Matthew d'Ancona makes it up
Presumably he's an intelligent man, and also checks things before he writes them, so I can only assume he knows
that:
disposable income per household is lower than it was in 1997
is not true, and just decided to say it anyway.
Labels: Sunday Telegraph
Bitter bitter article
It's apt given the subject, but
this article on David Cameron in the Daily Mail is very bitter towards what seems a perfectly harmless publicity stunt.
Labels: Daily Mail
Oona King is not standing for London Mayor
The candidates are
in, and unless I've misread the rules, these are it for the election. So the Oliver Kamm campaign for Oona King to stand now lies in the write-in campaign. I've
warned that this would merely spoil the ballot paper, but I am well aware I cannot stop a Decent tidal wave, and of course this doesn't necessarily rule out its success - if (say) 20% of people spoilt their ballot paper for King I would say it was a success, if not a winning one. If more than 50% on the first ballot did so I'd say she had a moral victory. Anthony Wells will keep you
informed - so far he's not splitting out the King vote but there's no doubt he will when he can.
Labels: London Mayor
Telegraph on Sarkozy
Only the Queen, with her gift for putting her guests at their ease, managed to look slightly shorter than Mr Sarkozy. Not that it matters one jot to us that he is only 5ft 5in tall. Many great men have been short and for all we know he could be taller than Napoleon.
Miaow.
Labels: Telegraph
The World in 2008 from 1968
Not
terrible as such predictions go, but it was only 40 years ago and they have that typical obsession with the idea of microwave automatic meals that most of these things have.
Labels: Future
Mobile phones and a miracle
As I was trying to take a photo of the heavy Kent snow today with my mobile phone that was running out of battery life, I was wondering if anyone's ever bothered to read the instructions for their device, and whether they actually say that the first two bars of your battery life indicator last about ten times more than the next three bars?
Anyway, the miracle was that a charger for a Samsung fitted into my Nokia. Given most Nokia chargers don't fit it this was welcome indeed.
Labels: Mobile phones
Online newspapers
The Guardian has the latest ABC audience numbers and they make interesting reading (I've had to estimate some of the figures):
guardian.co.uk: 19,519,923 unique users
Mail Online:17,035,229
Times Online: 14,472,902
SUN online: 12,526,916
Online Telegaph: 12,283,835
The Guardian and the Mail have the best online websites, with the Times next, and then the Telegraph (although they are much better than they used to be) so it kind of makes sense. What I found more odd was the proportion who come from the UK or overseas:
Mail - 28% from UK (5m), 72% from abroad (12m)
Times - 34% from UK (5m), 66% from abroad (9m)
Telegraph - 40% from UK (5m), 60% from abroad (7.2m)
SUN - 40% from UK (5m), 60% from abroad (7.5m)
Guardian - 49% from UK (9m), 51% from abroad (10m)
Assuming the figures are right, then I suppose the large proportion of Times and Mail readers from abroad reflects expats in Spain and so on, unless the American readership is higher than I thought. And the Guardian's 9m unique readers in the UK is quite staggering given its limited circulation - I wonder what the details of that are?
Labels: Online newspapers
Nagasaki
Oliver
argues that (in his view) no Presidential candidate who believes Truman's nuking of Nagasaki should be elected. I think this is a bit ridiculous - it's an issue on which a large numbers of sensible people have always disagreed. But of course one can decide on any reason not to support a candidate.
Labels: atom bombs
Wow
The BBC says of Ken Livingstone:
"So convinced is he of his value to the people of London that he is attempting to win an unprecedented third term as the capital's mayor."
I've checked, and they are right. It would be the first time the London Mayor has been elected for a third time.
Labels: London Mayor
Financial markets
Bear Stearns has been bought by JP Morgan for $236m, the Fed has cut its discount rate and will lend to inv. banks on the same terms as deposit-taking banks, the dollar has collapsed to $1.58 to a euro ('toilet currency' how are ya?) and gold and oil are $11 and $25 higher than their $100 and $1000 levels respectively.
The pound has struggled up to 2.02 against the dollar, which is unremarkable, and means against the euro it is ... 1.28. I'd always immediately dismissed the idea of parity, and still think it's unlikely, but it would 'only' require another 10% fall in the dollar against the euro and a 10% decline in the pound against the dollar. So not impossible.
Labels: Financial mattters
News just in
Matthew d'Ancona, political journalist (perhaps Editor?) on the Sunday Telegraph, is backing the Republican candidate in the 2008 Presidential election.
Labels: Telegraph
Election day
It's election day in Kensal Rise, though I note that the ward is called Queen's Park (OFFICIAL). The media seem to be giving the US election more coverage - typical of the liberal elite.
I didn't win the Sedona mayoral race
But
18.2% isn't bad, eh?
There's something odd about this. I get a lot of emails from people, and they certainly seem like real people, notifying me of events in their life, in Sedona. Their addressed to my google email, except rather than matthew.turner, they're matthewturner. Google email doesn't take note of full stops (a useful fact if you need to sign up to free trials with a different email - m.atthew or ma.tthew or mat.thew all work, but often fool a registry), but I think that has something to do with it. I'm not sure what though, and obviously I have tried telling the senders.
Anyway 18.2% today Sedona, tomorrow 51% Tucson. Keep the faith.
Hang on
I've not paid the Budget a lot of attention ever since - about six years ago - I had a go at the entire blogging community for ignoring it. So I've probably missed a major announcement, but what's happened to Gordon's shiny new red box he had made in 1997? Surely it's not aged
that quickly? Come to think of it, where's Gordon gone?
UPDATE: This was the
new box. And yes, it appears Darling is back to the
old box.
Labels: Gordon Brown
The Things the Daily Mail Says
Daytime TV continues to plunge downmarket, apparently, with Fern Britton showing off 'sex toys'.
The Mail on the other hand retains its lofty standards. On the same page - sidebard in fact - of its website, the Daily Mail also tell us:
Caught in the flashbulbs: Patsy Kensit flashes her charms in transparent dress
Dave Clark thrives! But he has had Botox on a few bits and pieces?
Lack of material, girl: Madonna wears see-through skirt to her Hall of Fame induction
Hair-raising: Celine Dion takes to the stage with furry legs
Cheryl takes Ashley back, but 'she hates it when he touches her'
Well I can't face going on. But that's two stories about women's clothing being see through, one about a woman's failure to remove the hair on her legs, one about an elderly pop star having botox and one about the sex life of a football player and his pop-star wife.
Labels: Daily Mail
Extraordinary rendition
Oliver Kamm makes a powerful
defence of his
argument in favour of rendition by quoting some of those who disagreed with him in the comments box of
Comment is Free (I quote one below because it upset Stephen Pollard that he was not mentioned in it).
This doesn't quite convince me, however. Norman Geras makes the
strong argument that this is not purely a theoretical argument, but a practical one and one that involves taking terrorist
suspects and often dropping them off in countries that do practice torture. Practically, 'm not sure there would be much of an outcry if the US kidnapped Osama Bin Laden and dropped him off at The Hague for a trial.
Oliver's answer to this appears to be a straight version of David Aaronvitch's jibe about people wanting the Nelson Mandela International Peace Corps to invade Iraq, basically that rendition could be fine and dandy as long as Amnesty International were flying the planes and Human Rights Watch were receiving the suspects.
There are of course a host of other problems with rendition, even if this was the case.
Labels: Rendition
Stephen Pollard
Apparenly he's upset that a conspiracy theorist on Comment is Free said:
"But don't worry he'll have plenty of company with nick cohen and his charming wife mel phillips, con coughlin, david aaranovitch to name just a few"
and didn't mention him. He comments on Oliver Kamm's blog:
Why have I been left out? Did I upset him?
Blimey, that one's hard, isn't it? Is it possible he's never
heard of you Stephen?
Labels: Pollard
The things Daily Mail readers say!
A concerned FatherLet's play 'rehab'
The other morning, our daughter casually told my wife and me of the new game she plays with her friends in the playground. It's called 'Amy does drugs'. Apparently one person rolls up some bluetack and sticks it on their arm, then starts to sing. While singing, they are chased by all the 'nurses' and whichever nurse catches Amy wins by taking her to rehab. My daugher is eight years old.
A Diana 'ultra'Hardly Mr Wonderful
What a good job Princess Diana dumped heart surgeon Hasnat Khan. He obviously wasn't the gentleman she thought he was - implying that she only left him for the riches of the Al Fayeds. As if she hadn't enought wealth of her own. Hasnat Khan's marriage lasted only 18 months; so even if Dodi Fayed hadn't come on the scene, it's on the cards that Princess Diana would have dumped him anyway - if not then, certainly when he got so overweight.
A view on the WWCHow typical that white working-class people feel there's nobody speaking up for them, rather than speaking up for themselves. Do these people want everything done for them?
Gerard Baker demands massive government intervention
Can it have been only just over a year ago that Gerard Baker was writing stuff like this:
Americans have not given up on the free market yet, thank goodness, but the endurance of Friedman's legacy will be severely tested in the next few years.
Is the definition of a statist a free-marketer whose been
mugged by problems in the financial markets?
Labels: Gerard Baker
More Nick Cohen
The antiques column is not as weird (or unpleasant) as this
one.
Apparently British people who support Barack Obama's candidacy for president do so out of anti-Americanism (the same reason Tories who support Clinton support her, apparently), and that Britain is not as anti-American as other European countries can be seen by the fact that more Britons than other Europeans say they support the Israeli's attack on Iraq's nuclear power plant (which the US Administration condemned at the time).
Neither of these arguments make sense. The Bush Administration is now America, as is Israel. One would expect more insight from an expert in this field, the author of the infamous,
"Why it is Right to be Anti-American". Labels: Nasty anti-Americanism, Nick Cohen
Mrs Thatcher
The Telegraph goes slightly overboard today about the state of Mrs Thatcher's health after Friday's scare, with at least five articles (all linked at the bottom of
this page). Much of it is about her steady progression to being what Charles Moore calls 'a national treasure', a debatable argument but you can see where he's coming from.
But this one
one, from Andrew Roberts, contains a breathtaking (literally in my case) sentence:
The shrewd political advice she receives from her devoted private secretary, Mark Worthington, has meant that she has not put a foot wrong politically since she was tragically ousted by "the November criminals" of 1990.
Labels: Mrs Thatcher
Buy old furniture
Nick's column today is a weird one. It contains many of his odder hobby-horses, such as his distate for the FrostFrench boutique, the closure of Camden Passage antique shops (partly related to the internet, I'd have thought), but essentially is a lament that middle-class households don't buy antiques anymore, and this shows that green politics is shallow, and come the recession it'll all collapse as poor people don't buy organic.
There is a point there, which is that 'green consumerism' is essentially an oxymoron. I'd agree you can't buy your way into environmentalism, and the simplest way to be more 'green' is to consume less and use old stuff more.
But his linking it to the antiques market is all a bit confusing, even if you accept the argument that prices are falling because of a lack of demand (I think dining room tables are relatively cheap, but (as Nick hints) I think that's more to do with an increase in supply than an intrinsic hatred of the old) [1].
If antiques are a hand-me down from parents then they're cheaper than buying in Ikea, not more expensive, and if people only go "green" in good times then they should have been buying antiques now, and then not in a recession, but Nick's point is that they aren't buying them in the boom times. Eh? And I think it might be a bit out of date - interior design as slick as a 'City office' is not really the fashion nowadays, he should perhaps ask Frost of French if they know someone who could help.
So a million times better than a column declaring Azar Nafisi has dedicated her book to people she didn't, though I do think Nick is getting a bit arrogant (surely more than 1/100 people could understand Alan Clark's jibe about Michael Heseltine? - I've just asked two people who'd never heard it and they worked it out)
[1] The Antique Furniture Price Index rose from 100 in 1969 (when it was founded) to a high in 2002 of 3,575. It then fell steadily in the next four years, to reach a low at end 2006 of 2,970, before rising again in 2007 to close at 2,986. This doesn't quite chime with 'lowest level for 20 years', but that might be a particular subset.
Labels: Nick Cohen
Coping classes update
If we members of the Coping Classes have a fault, it is that we are morbidly conscientious, and try to fulfil every demand placed upon us.
I am a
member of this saintly class, albeit not one who is taxed so extragavantly as Mr Gimson. The price of oil and food has gone up, would you believe it, and this is making us angry (says Nick Cohen). I suppose very few members of the coping classes are farmers or oil workers.
Labels: Coping classes
Telegraph freefall continues
Maybe I've just not read it enough recently, but surely this '
story' would have been considered too tabloid for
The Telegraph even a year ago?
Labels: Tabloids
"Writing-in" Oona King's name would simply spoil the ballot paper
An official response:
Writing in a candidate's name is not allowed in UK elections as in America. You must choose from the list of candidates on the paper; you cannot write in another person. This would indeed spoil the ballot paper. The most likely reason for rejection would be uncertainty.
This is a major blow to the "Oona King" for London Mayor campaign. The only way in which this can proceed is now for her to stand as an official candidate. The details are
here - she has until the 28th of this month.
Labels: London Mayor
Money and mouths
For us Decentologists, the new Decent project, the
"£100/$200 club", announced on the pages of
Decentiya, is a Godsend. The main benefit of joining is that you get your name listed in a roll of honour, and it allows us to see the current runners and riders.
Aside from that the fact that figures such as Aaronovitch and Lloyd, Cohen and T, have all agreed to splash out £100 pounds in order to keep the magazine afloat is inspiring. I have long noted that given the importance Decents attach to these projects - the Euston Manifesto was 'vitally important' to the future of the left, and apparently the existence of
Decentiya 'secures the futures of hard-headed internationalism' the fact that so few seemed willing to expend any of their income in keeping it going was strange. For example you still can't sign the Euston Manifesto
directly (as you once could until it was overtaken by spam), I believe for a lack of resources in designing a robust website.
Compare and contrast the Taxpayer's Alliance website. The obvious explanation is that the TA is funded by rich or well-off men (one assumes). But many of the leading Eustonites fit that category. Anthony Julius was Princess Diana's solicitor, and The Guardian claimed as long ago as 1999 he was earning £250/hour. Even if he has had no earnings increase since then (which is unlikely) that means he is one of the highest earning people in the country, and that he could pay for improvements to the Euston website in less than one working day. To focus on Julius might be unfair - he does allow Eustonite projects to use his offices, I believe, so perhaps there are donations behind the scenes we do not know about. In general though it seems people are keen on these things until it costs the slightest amount of money.
ps But perhaps not Nick Cohen! From the Standard: "In another sign of tension the NUJ is acting on behalf of [New Statesman] former columnist Nick Cohen (he also writes for the Standard) who alleges that his pay was cut by the [New] Statesman without him being told."
Labels: Decent Left
