of the opposition. But he has not laid out any vision of where he thinks the county should be going.

So, we are all left flouting around in a vacuum. Because this Eton educated boor is doing his damnedest to hide from all of us what it is that he believes in.

He, literally, wants to sneak in the back door, without telling us what it is that he plans to do.

It's being greeted by the British public like a cup of cold sick.

There is zero enthusiasm for a conservative government, even from a public which elected Margaret Thatcher three times in a row.

Cameron is simply refusing to set out his stall.

Which leaves this election as a bizarre choice between an unpopular leader and a void. Maybe Cameron knows something which I don't. Perhaps he is being shown poll results which the rest of us are not seeing.

But his campaign appears to be a disaster. The country feels as if we are drifting towards a hung parliament, because the Tories are unwilling to put their cards on the table.

Cameron is a leader who is refusing to lead. It's the oddest thing I have ever seen in politics in my lifetime.

He deserves to be punished for this.

Click here for full article.

Flight ban lifted – and now the recriminations begin.

I am reading this:

British Airways chief executive, Willie Walsh, last night accused the government and the UK air safety watchdog of imposing unnecessary hardship on hundreds of thousands of passengers after a six-day flight ban was dramatically lifted amid pressure from the aviation industry.

The opening of all UK airports came after aircraft and engine manufacturers changed their advice on commercial jets' ability to withstand contamination from volcanic ash clouds that have grounded carriers across Europe and cost airlines $1.2bn (£780m) following the eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

The first BA flights landed at Heathrow shortly before 10pm as Walsh said he believed the ban had been an over-the-top response. "I personally believe we could have [used British airspace earlier]. I don't believe it was necessary to impose a blanket ban on UK airspace," he said.

Whilst, outside my window, silence reigns.

Osterley is on the Heathrow flight path. When planes are landing there, I know about it. I can hear them.

Despite all the headlines, there is still nothing happening at Heathrow. Not a single plane has gone over my head as I am writing this.

The papers are saying that Heathrow is open, but it's not. The silence here remains as eerie as it has been for the last six days.

Click here for full article.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Clinton: Limbaugh attack "doesn't make any sense," right-wing "demonization" could incite domestic terror.

Clinton talks about the parallels between what was going on in the nineties and what is going on now.

And Limbaugh and the others are spewing the same hatred which they were spewing then.

Cameron is at a loss about what to do.

The Tory election campaign is being referred to as "the most inept in living memory" by some Tory supporters.

Cameron is now being accused of plagiarising some of Clegg's speeches.

Labour claimed that seven statements made by Mr Cameron in the TV broadcast had been plagiarised from Mr Clegg's speeches and broadcasts. They included saying that people were "desperate for change", that politicians should not just tell people "what they want to hear" and that the country needed "energy and optimism".

Lord Mandelson, who heads Labour's election strategy, said: "David Cameron has spent four years saying what he thinks people want to hear and now, when he believes people want to hear Nick Clegg, he starts imitating him. David Cameron has lost his real voice, assuming he had one in the first place."

A Tory spokesman said of Lord Mandelson's attack: "This is a bit rich coming from a man who speaks with a forked tongue every time he opens his mouth." However, one senior Tory party insider admitted they were finding it "very difficult" to mount a counter-attack on Mr Clegg. "There is a very difficult line to tread. Some people do want us to take a shot at Mr Clegg but we don't want to look as though we are just old-style politicians knocking bits off each other. You have to be more subtle than that," said a Tory source.

Lord Tebbit, the former party chairman, called on Mr Cameron to "puncture the Clegg bubble" before it was too late, saying the Tory leader had been "shy" about talking up his own proposals "for fear that it would frighten the electors". He urged Mr Cameron "not to hang around because there is a Clegg bubble and the imperative is to puncture the bubble before 6 May – the 7th would be too late."

I find the current Tory election plan hysterically funny. Cameron has spent years saying nothing, imagining that not being Gordon Brown is going to be enough to guarantee him victory. And then, during the first ever British TV debate between possible future leaders, Nick Clegg claimed the ground of game changer and branded both Brown and Cameron as the part of the old party system which is actually part of the problem rather than the solution.

Since then, Cameron simply doesn't know what to do. Lord Tebbit is insisting that Cameron tackle "the Clegg problem", but that would require him showing his hand, which Cameron is loathe to do.

We all know that Nick Clegg is not going to win the election, and the more attention Cameron pays to him the more he exacerbates the situation.

This problem simply wouldn't exist if Cameron had a set of policies which he was keen to sell to us. But Cameron is playing a game of smoke and mirrors, and Clegg has nicked in and claimed the mantle of change which Cameron was so keen to steal from Barack Obama.

Cameron now simply doesn't know what to do.

Does he elevate Clegg further by attacking him? Or does he simply continue to mouth the empty platitudes which have served him so well for so long, even though Clegg appears to have found a gap in his armour?

Mr Cameron insisted he would not change his strategy by stooping to "negative" campaigning and would not "lash out" at the Liberal Democrats. "I am going to redouble the positive, accentuate everything positive we want to do for our country," he said.

So, the plan so far is to continue to imitate Barack Obama, without understanding what it is exactly that Barack Obama does.

Barack Obama plays against the stereotype of the angry black man. He remains aloof, distant. This tends to enrage his opponents to such a degree that they eventually overplay their hand and self destruct.

Quite what this Caucasian Etonian aristocrat thinks he has in common with Obama's plan to counter the notion of an angry black man is utterly lost on me.

But he's imitating it anyway. This bugger really is clueless.

He would be much better off simply by telling us what it is exactly that he plans to do, but he appears at pains not to do that. Which leaves him at the mercy of people who are never going to win the election, like Nick Clegg.

I really never expected this campaign to be so amusing. But I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Click here for full article.

New volcanic ash cloud threatens flight hopes.

I went to bed last night with the radio telling me that Britain is reopening her air space, but I awoke this morning to the same silence that has gripped Osterley for the last five days.

There are simply no planes up there.

Then, I go online and read this:

Hopes that Heathrow airport would open from 7pm were thrown into doubt as a fresh plume of volcanic dust drifted towards Britain. Nats, the national air traffic controller, said Scottish airports should be open by 7am today, with airspace over England becoming available by midday but not as far south as London's airports.

"The volcano eruption in Iceland has strengthened and a new ash cloud is spreading south and east towards the UK," said Nats. The situation for airports in Northern Ireland is "uncertain", it added.

Earlier Nats forecasts had given rise to hopes that UK airspace might be fully open after 6pm. However, aviation industry sources said the new ash cloud appeared to have dashed those expectations.

A meeting of European Union transport ministers produced plans for a reduction in the no-fly restrictions over the continent last night, with airspace divided into three categories comprised of: a no-go area; air corridors "with some contamination" where flying can take place under strict conditions; and open zones with no safety concerns.

"From tomorrow morning on we should see progressively more planes start to fly," said EU transport commissioner Siim Kallas last night.

A guy in my local newsagents, who works at Heathrow, told me yesterday that he didn't expect any flights for the next two months. I find that hard to believe, as the financial implications for the airlines would be too horrific to contemplate.

Already we are becoming aware of businesses facing hardship because of this.

The knock-on effects abroad included Kenyan farmers having to dump huge quantities of roses and other flowers that they have been unable to export.

I have neighbours who run a chauffeuring business and they are losing one third of their business with the airports closed.

Soon, the government are going to have to make a call. My worry is that they will be swayed by the financial implications more than the safety issues. This is causing chaos, but that volcano shows no sings of settling.

Click here for full article.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Ed Rendell Says The Media Has Been Over-Hyping The Tea Parties.

Eric Rendell hits the nail on the head:

Rendell: I think David the first thing we have to define is what's the tea party itself. If you say it's the anger that people feel about the economy, etc. that's giving the tea party too much credit. We had two recent tea party demonstrations in Washington. One a week before the health care vote drew about 1000 people, the tax day rally by the organizers own estimate was 1500 people.

If I organized a rally for stronger laws to protect puppies, I would get 100,000 people to Washington, so let's... I think the media has blown the tea parties themselves out of proportion, that's number one.

The Tea Party's numbers are actually pitiful. And the attention they are getting is way over the top. This is the Republican party attempting to distance themselves from the administration of George Bush whilst pretending that there is a genuine public anger that requires that same Republican party to return to power.

It's smoke and bloody mirrors. And it should fool no-one that the people applauding the Tea party movement are Fox News, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.

Kathleen Parker and Joe Klein: Tea Party fringe groups are a national security threat; FOX and the Becks are acting seditiously.

Chris Matthews leads a panel discussion on the Tea Party movement and the danger of Republicans like Sarah Palin encouraging these people to believe that their very freedoms are being threatened by the United States first black president.

And Joe Klein points out the role that Fox News play in all of this:

Klein: We've had movements like this throughout history....the difference now is a television network, I'm going to call it FOX. The presence of FOX, which allows its commentators like Sean Hannity, like Glenn Beck to rouse the tea party. Sean Hannity was in an event this week where the tea party was raising money to have people sit in the same stands with him. And the biggest difference in the past when there were right wing movements started we had ...the responsible Republican party would slap it down and there is no responsible leadership in the Republican party now.

Klein goes as far as to imply that Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are engaging in sedition.

Klein: I did a little bit of research...I looked up the definition of sedition, which is conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state and a lot of these statements-- especially coming from people like Glenn Beck and to a certain extent, Sarah Palin--are right up close to being sedition.

Beck and Palin are engaging in something incredibly ugly. They are pretending that Obama is marching the US towards socialism. It's an utter nonsense, but there are some people out there stupid enough to believe them.

Beck has started trying to backpedal, as if even he realises how dangerous this is getting.

Beck is, of course, trying to make Obama the person who is "intentionally provoking" this anger. That's simply an attempt to avoid his own responsibility for the terrible anger which he is stoking.

And both he and Palin are making phenomenal profits out of promoting this nonsense. That's why they are unlikely to stop it.

Liberal surge is biggest shock to electoral landscape for years.

None of us could have foreseen that the debate between the three party leaders was going to shake the equation in quite the way which it appears to have done.

Never before have the polls put all three parties so close to each other during the course of an election campaign.

An election that last week the Conservatives looked close to being able to win outright now appears to be entirely up in the air. The ground was already starting to move even before Thursday night's debate. At 21 per cent, Liberal Democrat support was up on last week by two points, while the Tory lead over Labour had fallen back from nine points to six.

But now, in the immediate wake of the leaders' debate, the Liberal Democrats have gained a further nine points. At 30 per cent they are two points ahead of Labour and only two points behind the Conservatives. This represents the biggest shock to the political landscape since Labour's debacle in October 2007 over the election that never was.

This has come about because the government of Gordon Brown is unpopular, yet the nation has still not reconciled itself to being led by the Conservatives.

And, once again, Cameron is proving that he simply doesn't understand the mood out there.

David Cameron responded to the explosion in Liberal Democrat support by warning last night that a vote for Nick Clegg risks the country being "stuck" with Gordon Brown in No 10 after the election.

In a Guardian interview Cameron adopted a clear Vote Clegg, Get Brown message, saying: "It is the Conservatives who offer decisive change – anything else and you risk being stuck with what you have got."

The country feels that it time for change, but they are not in any way excited about a return to power by the Tories. If they can vote Lib Dem and get Labour that might be just what their consciences need.

It says a lot about how little Cameron has done to sell his newly minted Conservative party that many people are actually hoping for a hung parliament.

Not only do 90 per cent of Liberal Democrats think a hung parliament would be a good idea, but more than half of Conservative supporters would like Nick Clegg to have a role in the next government.

A hung parliament would be my preferred option. If we have to have the Tories back in power then let's at least limit the amount of damage that they can do.

I'm a Labour supporter but I don't really want us to win. I think a victory in these circumstances might seem an awful lot like the Pyrrhic victory Major won over Kinnock. That, ultimately, kept the Tories out of power for thirteen years. It would have been better for the Tories had Major lost.

Labour needs time to rebuild, and a hung parliament would allow them to do so whilst ensuring that Cameron is held firmly in check.

Clegg is doing the nation a service by making that much more likely.

Click here for full article.