(Monday) Moan 61

PURE PFEFFEL

Boris Johnson is in Australia. I’d like to think he’s there on holiday rather than at the expense of London taxpayers, but I’m not sure on that one.  Whilst there, he manages to ensure headlines in all the UK newspapers and airtime on news programmes by calling for ‘fair treatment for Aussies and yah-boo sucks to the EU’ in terms of the right to work here in the UK for citizens of those different countries.

 

So, as well as wondering why Boris is in Australia, you might also be puzzled as to why he is saying nice things about Australians and why he is slagging off the EU.  Could this be because he has long held the view that we are discriminating against Australians?  Doubt it.  More likely it’s just a good PR move suggested to him both to ensure media coverage in Australia and to suck up to the thousands of Australians living in the UK who are eligible to vote in UK elections.  Does he really think we should treat Australians better than EU citizens?  Or is pandering to the growing anti-EU sentiment in the Conservative Party and its supporters part of his plan as well?

 

The BBC London news report about all this managed to find two talking heads to offer their views on all this. One, Alex Ivett, editor of the Australian Times (“for, by and about Aussies in the UK”) – presumably one and the same Alex Ivett who also writes for the New Zealand Times (“for, by and about Kiwis in the UK”), sounded suitably serious when interviewed - “There is a really strong professional Australian community in the UK and every Australian here is contributing to the economy by working, living, travelling, really engaging with the community so I definitely think that enhancing those opportunities for Australians can only be of benefit to the UK”.  Slightly different from her more usual young, carefree, singleton, gossip-girl style in the two Australasian publications.

 

The other talking head was Sarah Ludford, Lib Dem MEP for London, who took Boris to task for ‘cherry picking’ the bits of the EU package he wanted to enjoy, noting that he seems to want freedom for businesses but not for individuals.  And she managed to deliver her assessment of him as “talking piffle” with a straight face – resisting the temptation to smirk at her own joke of (presumably intentionally) getting in a reference to his full name of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.  

 

Who said politicians lacked humour?

 

 

 

FRACKING NONSENSE

So much hot air about fracking in Balcombe last week (enough to extract all that gas in the rocks below if only it could have been captured and re-used?), complete with PR-stunt arrest of Caroline Lucas, MP.  Rather disappointingly, this experienced politician appeared not to understand that democracy means the freedom to express views but not to break the law when your own view does not prevail - “clearly democracy isn’t working because we have tried all means of putting our views over but still they are not doing what we want”.*

 

The usual band of merry protestors turned up to demonstrate against the end of civilisation as we know it if fracking were to be allowed. Shame on those who labelled them rent-a-mob or new-age protestors, or anything similar.

 

But when Vivienne Westwood arrived to support the cause we knew the game was up.  Good old Vivienne – no protest ever allowed to pass by without an appearance from her.  After all, a little bit of publicity for her t-shirts is always a matter of serious political, environmental and educational interest.

* OK, not word for word what she said, but close enough to get the gist of it

 

 

SO THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED TO EDUARDO……….

Eduardo da Silva was a highly talented footballer whose career never recovered from a horrific injury sustained when playing for Arsenal against Birmingham City in 2008.  After leaving Arsenal he played for Shakhtar Donetsk for a while and then I lost track of him.

 

That was until last week, when he re-emerged with a new identity of David Miranda, partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was the one leaking secret documents about the NSA and other security services provided to him by Edward Snowden.

 

The amazing thing was that Greenwald and Miranda appeared more than a little surprised that Miranda had been detained by UK authorities, apparently believing that journalists were protected from the application of the law by their status as self-appointed arbiters of what is right and wrong in the world today. Journalists, defenders of all that is good in the world today,  working in league with some of our favourite whistleblowers - Assange, Manning and Snowden.  

 

Greenwald was so upset that he immediately threatened to release material about the UK that was, by his own words, highly damaging to its security services.  

 

Temper tantrum, no doubt. Maybe he’ll think better of it when he’s had a chance to think about it.

  

 

A PERFECT MATCH

The announcement that Bradley Manning wants in future to be known as Chelsea should not have come as a surprise.

 

Pretending to be something they are not, assuming they can do what they like without regard to others or the consequences, not caring what anybody thinks of them – Bradley and Chelsea are a perfect fit.