So Paul Staines has faced the judge, kowtowed and pleaded uxorial ownership of a Golf and got off with a non-custodial sentence for a second drink driving offense.
From what I know of Paul and others with similar issues, the next three months will be difficult. So, in a gesture of non-partisan solidarity and support, I'm going to forswear alcohol for the next month, and be safely tucked up at home by 9pm every night. Furthermore, any other bloggers who wish to show Paul that it can be done, that he can master alcohol instead of being ruled by it, you're all welcome to join me.
]]>www.order-order.com - Hilary Armstrong : "Three MPs Drank Themselves to Death"Ex-chief whip Hilary Armstrong has gone on the record to the Whitehall & Westminster newsletter with a candid admission that many MPs are drunks.
www.order-order.com - Charlie Denies Drink Problem
www.order-order.com - Whisky Business at the GLA
www.order-order.com - Des Smith Hits the bottleDes Smith hit the bottle hard last week under the pressure of the police inquiry into the cash for honours scam. He broke down in tears yesterday in court as he was sentenced for drink driving at Redbridge magistrates. The police evidence to the court was that he was three times over the maximum limit.
www.order-order.com - LibDems Support Tots for TotsGuido's mother used to dip his soother in rum, never did Guido any harm...
www.order-order.com - Euan is UnwellWhat kind of drunken example is he setting? Hospital is for sissys.
There's an exquisite irony in those last two posts, given this little item in the Indie.
The Independent - Pandora: Blogger 'Guido Fawkes' is led off to the TowerLobbyists, aides and parliamentarians from all sides of the Houses – particularly those with something to hide – will be delighted to learn that the famously thirsty troublemaker, real name Paul Staines, was up before the beak at Tower Bridge Magistrates Court last Thursday.
He admitted driving while under the influence and without insurance after being stopped by the Plod in the small hours of 17 April, driving his wife's Volkswagen fast and swerving across lanes in south London. He was breathalysed and found to be almost twice the legal limit. Asked by District Judge Timothy Stone whether he had an alcohol problem, Staines said: "Possibly."
Sentencing is on 15 May. It is his fourth alcohol-related offence and second drink-driving reprimand – he was banned for 12 months in 2002 – requiring the judge to consider a jail sentence.
I wonder what odds I'd get on Paul trying to pretend it never happened? I doubt any reference will be allowed to appear in the comments on his blog. Still, if he does have an alcohol problem (and on the evidence that would appear to be the case), then the first step is to admit to the problem. Once he comes out of a state of denial, then he can begin the process of recovery. He owes it to his wife and children to sort himself out.
With his track record of putting the boot into others with similar problems, he's not going to find much sympathy to his plight in the blogging world. Still, even Libertarians can't scoff at laws designed to protect others. If he wants to drink himself into an early grave then that's a matter for him and his family. But taking his alcohol problem behind the wheel of a car and onto the public highway is another matter altogether. If it takes a custodial sentence to bring him back to reality then so be it.
And after all those predictions that Lord Levy would be doing bird, it looks like Guido might beat him to the Scrubs. He'd better be careful in the showers or he'll be well and truly fawked.
]]>BBC - PM 'to send message' on cannabis"I think people know my view about cannabis and particularly about this lethal version of it, skunk."
Woa! Wtf is lethal skunk? Is it some killer strain of cannabis; are we going to be treated to the sight of dead stoners laying face down in half-eaten pizzas, killed by deadly sativa?
Now the LD50 of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is 1270 mg/kg which is pretty low toxicity. In fact, you could smoke your way through more than a kilo of cannabis and still not receive a lethal dose. before you got anywhere near that sort of intake, the munchies would have kicked in big time, and you'd be off for pizza or a kebab.
So talk of lethality is total bollocks on the part of Brown. What he his talking about is how mention of the legality of cannabis induces near-fatal apoplexy on the part of Daily Mail readers who he seems to spend so much time sucking up to these days.
A final report by the group, which plays a key role in setting Britain's drugs policy, was delivered to the Home Office on Monday and it is expected to recommend cannabis remain in the lowest category.But Downing Street has already indicated that Mr Brown remains determined to tighten the law, against the advice.
And there you have it. Sod the science, damn the dictionary, onward with despotic disregard for facts. Why did Brown even bother commissioning the report given that he'd already made his mind up? Perhaps he ought to talk to Frank first and stop talking out of his arse.
The Telegraph - RAF destroys £10m spy plane in AfghanistanThe RAF deliberately blew up one of its own £10 million spy planes after it crash landed over Taliban territory in Afghanistan. Faced with the prospect of the technology falling into enemy hands, commanders immediately despatched an elite unit to remove "sensitive items" from the unmanned Reaper spy drone.
Which is all well and good, but the article closes with a simple yet potentially misleading statement.
According to the US Department of Defence Security Cooperation Agency, Britain is looking at buying another 10 Reapers as part of a wider £540 million deal.
If only that were the case. Unfortunately it is nigh on impossible to use the core defence budget to buy imported equipment containing no local input. So any replacement would have to come via the conflict resolution budget, but that source of funding is under pressure from the Treasury.
Which is where the flying portk comes in.
The proposed replacement for the Reaper is the Watchkeeper, a UAV which the Army is touting as an ideal British solution. There're a couple of gotchas that they don't really highlight.
Firstly, the airframe is Israeli, made by Elbit and it also includes a significant amount of French technology. So hardly a real British solution, but maybe all the better for that, considering previous experience with our battlefield tech in Afghanistan.
Secondly, and possibly more important, is the fact that Watchkeeper isn't cheap. Keep in mind that £10million figure for the Reaper.
The Register - UK MoD reveals Watchkeeper spy-drone numbersRather refreshingly, the MoD conceded this point, and sources there revealed today that the £800m Watchkeeper project will deliver 54 aircraft to the British Army. In very broad-brush terms, then, each Watchkeeper will cost the taxpayers £15m.
So a 50% surcharge to buy a not-really-British-at-all replacement instead of the American Reaper. And if you look at the spec for the two UAVs, you'll seen that the Watchkeeper is smaller and less capable.
Thus the flying pork analogy, because once again we're going to spend more money than necessary on a less capable weapon system in order to maintain a pretense of buying British.
]]>Even David Cameron doesn't seem to understand what is going on.
BBC - Cameron vow to 'stop' tax changes"For a good headline, for one day's newspapers, he was prepared to attack some of the lowest paid people in our country," said Mr Cameron.
Now maybe I'm too cynical, but I always thought the 10p band would be axed at some point. After all, it was introduced by Brown as part of his last Budget as Chancellor, before his uncontested coronation as Prime Minister and Party Leader. I suspect the intention even then was for Brown to hold a snap election once Blair stood down. With that in mind, what better way to boost your public standing than a high profile lower tax band of 10p. The only problem being that such a band was unsustainable in the longer term, given the Government's spending commitments.
Even that wasn't necessarily a problem, as it is unlikely that Brown ever saw being Prime Minister as a long term job; the lure of riches from the private sector most likely proving to be a strong a lure to Brown as they were to Blair. So the simple, election winning plan was for Brown to introduce the 10p tax band, call the snap election, win a 5 year term and then hang his Chancellor out to dry when the band was scrapped.
Unfortunately for Brown, he bottled it and didn't call the election as originally planned. So all the potential goodwill he bought with the 10p band came to nothing. At the end of the day, Brown has had Darling return the poorer off to the status quo ante bellum (in a manner of speaking).
So just remember, the 10p band was a squandered election winner, never intended to be a long-term benefit for poorer tax payers. And Darling was always supposed to be Brown's bitch.
]]>Skills I'm looking for are:
The longer term project is to extend and enhance the National Service back-end, but initially I'd like to take the Labour Election Return project forward, with a port from classic ASP and VBScript to .Net and beef up the search functionality. Hopefully the Election Return project can then be spun off to be run by an organised group of volunteers, and be in a position to not only complete the 2005 return for all the major parties, but also make the next election returns available asap. Think of it as an "It's your money they're spending" public service site. Not only would you be able to see what our elected representatives do for us via TheyWorkForYou.com, but you'd also be able to see what they spent getting there.
]]>17 July 2007 - Electrical Outage. I escaped this one and at the time it didn't seem too significant.
23/24 July 2007 - Hit by floods. Again, I had a couple of servers affected, but other servers hosted at a different provider were unaffected. Now remind me again why you shouldn't build a data center by docks next to a river prone to flooding?
August 2007 - The Usmanov Affair. Words will never be enough, but the link at the top gives a detailed timeline of incompetant and less than honest service.
October 2007 - Fasthosts accidentally trash numbers of email. This had no impact on me, as I no longer used Fasthosts for hosting.
October 2007 - The infamous "intruder" incident where plain text passwords were compromised. A painful incident further compounded by Fasthosts insisting on posting changed passwords via snail mail! This farce rumbled on through October and November before finally reaching a conclusion just before Christmas.
April 2008 - They're at it again.
The Register - Fasthosts' dedicated servers go titsup
Gaffe-prone web hosting outfit Fasthosts has suffered another major outage today, this time taking down many of its customers' dedicated servers.Some dedicated server customers may currently find their servers are unavailable at present. Affected customers may not be able to access their server, eRIC or Backup spaces and may also affect the rebuild of deployed servers and the deployment of new servers. Engineers are continuing their investigations as a priority.
An update posted at 11am said the problems were continuing, and that fixing it is the firm's top priority.
As I said at the start, I'm amazed people are prepared to put up with this level of service. I bet 1&1 Internet are really pleased with their investment in "The UK's Number 1 web host. Home to more websites than any other provider."
]]>Once upon a time there lived a vain Blogger whose only worry in life was to be the biggest and best Political Blogger in the land.He changed traffic boosting schemes almost every hour and loved to show his blog off to his acolytes and sock puppets.
Word of the Blogger's refined habits spread over the blogosphere and beyond. Two scoundrels who had heard of the Blogger's vanity decided to take advantage of it. They introduced themselves at the gates of the palace with a scheme in mind.
"We are two very good web marketeers and after many years of research we have invented an extraordinary method to boost a blog's traffic, producing numbers so mighty and and powerful that they are unquestionable. As a matter of fact they are questionable only by anyone who is too stupid and incompetent to appreciate their quality."
The Chief of the Sock Puppets heard the scoundrel's strange story and sent for the Wannabe Blog hero. The Wannabe ran to the Blogger and disclosed the incredible news. The Blogger's curiosity got the better of him and he decided to see the two scoundrels.
"Besides being unquestionable, your Highness, these stats will be displayed in colors and patterns created especially for you." The emperor gave the two men a bag of gold coins in exchange for their promise to begin working on the stats immediately.
"Just tell us what you need to get started and we'll give it to you." The two scoundrels asked for a PC, the blog password, Google Analytics and Alexa, and then pretended to begin working. The Emperor thought he had spent his money quite well: in addition to getting a higher profile in the MSM, he would discover which of his commenters were ignorant and incompetent. A few days later, he called the Wannabe, who was considered by everyone as a man with common sense.
"Go and see how the work is proceeding," the Blogger told him, "and come back to let me know."
The Wannabe was welcomed by the two scoundrels.
"We're almost finished, but we need a lot more stats packages. Here, Excellency! Admire the colors, see the size of the numbers!" The old man bent over the PC and tried to see the genuine stats that were not there. He felt cold sweat on his forehead.
"I can't see anything," he thought. "If I see nothing, that means I'm stupid! Or, worse, incompetent!" If the Wannabe admitted that he didn't see anything, he would loose his credibility.
"What marvelous numbers" he said then. "I'll certainly tell the Blogger." The two scoundrels rubbed their hands gleefully. They had almost made it. More stats were requested to finish the work.
Finally, the Blogger received the announcement that the two marketeers had come to take all the measurements needed to publish the traffic figures.
"Come in," the Blogger ordered. Even as they bowed, the two scoundrels pretended to be holding a log file analysis.
"Here it is your Highness, the result of our labour," the scoundrels said. "We have worked night and day but, at last, the most beautiful webstats in the world are ready for you. Look at the colors and see how large the numbers are." Of course the Blogger was nervous about the figures and doubtful. He panicked and felt like fainting.
But luckily the office chair was right behind him and he sat down. But when he realized that no one could know that he did not believe the figures, he felt better. Nobody could find out he was stupid and incompetent. And the Blogger didn't know that everybody else around him thought and did the very same thing.
The farce continued as the two scoundrels had foreseen it. Once they had taken the measurements, the two began typing madly at keyboards, pretending to compile quality statporn.
"Your Highness, you'll have to publish these new stats." The two scoundrels drafted the post and then let the Blogger admire their post.
"Yes, this is beautiful statporn and it looks very good on me," the Blogger said trying to look comfortable. "You've done a fine job."
"Your Majesty," the Wannabe said, "we have a request for you. The people have heard how popular you Blog is, and they are anxious to see your new stats." The Blogger was doubtful showing his dodgy traffic figures to the public, but then he abandoned his fears. After all, no one would know about it except the ignorant and the incompetent.
"All right," he said. "I will grant the people this privilege." He logged on to Blogger and hit publish. In an instant his glorious new stats were sailing across the internet. On his site, everyone wanted to know how stupid or incompetent his or her neighbor was but, as the stats were read, comments were posted. And each comment said, "Look at the Blogger's new stats. They're awesome!"
A knowledgable sceptic however, who had no important job and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the blog.
"The Stats are wrong!" he said.
"Fool!" the sockpuppets reprimanded, throwing smears after him. "Don't talk nonsense!" They tried to drown out his comments, but he posted the truth on his own site. And the message was repeated over and over again until everyone cried:
"He's right! The Stats are dodgy! It's true!"
The Blogger realized that the people were right but could not admit to that. He though it better to continue posting under the illusion that anyone who didn't trust his stats was either stupid or incompetent. And he posted abusively on comment threads on other
blogs, while behind him a sock puppet touted his imaginary stats.
The tragedy for Iain is that he is both the vain Emperor and the scoundrels combined. And his sock puppets and acolytes the fawning masses who cannot see him for what he is. Thus is Iain both architect and engineer of his own loss of credibility. Couldn't happen to sadder Tory really, not even worth of kissing Gyles Brandreth's shoes.
]]>"Paul, are you now or have you ever been bankrupt?"
Please note, we're talking fiscal here.
]]>Fast-forward 5 years....
My son has been at school for more than half his life; my daughter has doubled in age; my mother is dead; my company is winding down; I've changed job twice. A lot has happened in 5 years, half a decade can encompass a vast number of changes.
But in Iraq the fighting continues, and with no end in sight. All the big questions regarding the invasion of Iraq remain unanswered and it may well be for my potential grand-children to know the answers.
If a week is a long time in politics, 5 years is an eternity.
Bush got his second term, Blair won an election before moving on to more lucrative pastures. Politicians who supported this travesty of peace, democracy and justice have on the whole furthered their careers.
But in Iraq the fighting continues.
The media still report the death of every British person killed in the conflict as a tragedy. The MoD still sends out troops inadequately equipped. The big news is economic and financial, the credit crunch and possible recession.
Yet yesterday another 28 Iraqi civilians were killed as a consequence of our invasion of a sovereign state. Somewhere between 82,000 and 90,000 civilians have suffered violent deaths in the 5 years since we went in to free Iraqis from the tyrannical Saddam Hussein. Up to 18,000 deaths each year, 1,500 a month or about 50 a day, every day for the last 5 years.
And those weasel words, "somewhere between", "about", "up to". Because after all this time, we still don't know how many civilian deaths we are responsible for, how much blood our hands are drenched with. It looks like we're trying to give Saddam a good run for his money, and beat the thousands of Iraqi's killed by their own leaders over a 20 year period.
The situation we've created in Iraq is disgusting and unacceptable. Yet we fail to hold our leaders truly to account. We're all complicit.
]]>The Russian tycoon who has bought a £120m stake in Arsenal, the Premier League leaders, has been accused in court papers of “fraud” and “unjust enrichment” in a dispute over one of the world’s most lucrative diamond mines.
Who is this Alisher Usmanov person anyway? And he seems like such a nice man apparently.
]]>And a big, big thank you to Justin for all he did to keep everyone informed.
]]>BBC correspondent Alan Johnston has been released by kidnappers in Gaza after nearly four months in captivity.
The best news you're likely to read all day.
]]>Dr McCoy was noted for uttering the above when presented with an obviously deceased Red Shirt in Star Trek. It could equally have been used by observers at the recent Scottish elections in reference to the exercise in e-democracy.
We were surprised by the scale of the problems our team observed on polling day. Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to verify the accuracy of the elections we monitored.
The Open Rights Group observed the Scottish elections and had also been involved in previous e-voting pilots. In their report they offering a damning review of the introduction of e-voting, highlighting flaws in the procurement, implementation and operation of such systems.
The report makes reference to grave concerns raised in previous pilots in England, which were extant in the Scottish elections. It would appear that the Government's determination to introduce alternative voting methods took precedence over democratic standards.
Whilst only the most tenuous claims of fraud were voiced, the report clearly shows that the systems used were both open to fraud and incapable of effectively auditing the process in such a manner as to be able to identify incidences of fraud. Audit trails were so weak as to make identification of perpetrators nigh on impossible.
Furthermore, as previously noted, ORG is concerned that actions taken by suppliers were often outside the bounds of systems that created audit trails. Technicians were observed having to make modifications behind the scenes of the ecounting or e-voting systems to resolve problems. These changes, at more fundamental technical levels than the systems causing problems, were beyond the audit systems controls and so any changes made, whether legitimate or not, would not have been captured in the audit trails.
So there have been instances where technicians were actually making low level changes during the counting process. And no way of easily auditing the changes made.
ORG observers noted that the DRS vote-scanning machines had open, unguarded USB, parallel and serial ports available, as well as a CD drive.
Okay, so this may appear a bit obscure, but leaving external ports unsecured presents an opportunity for unathorised software to be introduced, and leaves little opportunity for auditing.
It was also observed in Edinburgh and East Dunbartonshire that the network infrastructure had not been secured. Network hubs were left on the floor with power and network connections loose. In one case in Edinburgh a hub was observed in easy reach of attendees with ports free lying beneath a table providing an opportunity for unauthorised access to the e-counting systems network.
During final RO adjudication, an error appeared when the RO tried to save the results of an adjudication: Unable to complete requested operation. Do you wish to retry Yes/No? Agents reported to ORG observers that this error had appeared several times previously.
Just the sort of thing to fill a returning officer with dread.
The RO went through a number of A4 printouts from an Excel spreadsheet. It was identified that votes for the SNP had not been included during the calculations; the omission of SNP votes was probably owing to the spreadsheet operators inability to see all the parties votes on the computer screen at the same time.
And the final results are based on an Excel spreadsheet for God's sake! How more error prone and insecure can the process be. A wrong result was almost declared simply because the returning officer relied on the output from an Excel spreadsheet which had been manually compiled. Zero accountability or auditing...
The report makes for depressing reading as the deficiencies highlight would, if left unaddressed before widespread implementation, fundamentally undermine democracy. The full report can be found here.
]]>Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
For starters, the transfer of power from Blair to Brown is a travesty of democracy, greater than that when Major succeeded Thatcher. At least in 1990 the Conservatives actually held a leadership contest, whereas the Parliamentary Labour Party took, in a craven act of aquiesence, the coward's way out and simply annointed Brown. In 2005 Blair told his constituents and the electorate that he would stand for a full term, yet a mere two years later he has betrayed both.
Will Brown call a general election in order to legitamise his premiership? Only if polls make a victory look likely. Until then, the Labour Party will remain tarnished and untrustworthy in the eyes of many. And Iraq will remain a devisive issue:
The Independant - Gordon Brown Answers Your QuestionsIn an answer of one word, and with the benefit of hindsight, was it wrong to invade Iraq?
SIMON O'CONNOR, Liverpool
No.
You were the one person who could have stopped Blair signing up to the invasion of Iraq, either by threatening to quit or publicly opposing it. How do you feel about putting your career ahead of the lives of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of British soldiers?
SARAH HILLS, Guildford
I don't doubt that you hold your views about the war sincerely. We know it has been a divisive issue for our party and our country, but I hope you'll accept that I hold my views sincerely too. There's no doubt that mistakes were made in our planning for what happened after the removal of Saddam, and I think it's important to learn the lessons and to go forward knowing that proper procedures are going to be in place that will command the confidence not just of Parliament but the confidence of the public. We will learn all the lessons that need to be learnt.
Do you ever wake in the night and think of all those dead Iraqi children?
ANN PHILLIPS, by email
Any such loss of life is a tragedy. As Prime Minister, I will work tirelessly for peace and security for all the children in Iraq, and for the safe return of our armed forces once their job is done.
After the nightmare of Iraq, will you promise not to join any American invasion of Iran?
CALLUM MACINTYRE, Aberdeen
There is no plan to attack Iran. We have always wanted to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear programme through diplomacy and negotiation. This means we must work through the UN and the EU as we have done each time Iran has failed to comply with the will of the international community. In turn Iran must take its responsibilities seriously and comply fully with the Security Council's resolutions.
So obviously Gordon shared Tony's approach to Iraq. Strike One!
Then a quick glance at devolution and the state of the Union.
Do you think it's right that you can vote in Parliament on issues affecting English people but English MPs can't vote on issues affecting your own Scottish constituents?BRIAN MACKENZIE, by email
I think a system where MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were excluded from voting in the Commons would inevitably lead to the break-up of the Union so I will never support it.
How do you feel about the growing divisions between England and Scotland, such as in health treatments, higher education and long-term care for the elderly? Doesn't it make all this Britishness stuff rather absurd?
BEN JAY, Bath
Of course devolution means that different choices can be made on issues that are reserved to the Scottish Parliament. But I believe the values that unite us as British people are stronger than any policy differences between the regions and nations of the country.
So no change, just a continued muddle that will please no one south of the border and may very well lead to the eventual breakup of the Union. Strike Two!
Continuing, we find this little gem.
What's a bigger danger - global warming or jihadi terrorism?TOM CHURCH, by email
Both are massive dangers, and the truth is - while every other country in the world tends to make trade-offs and choose priorities - Britain is the only country simultaneously taking the lead in fighting all the great dangers the world faces: global warming, international terrorism, nuclear proliferation and world poverty. I am proud of that, and that will continue under my government.
So Brown's solution to global warming is to introduce new nuclear power stations; his approach to unclear proliferation is to replace Trident with a new weapons system. And his answer to international terrorism is to not rule out further unlawful invasions of sovereign states and not to express regret or apologise for the Iraq fiasco.
Strike Three!
Brown is going to be a dismal failure as Prime Minister. While he was at the Treasury he had so much autonomy that most domestic policy was effectively under his control anyway. So the failings of the NHS, education, pensions, etc can all be laid at his door. We now know that he wholeheartedly supported Blair's foreign policy as well. Don't believe him when he claims that his will be a government of substance rather than spin.
The Labour Party had a golden opportunity to move forward from Blair, an opportunity that it squandered. Now both the Party and the Country must prepare to reap a bitter harvest.
]]>