Just Shut Up, Will You...? Ten People That Should Stop Talking

Some people just don't know when to shut the fuck up, do they? Here are ten examples of those that should button it for now...

1) Everyone that has anything to say in public about Jimmy-bloody-Savile. And that includes me. Leave it to the police.

2) Harriet Harperson: Nobody is interested in anything she has to say any more so she should stop saying anything. She's one of the last hangovers from the Blairites and we've all moved on; especially the Eds. Miliband Jnr will have to realise soon enough that Harman is now excess baggage and find himself a more appropriate "One Nationer" deputy leader. My suggestion would be Andy Burnham. He was, regrettably, Chief Secretary to the Treasury under misery-guts 'Prudence' Broon but I firmly believe that everyone is allowed one mistake in cabinet (apart from Gove, Osborne and Hunt, of course). Burnham's OK. He's bright, articulate and quite often answers hacks' questions with 'Yes' and 'No', which is refreshing. Thanks for everything Harriet (and there was some OK stuff, to be fair)...but ta-ra. Oh, and could you possible take Dromey away with you?

...One ResigNation?

3) John Terry / Ashley Cole / The FA / Mark Lawrenson: Who gives a toss? Over-paid wankers, most of whom have unfeasibly single-digit IQs, kick a ball about and swear at eachother. It really isn't a story, but the media just love it, don't they? Especially when one of the protagonists opens his gob (or, god help us, tweets) without an "advisor"present, and we can then see how utterly thick they are. I can almost forgive stupid people for behaving stupidly...that's what they do, but when the supposedly "qualified" spokesmen for the game weigh in with such crass commentaries as those spouted by Bernstein and his cronies at the FA it makes my heart sink. What's worse? The pundits. I am no more interested in what Lawrenson has to say about anything than I am in Paul Gambaccini's "I told you so" bollocks about Savile. Just shut the fuck up, stop tweeting, and play the game (which was beautiful, once, but now is a travesty of increasingly shabby proportions).

4) Andrew Marr: What makes Andrew Marr think that he's risen so high in the estimation of either his peers or the general public that he should be the one to go on prime time TV and give us his summation of the "History of the World"? I'm OK with Brian Cox covering the much grander scale of the History of the Universe, largely because he's a Professor of Astro-Physics and knows some shit. The only qualification that I can see Marr having for the monumental task of describing the history of the world is that he lives on it. Besides, Marr's programme is not the "History of the World" at all. If anything, it's a piece on the the history of humans and nothing could ever top Jacob Bronowski's "The Ascent of Man". Like many of these series commissioned by the BBC - such as Flanders' thing about the history of modern economics - the camera spends most its time filming the presenter walking about  and, in the case of Marr's rubbish, that means endless footage of him bestriding the globe like the intellectual colossus that he isn't. A much better commission from the BBC would have been "Andrew Marr's History of the Pomposity of Superinjunctions". But I wouldn't watch that, either. Just another jumped-up hack that should shut up. If the BBC wanted to improve on Bronowski, then maybe they should have used someone with more gravitas and moral authority than Marr...for example, Ricky Gervaise or Ant and/or Dec or Russell fucking Brand?

 

Bronowski - Genius

5) Richard Branson: Everybody loves Sir Richard, don't they? He's a sort of Boris Johnson of commerce and, had he not shut up, then the lunacy of the Department of Transport's procurement processes might not have been exposed. So, well done Richard Branson? Not really. All that happens now is that we'll wade into the treacle of rail franchises again only this time under such public scrutiny that it will be impossible for any of the franchises to be awarded because everybody will suddenly be a fucking expert on rail franchises and, after that, NHS procurement, defence contracts and all the rest. The Civil Service wheels will grind even more slowly to make their motion almost imperceptible. The only answer on rail is re-nationalisation. There are plenty of commentators that (quite rightly) point to the mess that British Rail got into in the 60s and 70s but that was forty years ago. Things have moved on. We could really do this sort of thing now...and probably for less money. And not just transport, either. There's the NHS to take back properly, and all of the untilities. So thanks for pointing out the deficiencies in Whitehall procurement, Richard, but now can you please shut up and go and sell some music. You were really good at that, once.

6) Jeremy Hunt: Apparently, the new Health Secretary is a "lovely bloke" and we should respect him because he's "extremely popular" within the Tory Party. That's like saying that Hitler went down really well with racist fascists in 1930s Germany. Hunt, the MP for Farnham and formerly the "Minister for Murdoch", obviously thinks it's about time he said something related to public health matters as this is now, unbelieveably, his brief in cabinet. And upon what issue has he chosen to opine? Abortion. A pretty toxic subject at the best of times. Hunt believes that there should be no abortions after twelve weeks. Of the 200,000 or so preganancy terminations a year in England & Wales, around ten per cent occur after twelve weeks and almost all of those are as a result of tests that cannot be undertaken earlier, but reveal congenital defects in the foetus or agonising disabilities that would lead to a lifetime of care. So, the Secretary of State for Health thinks it's better that we add another £1bn a year to the care budget. Leave things alone, Hunt. It's not perfect...I know, but informed, tragically difficult decisions are taken by the right people under the current legislation - two doctors and, critically, the parent(s). Hunt - a believer in homeopathy - will probably suggest next that all medicines be watered down to nothing and supplied to the NHS by that other loony homeopath, the Prince of Wales. Just shut up, Hunt.

Hunt takes over at Health...Abort! Abort! Abort!

7) Abu Hamza's Legal Team: Game over, everyone. The crazy cleric is now stateside and let that be an end to it. After several years and several millions of pounds spent (and trousered by lawyers), the common sense that should have prevailed has finally been nodded through by what seems like every bloody judge in the UK, Europe and beyond. I'm delighted that the US judiciary will be dealing with Hamza as the alternative would have been several cripplingly expensive show-trials-by-media over the succeeding years through our own courts. Now it's time for everyone just to shut up about it all. We don't care any more.

8) The Prince of Wales: How come HRH gets to say anything about legislation? The Duchy of Cornwall is given access to (and the right to comment on) parliamentary bills on such diverse areas as energy, building programmes, infrastructure plans and anything under DEFRA's portfolio. And we're not allowed to know what the prince has had to say and how far it may have influenced government. This might also be true of shady characters in big business but in the case of the prince we know for certain it's going on but not what is said. On top of that, there's the other undemocratically positioned law-givers like the twenty-six Lords Spiritual. If Charlie ever becomes King, then him and his bishop pals will be running their own fiefdom before you can say antidisestablishmentarianism, or possibly, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, as they might say in his principality. The whole fucking lot of them should just shut the fuck up...

HRH: "Hello...I'd ask if 'you've come far' or 'what you do',
but I can see it's probably from Virginia...and how are
things on the plantation...and how's your massa, boy?
POTUS: "Michelle's so gonna kick your white ass, man...

9) Alex Salmond: I wish he'd just give it a bloody rest. A couple of years back there was a modest swell in the sea of opinions that suggested that the people of Scotland might want a degree of independence from the UK over and above what they already have at Holyrood which, to be fair, is quite a lot. Some serious people are now doing some serious numbers and the Auditor General, Robert Black, is casting significant doubts over whether Scotland's range of free public services is affordable, even in the short term (next week). Sturgeon is rabidly defending Holyrood's stance whereas Salmond has been curiously quiet...maybe even shutting up about independence before I asked him to. Wise man. Incidentally, this has nothing to with the fact that I can see Scotland from my window.

Scotland's First Minister meets
someone with double his own charisma

10) Nick Clegg: Stop apologising and just piss off. Nobody believes you (or in you) any more.

That'll do for now on people that should shut up. Here's a few that we could do with hearing some more from...

Mitt Romney: OK, Obama was a bit off colour in the first TV debate but, generally, every time Romney speaks, he alienates more voters. So he should keep talking...

David Cameron, Michael Gove, and Andrew Mitchell: Same applies as with Romney only without the TV debates. At the same time, we could do with loads more from Jacob Rees-Mogg. When he appears on television and speaks about anything at all it's like the Labour Party getting a free, unauthorised Party Election Broadcast!

Polly Toynbee: I was seriously worried about Polly for a while after Cameron got in. She seemed to take a little holiday at the Bide-a-wee Home for Distressed Lefties. But now that there's a small puff of breeze in Labour's sails again, she's back on form. Rubbisher even let her on the front page of the Grauniad the other day. Go, Polly! One Nation needs your sage advice (now that you're giving it again).

Eric Hobsbawn: OK, he's dead now but he has the opportunity to speak from beyond the grave. I know we haven't seen the whole of Marr's trashy series but I'll bet there's no mention of Hobsbawn when it come to nineteenth and twentieth century history of the world. We could learn a thing or two from Hobsbawn on how to go about things in the twenty-first.

My cat and my two grandsons' two goldfish: My cat has one eye, is ancient and just a bit thick, really. The goldfish similarly, except they each have two eyes and are both relatively young. In my opinion, humble though it may be, all three of them have a better grasp of how to deal with our recession and create jobs and growth than George Osborne does. However, I doubt they'd work well together, so I suppose it'll just have to be the cat on her own for the time being...

Chancellor of the Exchequer in waiting...?
Everyone breathe a collective sigh of relief
(except small birds, mice and voles)