Why Tunisia's Islamist Party Agreed to Give Up Power

There are four fascinating political experiments going on son, in the Islamic governing political economic spheres. Like in Iran, turkey, Egypt and Tunisia. Mind you, pretty much all Muslim countries are constantly struggling with democracy, rule of law and the role of Islam. But these 4 are the furthest advanced. Iran has had the longest history of constitutionalism going back almost 100 years. Turkey started even earlier but stuttered. Egypt frankly started and has now gone back even further. Tunisia seems to be the most advanced and if I had to put money down, I would say that Tunisia will reach civilisation the earliest compared to the others. Despite the issues they are facing with assassinations and demonstrations. It's an urbanised society so the usual rural obscurantist structures are avoided. Mind you, the Bahrain example is the counter example for urbanism. Then again the gulf Arabs are particularly well noted to be a bunch of weirdass morons. There's a very good reason why Allah decided to emerge his religion in the gulf. Imagine what they would have been without it when you see what they have done up till now with it. 

But politics is this. The spirit of consensus and compromise. And religion usually doesn't allow you to do so hence the utmost importance of having a secular structure son. 

I'm hoping Tunisia can show the way to how a liberal consensus driven democratic society with some elements of Islam can be part of this modern world son. Turkey went a bit too far with the secularism so it's trying to get back into balance. Iran went totally the other way with religiously driven politics. And well you know the utter mess Egypt is in. 

So interesting days ahead to watch how Tunisia is going to play out.

Love

Baba

Rory McCarthy | Why Tunisia's Islamist Party Agreed to Give Up Power | Foreign Affairs
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/features/letters-from/lets-make-a-deal

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Three years after the popular uprising that brought down President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, demonstrations, sit-ins, and strikes have become part of daily life in Tunisia. Railway workers, customs officers, and doctors went on strike earlier this month over changes to their working conditions; next month, taxi drivers will begin an open-ended sit-in to protest rising fuel prices. Politics often seem hopelessly polarized, with Islamists led by the political party Ennahda pitted against their secular opponents in parliament in a manner not unlike Egypt’s bloody rivalries. And the assassinations of two prominent liberal politicians, Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi, by Islamist militants earlier this year brought public anger against Ennahda into the streets, as many Tunisians blamed the Islamists for a soft embrace of extremist groups. It appeared that Tunisia — whose largely functional democratic transition has set it apart from the other Arab Spring countries — would no longer avoid the violence that has undermined the other revolutions and uprisings across the Middle East.

But for the first time in a long time, the political class has reached an accord. On December 14, after weeks of broken promises and missed deadlines, Tunisia’s rival political parties finally agreed on a deal to dissolve the Ennahda-led government and create an interim administration led by a compromise prime minister. If all goes according to plan, Mehdi Jomaa, who had previously served as minister of industry, will lead a caretaker government of technocrats until elections can be held next year, most likely after the summer. It’s further confirmation that, despite their ideological differences, Tunisia’s Islamists and secularists are perfectly capable of cooperating. It’s also another sign of pragmatism from the Islamists, who in October 2011 swept the first elections after the fall of Ben Ali. Now Ennahda, an Islamist force that sees itself as both a grassroots movement and a political party, has agreed to bow to the demands of its critics and give up power.

Do Republicans Need a Conservative Version of the Welfare State to Win?

Kannu

Here's an interesting article on what's a welfare state from the perspective of conservatives, left and libertarian. First off all, ignore the illiterate terminology that Americans use to say liberalism is something that only the left can use. That exhibits such a shocking Lack of knowledge of history and political philosophy that its surprising. Everybody should be proud of being a liberal and as soon as somebody says that he isn't a liberal, smack his ass and call him a Neanderthal. 

But go back to the concept of welfare state. You will notice, son, that people frequently forget that there are 3 elements to a welfare state. The recipients, the administrators and the people who pay for it. If one just looks at one part of it, like this article does, then one is missing the bigger picture. 

Nobody really disputes the need for a welfare state. What people complain about is the size, shape, length of support of a welfare state. That in turn drives the size of the organisation which is required to manage this. And that in turn drives the cost of it which the taxpayers, (both now and future) pay for it. 

Then you have the issue of democracy. Remember this son, a party which robs Paul to pay Peter will always count on the support of Peter. Which is why I hate Robin Hood. He was a thief. Him robbing the taxes meant that sewers in Nottingham weren't maintained. But I digress. 

So because of this the welfare state has always expanded over the past 100 odd years, govt has expanded to administer this and the range of taxes has grown immeasurably to pay for this tottering edifice. 

Till Paul said, hold on a cotton picking second. Just how long and how much do you want me to pay? That's why there is a debate about the welfare state. Given the general lack of productivity in western nations, the only way to pay for this giant welfare state is no longer taxation but to borrow from you, our children. 

Which is why, son, my advise is for you to either make so much money that you really don't care about taxation or move to a country like Singapore or HK where tax rates are low, welfare states under control and have learnt from the shocking mistakes of the west. 

Something to think about son. In the meantime, the conservatives in the uk and republicans in the USA will continue being the stupid party. 

Love

Baba

Do Republicans Need a Conservative Version of the Welfare State to Win? - Hit & Run : Reason.com
http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/09/do-republicans-need-a-conservative-versi

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My friend Matthew Continetti has an interesting piece in the Weekly Standard explicating the “double bind” that Republicans face in trying to become electorally competitive again. He explains:

The domestic proposals that have the greatest chance of making the Republican party attractive to the “coalition of the ascendant”​—​immigrants, members of the millennial generation, single white women​—​involve far more government intervention in the economy than the GOP coalition​—​married white people, Wall Street, the Tea Party​—​will allow. And we haven’t even mentioned changing the GOP approach to social issues, which would drive the Republican base of religious conservatives out of the party. Pursuing such proposals would break the coalition that puts Republicans close to a majority.

Continetti is not the first conservative to argue — falsely as I note in an upcoming piece for Reason magazine — that courting new constituencies such as Hispanics, Asian Americans and other minorities will require the party to give up even its pretense of limited government. Still, Continetti’s basic point that the GOP does not have a coherent ideology that will allow it to court new constituencies while hanging on to its old ones is well taken. After all, how does the party appeal to the “millennial generation” that includes gays, young foodies and indie-music listening hipsters without losing the meat-and-potato social conservatives in, say, Charleston, South Carolina?

Continetti’s answer, dusted off from a 1975 essay by Irving Kristol, is that what the GOP needs is an authentically conservative version of the liberal welfare state. To fashion such a state, Continetti argues, would require:

Republicans to revisit some of the assumptions they have held since the end of the Cold War. Maybe the foremost concern of most Americans is not the top marginal income tax rate. Maybe you can’t seriously lower health care costs without radically overhauling the way we pay for health care. Maybe a political party can’t address adequately such middle-class concerns as school quality and transportation without using the power of government. Maybe the globalization of capital and products and labor hasn’t been an unimpeachable good.

What I Learned in Two Years at the Tea Party

You know kannu, I liked the tea party to come out. Just like I like the salafis and muslim brotherhood to come out in Egypt and across the Arab spring. As I preferred the BJP in India. There are two elements to it. First is that we should have freedom of speech and religion and association. So if people want to make a religious movement into a political movement, they should have the right to do it. That's what classical liberalism is all about. 

But more importantly, the second reason is that people are frequently morons. Organised religion almost always fucks up the well being of countries when it gets into power. But people down the ages have always relied on piety and god and religion to help pull them out when the situation demands basic human good behaviour. So they should be allowed to commit the stupendous mistake of letting religion rule their heads, countries and economics. The Indians the Pakistanis the Arab and Muslim countries and USA all need to elect and run their countries on fine old religious principles. It's Darwinian. If you are stupid enough to believe that some prophet / guru / priest somewhere sometime was so amazing that his works and his followers can lead their current citizens and followers to nirvana then well, as a libertarian I insist that you bear the fruits of your beliefs and end up towards the shallow end of the human intelligence pool. 

Over the coming 3 months, you will see the finest examples of self destructive behaviour in the USA. Think about Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or India or Egypt where religion based policy is enacted and laugh at these idiocy and short sell :) if you can't, then buy gold!

Beware of organised religion son. Anytime anybody says or professes admiration for organised religion, know you can sell a bridge to them. Having faith is good and needed. Not that being an atheist is bad either. But followers of organised religions are gullible sheep :)

Love

Baba

What I Learned in Two Years at the Tea Party | The Awl
http://www.theawl.com/2011/08/what-i-learned-in-two-years-at-the-tea-party

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When I started going to Tea Party meetings two years ago, I was sympathetic. Just after attending one in North Dakota in August of 2009, I wrote: “Most tea partiers are not bad people. They’re just mad. In many meaningful ways, today’s Tea Party attendees’ lives have gotten consistently worse for the last 20 years, regardless of which party was in power.” I concluded that trying to figure out what they wanted was a dead end because what they wanted was simply to complain—that the Tea Party “is not a group of listen and respond; this is a group of respond and respond.”

Two years of Tea Party functions later, and I finally know what the Tea Party wants: A Christian nation.

When S&P downgraded the United States debt, the political difficulties it underlined are embodied in Kim Simac, the candidate for Wisconsin state senate. A founder of Tea Party group Northwoods Patriots, Simac is challenging incumbent Democratic state senator Jim Holperin for the District 12 “Northwoods” seat. Holperin now has the indignity of being the only state legislator in history to face a recall twice—in 1990 for supporting a Republican governor, and in today’s election for opposing one.

Holperin, a “flaming moderate,” has the endorsement of the NRA, despite Simac having authored a pro-Second Amendment children’s book.

Now you see why people don’t trust politicians

Vince Cable made some interesting remarks last week. Not going to comment on the financial bits, but this was interesting.

Cable also revealed some of the frustration he feels at being in government. He said "arid" statisticians were thwarting ambitions for using the public balance sheet more aggressively to support industry. And he said that the decision to make the Office for National Statistics (ONS) independent, while taken out of an understandable wish to end political interference, had proved to be "a mistake" because the ONS now sat in a "God-like role" when it decided what did and did not score as public borrowing. He said it had "hemmed in" the government and prevented it from "doing all sorts of things" to boost industry.

Hmmm, now let me clear up the bias first. I consider myself to be a statistician, used to dabble around in statistics and still do, even went as far as to join the Royal Statistical Society. So I speak as one. And this winds me up somewhat terribly. So lets see what he is saying. This politician is saying that an independent body of statisticians charged with reporting data and facts does not allow you to ride rough shod over it and use MY taxes on your pet projects?

AWWWWW! lemme guess whose side I will take?

On the other hand, see what the politicians do to the statisticians…

The latest chapter in the complex saga begins in June 2010, a month after Greece signed its first loan agreement with the so-called troika — the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — when the former finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, appointed Mr. Georgiou to run the Hellenic Statistical Authority, known as Elstat.

A year earlier, Greece had been plunged into crisis when the newly elected Socialists announced that the 2009 budget deficit would be 12.4 percent of gross domestic product, twice the previous estimate. In April 2010, the European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, revised Greece’s deficit upward again, to 13.6 percent, which forced Greece to seek a bailout. And in November 2010 Eurostat, working with Elstat and Mr. Georgiou, revised the deficit for 2009 upward a final time to 15.4 percent, leading the troika to demand additional budget cuts of $7.65 billion.

How that final calculation was conducted is now the subject of intense debate. Mr. Georgiou has said that it reflects Greece’s first-ever adherence to accepted European procedures. Yet some critics, including some who were on Elstat’s since-disbanded six-person board, said that Mr. Georgiou had actually applied standards that were stiffer than European norms, then tried to thwart them when they raised questions about the process.

Zoe Georganta, a professor of applied econometrics and productivity at Macedonia University of Economic and Social Sciences and Mr. Georgiou’s fiercest critic, said that the statistics czar, guided by two foreign experts hired by Eurostat, added the country’s money-losing public utilities to the government’s accounts, raising the budget deficits by three-quarters of a percentage point. This had been done before in other European countries, financial experts said, but usually to bring the deficit down, not pump it up.

Sighs..and this lack of transparency helps the stupid politicians no end.

In a telephone interview, Walter Radermacher, the director of Eurostat, acknowledged that it was not always clear how to classify public utilities, but said the larger issue was that Greece did not have accurate records. “The borderline of this general government is not something which is fixed forever, it changes more or less each year,” he said. “Our request is that all these companies are maintained in a statistics register. This register simply did not exist in Greece.”

We are in deep doo doo and the governments is frantically raising money through debt and taxes but it has no idea where the money is going. Its useless.

Difference between your kids and your representatives

Brilliant quote:

pages 191-192 of Steven Landsburg’s 2009 book The Big Questions: Your kids look to you for guidance, while your congressman looks to you only for votes. So, quite sensibly, you think a lot harder and more clearly about what you’ll tolerate from your kids than what you’ll tolerate from your congressman.

Makes you think, no? And frankly, looking at some of our representatives and mostly from the European and Indian representatives, I wouldn't frankly tolerate some of the behaviours that they exhibit.

banging on about executive jets

This article in this week’s economist was interesting. People keep on moaning about them, apparently they are horrible. Here’s the image from the economist

This is what the blurb says:

THE corporate jet gets a lousy press. In the James Bond classic, “Goldfinger”, the eponymous villain is sucked out of the window of just such an aircraft. In 2008 the bosses of Detroit’s moribund car companies did themselves no favours when they flew in their gleaming jets to Washington, DC, to beg Congress for bail-outs (they drove the next time). And in his present face-off with the Republicans over the federal debt ceiling, Barack Obama is bashing the jets again, because to the man in the street the corporate jet is a perfect proxy for a fat cat. “I’ve said to Republican leaders, you go talk to your constituents and ask them, ‘Are you willing to compromise your kids’ safety so some corporate-jet owner can get a tax break?’.”

Needless to say, Mr Obama is now accused by the aircraft manufacturers of scapegoating a successful industry that employs more than a million Americans and by the Republicans of launching a populist “class war”.

And then I saw this:

heh, touche’

A message from the 'Get Brown out of Number 10' party!

Thanks to Dickon who forwarded this email to me.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 23 April 2010 16:29
Subject: A message from the 'Get Brown out of Number 10' party!

This is what happens when labour stays in Government for 13  long years. 

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Subject: Gordon says 'OK'

Just a few interesting facts about Gordon Brown
We used to have 6 independent regulators to regulate the different divisions

of the financial services industry, including our Banks.

(Margaret Thatcher knew what the Banks were like and in the 1988 Finance Act she bound the Banks up in regulation to prevent them from being reckless!!!)
Then Gordon Brown became Chancellor on 6th May 1997

Gordon's banker friends said "We want all these regulators to go"
"We don't want regulators watching everything we do"
AND GORDON SAID OK

So, Gordon announced on the 20th May 1997 (2 weeks after becoming Chancellor) that the six regulatory bodies would be broken up and a new Financial Services Authority would replace them. The FSA had virtually no powers over the Banks and he also took away the powers from the Bank of England to enforce regulation on them.
The result is the devastation we are all suffering today.

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We used to have a Monopolies and Mergers Commission

Then Gordon's banker friends said we don't want the Monopolies and Mergers commission telling us who we can and cant "Take Over"
AND GORDON SAID OK

So, in 1998 Gordon scrapped the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and created a replacement called the Competition Commission, with very much reduced powers and  different ideas of what used to be regarded as a "Monopoly".
The result is the Massive Corporations we have today who are ruling and shaping our lives for their own benefit and profits. Not to mention the massive Monopolies held by some of these corporations through the forced purchases of all their competitors
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We used to have pension regulations, which for many decades had included something called "The Pensions Cap"

The pensions cap set a limit on how much pension any scheme member (including directors) could get from an occupational pension scheme,
irrespective of how high their earnings were.
It was there to protect the ordinary members pensions. To prevent Directors paying themselves obscene salaries and then draining the pension funds with huge pensions.
Then Gordon Brown's banker friends said that they wanted the pensions cap removing so that they could get pensions related to their obscene earnings.
(The whole Pensions industry gave him warnings of the effects it would have. Even the Inland revenue put forward objections)
BUT GORDON SAID OK

Because Gordon never likes to disappoint his banker friends

So Gordon took away the Pensions Cap in 2005 and then some of his friends were able to leave their boardroom positions with huge pensions!!!
For example Fred Goodwin was apparently entitled to a pension of over £700,000

If Gordon had left the pensions cap in place that would have been a mere £125,000

Well done Fred and your mates!!!

(The Superannuations Division of the Inland Revenue have kept a record of what it should be, in readiness for when we get a new chancellor who sees fit to re-instate it. George Osborn has pledged to do that). The record of Pensions Cap limits are available to view on the Revenue's website
The result of this is that along with Gordon's "Tax Raid" on pension funds starting July 1997, over four thousand UK company pension scheme's have closed their doors to new members and many of them have had to close down altogether, leaving millions of workers without any pension provision.
This man Gordon Brown "professes to be a socialist and "for" the working man

The working man's main form of long term financial security had for many years been his company pension scheme, something to look forward to at the end of a life of hard work, his reward, light at the end of a long dark tunnel.
Gordon has put an end to that by destroying the most valuable asset

of the average British worker.

IT IS ONE OF THE GREATEST TRAVESTIES OF JUSTICE THAT THIS MAN WHO PRETENDS TO BE "FOR THE WORKING MAN" HAS IN FACT BEEN HIS WORST ENEMY FOR THE LAST THIRTEEN YEARS AND WILL LEAVE A LEGACY THAT WE WILL STILL BE CLEARING UP FOR MANY YEARS TO COME.
THE REAL INJUSTICE IS THAT ITS ALL BEEN DONE IN AREAS WHICH ARE TOTALLY OUT OF SIGHT TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND BEYOND THE UNDERSTANDING MANY
GORDON RELIES ENTIRELY ON PEOPLES IGNORANCE TO GET AWAY WITH
HIS INDISCRETIONS
GORDON'S MOTTO OF:
"DENY EVERYTHING AND ADMIT NOTHING"
SEEMS TO BE WORKING QUITE WELL FOR HIM SO FAR!!!
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LASTLY, WHAT GORDON LIKES TO CALL THE "GLOBAL BANKING CRISIS"

Have you noticed that we were the first to be in it and are the last to be out
(and whether we are out is very speculative!!!)
As he has openly admitted, The Royal Bank of Scotland was the worlds biggest bank.
So when RBS and HBOS were about to go BUST in October 2008 and they had to be bailed out overnight so they did not take the entire country down with them, (that by the way was almost certainly a decision made by the hierarchy in Whitehall for which
Gordon loves to take the credit)
As the worlds leading banks now all lend  money to each other on a collosal scale, isn't it obvious that the worlds biggest bank going down would have a devastating effect on all the others it dealt with.
This "worlds biggest bank" had also sold bad mortgage books to other banks.
Most of the Banks in Europe which ran into crisis were dragged into it because of the crooked dealings of our big Banks. A fact that both Germany and France were quick to remind Gordon Brown of at the G20 emergency meeting shortly after the crisis.
There are many other of Gordon's indiscretions, far too many to list here, but perhaps the few biggie's shown above will give some insight into how Gordon operates.
By the way have you noticed how he has suddenly become interested in Social issues now an election is looming and seems to be able to promise the world when, as Alistair Darling put it a few days ago, there is not a penny left in the bank!!!

Think very carefully before casting your vote for this man who is probably the most extreme capitalist of the past century while pretending to be

"for the working man".

GORDON WORSHIPS THE SUPER RICH AND POWERFUL AND

CANNOT SAY NO TO THEM

Please pass this on to all you can, the whole population should know these few facts before the election.

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Spending a cool £0.5 billion on politicians

Coolness personified. We are ending up spending half a billion pounds on about 29,000 people on top of the political tree. I quote:

The number of politicians and their advisers on the UK public payroll now tops 29,000, The figure includes councillors, MPs, peers, MEPs, members of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies and their staff. Their total cost is estimated at more than £499m for the year 2007/8.

Please bear in mind that this figure doesnt include the MEP travel or expenses which could bump it up a wee bit. But why are we surprised, take a look a the growth of public sector in the country over the last 100 years.

 

So what' the share of the economy this year?

Almost 43% is being generated off the back of the 56% generated by us. Now that’s not a parasite, that’s a cannibal. How long and how much would these blood sucking buggers suck our lives out? Compared to that kind of spend, 1/2 a billion is measly change, no?

The court of public opinion

Brilliant riposte to the bunch of greedy politicians. Read it there. If it was indeed within the rules, then why were you hypocrites? I am sure its Sir Fred Goodwin who is laughing his head off at the politicians

Damian McBride email smears: Gordon Brown pays the price

Any leader or manager is clearly taught right from the beginning, you take responsibility for your actions. You know what bothers me about Gordon Brown? That he doesnt take responsibility for his actions. Guess what he says? He said, “I take full responsibility for Damian McBride’s actions and have fired the man who was responsible” That’s WTF to the greatest degree.

And people realise it, they know that if Gordon Brown can do that for his long term staff members, then what will he do to the common man and woman? Shaft them regularly which he has been doing.

Guess what? The recent polls are showing the result.

The Marketing Sciences survey published in The Sunday Telegraph puts Labour's support at just 26 per cent, with the Tories 17 points ahead on 43 per cent and heading for a Commons majority of 120.

Labour's support has slumped alarmingly in the wake of the scandal which saw the Prime Minister's former key adviser Mr McBride resign after it emerged he had sent emails from 10 Downing Street suggesting smears against leading Conservatives.

So what does Damian say?

Mr McBride, who resigned from his £60,000-a-year No10 job without severance pay, has spoken of the "utter despair" he feels over the way the row has damaged the Government. He told friends this weekend: "I was prepared for what would happen to me personally but I've been in utter despair about the impact it has had on Gordon and on the Government more widely. "I cannot understand why something I did entirely off my own bat – while a terrible mistake – has been partly blamed on other people."

Obviously Mr. McBride is a stranger to typical social conditions that a manager and leader is only reflective of the people they hire. Just like you are known by the friends you keep, the people you hire and work with define what you are. A smart boss with character and integrity hires people who are intelligent and have oodles of character and integrity. You worked for Brown for years. Its not like he didn't know you, and if he didn't, then he is a very poor manager. Pshaw. Disgusting.

Technorati Tags: United Kingdom,Politics

The Bailout Mascot

Seems really quite accurate to me…

Technorati Tags: Politics,United Kingdom,Humour

 

Quote of the day:
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. - Oscar Wilde
Quote of the Day:
There should be no yelling in the home unless there is a fire.
--David Oman McKay

Do as I say and not as I do

This was the best case of hypocritical thinking of the politicians. I quote:

Yvette Cooper appeared on the Today Programme this morning explaining how there is a strong moral duty for the bankers not to accept their bonuses, even when there are legal contractual obligations for the banks to give them out.
Then within seconds, John Humphrys challenged Cooper about Jacqui Smith, Cooper and hubby Balls all claiming maximum expenses against their second homes, even when the justification of these payments were extremely flakey in the public's eyes. Straight away Cooper launched into the defence that she, Smith and Balls were only following obligations and rules set down by Parliament and that they were only claiming what they were entitled to.
The paradox of telling bankers that they should ignore what they were legally entitled to, while politicians like her should continue to receive what they are entitled to, seemed to escape her.
So much for 'moral obligation', then, eh ?

The idea that these politicians get away with corruption, greed and the lot, while accusing us of being greedy is just fascinating. Hypocrisy, thy name is politics.

Technorati Tags: politicians,united kingdom

Is Gordon Brown the Dajjal?

I saw this forum discussion and had a good laugh. Just because he is one eyed, he is now being discussed whether he is the Dajjal. I quote the first line:

Is Gordon Brown the Dajjal?

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Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said, "Shall I not tell you about the Dajjal a story of which no prophet told his nation? The Dajjall is one-eyed and will bring with him what will resemble Hell and Paradise, and what he will call Paradise will be actually Hell; so I warn you (against him) as Noah warned his nation against him."
He can only see through one eye.

Go figure. Of course he isnt the Dajjal, the Dajjal was evil and not stupid.

Technorati Tags: Islam,Muslims,Politicians,Humour

Minister for Higher Education – definitely not a mastermind

This was terrifying. This chap has qualifications from here to kingdom come, he is a Member of Parliament in the UK, studied at SOAS and then Harvard Law School. He was in the Health Ministry, Constitutional Affairs and then Minister for Culture. Now he is responsible for higher education.

So what does this brainiac decide to do? He goes on celebrity mastermind. For those who do not know, its a rather high brow quiz show and you do need to show a modicum of intelligence other wise you show up as an utter twit.

He says he has the gift of the gab. Obviously, his gift of the gab comes with no knowledge of facts or knowledge, but since he is a politician, we do not expect him to do anything with his gab. Some of his answers:

Marie Antoinette discovered radiation.

Rose Revolution happened in Yugoslavia.

Leicester cheese accompanies port.  Leicester is BLUE???!!!!!

Confusing Godfather with Soprano’s.

Didn't know what the purple heart award was for.

and the best one!!!!!

Henry VIII's son was Henry VII (in his defence, he does shake his head after realising that he made a clanger)

What a frightening situation. He didn't even get a story on football right!!!. Now one is definitely worried about the state of Higher Education in the country. Check out his website. It is so much “I, Me, Myself”, let me bang the drum for myself. God, Minister, pipe it down and for heaven’s sake, leave the gab alone.

But the funny thing is, he is a Minister of Higher Education and Intellectual Property. I suspect somebody has stolen his intellectual property, no? For example, I wasted some valuable minutes hearing him talk about progressive young London and what can they do and and and. After watching it, I then tried to think, so what did I take away? I am afraid to say that I am an idiot. Couldn't think of anything concrete to take away…

heavens!

 

 

Technorati Tags: London,Parliament,Politicians,Humour