… for repeating some of David’s post, but it’s 22.13, we’re watching the 10pm news, and I have a bet with my son as to when the BBC producers will turn away from the magical fairytale in Camelot and address the possibility that the United Kingdom economy may be about to collapse. 10.17 is our current guess, but it could be later – perhaps in the “and finally …” segment.
22.16 – “And now Middle Eastern reaction to the inauguration …”
(I have another bet – that tomorrows 6pm news will tell us what Obama had for “his first White House breakfast”)
UPDATE – 22.19 “And here, more grim news on the economy“.
(I see the BBC are bigging up our current “low inflation” and the prospect of “increasing the money supply“. Invest in wheelbarrows now !)
We decided to watch only the local news in the hope we may escape…but no. A local woman had bred some strange dogs – labradoodles!! As they were all born on the day of the American election they were given the names of US states. The owner was wondering if the new ‘first children’ might be interested in ‘Illinois’.
For McFatty One Eye and the BBC today is a good day to bury bad news.
The way the BBC are sneaking in little references to “fears of deflation” and that boosting the money supply to counter this is an idea being discussed is scary. The problem of deflation is being deliberately overstated to allow Gordon Brown to get the printing presses running red hot. A big dose of (as he believes) controlled inflation will do wonders to reduce the value of the National Debt. This idea is dangerous, the UK had to suffer much pain in the 1980s so as to recover from five years of Labour misrule – how long will it take to recover from 11 years of Gordon Brown’s mishandling of the economy and how painful will the medicine be? Is David Cameron prepared to be a “nasty nurse” and get the UK to swallow the necessary medicine? Is there any medicine that is strong enough to do the job?
All very depressing, time for bed…
Who are all these people afraid of deflation ?
They must be the same people who the BBC assured us for ten years were “gloating at their dinner parties about increasing house prices”.
George Bush is giving a fairwell speech in Texas now. Sky is covering it whilst BBC News 24 hasn’t shown a bit and is showing yet another repeat of the inauguration. CNN is also blanking it.
Can you imagine the BBC ignoring Obama’s speech when he gets back to his home state after he leaves office?
“Can you imagine the BBC ignoring Obama’s speech when he gets back to his home state after he leaves office?”
Depends if he invades Russia and loses the war.
Where you ever a school bully, Martin?
Snooze 24 | 20.01.09 – 11:50 pm |
I watched it on Fox News and GWB was quite funny as usual. You can say a lot of things about the man but he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Good on him!
who is bullying who on here. Martins bully nobody
I didn’t watch any of it today – I’m a diabetic and have to careful about all the cloying sweetness which I knew would pervade proceedings.
I wrote a short, angry post on the tumbleweed blog (iain dale’s diary) to the effect that it would be really revolutionary if obama (or any prominent black) stood up to thank white people for making all the inventions, discoveries and progress on Earth and to acknowledge that blacks have played little or no part in all of that.
Can you imagine the BBC ignoring Obama’s speech when he gets back to his home state after he leaves office?
Depends whether they want to send a crew to Kenya or not.
I am fully behind the trend of this blog – attacking the vile sycophantic BBC coverage. However please cut the blatant racism.
Unlike the BBC and some posters here I do not believe that the colour of the US presidents skin is his most important attribute. he appears to me to be a man of no substance, or policy capable of uttering ‘Plettitudes’. I cannot believe that no one has asked him to define what “the audacity of hope” is other than a meaningless soundbite.
Have Your Say not being too kind to BBC’s coverage!
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=2&forumID=5922&edition=1&ttl=20090121072612&#paginator
Feel sorry for BBC no chance to empathise with public in hour of suffering as BBc licence fee guaranteed for 5 years
Funny really TV licence fee is guaranteed for 5 years but those selling TVs (Empire Direct) are going bust !
The worshipping of the Obamamessiah continues this morning on the Today programme. Does James “Jim” Naughtie have any shame?
Breaking News….
World financial crisis ends…
Hamas disbands…
Arab summit calls for peace with Israel…
China hands back Tibet…..to the Tibetans…
Climate change reversed. Greenhouse emissions tumble…
Mugabe steps down…
Warring factions in Congo lay down arms…
Bin Laden calls truce
Islam becomes Religion of Peace
[Write your own Obama Crowning result here]
Rejoice
Rejoice
Never mind Obamamessiah. The USA markets nose dived yesterday, you cant fool the investors, they know Obamamessiah cant do anything to stop the rot. BBC bias deliberatly does not report the truth but only the right wing agenda. They will say anything to stop Labour being re-elected in 2010. Just wait and see all the bad and more specifically non publicity for the Tories.
Never mind Obamamessiah. The USA markets nose dived yesterday, you cant fool the investors, they know Obamamessiah cant do anything to stop the rot. BBC bias deliberatly does not report the truth but only the right wing agenda. They will say anything to GET Labour being re-elected in 2010. Just wait and see all the bad and more specifically non publicity for the Tories.
lemar | 21.01.09 – 8:08 am | #
“you cant fool the investors”
clearly you can – why do you think markets have nosedived in the first place?
Cockney | 21.01.09 – 9:07 am |
Think Man….. that was PRE Obama
Everything has changed, get used to it.
Now where did I see that big Rabbit??
gordon-bennett 2:26
More to the point would be for Obama to thank white people for giving black people a much better life than they would have had if they had stayed in Africa !
As Mohammed Ali said after he visited Africa ” thank God my ancestors got on that boat ” !
lemar 8:08
Could you have another go and re-phrase that ?
The BBCs fulsome coverage of this event was nauseating . A succession of BBC presenters, and their exclusively left-wing, guests fawned over their new messiah • it seemed to go on for hours. There wasn’t event the pretence of journalistic objectivity. I am sure it would have been very different if they were covering McCain’s inauguration. It used to be said that Blair was Bush’s poodle. Is the BBC now Obama’s poodle?
I started my latest piece of blogging as a moan about this morning’s Today programme, however “I do seem to have strayed somewhat from my original point about this morning’s Today programme’s odd priorities over the last 45 minutes of writing, but this morning it has all become too much. I really do fear for the future of the USA and its allies under the Presidency of Barack Obama. I really do fear for the future of the UK economy as I really do believe that this Country will be “bankrupt” within a year from now. I really do fear for my future as a Jew in a Country that has elements that increasingly show their hatred for Jews.
I do not want what happened to the middle-class Jews in Germany in the 1930s to happen to me in the 2010s. The German Jews thought they could keep their heads down and that the troubles would pass, they were wrong and millions dies in the gas-chambers as a result. I do not want myself and my wife to face a similar fate in the coming years.
What to do about this is the problem; Mrs NotaSheep thinks we have to keep on, keeping on. I am not so sure. Whatever I do decide I will let you know, but in the meantime…. good luck.”
Jim Naughtie on his expectations for the Obama inaugural speech on yesterday morning’s Today: “He’ll strive, of course, for a bit of the weight of Lincoln, the memorability of Kennedy, the passion of FDR.”
Jim Naughtie after the speech yesterday: “It lived up to the billing that it might be quite sober.”
Notasheep 9:28 I hope your fears do not come true, as the main difference is that now our economy is more sophisticated than in the 1930s, and therefore even when things get worse, there are still more types of work available than in the 1930s. If things get really bad people will have to share costs by living with more in a house instead of one person per house.
The result of economic decline will be:
-Savings will be reduced in real value, including money invested in property
-People will have to work for less money
-Landlords will have to lower rents
– Every cloud has a silver lining, and the socialist government will have to reduce spending. As Peter Hitchins said, something along the lines of: the government will have to give nine month’s notice that it does not want to marry any more single mums and set up home with them at a rate of one house each.
– People will have to change voting habits of a lifetime and stop voting Labour
-Don’t worry about the last point, I was only joking! I know that is not possible. (I live in a council estate in Manchester.)
It is a just pity that hundreds of thousands of our best people are emigrating every year.
Some really scummy people seem to be getting promoted these days.
This country is becoming a horrible, nasty cruel place to live. We all have hundreds examples of this. I will just give one.
Manchester Royal Infirmary Accident and Emergency Department – Why do you make visitors fight for about 30 parking places and employ an attendant to stop people parking, when meanwhile 20 yards before A&E there is a large hospital car park with a barrier down, totally empty?
You hospital managers must really be a load of complete *****!!!*!!XXXers
Lemar – you what?
Blimey, this thread’s getting a bit melodramatic.
For what it’s worth I can’t see any evidence that Obama will be a particularly bad President, any more than I think he’ll save us all from evil. The economy will muddle through with much belt tightening. Jews (and every other religious minority) will continue to be perfectly safe in Britain. Labour will be out shortly.
“It is a just pity that hundreds of thousands of our best people are emigrating every year”
With all due respect to emigrees, in my experience “our best” are continuing to make successes of themselves. It’s those who’ve had a blip economically or socially and retirees after some sun who seem to convince themselves that the grass is always greener…
“It lived up to the billing that it might be quite sober.”
Lived down to that billing surely?
On BBC World some idealistic cow from a group called Reprieve was waxing on about Gitmo. It really comforts me that lunatic idealists are now in charge of the barnyard.
notasheep
When I read your comment and, at greater length, your blog, my first feeling was shame – shame that anyone in my country, particularly a Jew, should feel like this. Then shame gave way to disgust: disgust with the BBC, other organs of the “bien pensant” tendency (eg Guardian and Independent), the apparatchiks and the politicians (in power and also, sadly, in opposition). Their aim – as inferred from their conduct – seems to be to see Britain become a multi-culti desert bereft of education, bereft of history (and thus a knowledge of itself) – in fact bereft of anything except the exercise of power by those whose conduct while in power disqualifies them from exercising any authority whatsoever.
The welcoming of those from parts of the world where civilisation (as we conceive it) is unknown and whose “spiritual” beliefs belie human pretensions to intelligence is a part of this grand work. It goes with the downgrading of our schools and universities, the transformation of the police from (more or less) impartial upholders of the law to very partial enforcers of regulations, the endless lies told by politicians (and, for that matter, leaders of industry and the unions) etc. I could go on but you get the picture.
I can’t believe I’m alone in these feelings. It can’t be too long – surely – for such feelings of shame and disgust to turn to anger. The worry is at whom that anger will be directed. The Jews are, of course, a traditional target and the recent anti-semitic manifestations (unreported by the BBC) may be a precursor of worse to come. On a personal note, one of the great regrets of my father’s life was that he recognised only belatedly how uncaring he (and his family and most of his friends) were of the sufferings of Jews in the 30s. He had the English disease of being good-humouredly contemptuous of anyone who was not “British” as he saw it. He was of a generation (sadly, the last one) that still believed that to be born an Englishman was to have won first prize in the lottery of life. Whatever, he experienced a Damascene conversion during WW2 and brought up his children to be far more accepting and tolerant than he had been and, moreover, believers in Zionism.
So my apologies to you on behalf of my (and, be reassured, your) country, decadent and failing though it may be at the moment. Please stay and, if necessary, fight. Our country needs people like you.
It is woefully off-topic and I apologise, but I must second Umbongo’s well expressed sentiments.
Umbongo,
Well said my friend, very well said!
This clip of Gavin Esler interviewing Mark Regev is astonishing http://blog.newkey-burden.com/2009/01/mark-regev-and-gavin-esler.html
Did anyone see the BBC News’ numerous “still” photos panning out – of joyous individuals – at the end of the 10 o’clock news, with the speech once again being dubbed in? This was definately not impartial reporting but brazen propaganda. Roll on some tough decisions.
One trouble about the downturn in the economy is that all job losses and companies closing down will be blamed on the recession, when there are other factors (such as overtaxation, our civil servants favouring foreign firms, over regulation in this country and a general non businessattitude by our establishment) will be to blame.
Umbongo 12:41
As a British non-Jew, may I applaud your post.
We have a great history of sheltering people in times of struggle, including Jews who have contributed so much, not to “our country”, but to a country which is also theirs.
“Notasheep”. Please don’t leave. Many of us are with you !
The BBC is not , in any way, representative of most people in this country. The BBC is a cancer at the heart of Britain.
The British economy is like a thoroughbred racehorse with a 30 stone jockey ‘helping’ it.
Grant
Just to be clear: “our” includes notasheep – it’s as much his/her country as mine (and yours).
It’s all too much | 21.01.09 – 6:54 am |
I am fully behind the trend of this blog – attacking the vile sycophantic BBC coverage. However please cut the blatant racism.
Yes, I’ll second that. Although I’m talking about comments like “the blacks should thank the white people” and Obama going back home to Kenya. That’s garbage talk.
But we have too many accusations from trolls and defenders of the indefensible about how the majority of people here are racist. That’s simply not true, but little comments like these only support their theories, and I hope we all prefer not to do that.
However, I should point out that saying that President Obamessiah was shoved to the front of the Democratic pack because of the color of his skin and little else is not a racist statement. There’s a racial element to it, but it’s not racist.
Unlike the BBC and some posters here I do not believe that the colour of the US presidents skin is his most important attribute. he appears to me to be a man of no substance, or policy capable of uttering ‘Plettitudes’. I cannot believe that no one has asked him to define what “the audacity of hope” is other than a meaningless soundbite.
The media has made the color of his skin the key theme. Commenters here are just reacting to that. I haven’t seen anyone ever say anything negative about his race. The complaints are about affirmative action and racial politics, as far as I can tell.
If nothing else, it’s the color of President Obamessiah’s skin which made the media and others let him slide by without campaigning on any real substance during the Democrat primaries. That’s not our fault, and it’s not racist to say so.
Aside from that, I think most people took “the audacity of hope” in the same way that people took the utterances of Chauncey the Gardener. For most, especially the likes of Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Beeboids, it meant the hope of defeating George Bush. Everyone else was free to project onto it anything they liked. No need to ask what it means.
Umbongo 3:01
If you re-read my post, that was what I was trying to say, maybe a little clumsily , but I agree with you totally.
Grant
Point taken – I must get some new glasses.
Invest in wheelbarrows now !)
Not a bad idea, however I would also take a punt on the following.
Extra food and medical supplies, especially bandages and pain killers, candles, bottled water, and an ENTRA large brick to be thrown at the appropriate time ( which is 5 mins into Question time ) at your TV screen.
Other then that, it would be a reasonably good time to take up some kind of religion, as preying very hard indeed, may largely replace other forms of social activity.
Even if things do not get quite that bad, THEY MAY DO SO, therefore a sensible SANE person should always be prepared for the worst situation imaginable.
I give advice in spite of the well known fact that;
A wise man does not need it, and a BBC mind controlled fool, is literally incapable of heeding it.
The Al Manar of Britain obsession with Israel:
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2009/01/the-bbcs-obsession-with-israel.html
David Preiser (USA) | 21.01.09 – 3:41 pm
Although I’m talking about comments like “the blacks should thank the white people”. … That’s garbage talk.
It’s only garbage talk if you don’t think about the point. I have for some months had to put up with a procession of smug blacks continually implying that once we have a black President everything will be sorted out.
They are the root cause of this problem (the CRA and ACORN, etc.). Blacks’ crime rates, illegitimacy rates and welfare takeup rates are holding us back. They are always there with their hand out to whitey at the same time as (falsely) accusing us of racism. They say we are holding them back because they are black but the sad truth is they are holding themselves back by their lack of marketable talent and their apparent inability to benefit from the education system.
In your country I seem to be reading all the time about blacks rising up through the system only to be sacked for corruption. (So many Mayors, so many black hands in the till.)
In the case of (for example) Zimbabwe and South Africa we have handed over well run, prosperous countries and the blacks have squandered every opportunity to build on the legacy and reduced those countries to shambolic hellholes.
What I am saying is shocking, not because it’s untrue but because you don’t normally hear it because one is not allowed to say/write this sort of thing.
I’m not a bnp’er or a racist but I am a realist.
If you think I’m wrong then refute me, don’t just try to put me down with an insult.
If the organiser of this blog don’t want to hear this sort of critique then let me know and I wont write about it again.
Chuffer – Thanks for that pointer to the BBC comments. I was able to use them in a post (And give you credit, of course.)
NotaSheep | Homepage | 21.01.09 – 9:28 am
I agree with everything you say. About the today programme, which I often comment on, and about Obama, Israel and everything else. We are also wondering where to go and when. Being completely British that’s quite a tough decision.
Umbongo | 21.01.09 – 12:41 pm That was a great post. I want to stay but I can’t think of anyone who would risk harbouring me, if it would endanger them or theirs. Surely it won’t come to that?
Chas Newkey-Burden | Homepage | 21.01.09 – 1:41 pm
Your collaborative book with Julie Burchill, whose writing and squeaky voice I’ve always liked, is unusual and particularly reassuring in its generous admiration for Israel and the Israelis.
Blimey. It seems that the sentiments of Gavin Esler are now fairly representative of the man in the street, due mainly to the BBC. No wonder me and Notasheep are worried.
Notasheep.
I can’t help picturing you AS a sheep, even though you say you’re not one. Is that because by drawing attention to it, you protest too much, and thereby arouse suspicion?
Hmm.
Mrs NotaSheep thinks we have to keep on, keeping on. I am not so sure. Whatever I do decide I will let you know, but in the meantime…. good luck.”
NotaSheep | Homepage | 21.01.09 – 9:28 am |
Notasheep
Don’t get too depressed mate.
One of the irritating things about us Brits is – we’ll put up with endless crap and provocation for a long time, for the sake of a quiet life – but, eventually the wheel turns and a Churchill or a Maggie Thatcher comes along and tilts the balance back to common sense and sanity.
In a couple of year’s time, I bet NULAB will be a forgotten bad dream, Obama will be sorting out Iran and his present supporters will be on the march again – chanting “Not in Our Name”.
Meanwhile hang on in there and remember Chesterton’s words :-
..Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget,
For we are the people of England, that never has spoken yet.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~martinh/poems/SECRET
I for one have enjoyed your contributions here – please stick around.
Grant | 21.01.09 – 2:44 pm | #
As a still small, and therefore highly profitable and efficient British manufacturer of 30 years experience, I can confirm what you say in spades.
In this country, and as good as I know, all countries, small business is a long and short term hiding to nothing. Which is made more so by an establishment inspired conspiracy to DESTROY honest small business before it even gets started, or shortly after.
Business laws and regulations are introduced at the direct behest of BIG BUSINESS, in order to destroy as much competition to their own vastly inefficient and incredibly crap top heavy operations.
The costs of which that also applies to themselves, self apparently ultimately do not. This because the TAX payer either directly or through bailing out the banking system, covers their loses and incredibly undeserved directors rake offs.
Top down corporations employing over say 15-50 staff are by definition not only extremely inefficient, they can not grow without criminal activity, vast corruption, or taking on big big borrowings. Those employing 50 or far more are generally so in hock to the banks, they are either effectively OWNED by the bank, or more likely effectively controlled by the bank.
The big money hates small business, as do ALL of the governments they control, which is as good as ALL of them, one way or another.
The banking establishment especially hates self financed small business with a particular passion, simply because it is much harder for it to destroy them. Using deliberately created so called ‘economic cycles,’ we commonly know as, BOOMS and BUSTS.
However the BIG money loves lending to GOVERNMENT or other forms of corporate monopolies. Big banks hate competition, as it reduces their profits and increases their risks.
Which is why the system is a cross between Fascism and Communist socialism, and not a free market, liberal democratic, capitalist one in any other way, but name. While becoming more so every year, what ever the media may claim.
This country may not be Cuba quite yet, but it is getting closer every day. Quite frankly I wonder why on earth anyone in there right mind would ever want to run a small business in this or any other country, if they had any other practical alternative whatsoever. I do only because I never did have a practical alternative presented to me at school.
BIG GOVERNMENT have always, in all countries including The USSR, worked in conspiracy with the BIG money against the interests of their own citizens.
This was as true in the times of Edward 1st, as it is now. Only the details have changed and of course the means by with lies are propagated to the masses. Namely news-papers and The BBC, among notable others.
The big money lends to a violent thug enough to steel the gold from another country. Then the victorious despot can easily pay back the loan with interest. Or in Edward 1st case simply slaughter the ‘bank managers,’ and keep all of the capital and the profits for himself.
The money lenders where not going to repeat that mistake again, in a hurry. Which they very rarely did.
Edward 1st and Gordon Brown have some notable similarities,( for example they were both completely mad and very bad indeed ) but slaughtering bank managers or money lenders, certainly is not one of them.
Umbongo | 21.01.09 – 12:41 pm |
I fully agree… anti-semitism is on the rise in the whole of Europe though and it’s mainly the members of some so called “peaceful” religion who are driving it, not necessarily the natives (whatever that means).