Did you see Cameron's speech today? Let's look at the content in greater depth for a moment.Before Cameron came to the stage the Tories first rolled out a few PPCs to say, well, very little to the audience. Of course, they weren't actually their to speak or be listened to, they were there to look "representative". (I.e. Not look representative of the wider Tory membership, but representative of the "real world".) A young person, a black person, a woman, a black women (kudos to the person who combined those two facets together btw), a Scot, a Northerner who lives in Wales (damn it what happened to the Welshman we ordered?)...oh my how representative they are."I thought they were all old blue rinsers with twin-set and pearls like me. Gosh, I love that modern Dave Cameron and his wife", an...

What better way is there to teach your five-year old (geek to be) about what USB is than to use the Super Kid 4-Port USB Hub which looks much like a toy kid but just with flexible USB limbs! Ok, maybe not such a great idea, but the Super Kid 4-Port USB Hub does have a cute, distinctive design and with such an approach it should fascinate lots of young children if you had one hanging around near your computer. The Super Kid 4-Port USB Hub is now available online for just $14.00 USD via Gadget4all… [via Coolest Gadgets] Remember: We hand out 'dofollow' links to top five commentators of our blog within our sidebar each month, so get commenting! Thanks for your support! Click and comment on the post you've just read: Latest Super Kid 4-Port USB Hub: Teach your 5-year old about USB,...

I supposed he was going to get selected eventually for somewhere, and finally it has happened.  Conor Burns, the Conservative candidate vanquished by Chris Huhne at the last General Election in Eastleigh, has finally found himself another constituency to stand in - Bournemouth West. What I find interesting though is the local candidate dimension.  There has been considerable debate about how important it is for someone to be a local candidate.  The Liberal Democrats have tended to consider this more important than the other parties and then used the localness of their candidate as a major selling point.  The other parties have only started doing this recently.  But one person who did this in spades at the last general election was Conor Burns. Conor Burns relentlessly used the slogan...

Ardent rail fan Christian Wolmar is perhaps an unlikely critic of the Tory plan to build a High-Speed rail link, HS2, between London and Leeds – instead of a third runway between London Heathrow Airport and the rest of the world. But Christian says “the environmental case for high speed lines is far from proven”, in his Guardian article here. Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, gave the Heathrow expansion melting pot a good stir at the party conference yesterday by saying a Conservative government would scrap the plan for a 3rd runway that Labour said was a “done deal” according to a Times article last week. The Tory move is seen by some as David Cameron’s “boldest move on the environment”, and Villiers is reported to have said: “This is a seriously...

A group of retired Gurkhas fighting for the right to settle in Britain have won their immigration test case at London's High Court. They were challenging immigration rules which said that those who retired from the British Army before 1997 did not have an automatic right to stay. The judgement could affect some 2,000 former Gurkhas who retired before...

With all the fuss about the return of the Prince of Darkness (isn't that one of the Harry Potter books? Maybe JK had more influence for her million than we thought) a few stories about life in the middle and junior ranks of the government have been missed - like the sacking of blogging MP Tom Watson. The Glasgow Labour MP has been a junior transport minister and now there will be some inquest into the role of his blog in that decision.Also worthy of note is thew rewards being handed out for those who took part in the failed September 06 plot to remove Tony Blair. Tom Watson gets a job at the Cabinet Office, Chris Bryant is the new Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, Kevan Jones goes to Defence and Sion Simon (probably the most ridiculed Labour MP) is now Skills Minister. Nice to see...

And now a news report with added comments from Archbishop Olly Garrke of the Church of the Free Market for your reading pleasure- Fears are mounting that many Wall Street banks and financial firms will refuse to participate in the US government’s $700bn bail-out package, leaving global markets and world economies in a perilous state for months to come. ‘There is a growing feeling that banks … might instead decide to tough it out,’ said Thomas Caldwell, chairman and CEO of Caldwell Financial, a $1bn-plus fund manager. For the past two weeks all eyes in the market have been focused on US Congress and its attempts to pass Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s bail-out package - a bill to allow the US government to buy up to $700bn of toxic mortgage-related assets...

Arsene Wenger had demanded an ardent response from his team following the shock 2-1 defeat at the hands of Hull, and they delivered in irresistible fashion. Whatever was said on the training ground prior to the match by Le Boss appeared to work as Arsenal, particularly in the second half, ran riot whilst Porto crumbled.We started the game brightly, spare a few nervy moments where Porto seemed to be getting the better of us and were actually playing some very good football despite all our dominance and possession. We gradually settled in to the game and therefore it was only a matter of time before we grabbed our first of the night in the 30th minute courtesy of Robin van Persie. Ade & RVP combined proficiently down the right of the field, creating space for Ade who with the greatest...

From: Save The Children"What's blue and white but makes a noise like thunder? It's the sound of thousands of thunder sticks banging together at the UK's biggest ever event to end child poverty.We need you to help us make a noise so loud the government can't fail to hear us. The campaign to End Child Poverty is bringing together thousands of people from across the UK to take part in Keep the Promise.Join us on Saturday 4 October at Trafalgar Square to make some thunderous noise to end child poverty. Come on Gordon Brown - Keep the Promise and end child poverty in the UK."Details:11:30am: Meet at Millbank (near Lambeth Bridge)12:30pm: March begins2pm: Trafalgar Square meet2:30: Big Noise Event until 4pmFurther Info:Save The Children - Keep The Promises* Racheblue - Striving for...

Well that was simple then. All Scottish school children will receive free school meals from now on, because the Scottish Government have said they can.The only downside is the minor problem of councils not having the money to pay for this, and the Scottish Government not providing any extra funds. It's a bit like telling someone who's homeless that they have the right to stay at the fanciest hotel in town; they might have the right but certainly don't have the resources to actually do it.One of the decisions which characterised the early part of the SNP's time in government was the changed financial arrangements with local councils, not least the massively reduced use of ring fencing (when the government tells councils exactly how they have to spend money). This was enshrined in the...

[from Islington Tribune] Islington Tribune - by TOM FOOT Published: 3 October 2008 Students will move into former factory A FORMER tonic wine factory in Finsbury Park is to be turned into a 56-bed student home. Councillors on east area planning committee have given the go-ahead to developer Tolak Establishment to convert the Grade II-listed building, in Thane Villas, into a student hall of residence. Although 11 residents objected to the development, councillors decided the plans would not destroy the historic character of the building. The developer has agreed to include a “pocket museum” in its plans. It will house historic artefacts found in the 1909 building, including a vat, furnace and a fuse box with instructions. A list of conditions have been imposed to protect the...

Mendoza, Argentina - Peter Mandelson´s return to the cabinet was on the front of the excellent English language Buenos Aires Herald this morning (though it was being ignored as is usual with UK politics on BBC World News) where we started a fortnight´s trip to Argentina. It is a brave and imaginative move by Gordon Brown, confirming that he has had a new lease of life since his successful conference speech. It is a good idea to bring Margaret Beckett back to a frontline role too, and the promotions for Jim Murphy, Tony McNulty and Jim Murphy are richly deserved. Those predictions of a low key reshuffle were wide of the mark. Brown now needs to ensure he takes the right steps in ensuring the Downing Street machine - and his own ability to delegate - match the sense of surprise and...

Guido Fawkes ran an apparently spoof Sky story about "David Yelland* to Number 10" more than four hours ago. Corrected by Adam Boulton within a few minutes. But not be Guido. * Former Sun editor.Still, there are some interesting comments there, including this one:Brave Policeman forced to resignThe charges?Wearing the badge of a legal political party in his own free time.?And thats it? Wow what a sad country we have become.Its also againt his human rights - freedom from political oppression.The disgraceful fascists who run Britain’s police force have forced a 14 year veteran of the Greater Manchester Police to resign simply because he was seen wearing a BNP badge while off duty at a football match.Stuart Janaway, 36, from Irlam in Salford, wore the BNP badge to a game at Old Trafford in...

You wait two and a bit months for an MP to arrive in Westminster and then 650 turn up at once.And so it was today, if you don't count the swarms of MPs dashing around Glenrothes ahead of the by-election, as the Honourable Members tore themselves away from their constituencies (and their Summer sunbeds) to return to Parliament.You may think it antiquated that MPs disappear between the end of July and the second week in October due to something that happened back in 1858 called The Great Stink. Not a political stink, as you might first imagine, but rather untreated sewage in Westminster.And although the stinking leaks may not have disappeared, or even the often shitty nature of Westminster politics over the past 150 years, you do have to think that using 19th Century sanitation problems as...

BBC TRANSCIPT TO BE USED IN WAKE OF NUCLEAR ATTACK This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons. Communications have been severely disrupted, and the number of casualties and the extent of the damage are not yet known. We shall bring you further information as soon as possible. Meanwhile, stay tuned to this wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own homes. Remember there is nothing to be gained by trying to get away. By leaving your homes you could be exposing yourselves to greater danger. If you leave, you may find yourself without food, without water, without accommodation and without protection. Radioactive fall-out, which followed a nuclear explosion, is many times more dangerous if you are directly exposed to it in the...

While we're on the subject of music royalty rates… Apple says it might pull the plug on its uber-popular iTunes store if the Copyright Royalty Board jacks up the amount it owes per track that it sells. Yep, the company made the "don't come near me or I'll jump" threat in a statement submitted to the board last year, now being reported by Fortune's David...

I'm not a fan of being told that I'm lurching, and certianly not a fan of being told that I'm retreating; particularly when this moniker applies because the label chucker in question lacks the fortitude or confidence in the election to suggest measures as radical as mine. Which are still quite moderate.Anyway, although I'm aware that the Compass position on... well, winning really, has been the frequent target of misrepresentation by those whith little sympathy for our politics, this is not a debate about 'which voters we don't want'. It's a question over which we need to get bback, and how. The main differene between Compass and blairites on this is one of emphasis. They want to emphasise the need for middle class voters (which we concede needs doing). We wish to do the opposite (but...

ANORAK used to attend many football press conferences. The following is an edited transcript of Newcastle interim manager Joe Kinnear’s first official press conference yesterday, as provided by the Guardian: JK Which one is Simon Bird [Daily Mirror's north-east football writer]? SB Me. JK You’re a c*nt. SB Thank you. JK Which one is Hickman [Niall, football writer for the Express]? You are out of order. Absolutely fucking out of order. If you do it again, I am telling you you can fuck off and go to another ground. I will not come and stand for that fucking crap. No fucking way, lies. Fuck, you’re saying I turned up and they [Newcastle's players] fucked off. SB No Joe, have you read it, it doesn’t actually say that. Have you read it? JK I’ve fucking...

... is this shit?" is a phrase that I seem increasingly prone to using because nothing else will do.So, via The Longrider, seriously, what the fuck is this shit?Consumers will have to satisfy themselves with four small portions of meat and one litre of milk a week to slow down escalating climate change, a major new report has warned.Yeah? Really? What escalating fucking climate change, you fucking morons? I don't know which fucking planet you cunts are living on, but in my world it's absolutely fucking Baltic, frankly. It's energy-sappingly cold and this is, apparently, to do with the decadal current switch, or some such arse; a decadal current switch which was not predicted in any of the fucking doom-laden models that these cunting climate wankers are working off.So, I ask again: given...

Prompted by the new film version, Peter Bradshaw writes about the effect of the 1980s television adaptation of Brideshead Revisited on a generation of young Tories:A whole generation of appalling 80s Oxbridge hoorays, culminating in the Bullingdon Club of David Cameron and Boris Johnson, found in it a manifesto for escapist self-love and this came down to the fact that it was a fantasy that was affordable.Everyone was on grants. Brideshead Revisited was the Full Grant Fantasy Epic, as redolent of the 80s as Beverly Hills Cop. The awful truth was that the predominantly middle-class strivers of 80s Oxbridge were often financially as well off, or perhaps even better off in ready cash terms, than Sebastian and Charles were in the 20s - during university term-time at any rate. Their income was...

Global warming: why cut one 3,000th of a degree? | Bjørn Lomborg - Times Online Britain's efforts to reduce the speed of global warming will cost huge sums of money and have a pitifully tiny effect ....The British Government estimates the cumulative carbon saving from all its plans at somewhere between 950 and 1,100 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030..... The temperature increase by 2100 without Mr Brown's plan would have been 2.4536181C. With the best-case scenario the huge UK effort means that the temperature at the end of the century would be 2.4532342C. The effect is a difference of about 0.00038C - or about one three-thousandth of a degree in a hundred years. This is the equivalent of delaying the temperature increase by the end of the century by a little less than a week. ...the...

Well done to the Evangelical Alliance for coming up with The Ten Blogging Commandments.I also like the idea that they are: "Based loosely on the real Ten Commandments from the Old Testament". (Very much in the same way that Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet was based loosely on historical fact or the way that U-571 depicted the real capturing of the Enigma machine in World War 2. :-/)The Ten Commandments (of blogging, and not the original one, just in case you get confused) are as follows:1. You shall not put your blog before your integrity.2. You shall not make an idol of your blog.3. You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin.4. Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog.5. Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves...

Who knows what was in Gordon Brown's mind when he sacked Tom Harris from the government over the weekend: these things often seem unfathomable, with pretty useless people being promoted while manifest talent is left to rot on the back benches.  It was ever thus: I remember Harold Wilson's inexplicable failure to give jobs to Brian Walden, John Mackintosh and Tom Ellis.In the case of Tom Harris as Rail Minister, though, one can only say "good riddance". What was the point of giving that particular job to a man who doesn't like railways? He it was who put forward the preposterous idea that the government should be "modally agnostic", i.e. he could not bring himself to say that it is better for us all if more people go by train and fewer by car.Of course he could just have been parroting...

The new film club at the Brockley Jack Theatre has got off to a great start, with an eclectic, but not too self-conscious choice of films.Gregor Murbach, who got the club up and running writes:Our next film, The Night of the Hunter, will be shown on Monday 13 October at 7.30PM (instead of Sunday 5 October, as announced previously). To guarantee your tickets, please call our box office on 020 8699 6685. Or, people can become members. The membership scheme offers a number of advantages: a free ticket, discounted tickets and a say in the film selection. But you will also support the only regular cinema venue in Lewisham! The membership form can be downloaded directly from our...

So OJ Simpson has been found guilty of kidnapping and armed robbery in Las Vegas. An all-white jury of nine women and three men unanimously found him guilty of all 12 charges after more than 13 continuous hours of deliberations, which started 13 years to the day after he was cleared of a double murder in America’s “trial of the century”. The former American football star kidnapped two sports memorabilia dealers by holding them in a room at the Palace Station hotel and casino in Las Vegas before stealing items from them on September 13 last year, the Clark County District Court in downtown Las Vegas heard. The former actor and NFL star’s high-profile 1995 trial saw him cleared of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, by a...

…his due yesterday. Having put up my usual Monday post about the ineptness of the Spurs board, management and players and then following that up with Moose finally winning his 20th I forgot to post about Paul Newman dying. One of the last great stars of Hollywood, what do we have now but mental midgets in funny cults, who it seems didn’t take himself that serious just because he read out loud in front of a camera. I picture my epitaph: ‘Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown.’ - Paul Newman When someone like Newman died in the past the TV channels would be lining up film after film in tribute “The Color Of Money” with the aforementioned midget was on last night, by coincidence, not exactly his greatest, if they do a...