Friday, September 01, 2006

The World According to the Indy

If you're on the right and fancy getting riled, click HERE to read the Independent's Good List of fifty people they think are the best intentioned people in the country. Well, if they're right, God help us all. Still it's given me a few more names for my next book, THE TOP 100 PEOPLE WHO ARE SCREWING UP BRITAIN - AND POLLY TOYNBEE IS #37. Croydonian has some thoughts on the Indy too HERE.

22 comments:

  1. So now we know who won't be on the Children's Index. Lucky them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I could barely keep my supper down. What vomit inducing, self adoring nonesense.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Shirley bleedin Williams? Co-architect of so much that is wrong with our schools?

    Mark Malloch Brown, sent abroad to lie for a corrupt head of a corrupt UN?

    Who made up the panel?

    ReplyDelete
  4. So, all good people are either religious or left-wing?

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm not "on the right".

    I am a Conservative. Until recently.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Some very good choices on there who I'd endorse... must confess to not knowing all the people listed, but many sound inclusions. However in my view the likes of Geldof and Batmandjeligh are over-revered, and I can't be doing with Richard Curtis or Ken Loach. The likes of Williams, Stafford Smith, Snow, and Chakrabarti are eminently praiseworthy however. Perhaps Iain could explain his objections?

    ReplyDelete
  7. My first thought was "What a total rip-off of the well-known Bernard Goldberg book '100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37)'."

    But then I thought "No, wait, Al Franken as the American Polly Toynbee? Can't be."

    ReplyDelete
  8. ah of course, Tariq Ramadan, Islamic reformer who is anti-semitic, friends with various terrorists, and wants an Islamic Europe. A leading moderate Muslim apparently.

    I guess Independent journalists are well-intentioned, but the last thing any sane person wants is an Islamic state .

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anon, 12.16: unless, of course, you happen to be a Muslim.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I agree - the credibility of this list is seriously undermined with the inclusion of Chris Patten. Consider his past sins, for God's sake.

    ReplyDelete
  11. ah of course, Tariq Ramadan, Islamic reformer who is anti-semitic, friends with various terrorists, and wants an Islamic Europe. A leading moderate Muslim apparently.

    No, probably the Tariq Ramadan described here, rather than the one misrepresented by anonymous:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariq_Ramadan#Views

    ReplyDelete
  12. Shirley bleedin Williams? Co-architect of so much that is wrong with our schools?

    And the Tories say (quite rightly, in a way) it's a bit rich for Blair to blame them for the state of the country... Words fail me at the stupidity of that comment.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The first sentence of the BBC article is laughable - "A panel of experts". Experts in (very questionably) good people?

    Bridge. To. Sell. To. You. Interested?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous 12:23 - another word for unhinged.

    Our British laws, civil society and our British strengths were the ideals of the world before Toneeeee and Elena slithered in and took a wrecking ball to our Constitution, our Bill of Rights - all the more ironic because, Tony hadn't realised we actually have a Bill of Rights and a Constitution - and sold our ancient country down the river to the Human Rights Crapola Act. Now, people from undeveloped societies are coming into our country without let or hindrance, and having the impertinence to tell us we should be doing things their way (which has proved such a wow over the last 1,500 years).

    Tony is a fantasist and an enabler. (Who remembers "Britain is a young country!"?)

    But where can those two trail off to? Tell me where, after he is finally toothpicked out of office, would he be offered a job? Seriously, the President of Europe as a possibility is long gone. No one in California seemed to have the faintest interest in his "talents" - and this is the land of Barbra Streisand and Jane Fonda. Martin Sheen. Danny Glover.

    The East Coast seems a little chilly re job ops. The establishment ... Hmmmm ... not a lot left, really ...

    Here is my reading - the Bush family has always been loyal to their friends, and,inexplicably, they think our Tone's a friend. It was they who got John Major onto his multi-million dollar business ops - which Mr Major took and ran with.

    They will get Tony speaking engagements. But how long can that last? What do Tony and Cher have to sell, except greed and vanity? How long can Tony's David Niven clipped accent playing a Wing Commander in WWII hold Americans in thrall?

    ReplyDelete
  15. 'Richard Harries, Moralist'? Is he by any chance related to the Bishop of Oxford? And what about Dr Mona Siddiqui? They've got most of the other Thought For The Day regulars there; what's she done to be missed off the list?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Any ideas of right wing "good" people then?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Apart from the obvious political correctness of not choosing anybody, other than Geldof, who actually creates any of the wealth (or "resources" to use the current PC term) that they want to redistribute I note that there appear to be no Scots or Welsh (certainly no "community leaders"). Indeed I would guess that there are very few who live outside the M25. Quite surprising Gerry Adams didn't make it - I guess the Irish aren't poor & oppressed any more.

    I would agree with the comment about the Indy's idea of what consitiutes expertise.

    ReplyDelete
  18. THE TOP 100 PEOPLE WHO ARE SCREWING UP BRITAIN - AND POLLY TOYNBEE IS #37

    only 37?

    ReplyDelete
  19. The Top 100 people who are Screwing Up Britain:

    No.1 Anthony Blair
    No.2 Anthony Blair
    (remember he's mad and has several alternative personalities, one of which is shaped like a mug)

    The Top 100 People who would Like The Chance To Screw Up Britain:

    No.1 David Cameron

    ReplyDelete
  20. To say Muslims constitute only 2 per cent of the UK population there seem to be a disproportionate number of them on the "good" list.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Hmmm.. Richard Dawkins isnt on there.

    says it all really - we seem to have slipped into an age of irrationality.

    ReplyDelete