Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Daley Dozen: Wednesday

1. Guido has the video of Cameron's putdown of 'Blinky' Balls.
2. Ben Brogan sniffs an election.
3. Matthew D'Ancona on the private Tory response to the budget.
4. What a Balls up says the Blairite John Rentoul.
5. Fraser Nelson explains how Alistair Darling has made a line of Cocaine cheaper than a half of cider.
6. Donal Blaney on penal reform. That's penal.
7. Alistair Darling was dullsville personified according to Kevin Maguire.
8. Cranmer on Darling's first and last budget.
9. Conor Burns on the Iranian teenager about to be sent back to Iran to be hanged.
10. Dave's Part wants the extreme left to vote for Ken.
11. John Redwood on the Plastic Bag budget.
12. Paul Linford says the budget was 'boring not bad'.


A special mention for the Spectator Coffee House blog, which wiped the floor with the rest of us today. Their budget coverage was the best on the net. And that includes the BBC. D'Ancona, Nelson and Neil beat Jade Goody, Trisha Goddard and Evan Davis's nipple clamps into a cocked hat.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure Fraser Nelson's figures are wrong. If coke is £45 a gram, and by my reckoning a tenth of a gram is a line (100mg), that's £4.50 a line. Half a cider is not going to be £4.50. Even if a line is 50mg (1/20th of a gram), that's £2.25 a line, not many places are going to do halfs for £2.25. Just pretty simple blogging laziness.

Rush-is-Right said...

On your Paul Linford link he says "it's hardly now the time for big tax reductions amid all the "global financial turbulence."

Excuse me, at a time of impending recession tax cuts are exactly what is required. The trouble is of course that the government's spending is so out of control, and its borrowing requirement already so high, that he no space for tax cuts.

So we're all screwed. Sorry.

Anonymous said...

Somebody in the Tory Blogosphere should pick up the Ball and run with it.

That sneering "So what?" perfectly encapsulates Labour's attitude to the rest of the world.

It is the sort of remark that everyone can relate to; the yob response. Balls is a yob in a suit.

Balls, like Brown is mentally ill. They are so detached from normal human responses they are unable to control themselves.

Increasingly, they look like the pigs in Animal Farm, and in Balls' case the resemblence is becoming physical.

rob's uncle said...

Re: 'looped blind cords': Gordon Banks's speech may be read at: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2008-03-12a.98.1&s=speaker%3A12005#g103.0 . Two extracts:
' . . The real issue is . . the threat that looped blind cords can pose to young and vulnerable people. A chilling statistic is the estimate that 20 children in the UK have lost their lives in the past 10 years because of looped blind cords. I confess that I had never considered the dangers . . before, and I am sure that that is true of many. When I discussed the issue with my wife, she told me that when my children . . were tiny, she tied up the blind cords because she was aware of the inherent danger that they posed. Perhaps that shows how strong a mother's instincts can be.
. . I have mentioned the US, and it might be useful to give some background to what happened there in the hope that it will be replicated here. A study by the USA's Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that the total number of window cord strangulations in the US between 1981 and 1995 was 359—nearly one child a fortnight . . '
There is a reply by The Minister for Science and Innovation (Ian Pearson).

Anonymous said...

The budget was so grey it could have been presented by John Major!

asquith said...

"So What" was on the front page of the Daily Express today. I cried a little inside when I saw some generic lower-middle-class woman carrying a copy and that was the headline.

Anonymous said...

Nelson is talking out of his a*se as per Tom G at the top of this thread. Pure laziness on Nelson's behalf.

Cocaine is getting cheaper, but I'm afraid that's because the media /advertising metropolitan elite in London can't stop shoving it up their noses. Never seen the appeal myself.

It's long been the case though, that one can, if one so wishes, get off of one's face for a lot less money than it would cost with alcohol.

Ecstasy, for example, is less than £2 a pill in these parts.

The "war on drugs" has failed, prohibition does not work. It's about time we had a sensible debate about what adults can and cannot put in there bodies of their own volition.

Miss Wagstaff said...

All this budget talk has made us not think of Lord Goldsmith's work. Commentators on the review of citizenship have focused on a specific proposal, that schoolchildren should swear oaths of alliance to the Queen. For the benefit of the Union, what is needed is a better, less polarised debate about what the union is and where it is going.

Anonymous said...

"some generic lower-middle-class woman"

You are a Guardian/Independent reader you just do not know it yet.

Oscar Miller said...

All hail the Spectator - their coverage was terrific. But why was Andrew Neil consigned to the blogosphere when he should have been fronting the beeb's budget show, instead of being ignominiously pushed aside for the ever so bland Huw Edwards?

Anonymous said...

Lynne Featherstone in a banana suit - what more does a girl have to do to get in to the daley dozen?
http://www.lynnefeatherstone.org/2008/03/watch-me-dance-in-banana-costume.htm

asquith said...

Chris Goodman, I read both the Guardian and the Independent.

Moreover, I am impeccably working-class by parentage (low income, poorly educated, routine jobs, council terrace) and in my personal existence (routine job, council flat).

But I've developed bien-pensant liberal views out of nowhere. Also, I went to university, having unexpectedly excelled at school, but then went back to my estate roots :) So I'm a bit of a xxxx in general really.

Anonymous said...

asquith said...

"... my personal existence (routine job, council flat).... Also, I went to university, having unexpectedly excelled at school, but then went back to my estate roots :) So I'm a bit of a xxxx in general really."

Looks like your expensive university education was wasted then.

Anonymous said...

You can accuse Nelson of many things but not laziness. Look at the comment thread - its all down to how many grammes in a line. Nelson's problem is not doing enough coke.