Can We Please Let The Government Govern?

This might not be the most popular view...but am I the only person that has got fed up with the constant, unmitigated inquisition of our governments? Watching cabinet ministers squirm on the inquisitors' hooks every bloody day, on and in various media, has lost whatever allure it may have had and, in my case, that allure was tiny to begin with. All I see now is our coalition government spending almost every waking hour defending, spinning, apologising and changing approach and policy to meet the rabid demands of a press that seems to be haranguing them at every turn; probably in order to deflect attention from the inquiries into their own ordure. And that 'free' press is making the flawed assumption that we want them to do this on our behalves.

How can a government do the business of governing effectively in the face of these onslaughts?

I am not an apologist for some of the "omnishambolic" things that have been going on in the last couple of years of the coalition and neither do I feel at all comfortable with some of the revelations that have come from the Select Committee processes of late and those of the Leveson Inquiry, currently. I disagree with Cameron's and Osborne's ideologies on how to beat a recesion and I think Lansley's NHS reforms are worrying and Gove's anachronistic approach to education is barking mad. But - and it's a HUGE BUT - these people that have been elected to run the UK government; these people are the ones that we must rely upon for now in our cherished democracy (as we are unlikely to see a revolution), and they are being stopped from performing their crucial roles in order that they deal (usually to camera) with what are relatively small issues.

Let me explain my position by just taking, as an example, the majority of the DCMS Select Committee and Leveson Inquiry issues that have focused on News International and the current and previous governments' relationships with that company or, as everyone wants to believe, Rupert Murdoch and his son, James, rather than the body corporate that they have run. The only reason that this is a 'story', is because everybody wants to know everything and, in these modern times, there is an expectation that they can know everything, via multi-media, 24/7 reporting and analyses. Coupled with that, there is an unchallenged assumption that the 'public' have every right to know everything, whether that knowledge comes from FoI or from the (once) all-powerful press or bloody FaceTube or fucking YouBook or sodding Twatter. We simply cannot know everything, and even if we did, what the hell would we do with the information, as a body politic? Not much. We might think that we could but we can't.

All that happens is that we wring our hands, gnash our teeth, complain, get angry and get frustrated. And that happens with only a minority of the adult population, anyway and, for the most part, over the wrong things. Who actually gives two twopenny shits if Jeremy Hunt was colluding with the Murdochs? Well...lots of people do right now, but only because there's an inquisition. Has anyone actually looked behind the political rhetoric and wondered whether NI's deal with BSkyB might actually have been a good idea? No, they haven't. And the reason why? Murdoch is, quite clearly, the Antichrist, as far some people are concerned. It doesn't matter how he behaves at a Select Committee or at an Inquiry, the 'public' has made its mind up that the octagenarian Aussie is 'Dr Evil'. And his progeny / accolytes are 'Mini-Mes'. They have been told by the rest of the media that this man is 'bad' for Britain because he was courted by politicians and...shock horror...he responded! To sell his papers! To make money! With the awful consequences of employing people and paying taxes.

Rupert Murdoch backed whomsoever would help him make money, that's true. Rupert Murdoch did not decide, however, who would be in power. That is what all this shit is about, ultimately. There is a misguided fear (or belief) that Murdoch or, before him, even the likes of Maxwell or Rothermere, are or were the arbiters of who we got landed with at Number Ten. There is influence, sure there is. But there's also an electorate that some would have us believe are so fucking stupid that they will do whatever the media tells it to. And the people that would have us believe that there are those in the media that feel that they are so "well informed" that they want to pass on their own views about the brainwashing that's going on by Dr Evil and others, that they can't see that they're doing the same fucking thing - but, of course, with the electorate's interests at heart...yeah.

In the midst of all this hyperbole from the press about the alleged collusion and hinted-at corruption, the blame is laid upon the coalition for dragging the country into a "double-dip" recession. What is that? We have had two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the last of which was a negative of miniscule proportions. The last two quarters saw negative growth of 0.2% and 0.3%, so, overall 0.5% in six months. Prior to that there was growth of 0.6% and a shrink of 0.1%. That's flat, then, over the last twelve months, compared to 4% shrinkage in the twelve months up to Q1 2011. It's shit, but not as shit as it has been, and not even half as shitty as it is in some other so-called 'developed' nations.

But no matter, it was negative, and that means that Cameron is an incompetent arsehole and Osborne is as thick as shit, maybe. These interpretations could indeed be true. But they, and the rest of the coalition cabinet are the ministers of the day and have jobs to do (even if they never had proper jobs in the past) and are being deflected from these tasks by the daily media shit-storms. And as far as the flapping opposition are concerned, they are as bad as the media; jumping onto whichever latest faux-sleazy bandwagon they can and then riding it in the hope of political capital being made instead of making a case for no-confidence by presenting a believable alternative. The pathetic attempts by Harperson and Cooper to discredit individual government ministers over what are, effectively, minutiae in the grand scheme of running a country, are reprehensible.

If Cameron, Osborne, Gove, May, Lansley et al are actually so bloody irresponsible, then Miliband, Balls, Cooper, Burnham and Harperson should be able to present such an unassailable case for change that the only possible outcome would be an early general election on the basis that parliament, on behalf of the electorate, is unable to continue to support the government.

The case for having no confidence in the government cannot be argued on the back of accusations of the PM having had dinner with Rebekah Brooks or that the Secretary of State at the DCMS had allowed privileged information to get to News International on the matter of its desire to take over another media organisation (whether in the public interest or not).

Let me give the Labour Party (or its current apology for the same) some guidance on a manifest ten-point plan to get rid of the Bullingdon boys, their toadying Tory lackeys and their Liberal Democrat apologists:

1) Let Leveson report in the fullness of time. Leave it alone now and then take whatever high ground may be available later and ascend it, gracefully.

2) Admit to your mistakes in 2007-10. You screwed up. Learn from your errors. Be humble.

3) Present a credible, alternative set of policies for the economy that are not just the simplistic, automatic gainsay of whatever garbage is spewed from the maws of Osborne's privileged, sneering gob.

4) Find (and elect) a leader that is not called Ed (or Gordon, or Tony, or Peter.) Try "Ken", as an example.

5) Assure the electorate that Labour will not enter a coalition with the four Liberal Democrat MPs that will be left after the next General Election, even if that means operating a minority government.

6) Have a manifesto commitment that the press will only be able to report on politics on Saturdays. From Sunday to Monday, government will be able to govern, and do so without interruption.

7) Commit to the separation of Church and State, the disestablishment of the monarchy and the declaration of a republic.

8) Abolish the House of Lords

9) Esatablish a UK Bill of Rights and tell the European Parliaments and Courts to go fuck themselves

10) Give Peace a Chance (That's "...All we are saying...")

That should do it....

Nadine Dorries on Camerosborne: Is she right?

The Milk of Human Unkindness?

So, Nadine Dorries believes that Cameron and Osborne are a couple of "...arrogant posh boys who don't know the price of a pint of milk..." OK, perhaps not the best argument - seeing as milk appears to be sold in litres now - but does it hit the spot? Are the PM and the Chancellor posh? Yes. Are they arrogant? Well, Osborne certainly is but Cameron is trying to be, well, sort of less arrogant...a bit. Do either of them know the price of milk? Do you? I didn't. Here are some examples of milk prices per litre at Mr Tesco's shop today: Semi-skimmed, 75p / Lacto-Free £1.29 / Slimmer Sterilised, 79p / Organic Semi-Skimmed, 68p / Channel Islands Milk, 88p / Whole Milk, 89p / Pro-Activ Flora, £1.20 / Organic Whole Milk, 90p. And the list goes on. How on earth could anyone, let alone a couple of "arrogant posh boys", know the price of a pint of milk? 

And anyway, who does Dorries think she is? Isn't she a privileged Tory toff herself? No, she isn't. She's a former nurse that lived in a council house, who did OK with a business supporting parents that she sold out to BUPA and then got all political and got a Tory seat, partly as a result of the desire to promote women by the party in 2005. She's a committed christian with some po-faced views on abortion and how naughty young people can be, getting pissed and shagging all the time, apparently. She probably does know the price of milk, though, and if she doesn't, you can bet your bottom Tesco Clubcard point that she will from know on. Dorries had a little problem during the MP expenses row that came to nothing and she has been a critic of the tiny little Speaker of the House (she thinks he's a bit "mental", so perhaps not too inaccurate an assessment). She also argued against the Society of Podiatrists report that high heels shouldn't be worn at work...and let's face it, she has a nicely turned ankle herself and is, to men of a certain age, a bit of a babe. But before I get excited, I have to remember that she's still a bloody Tory. That said, when she had a pop at one of her constituents that had posted 37,000 tweets while languishing at home on benefits, I think even hard-line socialists might have had some sympathy with the criticism (if only to try to understand what the target of Dorries' ordure could possibly have had to tweet about with such profligacy).

But let's not get side-tracked by the personality of Dorries. She was only the one that asked the question that most sane people have been asking since May 2010. It's a back-bench thing, too, even if one didn't expect it to come from the right hand side of the House. Either of the Ed Balls-up brothers, or indeed any other shadow cabinet member, just couldn't ask that sort of question publicly - but wouldn't it be fantastic if they did, instead of Harriet Harperson tossing off about Jeremy Hunt (24 April) even if she might succeed. Hunt is an also-ran.

Sam's Daddy - Probably wondering
how he'll be able to afford the
coal for his tiny hearth next winter

But yes, of course Dorries is right...Cameron and Osborne are arrogant posh boys. And they don't have to know the price of anything, seeing as there is very little that they can't afford, and that includes George's daddy's £400-a-roll wallpaper or SamCam's £2,000 bags. Their arrogance is simply a product of their privilege and the embedding of that privilege by the masters at Eton and St Paul's and then the society of Oxbridge. It wasn't Dave or Giddy's fault then, really, as they went through these processes at the behest of their families. Osborne, probably a bit pissed off that he didn't go to Eton, married Frances Howell, the daughter of David Howell, former Eton scholar and a member of Thatcher's Government. Cameron, conversely, must have been a bit pissed off that George was the son of a baronet and he wasn't, so he married the daughter of a baronet to compensate (SamCam's daddy is Sir Reginald Sheffield and she can claim distant cousinhood to the late Diana, Princess of Hearts, or Clubs or Whales or something or other; a potential queen that was murdered by a duke...according to an Egyptian quasi-potentate. It's complicated).

What is, however, the fault of Cameron and Osborne, is their perpetuation of the arrogance. But they know no other way, do they? It would be like suggesting to Arthur Scargill that he live a life of luxury in a grace-and-favour apartment in the Barbican and get a huge income from what remains of NUM funds to support that lifestyle....er, hang on a minute...did that happen? Anyway, leopards rarely change their spots. So what we all have to do is simply acknowledge that Dorries has stated a fact and then deal with it. The posh boys will never give up their wealth. Neither will they give up their power unless we, the people, vote them out.

Oh, bugger! We have three years to get rid of the Eds and find an appropriate Labour alternative. Not long enough, then. So it'll be privileged, toff, posh, arrogant Tory bastards (who can't price milk) for ever? Nadine Dorries for PM!!! (Only joking)

Update: 7th May 2012
Dorries has now shared an opinion after the local elections that Cameron should stand down as leader of the Conservative Party (I assume that means as PM as well). She hasn't offered an alternate from within, but I'm guessing she means Hague, again.

Jubilympics

A new word, "Jubilympics" was coined in the course of the excellent spoof documentary, Twenty Twelve, on the BBC (yes...they still do some things well or, at least, commission them). The disastrous consultant Siobhan Sharpe from Perfect Curve, who has never had an original idea in her clearly accidental career, believes that Jubilympics sums up what will happen in the UK in the year of the series title. And, idiotically, this monstrously inept character, brought stingingly to life by the excellent Jessica Hynes, is on the money. Just as many people now use the expression "Lemon Difficult", from Tom Hollander's useless minister in Ianucci's In the Loop, I can see Jubilympics going manistream with some people, like me, that can see the two events for what they are...DIVERSIONS.

Hynes as '2012' Sharpe
BAFTA-Worthy

When a country is in the shit, like ours is just now, politicians look for diversions just as they look to bury bad news under a heap of even worse news when offered the chance. It's not very often, however, that the diversions have all been pre-planned for them, years in advance. When the Olympic Games were awarded to London back in 2005, the UK was in a period of relative stability with falling unemployment, a passable balance of payments and not too many wars to be fought and lost. The IOC had no idea that, seven years later, their flagship event would be hosted by a country on the brink of a second recession and one that, to some observers, is full of dissidents, terrorists, rioters and possibly even some throwback trades unionists, with nothing better to do than disrupt the whole event. And when the late King George VI croaked in February 1952, he had no idea that his daughter would live long enough to have a diamond jubilee, or that it would coincide with the bleeding Olympics. So, by accident, Cameron gets the double fillip represented by the Jubilympics to take all of our minds off things like: over three million unemployed, Lansley's loony reforms of the NHS, Gove's attempts to turn back the educational clocks, Theresa May insisting that all British citizens be extradited to the USA (just in case they've done something to offend our special relationship), and that anyone called 'Abu' can do what the fuck they like here in Britain, rather than be banged up in Jordan, where they might belong, allegedly. Oh, and only the poor shall be taxed...

Missed Opportunity?

Not only has Cameron had this Jubilympic gift, but the Labour Party (I won't call them the 'Opposition' as they have failed, monumentally, to oppose with any vigour) have contrived to provide the PM with the most ineffective challenger on the other side of the despatch box since Michael Foot faced Thatcher in 1980 (should have been Healey...should have been Healey...ah, well).

It's almost impossible right now to view or read any media in Britain on any day without some fatuous crap being peddled about how utterly wonderful everything is going to be over the coming months as our country prepares to 'celebrate' the two events.

In early June, there will be an extended Bank Holiday for the queen's diamond thingy (like she doesn't have enough diamonds already?). Conservative estimates of the cost (that's understated estimates, rather than those provided by the majority party of the coalition) are around £1.5bn, although much of that is down to the estimated economic loss of about one quarter of one per cent of GDP resulting from people not going to work. No, I don't understand that either. Other associated costs are represented by Gove's nonesense over a new Royal Yacht and the silly barge thing that will set off down the Thames accompanied by a flotilla of sycophantic craft in its wake, presumably killing some swans for roasting at the pageant feast later that day.

Do you know what it is yet?

The Olympic Games will take, in total, public money of around £10bn to stage. Of course, government will argue that the inward investment and invisible income through tourism will more than make up for these huge sums of money and there is a remote chance that that argument may be won in the long run but if it is, the presentation of its success will only be a testament to the spin applied. I'll acknowledge that the Olympic Games should bring in income and it has created lots of jobs (in London, mostly), and it's made some people very rich...just like many busisness opportunities...and some of the eventual benefactors have re-invested in our economy, so it's perhaps not all bad, economically.

What's bad, though, is the political capital to be made by Cameron's government by whipping up a fervour for the 2012 festivals on the misplaced assumption that everyone is looking forward to them. Cameron and his cabinet have been accused of being "out of touch" with us "ordinary folk" and he is...but that's not his fault. They're rich, privileged and have rarely had to worry about any of the things that 99% of the population have had to.

Equally damnable are the assumptions made by the press and other media that everyone is having collective Jubilympic orgasms at the prospect of people running about and throwing things for a couple of weeks in the summer and that an unelected Head of State is going to have some slaves rowing her in a boat down a river a few weeks beforehand. The BBC have started already and, unsurprisingly, David-bloody-Starkey is popping up everywhere to promote his curation of the exhibition at Greenwich and, of course, his latest book about some other poncing royals from Tudor times.

But none of this actually matters. And why? Ron Weinland...that's why.

Never heard of him? No...neither had I until I stumbled upon a link to his work the other day and it was, quite literally, an OMG moment!

Weinland is a prophet of the Church of God (that's as opposed to the Church of Chocolate or Money or Twitter, presumably). Anyway, he's one of a number of "End-Timers" around these days and almost all of them from the USA, of course. Like the others, he has detected the trumpets from Revelation and all seven of them have sounded and now the seventh seal has been opened. This impacts everyone; well, all Abraham-based religions anyway, so that's Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

As a result of all of these trumpety seals and stuff, there is now a ten-sided European monster of a coalition about to pounce on everyone. In addition, Obama is an anti-christ (apparently) and the Armageddon that is WW3 is about to start thus heralding the End of Time and the second coming of Christ, who will rescue mankind from itself (again) but only after billions have died (including all of the non-Abraham-based religious populations and all atheists, conveniently). This will leave only people like Weinland behind to start again, and presumably he'll be one of only a few men left with thousands of women. You know the kind of fantasy... Alternative End-Timers prefer the bonkers proposition that the ones that are left (who shall number 20,000) will be taken by Jesus from the Earth on a space-ship and dumped on a new planet to begin again. I hope one of them is Professor Brian Cox and that the current coalition cabinet will be among the billions slaughtered.

And the End of Time is when? 27th May 2012, that's when (according to Weinland)

So it's all a bit pointless worrying about the Jubilympics, really.

Weinland the Prophet
Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him?
No.
Nutter.

Galloway: Good or Bad for UK Politics?

George Galloway doesn't see eye-to-eye with many people. Rula Lenska is quite a bit taller than him, for example. Then there's David Aaronovitch, if the latest BBC QT was anything to go by. Oh, and everyone in British politics. 

But is he good or bad for politics in the UK? 

It's great being on the edge of mainstream politics though. It's easy to be populist when it's also pretty obvious to even the most idiotic voter that someone like Galloway and his Respect Party hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of being within a million miles of actual government. He can be outrageous (and he is); he can promise things that will never be realised (and he does); and he can pull the tails of the main parties on any issue he pleases (and he has).

Since 1950, when Capt. John McLeod was elected to represent Ross and Cromarty as their MP, there has been a short and undistinguished list of successful independent parliamentary candidates. Only three of them have managed to get elected twice. Dick Taverne, the MP for Lincoln in the seventies, was one and Richard Taylor, for Wyre Forest, another. Taverne doesn't really count, as he was the sitting Labour MP and had a constituency with the people already. He only moved to an independent ticket because he was pissed off with Labour lurching too far to the left in 1973. He was de-selected by his party and then won the subsequent by-election and was returned again in the general election in 1974. Taylor was a 'single issue' candidate over the hospital closure planned for Kidderminster in 2001 and turned out to be such a good MP from the local population's point of view, they gave him their votes again in 2006. 

Then there's George. Is he "independent"? In any sense of the word...yes. Like Taverne, Galloway was angry with the direction in which his beloved Labour Party was going; only in his case it was the lurch to the centre and then to the right and, in particular, Blair's approach to international politics and the wars into which he took the country as Bush's poodle, along with the then PM's accumulation of wealth and power. Galloway was a Labour MP in Glasgow (Hillhead and latterly Kelvin) from 1987 and then lost the whip and everything else in 2003 after his criticism of the party over the Iraq war. De-selection followed, naturally, and thus the "Respect the Unity Coalition" was born in his head and he went on to defeat Oona King in Bethnal Green & Bow in the 2006 election, largely because King was forced by the party to declare herself in favour of the war. Galloway's tenure wasn't hugely successful in East London and it was time to move elsewhere. 

Opportunity beckoned once again for him in 2012 - this time at Bradford West. Galloway has been in all kinds of trouble at Westminster over the years but he's a seasoned campaigner and a parliamentarian  who knows how it works. When the Bradford West by-election came along, it also played into the hands of "Respect". Here was a constituency, formerly held by Labour's Marsha Singh (a very competent MP that had to stand down due to health problems), that Galloway believed could be a test of the new Labour leadership - that being 'new' with a small 'n', and personified by a plainly incompetent party leader, in Ed Miliband. 

The shocked surprise of Miliband, his party and shadow cabinet at Galloway's win wasn't echoed in Bradford. It was partly a protest vote but mostly a populist poll for someone that campaigned professionally, targeting those sections of the electorate that he knew would turn up to cast their votes for him.

Miliband was, quite clearly, so assured of a victory in Bradford that he couldn't find the time to give the Labour man direct support. Miliband probably thought that in fielding his candidate, Imran Hussein, the muslim vote would be his, almost by default. He reckoned without Galloway's appeal to anyone that the wily scotsman can convince are misled and/or oppressed by the main parties. Miliband is guilty of many mistakes since he became Labour leader and now we can add complacency to the list. Galloway can be relied upon to expose both Labour and the Conservatives as parties that don't get it at grassroots level but I imagine that he enjoys sticking it to the party that summarily dumped him for saying things publicly that have subsequently turned out to resonate with Miliband's more recent view of the conflicts in the Middle East. 

In the unlikely event that Cameron and Miliband ever begin to understand what life is like outside of the "Westminster Village", then Galloway would be reduced to the status of "also-ran" as the vast majority of independent candidates tend to be while counting the cost of their campaigns and lost deposits. Until then, we need the likes of Galloway. 

Public Toilets in Europe

OK, I accept that the title of this blog post - on the face of it - seems unappealing. Of course, it could be a metaphor but, sadly, it isn't. Go to my archive if you want some political rants.

This is a post about public toilets around Europe. Stick with it...you might learn something.

I don't get statistics from "Blogger' about my readership apart from where their servers might be. This is spurious information anyway. Just ask one of the 'ECHC Five' about to be extradited to the US for alleged terrorism, whom the Americans believe should be tried there on the basis that the server through which he peddled his supposed terror rants was based in Wisconsin even though he'd never been there.

Around eight per cent of my readers' servers have been on mainland Europe. And let's be clear about this...Europe is the bit that is bordered to the south by the Med, the north by the Arctic, and the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The western border is slightly disputable but Europe doesn't include Ukraine and certainly not Turkey. I don't care what the technocrats in Brussels and Strasbourg would have us believe or which nations they court. Europe to me is the Europe I learned about at school in the sixties (although I accept things like Unified Germany, especially as that means that West Germany can never beat us in a football World Cup).

So...what does a public toilet say about a country?

Let's take the UK to begin with. Regrettably, the majority of public toilets in Britain stink. The British are, by nature, reticent about toilets and the things that happen in them - the bodily function things, not the other stuff. Pissing and shitting are usually (but not literally) swept under the carpet in Britain. There are some people that cannot bring themselves to believe that the Queen needs to take a dump. On the other hand, everyone will happily acknowledge that Prime Minister Cameron shits, but mostly on the basis that he does it every day, and upon every citizen, one way or another, except on those that he wishes to take out of higher-rate taxation. It has to be our reticence here in Britain over the whole toilet thing that means that we don't pay enough attention to our public toilets and we certainly don't invest sufficiently in them or in the people to whom we give the responsibility to maintain them. It's a sad fact that a public toilet attendant is so far down the employment food chain that he or she might even rank below a BNP councillor. But does this mean that Brits are 'dirty'? No, not really. What it means is that whilst we complain about just about everything, it is less likely that we'll complain about stinking public toilets because that would necessitate talking about "number ones" and "number twos". And that just wouldn't do, would it? It puts a whole new meaning on the phrase 'anally retentive'.

In Paris, the supposed home of metropolitan sophistication, you can take a piss into a hole in the ground in a restaurant (if you're a bloke) about a swung cat's length from the kitchen. Paris is also the city where the pissoir was invented, largely to stop the male population pissing up against public buildings. This wasn't a penal - or maybe that should be 'penile' - offence (like it is in Britain). They were more worried about the simple offensiveness of the pee streams in the city. Instead, you can wander up to a pissoir and in almost full view of passersby, take the appropriate relief. There are no facilities integral to the pissoir for hand-washing. Sophistication, my arse!

German toilets are, as one would imagine, brilliant. Clean, odourless, efficient, expensive and humourless, thus mirroring German society almost exactly. Germans take most things very seriously, especially work. In contrast to most other European nations where things are taken seriously, such as Norway, their approach also extends to toilets. One German company even invented a personal mobile toilet for women called the "Ladybag' (Das Taschen WC fur Frauen) that turns urine into a gel for easy disposal. I must point out that the personal toilet itself wasn't 'mobile' - it was for 'women on the move'. Important distinction. The idea that there was the remotest possibility of a broken public toilet in Germany or a snarl-up on an autobahn leaving a lady short of facilities led to this invention. Germans are big on insurance...even to the extent of buying a Ladybag for ten euros...just in case of this one in a million chance occurring. German men always carry a bottle for these circumstances. Strangely enough, Ladybag exports were disappointing.

Never, ever, go to a public toilet in St Petersburg thinking it'll be easy. (OK, I know that the former Leningrad is no longer officially in Europe but it was quite a bit, and for quite a while, and is very close to Europe culturally, whereas Moscow isn't). Mind you, the last time I was there I saw a woman walking past the Winter Palace facade with a bear on a lead. Public toilets in St Petersburg are manned. Well, no, they're 'womanned'. Each and every one has a squat, rotund babushka sitting on a small, rickety chair with a smaller, more rickety table by her side at the entrance to the facility. On the table is a bowl into which you must place some coins. It doesn't seem to matter how much or which currency you use although I'm guessing that these days Euros might be frowned upon. And that's what the babushka does best - frown. Well, it's more of a scowl. And she wears black - top to toe. And she shouts and points, as if the internationally-recognised symbols for male and female toilets had suddenly been erased from our memories and we didn't know which door to go through. That said, once inside the cleanliness and general ambience is superb (provided that there are no lardy American tourists defecating - they should pay more).

The Italians are a complex people. Contrary to popular opinion, the Romans didn't 'invent' toilets. They did improve on the idea of latrines with ease and were keen on dealing with the waste as hygienically as possible at the time (well before the Ladybag). I'd expected Italian public toilets to be reflective of the general attitude of the people which, if that could be described in a gesture, would be a demonstrative 'shrug'. Italians get excited about a lot of things. Fashion, cars, three-hour lunches and having elections every six months in order to watch Berlusconi campaign. Sadly, those bizarre political days appear to be over for a while. So it came as a very pleasant surprise that the Italians (especially in the north) take public toilets very seriously indeed. It was probably the Germans or the Americans or whichever power that Italy capitulated to at the time that insisted on this regime of public cleanliness. It doesn't matter, the end result is refreshingly satisfactory.

As we go north, the story gets better and, as expected, more expensive. Public toilets I have visited (that could be a book title) in Scandinavia are almost as good as public toilets can get. In Tromso, they have an enterprising range of chemical toilets designed to deal with plunging temperatures in the winter. Some German tourists that happened to be using the toilet at the time I was there were singularly impressed and, I suspect, just a little jealous. All around Norway, at Alesund, Stavanger, Lofoten and even up at Honningsvag, the public toilets were excellent. Sweden's are the same and it could be argued, at least as far as Helsinki is concerned, Finland's are better still.

But the prizes for the best European toilets go to the following...in reverse order:

Bronze Award: I haven't been to this public toilet for twenty years but I suspect it'll still be the same: Osmotherley, North Yorkshire. Centre of the village. The road signs should have said "This Way to the Best Public Toilet in Britain - The Number One in Number Twos" or something like that. Whomsoever it was that tended the facilities at the time did so with care, attention and humour, along with everything you needed to know about the toilet's history, the village and the surrounding attractions. That sort of thing is welcomed by Brits.

Silver Award: Hanuschplatz, Salzburg. Again, it's many years since my visit but the cleanliness was unsurpassable and the Austrian equivalent of the St Petersburg babushka was polite, friendly, spoke English and took "donations' only.

Gold Award: The Perlan, Reykjavik. Just go there and find out for yourself...

Ten Things That I Couldn't Give a Toss About

Regular visitors to my blog know that I like to have a good rant about things that are JUST SO WRONG and these things tend to come in tens, I've noticed. As a little diversion, here are ten things that I don't give a toss about; things that are, in all likelihood, also a bit wrong as well...

1) Virgin Airlines 'Executive' sells details of the travel plans of 'celebrities'...allegedly. That's an 'allegedly' both in the case of the executive's actions and the target names being in any way worthy of being celebrity personalities. The latest revelation - that the travel plans of Princess Beatrice have been leaked - is so astoundingly dull, as is the fact that the goofy toff is fifth in line to the throne, apparently.

Do we really want more pics
of this? No...didn't think so

Of course, whilst I (along with the majority of sane people) don't give a shit about where it is that Andy's progeny intends to travel to, the sad fact is that so many fools seem so to do and wish to read about it in some low-brow media publication, which only serves to encourage the bastards. I was, paradoxically, encouraged by the list of celebs whose travel plans hade been hacked / leaked / sold or whatever, because I'd not heard of so many of them. For instance, there was someone called Tamer Hassan, who I've discovered is an actor type that once had a fight with Vinnie Jones (so obviously stupid too). Then there's Eva Longoria, who is an actress in a TV show called Desperate Housewives which, presumably, is on a channel watched by equally desperate people. Why would I want to either a) know where these people are going or b) look at pictures of them arriving at, or leaving from, an aiprort? Another target celebrity was Fergie, whom I learn is not the idiotic princess's mother but in fact the singer from the Black-Eyed Peas. The Virgin executive has resigned, I gather, in the face of these revelations. It was all so utterly pointless, seeing as all of these celebs were probably tweeting about their latest voyages anyway for fear of being ignored for a minute. Sad bastards that I DON'T GIVE A TOSS about.

2) London Mayoral Candidates' Tax Affairs. What a fucking yawn-fest. There are only two possible winners from the London list; Bozzer or Ken. Paddick, Jenny Jones and the rest are also-rans already, as we know, yet Paddick still wishes to take the higher moral ground over his taxation probity. For Livingstone and Johnson to attempt to score political points about one another's tax planning and the whiff of avoidance that goes with it is just so mind-numbingly dull (apart from Boris letting down his guard in a lift and calling Ken a 'fucking liar', which was fun and possibly true). These guys are not poor. Both employ accountants. Ergo, some tax stuff will happen. Boris wants to surprise the London voters with news that a well-known leftie would even consider tax-avoidance and Ken goes for the potentially less-surprising suggestion that an Eton toff might have the wherewithal to make sure he maximises his income at the excehquer's expense. So what? However, the main reason that I DON'T GIVE A TOSS about this, is that I live in Northumberland.

Surrey, yesterday

3) Hose-Pipe Bans. The press, radio and TV persisting in conducting interviews with domestic, amateur gardeners in the Home Counties about how they're going to look after their flowers, lawns and vegetables without the use of a hose-pipe, must be the most unremittingly boring journalism. Learning about how the enterprising little-englanders are diverting water from their roofs, baths or their neighbours' ornamental ponds (while they're away on holiday) is desperately dull. As is hearing these arseholes complain about all the water that is being lost by the utility companies having been unable to plug the leaks in their systems; their leaky information having come from the screaming headlines in the Dail Mail, of course, who would have us believe that the water suppliers (who are all owned by foreigners, by the way) piss away sufficient waste every minute to water every garden in Tunbridge Wells, every day, for the next million years...probably. What really should be exciting interest instead, is the reduction in abstraction rights for farmers but that doesn't make headlines as everyone thinks that farmers get far too much money from CAP and there is little sympathy for them, especially as they supposedly spend all their spare time fox-hunting, shooting badgers and wearing green wellies. OK, some of them do...but not that many. And when everyone has to pay vastly inflated prices for imported fruit and veg, they might not worry so much about their bloody dahlias and their brown lawns. However, the principal reason why I DON'T GIVE A TOSS about hose-pipe bans is again, oddlly enough, because I live in Northumberland. Ha ha ha....

4) Amazon Dot Somewhere: Luxembourgian Bastards. I gather that Amazon have done some fiddly, entirely legal deal to register themselves in Luxembourg so that all the money they make from UK sales (c.£3.5bn) is free from Corporation tax. So, just like every other major corporate then? Never mind the 26,000 people directly employed by Amazon in the UK, the countless couriers and truckers supporting the distribution, and the VAT and the...oh, all the rest. But Amazon are also completely fucking up the bookshop sector as well apparently (as if Waterstones hadn't done that anyway) by forcing everyone to buy kindles. Maybe that's all just progress, hm? It isn't going to stop. Before long we'll all have chips in our heads so that reading matter can be downloaded direct to our brains. And shopping online isn't going to stop either. So I DON'T GIVE A TOSS, and it doesn't matter, on this occasion, where I happen to be living...

5) Bahrain Grand Prix. Does the staging of the F1 grand prix in Bahrain tacitly support the dictatorial regime of the Bahraini royal family? Probably. Does it matter? No. Vehicles that are loosely based on motor cars go round and round a tarmac track while Bernie Eccleston makes huge sums of money and television pundits have collective brainfarts about it all. Which is why I DON'T GIVE A TOSS. Another reason why, is that Jeremy Clarkson thinks that F1 is cool. Tosser.

Brand describes the
size of his intellect...
or something

6) Russell Brand. I gather that the pensioner-bothering lothario is attempting to schmooze the BBC into giving him work again. His desperation quite possibly knows no bounds. The 'project' on offer appears to be for him to front a documentary of sorts on the subject of addiction. It seems that Brand has been deeply affected by the death of his 'friend' Amy Winehouse who, apparently (and somewhat conveniently) was an addict. Brand is addicted too, to his ego. There is no reason on earth why any of us should ever, EVER GIVE A TOSS about this arsehole. Unsurprisingly, he was one of the Virgin Airlines leak subjects. Maybe that's a good thing. It might be useful to know exactly where Russell Brand is at every minute of every day in order that we can all be somewhere else. The same goes for Jeremy Kyle, by the way.

7) The Leveson Enquiry. Frankly, I just DON'T GIVE A TOSS about this any more. Too long. Too slow. Not much changed. Murdoch is still rich. There's nothing more to see here...let's all just move along, now.

8) Crucifix-Wearing. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the seventy-four year old head of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland, has recently expressed his opinion on all manner of things, most notably that "....gay marriage is madness..." and has opened his dogmatic gob again. This time he wants everyone to wear a cross to identify themselves as christians. There've been a couple of cases of late where women have been 'persecuted' at work for wearing a crucifix. If the christian church thinks that those employers' stances represented persecution, I suggest they travel a bit (and let Virgin know first so they can leak where they're going) and maybe go to Burma, China or North Korea and have a little look at what persecution can really mean. It's not the crucifix-wearing issue that I couldn't give a toss about, however, it's the largely irrelevant opinions of befrocked cardinals and their boss in Rome.

9) Education: I'm ashamed to record here that I just DON'T GIVE A TOSS about this anymore. I should, I know, but it's pointless. It really doesn't matter whether the government is made up of Tory toffs coalescing with Libs or if it's made up of useless Eds, the inexorable trajectory towards measuring the educations system(s) to death will never abate.

This man is in charge of
Britain's education system:
No! Really...he is!

The teaching unions are no better. They are currently being very excited at conferences about what's happeneing to their pay and pension deals because they fear that the compratively independent academies might actually start paying a wage that reflects the ability and productivity of teaching staff. 'Free' schools are bananas. Private, fee-paying schools will never go away and will ever be the preserve of the priveleged class. The University system is gradually pricing itself out of the domestic market and into the international student market (mostly Chinese) but will continue to produce graduates that will be disappointed that their 2:1 in History only gets them a job in a call centre. And our government will still be populated by PPE graduates from Oxbridge. Since the introduction of the Comprehensive system, successive governments have timkered away and tinkered away without ever having made any noticeable, genuine improvements. And now the universties (well, Oxford and Cambridge) have begun to despair over the readiness of under-graduates for varsity life, dontcha know, old boy. So they've decided that the only way that this can be remedied is if the dons set the papers. You know, those dons that are just so experienced in everything life has to offer...well, in studying, anyway. The problem really is that the baby-boomers simply want to reinvent their own experiences from the sixties and seventies like it has a relevance to young people in 2012. And the worrying thing is....that they can. Tossers. Gove and Willets promised so much in 2010 but in the end just ended up like all the rest...

10) The Olympics.

That's it...

Ed Miliband is Useless

Useless Tosser?

So, the Tories' flat-back four defence went on holiday this week and left a huge - a massively huge - and gaping net for Labour to score several goals. Unfortunately, Labour's centre-forward was fiddling around in midfield playing keepie-uppie and failed to notice the opportunities that were going begging. What a wanker. Blair would have had a football field day, and would probably have had the time to  have started a couple of illegal wars while he was kicking the shit out of the Coalition. Even Brown might have scored a couple of goals. But Mr. Ed? Not a chance. He really is fucking useless...but why so? Here's just a few sample reasons:

1) He's never had a proper job. He's just a policy wonk that had a little bit of credibility because his dad was a respected leftie. When you grow up in that sort of family and then you do PPE at Oxford along with the rest of the wannabe political class, then I suppose there's only one, inevitable career option.

2) He was manoeuvered into a safe Labour seat (although, having said that, so was Bradford West, supposedly). The good people of Doncaster North must have been just oh-so delighted to see this slightly posh, plummy-mouthed southerner on their Labour ticket. He won the seat in 2005; this in spite of Gordon Brown going to South Yorkshire personally to help his former adviser's campaign, although on this occasion he wasn't caught insulting a voter.

3) He got married just because the party thought he should. Having had the conviction just to partner-up and have a family with Justine Thornton, he was persuaded by his supporters to get hitched shortly after Labour's defeat in the 2010 general election and then went on to win the labour leadership in the September as a traditionally married man. Ed said he and Justine had always planned to marry...pants on fire. They even trod on a glass at the wedding as a 'mark of respect' for the Judaism he's never practised.

4) Ed can't help having a silly, adenoidal voice. His one hour conference address last year must have driven some party members to the bar early or, in the worst case, to suicide. Neither can he help the way he looks and the ease with which he can be compared to Nick Park's Wallace. And yet somehow the Labour Party allowed themselves to elect him as leader instead of his brother...or anyone else...even the other Ed or even Yvette. What were they thinking? At his first conference as leader, he launched his big idea..."The New Bargain". This is something that has galvanised the public to such an extent that it is talked about even less than the "Big Society".

5) Worst ever political interview? Judge for yourselves in the famous "Put aside the rhetoric..." train-wreck.

So what should Ed Miliband have done last week to capitalise on the Tory debacles?

Well, let's start with he shouldn't have done, shall we? He shouldn't have organised a photo-opportunity at the Redditch branch of Greggs. Him and 'Other-Ed' bought eight sausage rolls in order to inform the public that George Osborne is a git (like we didn't already know). In the little interview piece after the purchase, Miliband tells us that the government is "out of touch" because of the VAT on sausage rolls. WTF? Partly because Cameron had already made some fatuous shit up about loving pasties and had thus widened the open goal, Miliband just couldn't see beyond 'Pastygate' as an opportunity. As usual, he was laughably poor and failed to land any punches, even on something as basic as a pasty. Indeed, the Eds looked more pleased with themsleves at having successfully gone to a shop and bought some food...something that neither has done, in all likelihood...for some time. And Greggs got lots of lovely free advertising. Here's some more: their cheese and onion pasties are to die for (eventually, after three a day for twenty years).

When Cruddas was found out by The Sunday Times for selling access to Cameron, it should have all been over; general election called, coalition booted out and a faux-socialist government installed within weeks. That kind of sleaze is the sort of thing that - once upon a time - brought down governments. But that's not how it works these days and that's probably a good thing in many ways. So Cameron kicks Cruddas's arse out of Tory HQ, spins some yarn about not knowing he was being sold for £250k a dinner and that was that. Where was Miliband? He was desperately trying to get information out about HIS fucking dinners, breakfasts and coffee mornings to make him look better than Cameron. Once again, he missed the open goal by retreating into his own half and defending his own goal, on the totally misguied assumption that anyone actually gave a shit about whom Ed liked to entertain. For sure, Labour (the 'New' variety) did some sleazy crap under Blair but nothing like the idiots at Tory HQ. If there is a higher moral ground in politics then Ed had the chance to ascend it. Instead, he just tried to persuade everyone that he wasn't in the pocket of the unions by listing the informal tetes-a-tete with Unite bosses and the others; meetings that nobody gives a toss about because they weren't 'paid' for by rich and privileged bastards that want to influence government to make them even richer and more bastardy. Jesus...

Petrol. This was Miliband's biggest miss. The fuel tanker drivers feel they need to get things sorted. That's OK. They threaten industrial action which, in itself, is OK too as long as it makes all the parties concerned get together and sort it out with compromises through arbitration. Government then decides to take the initiative, assuming that the nasty, socialist, common driver-folk (average wage: £45k p.a.) will strike and we can look forward to "carmageddon" on the fuel forecourts. Step up to the plate, then, Francis Maude, who was responsible for the partial immolation of a woman in York, apparently. I respect Miliband for not getting on that particular tabloid horse but what he should have done was get on the blower to his bacon-buttie mate McCluskey and score some political points by making sure Unite understood what their money was supposed to be doing...like getting a Labour government. But he didn't...because he doesn't know how and doesn't know anybody that does.

Then here are some of the things that Ed has brought upon himself and his party:

Bradford West: Safe seat. Nothing to worry about. Let's just go and spend some time at Greggs with 'Other Ed' and some film crews. What the fuck was that!? Galloway!? Shit! Bollocks! Ed was in Doncaster pretending to be a constituency MP and had planned to go forty miles further north that day and celebrate the by-election victory. On learning of the monumental defeat, he retreated to London instead going to Bradford to find out for himself what the hell happened.

In The Observer today - Ed does an interview where he suggests that he will win the next general election. Then he introduces his alien friends that abducted him and told him that this was true. Then he left the interview accompanied by an eight foot tall white rabbit called "Harvey" before being sectioned.

Every time Miliband opens his stupid, vascillating gob he makes the Coalition appear more credible and his puerile attempt at opposition less so.

I've a theory that Labour has been brow-beaten by the Tories into accepting that everything is still their fault almost 2 years on. A "week" might be a long time in politics, so two years is a lifetime. The Tories keep reminding us that everything is New Labour's fault and Ed is still trying to defend it, as is 'Other Ed' and the rest of the inept shadow cabinet.

At this rate,  the sixteen years of Thatcher / Major will be eclipsed.

Come on, David Miliband. Your party and your country awaits...and if you can't be arsed, it'll be your fault when Blair / Mandelson come back. On the other hand, there's always Ken if Boris does him over in London next month.

R.I.P Labour...