Boris appears as host on Have I Got News For You (at the new earlier time of 9pm) on BBC1 this evening. If you wish to comment on the programme (or read comments by others), all you have to do is click here.
Repeated on Monday 28 November 10pm BBC2
(If you’re interested, Boriswatch has a report from the ringside seats, and here’s a post from another blogger who was at the taping of the show.)
Buy now at Amazon
Boris entry in April 2005 (on page 104):
Boris Johnson, Editor, Journalist, MP, Scouse baiter and novelist appears not to have enough outlets for his writings, as this piece from his blog shows: Zimbabwe/GB: former breadbaskets?
2005: Blogged
The book of the Year for the Year of the Blog
“At first sight, an anthology of blog posts is a ludicrous idea. So it was with some surprise that I realised 2005: Blogged is an accessible introduction to the breadth and quality of writing on offer from some British blogs. Editor Tim Worstall has made some fine choices… This is a book that provides proof positive that the British blogosphere is full of great writers. ” – Jane Perrone, The Guardian
Details
Editor: Tim Worstall
Published: 25th November 2005
Price: £8.99
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0 954831837
Imprint: Friday Books
Buy now at Amazon
The Attorney General’s ban is ridiculous, untenable, and redolent of guilt. I do not like people to break the Official Secrets Act … we now have allegations of such severity, against the US President and his motives, that we need to clear them up.
If someone passes me the document within the next few days I will be very happy to publish it in The Spectator, and risk a jail sentence. .. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we suppress the truth, we forget what we are fighting for
I’ll go to jail to print the truth about Bush and al-Jazeera
It must be said that subsequent events have not made life easy for those of us who were so optimistic as to support the war in Iraq. There were those who believed the Government’s rubbish about Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. Then the WMD made their historic no-show.
Some of us were so innocent as to suppose that the Pentagon had a well-thought-out plan for the removal of the dictator and the introduction of peace. Then we had the insurgency, in which tens of thousands have died.
Some of us thought it was about ensuring that chemical weapons could never again be used on Iraqi soil. Then we heard about the white phosphorus deployed by the Pentagon. Some people believed that the American liberation would mean the end of torture in Iraqi jails. Then we had Abu Ghraib.
23 November 2005
Boris Johnson MP: Practical Action Needed on Climate Change
Speaking in yesterdays Climate Change Opposition Day Debate, Boris Johnson MP called on the Government to match its climate change rhetoric with action by removing planning restrictions, unaltered since 1995, governing the installation of rooftop solar panels.
Arguing in favour of increasing the energy efficiency of our nation’s housing stock as one of the most cost effective ways of reducing our consumption of energy and carbon dioxide emissions Mr Johnson outlined:
A single policy initiative, which I am sure will meet universal approval among Labour Members and my hon. Friends …For an outlay of £3000 Mrs. Anley (of Sonning Common) can add to her roof a wonderful panel by which she can heat her water. It is a photovoltaic pump. She assures me – I have no reason to doubt her, since I have taken the trouble to look up her plans on the internet – that she can reduce her carbon emissions by half a tonne of Co2 a year and that she can supply up to 70 per cent of her hot water needs in doing so. The kicker is that she has to get planning permission …
Mr Johnson pointed out that:
The device that Mrs Anley seeks to install is only 2ft by 4ft and only 8cm thick, but to get planning permission, she must pay a non-negotiable flat fee of £135. She must then get an architectural artist to produce drawings of her house, which, as you will readily appreciate, Mr Deputy Speaker, will push her costs well over £200 … I look forward to hearing later that he (the Minister) is going to do a little bit more than set up a committee in the DTI to clarify matters, because this needs to be done urgently, and he is the man to do it.
Solar panels currently fall into Class C (roof alterations), of Schedule 2, Article 3, Part 1 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995.
Climate Change
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): We now come to the debate on climate change. I have to announce to the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
7.14 pm
Mr. Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con): I beg to move,
That this House endorses the principle of a cross-party consensus on carbon reduction.
The motion was tabled by my hon. Friends and myself, as well as by Liberal Democrat Members.
Mr. Boris Johnson (Henley) (Con): The Minister has been rather hard on the Opposition for failing to come up with a practical policy proposal about which the House could form a consensus tonight. He is being very unfair on my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin). None the less, I am going to provide a single policy initiative, which I am sure will meet universal approval among Labour Members and my hon. Friends. It would save money for people on low incomes, cut pointless bureaucracy, reduce the burdens on local councils and, of course, reduce carbon emissions, and in doing so, supply not just hot air but hot water and, indeed, central heating.
We all know that one of the major causes of CO 2 in the atmosphere is household emissions – far bigger than vehicle emissions – and 75 per cent. of those emissions comes from heating and boilers. We now come to a peculiarity, and I want to use the debate to draw it to the Minister’s attention in the hope that he can clear it up tonight. It would be a wonderful thing if he did so. He might like to come with me to the lovely village of Sonning Common – one of the largest villages in south Oxfordshire – and if he would be so kind as to come, he would see a large estate full of semi-detached houses built in the 1960s, with an attractive array of south-facing roofs. Mrs. Ann Anley, who lives in one of those houses, has written to me to explain that she has a plan, which I am sure that the Minister and, indeed, all hon. Members would support.
For an outlay of £3,000, Mrs. Anley can add to her roof a wonderful panel by which she can heat her water. It is a photovoltaic pump. I do not know the exact technical details. The Ministers is nodding sagely; he knows of what I am about to speak. It is a wonderful thing. She assures me – I have no reason to doubt her, since I have taken the trouble to look up her plans on the internet – that she can reduce her carbon emissions by half a tonne of CO 2 a year and that she can supply up to 70 per cent. of her hot water needs in doing so. It is a good thing that the installation is subsidised by the Government – the Minister is nodding again – to the tune of £400. We all support that. The kicker is that she has to get planning permission. I refer back to the very prescient words of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset, who pointed to the absurdity of having to get planning permission to install a small windmill on a roof.
News confirmed in The Evening Standard that Boris will host the show this week.
16 November 2005
Boris Johnson MP steps up campaign to save local Community Hospitals
Boris Johnson MP, attending yesterdays Westminster launch of the Community Hospitals Acting Nationally Together (CHANT) group , denounced the Government’s failure to investigate and halt what now appears to be a nationwide programme of community hospital closures. As Vice-Chairman of the group, Boris Johnson MP called on all those present to work together, along cross-party lines, to co-ordinate efforts at a national level to better fight the closure of community hospitals throughout the country.
At a meeting held beforehand and chaired by the Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley MP, to discuss the problems facing community hospitals, Boris Johnson MP lambasted the current lack of accountability of regional ‘health quangocrats’ to the needs and views of local people:
‘It is utterly infamous that the views of local communities are being ignored. In almost all these cases the move towards care in the community is being driven not by best practice or clinical need but by the desire to balance the books and write down Primary Care and Strategic Health Authority deficits. Community hospitals are at the front line of these cost cutting drives despite the fact they play a vital intermediate care and step-down role. Local people want them, District Hospitals need them, yet nationwide over 80 of these community hospitals are being threatened with closure. Worse, no-one is taking any responsibility for these decisions. Government passes the buck to the Health Authorities who in turn pass it to the Primary Care Trusts who then pass it right back to the Government. At the end of the day though, the Government appointed these unelected quangocrats to their posts and the Government must now explain their actions’.
Encouraging shysters to go bust is no way to foster enterprise
It was gonna be great. It was gonna be the best thing ever. A day to remember. A red letter day. Mr Conafray had been looking forward to his birthday present for months. At last he was going to fulfil a lifetime’s dream and get behind the wheel of something really snortingly fast.
Thanks to the generosity of his loving wife and children, he was going to be conveyed to Brands Hatch, attended by every comfort, and installed in a succession of ever more gruntful machines. Jaguars, Astons, AC Cobras, Nobles. Mr Conafray was going to crunch gears, burn rubber and generally kick automotive ass in such a way as to make Jeremy Clarkson look like a 75-year-old nun in a bath chair.
His wife had paid £750 for this Red Letter Days birthday experience, and he had every reason to think it would be worth it. When he looked up the website, he found dreamy pictures of balloon flights and cut-glass whisky decanters by roaring fires in sexy locations. There was scuba diving and bungee jumping and paraplaning and cars, cars, cars.
According to the blurb, Red Letter Days was “driving the experiences market forward, creating innovative and exciting experiences for everyone”.
Well, the guys and gals at Red Letter Days certainly cooked up a once-in-a-lifetime package for Mr Conafray. He had the exciting and innovative experience of being suddenly informed, as the day of his Red Letter experience drew closer, that the company was having difficulty meeting its financial obligations. In fact, they were effectively bust, and the only value he would get from his £750 voucher was to use it to light the fire.
***Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful***
You’ve got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog.
Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights.
A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time.
You blog for yourself – and you don’t care how popular (or unpopular) your [Boris] blog is!
What’s Your Blogging Personality?
***Your Personality Profile***
You are pure, moral, and adaptable.
You tend to blend into your surroundings.
Shy on the outside, you’re outspoken to your friends.
You believe that you live a virtuous life…
And you tend to judge others with a harsh eye.
As a result, people tend to crave your approval.
Are you a Henley constituency resident bursting with ideas? and keen to get more involved in local party politics and in sharing Boris’s aim of regenerating the youth vote? Then you might relish the chance to meet Boris at a small lunch to be held on Tuesday 29th November in a private dining room in the House of Commons and would happily buy a ticket.
For more details on lunch with Boris please contact me.