Tuesday ... Louise Mensch, another reason ...

  ... to switch allegiance for team GB voters.

Not because she has quit politics, but because the Conservative Party made a pigs ear with her selection, they chose a lightweight "media star" rather than a political mind able to craft legislation.

This latest manifestation of Great Britain in political decline is to be expected when the political landscape is little more than beach volleyball between politicians and the media, the little people recognise and understand that democracy only occurs at election time, for the remaining 5 years of the life of the Parliaments (and Assembly's scattered around our country), democracy takes second place to a contest between political leaders and the media.

My advice to the Conservative Party would be to find a Mensch replacement with a certain enquiring depth, not a "bright media star", someone who might Tweet less, Corby and East Northamptonshire need a representative not a writer of chick lit fiction.

Lady Lynn de Rothschild (in today's Times), the businesswoman and lawyer, has lamented the fact that many women lose their ambition when they marry "alpha males".

Alpha Males ! .... her husband is the manager of a rock bandfor goodness sake, she is moving to New York for an exciting life Westminster is unable to compete with.

Closer to the truth of this débâcle in today's Times ...

.... speculation about Mensch’s “real” motive yesterday. Perhaps in vacating her marginal seat she was leaving a sinking ship? Perhaps she was bored by politics and wants to return to her previous career, writing novels, or to concentrate on her social networking site Menshn which is intended to be a rival to Twitter and which she set up after receiving hateful tweets about her children from a Twitter troll who was later prosecuted. Perhaps she simply wants to be with her new husband, a man who has managed Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and with whom she seems blissfully besotted.
“I have strong feelings of hero worship towards him. I was longing to brand myself with his name for a very long time. He’s a living legend, and to be his wife is the greatest honour”, she said recently. “He is absolutely stunningly gorgeous. My palms still sweat with adrenaline whenever he walks into a room”.
Whatever her reasons you have to hand it to Louise Mensch. In a week when politics was the last thing on people’s minds and the names dominating the headlines were people in tight Lycra shorts, Mensch, ever the self-publicist, lobbed a small hand grenade and did what she will always do brilliantly. Put herself in the spotlight. 

 ...

Wales, time for effective education ...

... (there were nearly 100,000 surplus places in Wales last year) must begin with an urgent need for information from both parents, pre-parents and local authorities ...

... from parents what medium do you want to educate your children with, English or Welsh ?

... from pre-parents (boys and girls, men and women without children of school age), as for parents.

... from local authorities, how many surplus places do you have.

... only then can the recommendations of Estyn be implemented. 

Governors and teachers leaders say the issue is more complex and needs more consideration, this position is of course bullshit ...

... the only complexity is the notion that parents might object to busing children to fewer schools, in a world where budgets are very tight the local authorities might like to extend a questionnaire to the whole taxpaying network of its borough, it might like to offer the existing (complex) option as a fourth option ...

... do you agree to keep the status quo and agree to a 25% increase in your council tax.

... the opposition of school governors and teachers becomes less complex when the people who pick up the tab each year are consulted.

The story in full.

McDonalds have a lot to ...

... teach our home grown politicians, because no-matter how you view their food, and the Chicken Legend with Batavia lettuce and Spicy Tomato Salsa in a bakehouse roll makes a mouth water, they know how to get things to the customers ............

In Wales, like so many parts of the world, we have a housing crisis, at least that's how politicians refer to it ......... crisis ..........we should have a solution at hand, there are enough politicians across the political divides of our green and pleasant lands, there are ...

Plaid Cymru, the home-grown separatist party without an original idea that can be shared, it said :

It (Plaid Cymru) wants to devolve primary legislation to housing, and pledge more affordable housing over the next four years.

Liberal Democrats, the mishmash of liberal tolerance that they couple with a we know best relationship with the world, it said :

They (the Welsh Liberal Democrats) place emphasis on bringing empty homes back into use, bringing more private money into housing and protecting any new social rented housing from being sold under the Right-to-Buy scheme for a minimum of 25 years, in areas where this is needed.

Conservatives in Wales on the other hand seem to have lost the plot completely when they were reported as saying :

The Conservatives pledge to tackle the problem of 'garden grabbing' and halting inappropriate development on flood plains in the countryside.

The Labour Party come to the rear of this motley crew with help upgrading the insulation, bathrooms and kitchens of those living in social housing :

They (Welsh Labour) say it remains committed to a strong mix of social and private housing, and promises a further £1.2bn to deliver the Welsh Housing Quality Standard for all council and housing association tenants across Wales.

Now to be fair, the current Welsh Assembly Government has put its toe into the waters that hold a real solution for those in need of good homes, I reported it last Tuesday, the Ely Project.  The only things this excuse for governance had to stump up was a loan of £6 million (chickenfeed by political standards), and I think public sector land, why no other plans ?


Now back to McDonald's, I wonder what they would do if they were sitting in Cardiff Bay with the "motley crew", I think they would have a programme up and running within 18 months delivering at least 10,000 homes (social housing) a year for a decade.  It money for old rope, in the UK if the people living in the homes fall an bad times the government picks up the tab, it's better business than the Quarter Pounder Deluxe with Bacon, unfortunately in Wales .........

............ we have an enormous amount of political .....

..................................... bullshit .

Islamophobia in Wales, or ...

... might it be an undercurrent of xenophobia that runs throughout the psych of these green and pleasant lands.

The story is about a family that wish to build a mizaar (mizar) to mark the last resting place of his father Abdul who was buried 100 yards from the family home after permission was granted by the Registrar of Births and Deaths.

What is a mizar, originally "the small mountain" seems to have been mentioned in Psalm 42,Islam must have borrowed a little from Judaism here, it goes ...

⁶My soul is downcast within me;
 therefore I will remember you
 from the land of the Jordan,
 the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.  

... but now traditionally the Islamic rich list might build something like ....


The Alexander Chock ...

... and if reports are right, I am guessing the family of Abdul Ghaffar might like something along these lines, after all, history is a landscape littered with the idiosyncrasies of mankind ...

The Beacon at Staunton Country Park ...

... unfortunately for this family of Wales another family of Wales, joint 6th in the "100 richest Welsh people" list, is objecting, another from the locale wrote ...

"It won't fit into the local countryside. It will be an eyesore which people will be able to see for miles around. People are concerned it will affect the value of their property – some of the wealthiest people in Wales live nearby."

... by that token the monument would be OK if it was located in a sink estate, "where the poorest people in Wales live".


Going back to my original question ...

Islamophobia in Wales, or might it be an undercurrent of xenophobia that runs throughout the psych of these green and pleasant lands.

The answer is of course "No", but there are those who believe they should be treated with a certain deference by virtue of their wealth .............


... was it Honoré de Balzac who said "behind great wealth is a great crime", in this case the crime of "The Emperor's New Clothes", the vanity that wealth brings to a few of such little character they would object to a tomb !

... web monitoring plans, well if you want my emails you only had to ask !

The Liberal Democratic poltroon Tim Farron has said he "would kill plans" for more monitoring of emails and internet use if they were not watered down.  The man is his party president with a sense of importance larger than his rural life.

In fact the government (GCHQ) proposals are an indication of poor performance, change from an "Intelligence" organisation to a "fishing" fleet, it's the lazy way out and the majority of sane, honest British people know this.

To protest the massive invasion of privacy there is a way out sometimes called "Denial of Service".  It is where an organisation orchestrates a massive use of a particular web site to the extent the web site crashes in digital flames, I have a far more personal proposal ...

Copy the home secretary to each of the emails you send as a F(or)Y(our)I(information), I'm sure this would have the desired effect, just to make sure the point is not lost probably best to let her know all your thoughts, your every thoughts, you might even write extra thoughts consisting of local trivia to keep their attention,  ................

Theresa May (Home Secretary) mayt@parliament.uk 

Politicians don't really think through problems ............. send them your emails so the (not so) security services know your life is as humdrum as your neighbours, they can cross you off their "might be WANTED list".

And Liberal Democratic Tim Farron, I'm happy some other sucker has him as MP .......