Petronella Wyatt has a typical Petronella interview in the Mail today with Jeremy Paxman, who has a new book out on the royal family. As usual she issues a marriage proposal to him. Is there anyone that Petronella HASN'T proposed to?
But tucked away in a corner of the interview is this little snippet from Paxman on Prince Charles...
Paxman: "Of course he isn't allowed to have political views, but friends told me he finds the invasion of Iraq an utter mystery and despairs of Bush."
Petsy: "Gosh, Jezzer, if you don't mind me calling you that?' (there is a stangled groan), 'haven't you just outed him? - just as Matthew Parris outed Peter Mandelson...?'
Jezzer: "Oh God, have I?'
I'd have thought that would be quite a good news story in itself. Paxman outing Prince Charles, I mean, rather than the Prince of Wales having controversial views. As Tony Benn might not say, it's personalities that count, not ishoos.
22 comments:
Will somebody please google Miserable Failure and see what comes out top . Honestly its worth it and due to search engine manipulation ( gone wrong)
newmania. shouldn't you be called "yearsoutofdatemania? Don't you get it? We just don't want to google "miserable failure." Besides, we have you on HERE so we don't have to..
The growing belief that there is nothing so pointless as media ciphers re-chewing their irrelevant existence has much to be said for it . I may be able to compete on self obsession but only just
If anyone out there wishes to join me on a crusade against the over praise given to these parasites Jeremy Paxman gives an opportunity to define the terms so engagement . Have a browse through his truly crapulous pot boiler on ``The English`….. or something. Turn then with great relief to the literary and Geo-historical giant Andrew Roberts and his new wonder `A history of the English Speaking Peoples`
I was over awed and privileged to meet this towering figure( of about four feet six actually) recently and put the trickiest question I could come up with in an hour to him. With what inspiring delicacy of thought he responded ,with what astonishing grasp of wide ranging material .
This is the quality of man our political life cries out for .He does not need to make arguments for retaining , shall we say , habeas corpus , after you have read and listened , none are necessary.( Not that they ever were)
Learn to carry with you touchstones against which measure the tawdry and self serving scribblers ,and for peerless literary technique allied to heroic thought the following cannot ( of course ) be beaten.
, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
Treat yourselves to the whole thing and leave on your shopping trip a better , finer human beings .Poetry and grandeur to large for the breakfast time sofa where the soul shrivelling monotony continues every day
Am I the only one who thinks this - 'newmania' isn't a person.
He/she/it is a bot, probably written by some embittered NuLab hacker to put people off commenting to Iain's blog. His/her/its sentences are just collections of words with flaky punctuation thrown in.
newmania; no news report, no unsubstantiated rumour, no back alley whisper, has surprised me as much as your post on Boris Johnson's blog claiming that you have a degree in English.
Shouldn't someone pop around to Newmania's place and gently take all the firearms away before there is a tragedy?
Greenham woman - that first post was funny!
How can anyone in this country (or indeed the US?) not despair of a president who behaved so uselessly both on 9/11 and over new orleans, and who doesn't even know that his deppity's deppity is bullying his mate Musharraf with threats of bombing (perhaps it was only back to the middle ages rather than the stone age?)
Since this a wide-ranging discussion focused on miserable failure, I could add that I heard a rumour that Prince Charles corresponded with UKIP's south eastern office in 2001/2002 - that it was broken into by MI5/6 and the correspondence removed. For confirmation, consult one Nigel Farage MEP.
Dr. Strasibus - Lord no . I am an active Conservative , I just got a bit carried away . I see what you mean .
Greenham -Woman : Thank you , I try to be years out of date but it isn’t easy . Even a gorgeous silvery fish like me must swim in the same stream as ( metaphorically speaking) a cankered old boot like you Can’t you accept that we see things different ways . For me , for example , a man stuck in a woman’s body is a pleasant prospect . For you , a lifetime of therapy . We have to learn to exchange views with out personal rancour
I wish you well
PS rain coaster .Sorry you have something against me . I must make amends
Petronella's never proposed to me.(Not sure whether that tells you more about her or more about me.)
anonymous 3:24 - Could you let us know how Mr Bush behaved hopelessly over Katrina, please?
Do you understand the set-up of the United States? Do you understand the President has no authority over the states?
You know, of course, that governors are the chief executives of their states and don't take orders from the President? The President cannot override them. But you knew that, didn't you?
You knew that President Bush called the hopeless Governor Blanco (Spanish name but from a very old, well-embedded corrupt Lousiana family) three times begging her to let him send in the army and army engineers and three times she refused? He also wanted her to get people started applying for Federal relief for the storm damage that would occur, and she didn't want that, either. Someone like Blanco has a lot of people to consult, and it takes time while they all figure out their angles and percentages, before a decision can be reached in Louisiana.
That's why the levies washed away. Corrupt construction deals. Cheap materials.
As it became more evident the situation was being mishandled by that couple of clowns Blanco and Nagins, the President could do nothing under the US Constitution, but wait to be invited in.
As soon as she called the Feds and asked for help, they were right there. They had the nous to send in, to direct operations, a black general from Louisiana. General Honoré knew exactly how to get things moving in New Orleans and he knew who to go after. That's why everything moved at speed once his feet touched the ground.
Anonymous 3:24, I'm sure you knew all that, of course, which makes your whine about President Bush totally inexplicable.
if you`ll fogive me Verity . That is an excellent insight of which I was not especially aware.
She didn't propose to Janet Anderson. But Janet Anderson did tell her (in 1996) that there "would be more sex under a Labour Government."
Another broken promise....
I read that they'd dredged the Mississipi so effectively for shipping that the sandbars, marshes and islands which used to stand in the way of typhoons, had been removed, allowing the hurricane to blow straight across the lake up to the City.
Making the levees higher or stronger wouldn't make any difference as the water went under the levee when the waves breached to begin with. They don't go down to clay which is very deep down in that location.
they're going to stop dredging as much and allow nature's barriers to the sea reestablish themselves, and put in a few artificaial ones to boot, which will spoil a few peoples' views of the lake but then that consideration cannot stand in the way any more.
Don't tell people about how the US system of government works, Verity. You're spoiling the 'everything's all George Dubya Bush's fault' and British left wing beliefs in the ruthlessness of American capitalism (especially the BBC). New Orleans was their top story, which made it all clear. Now it's all just Mississipi mud.
Back to Charlie Boy's comments. Why do you think his mother won't abdicate? She knows that she would be succeeed by a complete fruit-cake. 5 years with him as King would completely destroy what's left of the credibility of the British monarchy. Queenie will be there 'till she is 100 if she can, just to keep him out.
It's a Mississippi mud pie! That's a desert in them parts, y'all hear?
Another point for anonymous 3:24, New Orleans is 67% black. Most of those black people are rich, middle class or employed working class and they did what any sensible family of any race does. They secured their homes as best they could, packed their valuables and got out on planes or in their cars. In good time. Well in advance. They planned.
Another little poinette for Anonymous: New Orleans and Louisiana in general has many black families with large amounts of "old money". Generations and generations of major money in the family. Don't believe all you hear or all you want to believe.
It was the feckless people in New Orleans, welfare clients for generations, who waited for the government to make decisions for them and didn't take responsibility for themselves. (Admittedly, Mayor Nagins - black and elected by the citizenry as a whole of NO - didn't even follow his own emergency plan and never made those 600 school buses available.)
Tiny bit of gossip - He personally moved his family to Dallas to escape Katrina, and they're bloody still there! A year later, he's re-elected mayor of New Orleans and his family's lolling around in Big D. What gives?
One other lively and fun fact about New Orleans: they have drive-thru daquiri stands. Other cities have drive-thru fast food. New Orleans has daquiris.
It's another world. Best not comment unless you know something about it.
Who really cares what any of those inbred filth think?
About time some of the parties started talking about making us a republic.
We don't need them.
C
newmania, eat your Ritalin before posting and all will be well.
Verity, I'm not about to Fisk your posts, but they are misleading in the extreme. The President does indeed have a great deal more power than you give him credit for. Millions of dollars that had been set aside to reinforce and repair the levees before Katrina hit was diverted, on Federal orders, to the war in Iraq, just as one example. New Orleans was in rough shape, but not inundated, before the levees broke, and the mobility of the lower income groups was severely limited by the fact that there were not enough buses, not enough warning (three days? All buses were booked). Lower income people had insufficient warning and resources to leave, so they died, simple as that.
I refer you to the excellent investigative article by Donald Brinkley in Vanity Fair, How New Orleans Drowned. It's quite clear from the article that there were critical failures at every level of government.
Quote: As Hurricane Katrina bore down and weather experts sounded the alarm, every hour counted. Yet Mayor Ray Nagin waited to order a mandatory evacuation, FEMA director Michael Brown held off on readying adequate relief, and Governor Kathleen Blanco and President Bush exchanged form letters instead of urgent phone calls. An excerpt from the new book The Great Deluge lays out the farce behind the tragedy
As a Tulane Law alum, I'll second everything Verity said and then some. I love the place dearly, but New Orleans and Louisiana in general have huge long-standing problems that predate Katrina by generations if not centuries.
Thanks, Dave I! One of my three closest friends in the world is also a Tulane law alum. He went on to be a great success as a CFO.
Re Louisiana, as you say, centuries. Everyone knows that but the BBC.
Raincoaster, I dont know the minutae of the American system, but I wrote what I know. Yes, there was failure at all levels, but most of the mess in NO after Katrina (and before, with the Superdome, the failure to mobilise the 600 school buses, etc) was directly attributable to Blanco and Nagins. Nagins had left his command post and taken a room at the Holiday Inn.
I am sick to death of the left and the BBC shrieking "George Bush was sleeping in an air-conditioned White House while all these poor BLACK BLACK BLACK people were ABANDONED by Bush because they are BLACK." These people abandoned their responsibility for themselves because generations of welfare dependency have taught them that they are not responsible for anything. As I said, 67% of New Orleans is black and most of them took responsibility for themselves and their families and got themselves out.
Second, let us remember that the bloody hurricane didn't even touch down in New Orleans.
It hit Mississippi. New Orleans got the fringes. The fringes of a hurricane are not that violent, although there's often a lot of rain. The whole city collapsed because of corruption in awarding city building contracts. Long and short. And that brings up back to Blanco and Nagins.
Katrina actually hit down in full wrath in the Biloxi/Gulfport area of Mississippi, where the people had taken responsibility for themselves by first, electing a Republican governor and second, securing their homes as best they could.
The governor asked the President for federal help, which was forthcoming immediately, and they started the clean-up and rebuilding the next day. And the people from FEMA were in town the next day processing government loans/grants whatever. (I'm not saying there weren't failures in FEMA, but they were in Mississippi the day after the hurricane and they were working.)
And the man the Feds sent to New Orleans to sort the mess out in a hurry was a BLACK three-star general who is a native of Louisiana, the wonderful and effective General St Honoré.
PS One of George Bush's closest friends is the foreman of his ranch who is ... BLACK!
If the left could just STFU about Katrina, especially the pig ignorant British left, that would be good.
Verity - very good posts! I did know this, but that's cos I did American politics at University! Most people didn;t have that luxury.
However, Bush was still to blame in some respect, because he has done absolutely nothing to counteract the corruption which - as you rightly poiinted out - is still rife pretty much anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line (and including Louisiana)!
Secondly, he should have made a public coded appeal to the governor to allow them to help.
Thirdly, when the feds did pile in, they didn;t actually do a great job really - although they were hampered by the delay.
Finally, Bush has done nothing (or very little) to get the generations of people who are utterly depedent of welfare/medicaid/food vouchers in NO to 'up their game', better their own lot, make a better life in employment, and who therefore had no alternative but to stay because they couldn't afford cars!
As you know, a president's power over the states in not executive, but they still have enourmous 'influence' (as the theory goes in any case). He failed to use his influence in this situation. Therefore, he allowed the people of NO to face the weather without the assistance of the Fed or state government!
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