The True Statesman
Posted on 10. Mar, 2010 by RK in United Kingdom
This afternoon’s session of Prime Minister’s Questions was, for me, the best of the year so far. David Cameron was undoubtedly on peak form as he ravaged Labour’s complete disregard toward the Armed Forces and had to spell out for Gordon Brown that defence spending under the Conservative government decreased as, “Under the Conservatives, we won the Cold War!”
Labour’s failures: the video DC almost showed?
Posted on 01. Mar, 2010 by OHC in United Kingdom
Before David Cameron’s speech at Spring Forum, a video was screened on Labour’s failures since coming to power: broken society, broken economy, broken politics. But we have on “reliable” “sources” that the party was considering using this video as the warm-up instead. (more…)
Anything you can do, government can do dearer
Posted on 11. Jan, 2010 by OHC in United Kingdom
Brown has continued his scorched earth policy by blithely ignoring the flailing economy and flaccid treasury and re-pledging £300m to buy laptops to give for free to children in poor families. And pretty expensive laptops they are, too.
£300m to provide laptops to 270,000 families means… over £1,100 for each laptop?! We can hardly be accused of cheaping out on such things, but that’s because one of KRO’s editors is a serious geekcore gamer. To put it into context, the government is pledging to shell out enough on laptops to buy a pretty awesome MacBook Pro (Ed: awesome for an amateur, maybe!).
Paying for kids to play games on serious machines would be bad enough. But, of course, they won’t get a MacBook Pro. We’ll simply pay enough for them to get a MacBook Pro… and give them a functional netbook that they could buy for one-fifth as much (Ed: if it says ‘Dell’ on it, I don’t want it at any price). Ah, government.
Other than raising questions about priorities during a recession, you have to ask how out of touch this government must be to pay so overwhelmingly over the odds. Do they not have the Internet in the bunker, Gordon?
Friday Propaganda: Optimistic Edition
Posted on 11. Dec, 2009 by OHC in Friday Propaganda
We were down listening to the Pre-Budget Report: recession deepening, debt mounting, taxes accumulating, politics of envy returning. But you know what cheered us up? The realisation that the government won’t get a chance to implement everything they want.
They’ve got to hold an election in the next six months, probably before the next Budget. So take heart from this incredibly simple poster the Conservatives put out in 1978, and look on the bright side of life.
Darling gagged!
Posted on 11. Dec, 2009 by RK in Other, United Kingdom
So, the PM blocked Darling’s plans for a quicker recovery? Further proof that Labour are playing politics with people’s lives. More cuts would have meant the ability to lower the deficit faster, but Brown didn’t want Labour’s 4-point plan to go to pot, did he?
Well… this editor was awake early this morning and couldn’t sleep so… quick off the mark on this one!
Left foot forward…
Posted on 25. Nov, 2009 by OHC in United Kingdom
The Daily Mirror led today with yet another pathetic personal smear on the Conservative leadership. Apparently, they’re successful, so they’re not allowed to pass policies that reward success. Hmm. Jonathan Isaby has put that argument in its place.
But what about the left? Labour’s a party filled with, and supported enthusiastically by, trade unionist, career politicians, and bureaucrats. They may have a vested interest in making the government big and crush the private sector that employs everyone else. But you don’t hear the Mirror say that, do you?
I haven’t seen any analysis of how much private sector experience British governments over the ages have had, but there’s a clear trend in the US. This chart from JP Morgan is damning.
If the President surrounds himself with bureaucrats, of course they’re going to give him advice that reflects well on the civil service. And, maybe, just maybe, that hurts the private sector that made America such a rich country in the first place.
Serious props to whoever makes a chart like that for the UK. No prizes for guessing which party has had the least private sector experience.
Friday Propaganda: Army Edition
Posted on 13. Nov, 2009 by OHC in Friday Propaganda
In a week of more abject failures and insults to our service personnel by the government, the press (Ed: don’t tell me… you?) is focusing ever more on the ill-equipment of our service personnel fighting overseas, and the breach of the Military Covenant, by Labour.
It’s not a failure due to budget deficits. It’s not a failure due to special unforeseen circumstances. It’s a failure due to Labour. See this damning condemndation of Labour commitment to defence from the 1987 election, during the Cold War. Some things never change!
Vote Labour – Get Failure. Vote Conservative – Get Honour.
Friday Propaganda: Foreboding Edition
Posted on 07. Nov, 2009 by OHC in Friday Propaganda
Imagine what Britain would be like in five years if Labour get in again. We’d be up crap creek without a paddle, having our heads beaten in by Nikolai Valuev (Ed: yeah, but would we have our keys?). Our economy, our Union, our freedom: all gone the way of the dodo.
Sounds familiar, right. Conservatives’ embrace of the civil liberties started with David Davis’s moment of madness, right? Wrong. After five years of Labour misgovernment, check out this election poster the Conservatives ran with in 1979.
Thank goodness Britain didn’t get them.
“GRINFUCKED”
Posted on 30. Oct, 2009 by RK in United Kingdom
At a highly important and official editorial board meeting last night, the KRO editors were wetting themselves having come across this Sky News article quoting former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, who shared his graphic view that Alistair Darling had,
grinfucked the US by blocking a plan to allow Barclays to take over the stricken US bank.
Legendary.
And why not commemorate the occassion, the same date we saw that Labour’s policies have forced London into 3rd choice as a financial home to the world’s most profitable institutions, with a little (very quickly drafted) image that we like to call, well…
(Ed: Admit it, you kinda enjoyed making that- you even used GIMP!)
Something Rotten in the State of Britain
Posted on 02. Oct, 2009 by OHC in United Kingdom
Something’s definitely rotten if the (soon-not-to-be) governing party’s candidates think that the government should be tracking all alcohol and tobacco purchases with Drinkers’ Licences.
‘Orwellian’ is an overused term, but this is just that. It is an attempt to track and control everyone’s everyday life, with scant justification except by waving vaguely at the promise of more efficient delivery of government services that ought to be efficiently-delivered as a matter of course. In this case, it’s the NHS. The government already makes £8.5bn a year off alcohol duty (on top of which, VAT, pub licensing fees, fines…). The nanny-statists wail that alcohol costs the NHS £2.7bn, and so MUST be more stringently regulated, including with minimum prices. I’m sure you see the arithmetic fallacy in their argument.
Perhaps it’s all just an indictment of the worship of the NHS, rather than of personal responsibility. Is the world really so cowardly that it submits our entire society to making the irreconcilably inefficient NHS the teeniest bit more efficient? We don’t support military conscription to boost the flagging armed forces (Ed: and rightly so), so why on Earth do we support enslaving our citizenry to save the NHS a fraction of a penny on the pound?
For the second time today, online Labourites are launching an attack on a free society. For the second time, we will say NO! (Ed: hey, that sounds familiar…)