Phil Woolas: Let Joy Be Unconfined

Well this has made my week, and no mistake. With the 'retirement' of McNulty, Woolas was unchallenged as the most odious of the bunch.

Now all they need to do is to fix the outrageous postal voting scandal ...

Oh, and one other thing to make my weekend complete: England to beat the Kiwis this afternoon. Conditions are identical to that of the famous afternoon in November 1993: glorious autumn day, England not given a prayer ... It was the first match with the 'new' North and East stands in place at Twickenham, and the crowd were excited to find that the extended high concrete roofing had the effect of bouncing sound back into the bowl. After the haka, a tentative burst of Swing Low was tried - and it echoed around marvellously. Spirits were suddenly high: hey, this is great !

And so was the score-line of 15:9, marred only by Jamie Joseph's disgraceful footwork on the ankle of the prone Kieran Bracken, on the pitch for his first cap. Joseph perpetrated his outrage in full view as the action moved upfield, and the crowd let him know what they thought. The boy Bracken was strapped up, though, and he soldiered on.

The NZ supporters got rock-all on the train back to Waterloo. But they took it in good part.

ND

Always beware the Spanish Inquisition

This story today is hilarious. Apparently the Anglo-Saxon media are in cahoots to talk Spain down for their  own benefit.

This is a great example of many games Government like to play:

- Start by shooting the messenger
- When that fails; tell everybody the messenger is a horrible foreigner anyway.
- Keep distraction going by whipping up Xenophobia and not discussing 45% youth unemployment in your own Country and said causes.
- Try and get a facebook campaign going too, to show your are modern, with it and therefore not incompetent.
- Get the security servcies involved and start threatening your critics with....

The sad thing is, the UK's Time-in-the-Sun of the Bond markets may not be far away, so I will use this post as a memo to check of Peter Mandelson's statements at that time.

Please delete your cache on Internet Explorer or Firefox now, I don't want the Spanish Secret service calling round to your houses.

Phrases of the day...

Alistair Darling "At a time like this, it would be wrong to start taking money out of the economy, in terms of cutting back on spending, in terms of tax"

Translation: We will borrow from our future to pay for past mistakes. We will not make recompense now but force our future selves and children to pay for our misdeeds.

Yvette Cooper ""We need a more responsible approach to repossessions"

Translation: Now we control the banks they will do as we say. There is to be no allowance for market renewal in the housing market and unsustainable prices and ownership will be ensured whatever the cost to the taxpayer and market participants.

Phil Woolas " "We are going to be tough in implementing these policies. It is very important that the public are reassured that the authorities, including the Government, know who is coming into our country and who is leaving it."

Translation: our mass immigration policies have been deeply damaging to the country and everyone sees it and we want the votes of those who are unhappy about this, even though we will in practice do nothing differently in the future to what we have done in the past.