Grade Inflation with E Halliday MA Principle of St Chad’s College Durham University 1992

Academics and teachers are a curious breed obsessed with grades.  To them good grades are everything…  What they don’t tell you, of course, is that 27 years later those grades will have been made laughable by grade inflation. 

It’s easy to say this but it’s harder to prove this …or it was until the other day when I unearthed by accident this letter to myself from E Halliday MA the Principle of St Chad’s College Durham University written in 1992.

A number of things seem remarkable reading this letter in retrospect.  Firstly E Halliday MA has typed under the University Coat of Arms “EXEMPT CHARITY” in upper case.  Was this the University motto I wonder? or was E Halliday MA who asked me a lot of questions about my freelance writing career worried that I would twig he was a freelancer too and grass him up to the inland revenue?  The mind boggles.

Did I meet with E Halliday MA at all?  I mention this because although his name appears on the top of the letter it is appended there by sticky label underneath which can clearly be seen the name of the previous Principle of St Chad’s College Durham University David Jasper MA PhD BD. 

I suppose David Jasper MA PhD BD must have seen himself pretty settled in the role of Principle of St Chad’s College Durham for all eternity because he clearly had his own name written on so much of the University stationary that E Halliday MA had to use sticky labels to cover it up. 

Was E Halliday MA on an economy drive or did he simply get some form of schadenfreude in sticking a sticky label over his predecessor’s name? 

Who can tell?

I remember going for the interview distinctly because I had to stay overnight at the college in order to get the feel of the place.  However, while the idea was clearly that we should spend all night in the college there being no prohibition on going out on the town alone I did the latter …only to discover that there was not much of a town to go out on.  There was a cathedral on top of a hill, some shops that were closed and it was very cold.  I ain’t spending 3 years here I thought… not that they weren’t nice people.  Apart from the lecturer in the Physics department who barked at me while watching me fill in a short test form “You should know the answers before you come here!”  Unfortunately I didn’t and so the Russell Group was immediately formed to prevent any repetition of such an educational disaster.

But most interestingly of all …the offer in 1992 was that one could get on the course with CCC whereas 27 years later it seems that A*A*A is required.  It seems to me then that university offers increase by an alphabet letter every 13.5 years.  The question is what will happen to this system in 13.5 years time in 2032 …?  For now we’re at A*A*A there is no higher alphabet letter to go to?  And no more *s save one.  Perhaps then like car number plates the system should start going back down the alphabet again until it reaches Z*Z*Z* before going back up to A*A*A again…?

An open letter to the Chamberlain of London

Dear City of London,

                                    I write with regards to payment of Penalty Charge Notice CL55350099.   I wish to complain to the Council that the money has been obtained by deception.  Firstly the wording of the letter is wrong.  It says “Failure to pay the charge in full before the end of the 28 day period may lead to the charge increasing by 50 per cent to £195".  However strictly speaking this is a 300 per cent increase.  Therefore motorists are forced to pay the fine by deception and unreasonable threats.  The letter further pressurises the customer to pay within 14 days at the risk of the fine increasing rather than challenge the ticket.  However, the small print on the City of London website which is not on the letter tells a different story.

“You have 14 working days from the date of the ticket to make an informal challenge at the discount amount for tickets attached to the vehicle or handed to the driver.

The case will be placed on hold until we respond; if we reject your challenge, you will be re-offered the discount amount for 14 days from the date of that letter.”

Therefore the letter is deceptive in suggesting to the reader that they must pay within 14 days without challenging the fine or risk the fine increasing.  Whereas actually if the driver appeals the fine within the 14 days the 14 day clock is started again and the driver is informed in writing whether their appeal is accepted or rejected at which point they can still pay at the £65 rate.  This automatically forces anyone for whom it is impractical to revisit the locus in quo within the timeframe specified to not challenge the ticket.  Therefore the money taken is being obtained by deception.

The letter then advises the reader that they must not pay the fine if they intend to dispute it which I have done.  However, I would point out that payment is not a one-sided affair.  I sent you a cheque which is a push pull method of payment and asked you to take payment at your discretion.  This means you must make a decision to cash the cheque and be responsible for making such a decision.  I submit that the decision to cash the cheque was so outrageous in its defiance of logic or accepted moral standards that no sensible person who had applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it and that the only reason you cashed the cheque is that no one had applied their mind enough to question the procedural mistakes outlined above and therefore I would like to apply for my money back.

Yours sincerely

Anthony Miller

Ohhh do the referendum

You vote EEC in
You vote for EU out
In Out In Out
Shake it all about
You do the referendum and U-turn around
And that's what it's all about
Ohhh do the referendum
Ohhh do the referendum
Ohhh do the referendum
Hard Border, Brexit, Backstop, Shout!

Parliament debates how to fit a quart into a pint pot

Yesterday in Westminster MPs from all parties met with the Prime Minister in order to discuss how a pint pot could be made to contain a quart.  Boris Johnson speculated that a quart when accelerated to near the speed of light might occupy less space than a pint while Jeremy Corbyn said that not trying to put a quart into a pint pot would be a betrayal of all the people who wanted to drink their beverages in imperial quantities.  Mrs May speculated that by using a quart that was carbonated some extra space could be made by waiting for the bubbles to evaporate.  However the DUP said that once the gas had evaporated the quart would no longer be a quart and they would only accept a pint.  Mrs May replied that not getting a quart into a pint pot would have grave consequences.  Some people suggested a second pint glass might be used but Mrs May said the public would not accept 2 pints instead of 1 pint and when given such a bribe might think they had been lied to.   The European Commission's chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas said that "It is obvious that you cannot get a quart into a pint pot". Pushed to speculate what might happen if a quart was into a pint pot, he said, it was "pretty obvious you will have some spillage".  However, the Irish government has repeated its stance that it will "not accept any spillage from any pint pot in order to accommodate a quart".  Neither will the DUP.

Gyles Brandreth and the Royal Posterior

It’s easy to make logical arguments about the totally undemocratic nature of the Monarchy but Republicans often struggle for a good emotional argument against the ludicrous real life soap opera that is the British Royal Family.  So I feel it important to say that yesterday I discovered a killer one – it’s called Gyles Brandreth.  

My first experience of Gyles Brandreth was in the 1980s when he seemed to be permanently glued to TVAM’s sofa in a series of loud jumpers.  Later he went into politics and respresented City of Chester with a similar level of vacuity.  He spent a lot of time too in Countdown’s dictionary corner.  If you’re wondering how anyone manages to have such a varied career when their main skills are talking flimsy whimsy the answer is that he was President of the Oxford Union in Michaelmas Term 1969.  Yes, it’s our old friend Oxbridge privilege.  All of these things are forgivable as the Brandreth is by and large pretty harmless…

However, these days when anything Royal happens someone on the wireless or the TV drags out Gyles Brandreth from under a stone as a talking head on all matters Royal.  And then a level of bottom kissing that is beyond satire ensues.  If you’re wondering what qualifications Gyles Brandreth has to be a Royal expert the answer is none whatsoever except penning two crawling “biographies” one about the “love affair” between the Queen and Prince Phillip and the other about the “love affair” between Charles and Camilla.  Whether Brandreth has any real intimacy with the Royal Family or just knows some friends of friends of the Royal Family or has interviewed them one thing’s for sure … he seems to verbally climb so far up the Royal Family’s posterior that it makes one wonder if the late Queen Mother didn’t have a colostomy purely to keep her bowels Brandreth free.  

I’m not saying he’s never said anything negative about the Royal Family but let’s put it this way… we’re never going see a book about the “love affair” between Charles and Diana.

According to an eye witness Prince Phillip’s car turned over because he was startled by the sun and not because he was driving like an idiot…

Where the stalking horse grazes...

Hidden away amongst the Brexit Lectures on BBC Parliament is a long boring speech by John Redwood.  Well, someone’s got to make an argument for Brexit … so he does.  For those of you who don’t remember what John Redwood has ever done he was the stalking horse against John Major in the 1995 leadership election.  This he lost after being parodied by the press as even more boring and wooden than the other John – which let’s face it is quite an achievement.  At one point he was derided as Mr Spock which was rather unfair as Spock is half human.  John R’s catchphrase these days is "People used to call me an extreme Eurosceptic. Now I’m a moderate."  The truth is probably more along the lines of people don't call John anything much because he’s boring.

John tells us how many times we were promised not following the EU would end in disaster and following the EU ended in disaster.  He mentions the Exchange Rate Mechanism debacle and how we were forced out of the ERM.  He does not blame the EU entirely for this … but neither does he place a lot of blame at the door of his own party. 

John tells us being in the EU has been devastating for primary industries like coal and steel.  And for those wondering how far bare faced hypocrisy can be taken John (Mrs Thatcher’s Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in July for Corporate Affairs at the Department of Trade and Industry) reminds us that the UK hasn’t a single deep coal mine left – as if this, and indeed he, has nothing to do with ‘80s Tory policies.

John tells us confidently that we can deal with the EU on WTO rules because that is how we strike trade deals with other countries – ignoring the fact that those countries are part of other trading blocks.  I suppose we could join CARICOM but that would probably result in a dangerous loss of sovereignty.  John’s main line of attack was to say that even though it was a zero sum gain the EU hadn’t really boosted UK productivity – something that, of course, is very difficult to assess except through complicated statistical modelling without actually leaving the EU.  Oh well, let’s try that then…

John said the UK economy expanded rapidly after the war but went into decline / levelled out after we joined the EU.  Of course it could alternatively be that the UK joined the EEC because its economy was in decline…?  The most powerful argument he pursued was to do with the undemocratic nature of adopting so much EU legislation.  It would be interesting to see how other trading blocks tend to legislative unity and to what degree.  Well, I think it would be interesting.  Normal people would fall asleep…

On a dark Brexit highway...

Last thing I remember, May was
Running for the door
She had to find the way back to the UK she had before
'Brexit' said Jean-Claude Juncker,
'new representations EU won't recieve.
You can vote out any time you like,
but you can never leave!'

Getting pissed with Adrian Chiles

Being a socially gregarious person last night I got in at 2am yesterday and having driven for an hour thought I’d unwind watching a documentary on BBC Iplayer before going to bed...

Adrian Chiles had been given an hour of screentime to address the issue of drinking too much.  Adrian likes a drink and broke through the measly weekly limit of 14 units (reduced recently from 21 in case people have too much fun) virtually every day.  All his friends did too as his life seemed to revolve around “working lunches” and watching football matches.  I thought I used to drink a lot in my 30s but I was not in his league.  He and his mates were terminally in denial of the dangers of their lifestyle despite the obvious warning signs - liver damage / water retention / expanding waist line. 

Don’t know if that’s a pun but terminal was definitively the word as a man with a graph showed us the direct effects on life expectancy without putting any error bars on it or admitting there may be any other factors as health scientists are prone to do.  Even if it were true it’s still possible to be a statistical outlier - as my GP explained once some people are more easily poisoned by alcohol than others.   It was only a matter of time before the words “If alcohol was discovered today it would be banned,” were spoken by a medical potentate.  And never were truer words spoken.  An army of public health officials armed with non-invasive scanning techniques can now tell us with great surety that we will all die if we keep drinking… and show us all the evidence in real time as we do so…

A doctor rubbed some jelly on Adrian’s tummy, looked at his liver and tutted and mentioned scarring.  Even the thought of cutting down to having some non-drinking days in his week seemed to turn Adrian to jelly … then again after years of 20-60 units a day he had arguably become a bit like a huge jelly already with the associated health risks. 

Perhaps he was struggling with the existential pointlessness of a career in football punditry… did being paid very well to do something he enjoyed leave a hole in his life?  Then I wondered if the hole was alcohol shaped… as I looked around his kitchen and tried to back calculate the cost of the installation.  He seemed to have spent a lot on interior décor and I half wondered if he hadn’t made the documentary to show off his home.  Perhaps he was hoping to sell it?

At one point he spoke cryptically about his problems dealing with employment insecurity and said something about being “kicked off” Breakfast television.  At another point he met Frank Skinner who told him he wouldn’t tell him not to drink but to perhaps consider a period of abstinence and see how it went.  Chiles looked like a child who’d been told to give up chocolate for lent.  I read on his Wikipedia that he has now converted to Roman Catholicism (perhaps he caught it off Frank Skinner) and I had to wonder if he took communion under “both kinds”.

I noticed too on this page that he’d been sacked from covering the footy by ITV as well… And then I began to wonder did he all this drinking as he felt the need to schmooze to get on and he had to get drunk to relax himself around other people?  Or had the booze had a detrimental effect on his career?  Or was there a truth somewhere between these too.  Was this a mea culpa to his own industry?  He reminded me of Bob Monkhouse’s quote that “I’d drink less if God ever gave me a hangover”.  God did indeed not give Bob a hangover – he did however give him prostate cancer and it is believed that over-consumption of the demon drink might relate to a greater risk …

...but then again the demon drink seems to be responsible for everything these days.  Still he made 75 …not too bad.  To cheer us Frank Skinner said at one point that his social life had “never recovered” from giving up booze and I didn’t think he was baiting Adrian.

Personally after some periods of complete abstinence followed by relapse followed by being told by my GP that my bad blood tests were probably a “false positive” but to “watch” it I think I am now actually drinking at the recommended 14 units a week (roughly) and I have to say I think my life has improved somewhat as a result.  As to the effect on my social life fortunately there hasn’t been any because I never really had one anyway.  But I sometimes wonder … if booze is as toxic as the public health officials keep telling us will it one day mean the end of pubs?  They’re pretty much disappearing anyway … and what will we all do instead?  Mr Silky once told me that the secret of understanding the comedy industry was just one fact – “we’re here to sell beer” and clearly the economics of most comedy clubs and indeed the Fridge Festival would go well up the spout should everybody suddenly abstain.  Even if everybody just went down to 14 units I’m sure large sections of the economy would collapse to such an extent it’d make Brexit seem like a minor economic tremor…

So what’s the answer?

“’Go on have a drink’ that’s what they used to say to me,” said Frank Skinner before adding ominously, “but I didn’t.”

The trials of returning an HP laptop via Nurnberg

What is the point of spending decent money on a laptop, researching the hard drive, screen capabilities, processing capabilities and paying over the odds for reliability if it just doesn’t work?  Why?  The motherboard is broken.  Recently consumer rights law changed so now we have to give the manufacturer a chance to repair unless the fault manifests its self in the 1^st month.  But how long can you plausibly take to repair something?  Is not two weeks a bit long?  And what if the unit is still faulty?  You’d think then they’d just give you your money back.  But no HP insist you waste all your time ringing them and talk to somebody who can do nothing except refer you to another “team”.  HP have a lot of teams because fobbing off customers is a team sport.  When eventually, through liberal use of legal threats, a section 75 credit card claim and continual harassment on social media their resolve began to crumble someone on another team wrote back to say they would generously agree in the circumstances to “buy back” the box of spare parts that resembled a computer.  I duly returned the computer to the Czech Republic which took another 3 weeks as HP use UPS – a courier service that seems to be trying to match surface mail - sorry I mean “international economy” – for lackadaisicalness.  

Yesterday a lady from another team at HP informed me that they had finally received the machine and that I should be being refunded sometimes next week.  What’s the point of attempting to buy anything of decent spec anymore?  In the future I shall only be buying throwaway rubbish … as it seems to me that these days the more you spend the worse the product is.  The proliferation of meaningless reviews on the internet doesn’t help either in determining if anything is any good to begin with and Which are no better – mysteriously not reviewing entire manufacturers.  They don’t seem either to do manufacturer reliability statistics anymore… so what’s the point in them then?

Honestly, what’s the point in anything?

27/11/2018

Dear Sir or Madam,

REFERENCE: HP-5CG8271TQV

I purchased the HP Laptop 17-by0021na from HP. At the point of purchase I paid £799 to HP directly on the 6^th of August 2018.  It was delivered on the 9^th of August 2018. 

The HP Laptop 17-by0021na is not of satisfactory quality.

I reported it broken on the 7^th of November since it suffered from a continual failure to boot properly which had deteriorated to the point where it would not even start using BIOS keyboard shortcuts.  The BIOS too was faulty.  After sending it for repair on this date HP concluded that errors were due to a faulty motherboard. This problem you claimed to have fixed, returning the item to us on the 20^th of November.  A turnaround time of 13 days (nearly 2 weeks) during which the machine was wiped. 

After re-set up – the machine had been blanked meaning complete user re-set-up was required as well as the reinstallation of software and licences – the computer again showed boot problems within the next two days. 

It then began pronouncing error messages to do with the “PCCE SOLID STATE DRIVE” and “Smart Supporting Driver”.  Other missives from the unit warned us “Internal Disk At Risk” and “Early Warning Signs …” and advised us to “Contact Manufacturer”.  As well as showing errors the product has problems with log on and seems unable to remember the PIN with any sense of reliability meaning yet another complete re-setup may be required.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 makes it an implied term of the contract I have with HP that goods be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality. 

As you are in breach of contract and I've owned the product for less than 6 months and a previous attempt at repair or replacement has also failed, I am within my statutory rights to ask for a full refund of the original cost paid.

I would remind you of Section 23 section 2

(2)If the consumer requires the trader to repair or replace the goods, the trader must—

(a)do so within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer

It seems to me to be unreasonable to require me to now return the “repaired” product to HP for a repair that may take up to 13 days given that it has already taken HP 13 days to not repair the original product.  I would remind you of section 7 of the act.

(7)A consumer who requires or agrees to the replacement of goods cannot require the trader to repair them, or exercise the short-term right to reject, without giving the trader a reasonable time to replace them (unless giving the trader that time would cause significant inconvenience to the consumer).

It is my view that the inconvenience I am suffering from not having use of this computer is significant and that a downtime period of effectively a whole month is unacceptable. 

Having no usable computer for these extended periods of time is not viable for me and I have therefore passed the point at which necessity requires that I purchase an additional laptop to replace the one that should be working.  This is unreasonable.

I have already generously allowed HP time to attempt to repair the machine and their mistakes but they have failed to fix the machine adequately and I suspect that the original hardware issues have not been addressed. 

I therefore request that HP provide a full refund in return for the return of the goods. 

I await confirmation that you will provide the remedy set out above within 14 days of the date of this letter.

Etc Etc …wait for cows to come home.

I fear I have upset the Chamberlain of London by driving down Mansion House Street

A sternly worded letter ...

...from the Chamberlain of London ...

...informs me that driving from Poultry to Cornhill between 7am and 7pm ...

...is now very naughty...

...still why paint the road or put up a sign when you can just fine?

Eastenders and the NAO

Ever since it started I have always hated Eastenders.  Due to the repeats of “classic Eastenders” on some freeview channel down near the 60s it is now possible to fully appreciate just how awfully depressing, classist and depressing the original episodes were.  The actors are great, the storylines are engaging but it just makes any rational person want to jump off the nearest tall building.  Watch as Arthur Fowler suffers every indignity known to 80s man from redundancy to nervous breakdown to having an implausible affair.  Boo Dirty Den’s impregnations... 

During the 1980s it was decided for some reason that escape me that we couldn’t have any fantasy on television because it was too silly and expensive.  All science fiction and escapism was ruthlessly banished from the schedules and we were force fed by executives depressing soap operas in the same way that today they force feed us reality TV.  Unable for years to machinate kitchen sink drama as depressing as Coronation Street the BBC finally pumped all its money into Eastenders cancelling many popular programs (Dr Who) in order to produce a ratings grabbing drama in a do-it-or-die big financial gamble.  And we’ve had this tripe shoved at us ever since…

To cut a long story short for those too young to have endured the 80s the then 4 channels then became engaged in a war to fill the schedules with as much depressing drama as possible (because reality TV was yet to be invented).  But forward to 34 years later and it’s not all as spiffing down the square anymore.... 

For as HD television has seemingly made fantasy programs much much cheaper to film it’s also made conventional dramas such as Eastenders much more expensive.  While Doctor Who can now interact with ever more interesting aliens and planets who are entirely digital down Albert Square they’re still reliant on back lot sets.  I remember back in the 1980s a programme about the back lot set of Eastenders where we were informed (or lied to in the pretence that they hadn’t wasted a fortune) that the BBC already owned a few streets over at Elstree studios anyway and had adapted these cheaply into the original Eastenders set.

However, by 2015 these sets had started to be deemed as not good enough and in May’s Britain there’s no hiding the details of public expenditure anymore… so...  After spending several million changing all their cameras and equipment to be HD the BBC faced the embarrassment that the only stuff they actually filmed in HD was rubbish like the News.  Yes, it seems apparently the BBC cannot not film Eastenders in HD because the public might realise that the exterior sets were rubbish and wobbly (funny they never used to have these problems with Doctor Who).  Therefore a fortune has been spent re-building the existing set for HD.   Your TV may be HD ready but BBC drama was not.

In about 2014 ITV completely rebuilt the Coronation Street set ready for HD TV but times is harder down t’Beeb.  And so faced also with spiralling costs maintaining the old sets as plywood front after plywood front rotted the BBC decided to spend a fortune rebuilding the set for Eastenders once and for all – this time in real brick.  I don’t know why … surely some old buildings falling down almost exactly represents the real world housing shortage of the real London… but there we go.  And as the BBC is a public body subject to FOIs we also know exactly what they’ve spent on this (£86m) mainly because the National Audit Office has written a damning report.

The BBC’s reasoning for the rebuild largely revolves around arguments such as the fact that the plasterboard houses might look too plasterboardy in HD but can it really make that much difference?  Reading the report carefully other issues are more likely the reason.  For example … it’s fairly obvious to anyone who’s watched (or been forced to endure by living in shared accommodation) Eastenders over a long period of time that Walford is an entirely closed world.  In the real world the Queen Vic would have long ago become a Weatherspoons or been converted into yuppie flats but this would make storylines in which characters casually offer to sell it to each other as a result of criminal blackmail threats unworkable.  But let’s not worry about that – that’d be like worrying about which brewery it’s attached to.  In 2019 competing against large scale TV epics like Game of Thrones it’s becoming increasingly clear that viewers will no longer accept a set of 3 or 4 streets and a square that suddenly stops dead so that when characters walk off one side they must reappear on the other like in an Escher painting.  Of course no one ever really did but in the age of 4 channels there was no competition so we just had to suck it up.  So more fake streets are required.  Interestingly while all the problems of sci-fi have been reduced by digital effects and greenscreen they can’t use these techniques on Eastenders.  The depressing sets – like stunts in James Bond films – must for some reason all be done “for real”.

And so the BBC has decided in its wisdom that a bigger set is needed and made of real bricks not plasterboard fronts.  Of course with the average house in London now costing £600,000 for a semi-detached you could theoretically buy 143 new homes for the cost of the new Eastenders set but that wouldn’t solve the problem because the correct type of bricks to colour match the original plywood and plasterboard fronts of the old set have to be selected and these bricks then look conspicuously new and have to be aged to look as near to the originals as possible.  So a huge amount of money is being spent on making a new more realistic set look like the old unreal obviously fake one. 

The public wont accept all the sets of a soap opera suddenly changing anymore as happened when Neighbours was sold between networks in Australia in 1985.  “Seven” infamously destroyed all the sets to make life hard for their rival “Network Ten” who brought the franchise.  Of course viewers in Australia barely noticed this because there was a gap in broadcast but when the BBC ran the series back-to-back there was a remarkably sudden change in interiors that created a lot of complaints from viewers who had not previously realised that the program was fiction.  The BBC solved this problem by writing to viewers “sorry, it’s compete rubbish but we can’t change it so suck it up”.  A similar solution to the Eastenders debacle is unfortunately not possible however as it is an in house production…

To be fair the report makes clear that there will be long terms financial savings from the project so maybe it’s not all that silly.  However, with the sets going over budget the BBC may need to make cuts elsewhere and there’s some interesting reading about the costs of “human resources” on the programme which if I was a soap star would have me looking over my shoulder a lot in case my real life starts to resemble Arthur Fowler’s…

And sure enough a brief view of recent reviews shows a lot of complaints about "younger characters" (because the oldies cost too much so have been laid off / killed off?) and rubbish storylines as cheaper writers have been dragged in... Still who cares...  at least it will look a million dollars.  Or $105m.  As in the ultimate irony a drama about looking down on the working classes is creating a lot of work for people with working class jobs ... like building.

War Criminal Mr Blair pops down Parliament for a night out with old mates...

The courts having decided that they can’t do anything about Tony’s contempt for parliament because waging aggressive war while being the number one war crime isn’t a crime under UK law Tony has recently been climbing out from under the Chilcot stone to reward us all with his opinions again.  And so in amongst the Brexit lecturers at Speakers House on BBC Parliament I also noticed the one and only Tony Blair… and as I am in pain with tonsilitis I thought I might watch it.

Tony appearing in public is however still something of a rare thing as he’s continually in hiding from George Monbiot’s Arrest Blair campaign whereby the plebs are incited to perform a citizen’s arrest for war crimes for 25 per cent of the pot which at the moment stands at £10,574.89.  Nobody wanted £2643.72 on this night.  But then Speakers House isn’t really public.

Speaker Jon Bercow introduced the former Prime Minister with the most sycophantic build up imaginable.  It was clearly a massive coup for him to bag the former PM and he duly behaved like an open mic promoter who’d managed to book Stewart Lee – describing Tony Blair as having the greatest clarity of political thought in living memory. 

To be fair he did win 3 elections and the room of spads, politicos and MPs were clearly in desperate love still with Mr Blair.  There was even whistling as he ascended to the podium.  Other speakers sat in chairs but Mr Blair had a podium.  It was as if for one night only the Blairite wing of the Labour party was allowed to forget all about the Iraq War and the financial crash and it was time to party again like it was 1999.  Or maybe even 1997.  For bliss it was in that time to be New Labour.  But to be Tony Blair was very heaven. 

The old magic was still there.  The Cheshire Cat like grin and the sparkle in the eyes.  You could almost forget the elephant in the room.  Still, maybe Tony looks better these days in the same way that George W Bush looks better to those enduring Donald “How can you sack someone who’s doing a good job running the government that they keep shutting down?” Trump.  Tony told the mutual admiration society to roll around in their minds the idea of making a decision you could never revise.  Stating that no one would get married on such terms.  So I read the wedding vows and as a result I promise to be true to Brexit in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor the Referrendum decision all the days of my life from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until Article 50 do us part. Who gave us all these ideas of open borders anyway?

While the Iraq War was easily expunged from Blair’s monologue Mr Corbyn was harder to be in denial of and no one fainted with amazement as Mr Blair ripped into Mr Corbyn’s “we could do Brexit negotiations better” policy.  He said that Ms May’s plan of locking everyone into a timetable that could only deliver a “Tory Brexit” was not too late to stop… and made many many arguments along the lines of “only now do we understand what the vote means” to argue for a 2nd referendum.  And on and on and on and then just as if it was 1997 again…

… a standing ovation.  And like that... he's gone again.

Ken Clarke and the ghost of de Gaulle

The other day, out of morbid curiosity, I watched another of the BBC Parliament Brexit Lectures.  This time Ken Clarke blaming it all on de Gaulle as the populariser of the referendum as a means of bypassing parliaments…. 

Ken these days it seems is the father of the house – a quaint term for the kind of sitting MP who hasn’t got the message yet that their party wants them to get lost, die or go to the Lords.  Or who has got the message and doesn’t care.  Ken Clarke clearly belongs to the latter category.  After years of failed leadership bids – always the Chancellor never the Prime Minister - Mr Clarke has now retired to the back benches to spend his dotage making popularist pops at his own party for not being Europhile enough.  Exactly the same pops that have kept him out of the top job all his life.  Ah well, that’s principles for you.

Mr Clarke has indeed become something of a pin up for the remaining Remainers.  His speeches, like this lecture, are highly popular because like the late Tony Ben he has mastered the art of public performance to a high degree ... if not the art of implementing policy.

Direct stinging angry self-righteous attacks on the government or the Referendum or the Brexiteers are not Ken’s style.  Aware this might get the whip withdrawn (not that I suppose he cares that much about that with a majority of 10,000 and at an age of 78) he instead cloaks his attacks in multiple layers of self-depreciation – describing himself as garrulous, self-indulgent and pretending to be just a silly old fool to get his harsh criticisms under the wire ... even to the extent of having a glass of red wine permanently on his right hand side like a latter-day Rowley Birkin. 

In the words of the late Sir Humphrey Appleby “it is necessary to get behind someone in order to stab them in the back” and so Ken also plays the loyal party member card with aplomb.  He professes to entertain enormous empathy for the government for the difficult position it finds its self in of having to implement a policy it “doesn’t believe in” and uses phrases like “I do know the tools of my trade” to hint that if Prime Minister he too might try to silence debate … which is, of course, much nicer than outright just saying “Mrs May is trying to silence debate”.

Usually when he speaks in the House the Tory MPs behind him engage in pantomime theatrics to display their displeasure – such as eye rolling, sighing, looking bored or even falling asleep but without these distractions and with only a red board and a statue of Big Ben behind him Mr Clarke’s criticisms are much much starker for all his comedy theatrics. 

It’s like watching a child being beaten up by their grandfather as he rattles through a myriad of constitutional issues and technical problems in a … I’m not being critical but I don’t think anyone’s thought this out way …

Referendums bypass Parliament, all Trade deals involve the pooling of sovereignty, the soft border in Ireland will create a smuggling epidemic, you’d be better off choosing policy by lottery, I couldn’t do a deal with Obama you think you’ve got a hope with Trump?  The Chinese government never loses in its own courts so what chance you got?  What happens to intellectual property?  We’re now going to exclude ourselves from our own free trade deals we spent years negotiating inside the EU.  It’s a masterclass in verbally skewering your opponents yet somehow never quite winning the arguments…

No bank is an island...

 

No bank is an island entire of itself; every teller

is a fungible commodity, a part of the currency;

if the pound be washed away by the Euro, HSBC

is the less, as well as if a northern rock were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's money diminishes me,

because I am involved in the market.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the Brexit tolls; it tolls for the banker.

Pick Any Brexit with Jacob Rees-Mogg

In case you are sad enough not to have had enough of Brexit already I discovered turning on my television the other day that the BBC Parliament Channel have a series of Brexit lectures.  I was spellbound for an hour watching Jacob Ress-Mogg talking complete rubbish about the subject.  

One of the worst things about getting older is the complete lack of genuine social mobility in this country is rubbed in by seeing the offspring of pompous potentates rise to be pompous potentates.  Jacob Rees-Mogg has more than a passing resemblance to his father the late Lord William Rees-Mogg who’s great contribution to society was to wield the funding axe at the Arts Council and reduce the number of grants by fifty per cent.  I’m sure Jacob will also be elevated to the lords after he has made a similar contribution to our no-such-thing-as-society.

Between episodes of bizarre historical whimsy such as telling us about King John giving England to the Pope he offered three different alternative futures to viewers and listeners in the way that a conjurer might ask a punter to “pick any card”.   Not surprisingly by the end of the lecture we ended up with the Jack of Hard Brexits.  

There is a whole series of these lectures from Tony Blair to Ken Clarke to John Redwood I discover perusing the BBC website.  Each of them as thrilling as each other… In case you need an overview I have included a picture of a  Christmasy toy inexplicably tied to a lamppost on the Purley Way for no adequately explained reason.   

Happy New Calamity.