articles, blog news

Tony Blair and the Media

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blog.jpg

it is the height of stupidity, on Blair’s part, to think that it might be an idea to start regulating the blogosphere

I would much rather have cyberspace regulated by public scorn than by Tony Blair

God save the media

Oh for heaven’s sake, can someone please tiptoe up behind our poor prating ex-Prime Minister to be and tell him that the show is over? Come on, Cherie, Alastair, Peter – whoever still composes the depleted Praetorian Guard – tell the old boy to put a sock in it before he does himself a serious embarrassment.

I think it would be fair to say that we have heard some self-serving twaddle from Tony Blair in the past 10 years, and yet his “I blame the media” speech was not only hypocritical and sinister: it was downright insulting to the intelligence of the British public.

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articles

British Drinks Industry

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Who thought of health warnings on wine?

And there I was – all set to blame Brussels. As soon as I heard there was some loony plan to put health warnings on wine bottles, my Eurosceptic aero engines began to rev and whirr.

I knew where the culprits must be, and the all-purpose vertical take-off Euro-rant began to throb on the launching pad. Could they really be serious?

Were we really going to have labels on wine bottles, warning the consumer that the contents might make him drunk? It was insane, and there was only one type of bureaucrat – or so I instinctively thought – who would dare to promote such lunacy.

As I prepared my continental bombing raid, I could see my target in my imagination.

That’s right: it was some Swedish divorcee health commissioner, sitting in her velour slacks in her taupe-coloured office in the Breydel building, Brussels; and I could just imagine the imperious set of her jaw as she put down her glass of Badoit and prepared to Mont Blanc her initials under the EU edict that alcohol was henceforward to be clearly labelled as a poison; and in my rage I reached for another lunchtime glass of Mazis-Chambertin 2000, to fortify myself for the rigours of composing my column, and I can tell you that it was with all bomb bays fully loaded that I arrived at my desk; and I was on the very point of launching the great Brussels-busting task force when I paused.

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blog news

Birmingham University Conservative Future Blog Award

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First class honours to the Conservative Future group at the University of Birmingham. Their blog www.bucf.wordpress.com has earned them accolades in the highest places.

Iain Dale no less, himself shortlisted for the Guardian’s political blog of the year award, has named these Brumdergrads the best Young Conservative bloggers on the web.

Similar laurels were awarded by the Tory grassroots website Conservativehome.com.

Dive straight in to a pool of well-written and perceptive commentary on subjects ranging from the “ridiculous” Olympic logo to army recruitment, Cameron on grammar schools, gay rights, anti-terrorist powers, abortion, overcrowded prisons… plus some hilarious YouTube links.

Congrats to you all for showing that independent, progressive thought is still flourishing in our universities.

So what’s their secret? Ryan Castle, BUCF’s Treasurer, says:

We endeavour to produce at least one new blog each day, a little less successfully in exam periods! Our main strength is our variety; we have many strong contributors each with very different political interests. This means that you will always find a huge plethora of subjects being commented on.

We are trying to re-engage students with politics and convince them of a Conservative viewpoint. The direction the party is going under Cameron is right for this. His liberal agenda – reflected in our own chairman’s views- is at last allowing us to present a modern and dynamic party both locally with students and nationally.

articles, books, news

Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars

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Order Life In The Fast Lane from Amazon now!

Order this new book from Amazon now!

My love affair with the car will never conk out

 

They have been demonised and are portrayed as a threat to the planet but, says self-confessed speed-freak Boris Johnson, cars are a force for liberty and democracy

 

For years after that terrible death, I felt a pang every time I pulled into Oxford station.

Boris Johnson: ‘An Englishman’s car used to be his castle, or at least his mobile fort’
There was the scrapyard. There was the grabber with its evil jaws. Whenever I saw it I remembered the T-Rex aggression with which it lurched down on its victim; pausing and juddering as though savouring the moment.

It smashed through the windows, the windscreen, buckling the paper-thin steel. I heard the whine of the crusher and I turned away.

If you are one of those drivers that always have dreamed about having car to do road trips, this hybrid caravan manufacturers are a great choice.

I could not listen to the death agonies of my driving companion, or see the reproachful look in those loyal headlights. Even today I cannot go past that knacker’s yard without bidding peace to its ghost.

A Fiat 128 two-door saloon, 1.2 litres, the Italian Stallion was the trusty steed that emancipated me from the shackles of childhood.

Inside that happy brown plastic cabin, with its curious fungal growth on the roof, there took place all manner of brawls, romance, heartbreak and general growing-up. Above all, it was the car in which I had my first crash.

A speeding ticket lawyer is a legal professional who practices law and focuses mostly on vehicular traffic infraction and other crimes related to this particular offense. This is an important matter because many people who commit this may overlook this and take it for granted or forget about it. If this happens, the crime may become a bigger issue. An attorney who specializes in this particular field is specially trained and educated to defend his client for charges associated with this offense. Here is my response about the Tips To Get Points Removed From a Speeding Ticket in Louisiana.

Other defenses may include a defense against the radar or the laser gun used to establish the speed of the moving vehicle. These are, but not limited to, the radar picking up another vehicle and its speed, the radar picked up a reflective surface or something that interfered with it and that the laser gun was not accurate in measuring the speed of the vehicle that committed the offense. Radar s may be easier to disprove that laser guns because there are a lot of possibilities that it was not accurate. A different car may have intercepted the signal or metal signs may have done it. There are many things about cars like Tuning the BMW M57 can be sorted out.

Personal injury is something that anyone can go through and there are many possible reasons that can be behind someone being injured. In such circumstances, it is a common enough thing to hire a personal injury lawyer and make a claim against the cause of your suffering and injuries.

Car accidents are the cause of many injuries and the injuries can be of different nature depending upon the severity of the accident. In car accidents, it is because of the negligence of another driver that you suffer an injury, and hence it seems reasonable to hold them accountable by finding reputable lafayette car accident lawyers to make a claim. Other than car accidents, there can also be accidents at one’s workplace, which can be the potential cause of a personal injury. If you want to know more about the Personal Injury Lawyer, you can check this link right here now.

When you suffer from a personal injury, it is best to hire an expert traffic lawyer who can guide you about the process of making a successful personal-injury claim and to help you write the report within ten days of the accident. Whatever the circumstances of the personal injury, hiring a personal-injury lawyer is highly recommended because in that way you gain awareness about your rights and are led the right way.

When it comes to personal-injuries, just any lawyer wouldn’t do because the claim for a personal injury requires a lot of expertise, which only a personal-injury lawyer would be able to offer you. It is important also because in case the claim becomes more complicated, then only a personal injury lawyer would know how to go about the whole thing.

The maintenance and accuracy of the device used can also affect the results when it is used. The move to subpoena the records showing the maintenance of the gadget needs a legal counsel’s input and ability to do so. Lasers are usually more accurate and it may need technical witnesses to prove that there was a mistake or a glitch with the gun used. The speed ticket lawyer shall have to employ the services of witnesses who are well informed with these gadgets in order to provide a very good defense for his client.

No one knew how it came to be in the family. My mother claims it was hers, though other sources suggest that my father bought it in Brussels, from a squash opponent called Sue.

It was sitting in the yard one day when my brother Leo and I decided to take it for a ride. Neither of us could drive, but there is a two-mile dirt track that links our farm to the main road, and we felt we could learn.

We lolloped off, groaning in first gear, until finally we reached the main road where the machine stalled and a cloud of steam rose from the bonnet. We had a problem.

We had to turn round, and we couldn’t go on the metalled road, since neither of us had a licence.

But we hadn’t done a turn before and we were aware of another car about 20 yards away.

This obstacle was probably the only other vehicle within five square miles of this bit of under-populated moorland.

With every manoeuvre, we seemed to arc ever closer to the other machine, as if sucked by some fatal magnet. Now our boot was just feet from its bonnet, and it was necessary to reverse.

I had never reversed a car before. The wheels spun in the dust, we shot backwards and, with a smooth easy grace, we shunted the only other car in the district rapidly and deftly into a tree.

When the tinkling had stopped, Leo broke the silence and said: ”Hey, that was great,” speaking for every human being who has ever experienced the thrill of the automobile – the joy of moving far faster than nature intended, by a process you barely understand, and yet somehow surviving.

Continue reading Life in the Fast Lane: The Johnson Guide to Cars →

articles

The pursuit of happiness

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The Spectator – Boris Johnson

You’ve got to realise they would have done it. They would have gone right ahead and swept another priceless heirloom from the mantelpiece of history. They were revving up their bulldozers, ready to roar into the ancient and irreplaceable ecosystem. Another great tree would have been felled in the forest of knowledge, and the owl of Minerva would have fled in terror from her roost. Had it not been for a few romantic reactionaries, then the technicians who run our reductionist system of education — with the complaisance of the Labour government — would by now be halfway to the demolition of the ancient history A-Level.

The children of tomorrow, children less fortunate than our own, would have been deprived forever of the chance to get to grips with the emergence of Athenian democracy, or the transition of Rome from republic to empire, and future generations of 18-year-olds would never again have spent any time in systematic study of the events and personalities that have been programmatic of our modern European politics and civilisation.

When a new Dark Age falls, it is not always to the sound of Viking battle-cries and the tinkling of church windows. Sometimes it is the very governments themselves that go mad, and start disembowelling their own culture. If you inquire whimperingly how they can do it, how the ‘department for education and science’ could have allowed this mutilation even to be proposed, the answer is not just that they are barbarians, though that is certainly part of the problem.

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articles

Murder of Alexander Litvinenko

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It was murder, but calling it such will change nothing

The tension mounts. The crisis deepens. The Russian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office for the truly nail-biting experience of a dressing-down from Margaret Beckett. After four months of indolence, the moth-eaten British lion has finally woken up and emitted a roar in the direction of Moscow. Scotland Yard long ago decided that one man was responsible for the horrific murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a British citizen living in London. The Crown Prosecution Service has now agreed.

One name is in the frame, and across Middle England, the cry is the same. “Oi! Putin!” says the voice of Britain. “Give us Lugovoi!” And that, more or less, was the message conveyed to the Kremlin by the Foreign Office yesterday – and seldom can there have been a suspect more deserving of extradition.

Everything about the murder of Litvinenko seemed designed to stoke our indignation. It was all so callous, so blatant, so deliberately chilling.

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news, press releases

Exeter University

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Press Release
Boris Johnson MP

Statement in response to the current press coverage on the code of conduct introduced by the Athletic Union at Exeter University –

‘Of course we have every sympathy with the victim and his family but if we endlessly respond to tragic events with panic measures we will end up becoming risk-averse and over-regulated’.

constituency, in parliament, news, press releases

Freedom of Information Amendment Bill

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PRESS RELEASE

BORIS JOHNSON MP

Freedom of Information Amendment Bill
Commons 3rd Reading Closure Motion – Ayes: 117 Noes: 22

The House of Commons has voted on the Closure Motion for the 3rd Reading of this controversial Private Member’s Bill, which seeks to de-list the House of Commons and the House of Lords from the Freedom of Information Act 2000, which currently applies to them. It now goes to the Lords.

The Bill frequently refers to the ‘complex’ relationship between the Freedom of Information Act, the Data Protection Act 1998, and Parliamentary privilege. But Boris finds, not for the first time, that existing laws are adequate. While there may be scope for fine-tuning, he believes they already offer a fair balance between the privacy of the individual and the public’s right to know about Parliamentary business.

‘We are continually shooting ourselves in the foot, and the public will look at this and think all we are trying to do is protect ourselves from rules that, after all, apply to everybody else. It is quite wrong. Of course constituents have a right to privacy, but that is in any case assured by data protection rules.’

Full text, Hansard and summary of the Bill.

articles

Grammar Schools

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Grammar schools are not a magic bullet

Let’s be clear: I am in favour of selection. And so are you. So is every member of the British ruling classes, and it is one of the great white lies of modern British educational politics that we have somehow outlawed selective admissions from our schools.

It is not just that we still have 164 grammar schools, achieving superb results with an intake they decide themselves. In those areas where academic selection is outlawed, the criteria for admission are increasingly financial.

Across the country, pupils are selected for good schools according to the ability of their parents to afford a house in the catchment area, and those who can’t afford the cost of housing are crowded out – no matter how clever their children are, no matter how well they would do in that school.

Some families have a sudden access of faith, and go to church often enough to persuade the clergy that their children deserve admission to a church school. Throughout our inner cities, there are bourgeois families who use their economic power to buy their children an edge over everyone else in the class.

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blog news, constituency

Why Blogging is Important: Comment from a Constituent

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B L O G G I N G

Blogs for young and old

Oh, what a pity! Matthew Taylor, outgoing strategy adviser to Tony Blair, thinks blogs are undemocratic because they are “shrill”. Take a look at this link for the news item and here for one set of responses.

Blogs from MPs are great. No more trying to find stamps and borrow Mum’s best writing paper. No need to write pages of perfectly reasoned argument. No need to go along to an MP’s “surgery” (always sounds worrying, that!). With blogs you can make comments and answer as if you were down the pub or in the lunch queue. You can also read some better techniques at Malcolm Read for writing a better blog. You can bring up new topics and try out ideas. Whether you are eight or 108, if you can type an idea, that idea will be read. Other people can add to your idea – see the Forum – and help it gain shape so that Boris, or any other MP, can work with it. Little ideas can become big ideas. That’s democracy, not shrillness.

You don’t need to have huge ideas. You don’t need to have lots of letters after your name – and I’ll stick my neck out here and say the best comments and ideas usually come from people who just sign themselves as simply as “Tom” or “Mary” or “Saima”. You don’t need to be ‘clever’ – just genuine and interested. If an idea is truly amazing, Boris or Melissa will be in touch – guaranteed! If an idea is interesting and gains energy through discussion, you will be able to see it.

What is an MP for?

I wonder, how many people will comment on this? How many people will try it for the first time and find out that blog sites really are a new way of talking to people we have elected to do a good job for us.

Gillian P
HENLEY CONSTITUENT

Provides news, articles and photos by and about the politician, journalist and columnist Boris Johnson