Eideard

A plan by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to send a copy of the King James Bible to every school in the country – each including a personal inscription from him – has run into trouble after government sources reported he has been told to find private funding for the project.

Sources said David Cameron told Gove that while he supported the idea, the education secretary should avoid using taxpayers’ money for it. But Gove has yet to find a private philanthropic sponsor for the enterprise, and some Whitehall sources said he has been told he cannot distribute the book until he does so, leaving thousands of copies in a warehouse abroad…

…But Whitehall sources said Gove was told at the highest levels that it would be wrong to spend nearly £400,000 on the project at a time when the government was in negotiations with teaching unions over cuts to their pension entitlement…Wow! I’m surprised the Tories were that perceptive.

The 400th anniversary of the publication of the Bible was in 2011.

This is the same dweeb who wanted British taxpayers to pop for £60 million for a new yacht for the Queen. Phew.

Michael Gove has brushed aside Britain’s economic problems to propose the public donate a new royal yacht to the Queen as a mark of respect during this year’s diamond jubilee celebrations, according to a confidential letter to fellow ministers.

In the letter, which has been sent to Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary and minister overseeing the celebrations, and to the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, Gove at one point comes close to suggesting that Britain’s dire economic climate means that a large-scale celebration is required to lift the country’s spirits…

Starting bids around £60 million.

Gove, an enthusiastic monarchist, writes in the letter: “I feel strongly that the diamond jubilee gives us a tremendous opportunity to recognise in a very fitting way the Queen’s highly significant contribution to the life of the nation and the Commonwealth…”

“My suggestion would be a gift from the nation to her majesty; thinking about David Willetts’s excellent suggestion of a royal yacht, and something tangible to commemorate this momentous occasion.” He adds: “The year ahead provides an enormous opportunity to showcase the very best of Britain.”

…Gove’s office confirmed the authenticity of the letter but refused to comment.

I suppose that aficionados of monarchies and other 18th Century silliness will not consider this proposal at all out of line. It’s only silly buggers like me – and my peers in the UK – who might consider the maths and suggest that this would pay for a useful number of schoolrooms. Something that benefits a nation much more than another craptastic toy for decorative leftovers from the era of Imperial England.

Hint: he ain’t the guy who’s armed

Lord Patten, the incoming BBC Trust chairman, has said he hardly ever watches television. What better qualification for the job? At least Patten won’t be weighed down by the burden of knowing what television programmes people are referring to, or what television programmes are supposed to look like, or how to switch a television on and off properly. He can be a fresh pair of eyes.

But on the off chance Patten does decide to try and learn something about TV before he starts in the role, here’s a beginner’s guide to watching television, especially for him.

Television: The box in the corner of your living room covered in three inches of dust.

Daytime: Programming broadcast throughout traditional office hours…

Soaps: An ongoing, episodic drama series. Named because everyone on EastEnders looks like they could do with a good wash.

Watershed: This is the time of day after which it is deemed acceptable to broadcast content that viewers of a sensitive disposition may find disturbing such as sex, bad language, violence or cricket highlights.

Jumping the shark: A phrase used to describe the moment that a programme stops being good…

Some of this will only be understood east of the Big Pond. And by those of us west of the Big Pond who are addicted to proper football.

I’m reminded of “Brownie” – appointed by George W. Bush to run FEMA, the emergency aid providers – essentially on the basis of the quasi-respectable job he did at selling overpriced horses.

A new Conservative peer has claimed that Coalition changes to the welfare system will encourage “breeding” among those on benefits.

Howard Flight, a former Tory MP, made the comments just days after being given a peerage by David Cameron. Downing Street moved swiftly to distance itself from the remarks.

Mr Flight, who has yet to be ennobled, was asked in an interview about changes to the child benefit system which will see top rate taxpayers no longer receiving the state-hand-out.

The father of three told the Evening Standard: “We’re going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it’s jolly expensive…But for those on benefits, there is every incentive. Well, that’s not very sensible.”

His comments come a week after David Cameron was infuriated by comments from Lord Young in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. The peer was forced to resign as a Downing Street adviser after referring to the “so-called recession” and people never having it “so good.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Howard Flight has shown himself to be an insensitive throwback to the worst of 1980s politics within days of being made a peer by the Prime Minister.

“This is exactly the kind of remark that leads to political parties being thought of as nasty, and shows just how shockingly out of touch with the lives of ordinary low and middle-income people some supporters of this Government can be.”

See. Sarah Palin and thugs like Jim Dement aren’t alone in the world. There’s no shortage of class-based 19th Century ideologues across the pond. Though we tend to specialize more in the populist phonies.

An English politician was arrested on Thursday for joking on Twitter that a columnist he disagreed with should be stoned to death.

Gareth Compton, a 38-year-old member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party who serves in local government in Birmingham, was suspended by the party following his arrest, Britain’s Press Association reported…

During a discussion of Mr. Cameron’s criticism of the Chinese government for human-rights abuses, Ms. Alibhai-Brown said that any British politician who supported the Iraq war lacked the moral authority to lecture other nations. Mr. Compton then posted his mock plea for her execution by stoning…

Mr. Compton then removed his attack on Ms. Alibhai-Brown and wrote on his now-deleted account:

I did not ‘call’ for the stoning of anybody. I made an ill-conceived attempt at humour in response to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown saying on Radio 5 Live this morning that no politician had the right to comment on human rights abuses, even the stoning of women in Iran. I apologize for any offence caused. It was wholly unintentional.

Writing about the incident in a blog post for a decidedly anti-Conservative British magazine, The New Statesman, George Eaton called the arrest, “an extraordinarily disproportionate response.”

It goes round and round. The nutball Tory had to pick on a Muslim woman who has previously been threatened by the fatwa brigade. Then, he apologizes. The question of being silly enough to arrest him – is separate from his stupidity.

We’ve finally gotten away from American racists joking about lynching Black politicians, Black activists, civil rights activists – in public, anyway. Doesn’t mean they were ever arrested for it.

Remember, when the Yanks say, “Jump!” – you ask “how high?”
Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Plans by the British government to make significant cuts in defense spending have spurred concerns among American military experts about Britain’s ability to carry out its role as the United States’ most dependable ally.

The Brits used to use the term “batman” to describe a similar purpose within their imperial army. Americans are more likely to say “flunkey”.

A wrenching government spending review has pitted Britain’s army against its navy, spawned a series of leaks to the British media and raised the question of whether the military that emerges from the budget cuts — expected to be 10 percent to 20 percent of current outlays — will be a strategically agile force that can join the United States on major combat operations.

American and British officials said that they did not expect any cutbacks to curtail Britain’s capabilities to fight in Afghanistan over the next five years…

The ten or fifteen years after that might be a problem, though.

Mr. Fox told reporters later that, after any cuts, the British military would be able to respond to a broad array of threats and retain capabilities particularly valued by the Pentagon. He identified those as Britain’s Special Forces, its nuclear deterrent, its participation in the Joint Strike Fighter program and its ability to deploy substantial forces when needed.

While they joust with Israel to see who gets to be the 51st state, the various wings of the British government are working like little beavers to assure Uncle Sugar they need to stay on the death and destruction payroll.

The Census, the official population count carried out by the UK Government, is to be scrapped after more than 200 years…

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said the Census, which takes place every 10 years, was an expensive and inaccurate way of measuring the number of people in Britain.

Instead, the Government is examining different and cheaper ways to count the population more regularly, using existing public and private databases, including credit reference agencies.

It will represent a historic shift in the way that information about the nation’s population, religion and social habits is gathered.

The suggestion is likely to be approved by Cabinet next week. It will be too late to prevent the next Census on March 27, 2011 from going ahead, although Mr Maude said he was looking at ways of reducing the £482million cost.

Britain has carried out a Census every decade since 1801, with the exception of 1941 during the Second World War.

It is the only time that everybody in the country is counted, and is used by the Government to determine spending priorities and track population movements.

Mr Maude, who has responsibility for the Census, told The Daily Telegraph that the Government was looking for a “fundamentally” better way of doing it. “There are, I believe, ways of doing this which will provide better, quicker information, more frequently and cheaper,” he said.

“Cheaper” being the operative word. Cost is always a higher priority than accuracy or usefulness for beancounters and Tories.

Next year, they plan on replacing the Queen with Sarah Palin. She’ll work for less and say funnier things about working people.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg addressing Gay Pride luncheon at #10
Dayife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

When the Conservatives last had their hands on the tiller of power, none of their MPs would admit to being homosexual, they voted against lowering the age of consent for gay sex, and invented a law which made it illegal for schools to mention homosexuality.

How things change: Saturday, eight years after Alan Duncan became the first Tory MP to come out of his own volition, Nick Herbert, the openly gay Conservative policing minister, gave a speech at Pride London about “how the Tories have come a helluva long way”.

And that’s not all. His department, the Home Office, has chartered a float at this year’s event, which will wind its way down Oxford Street and Regent Street towards Trafalgar Square from 1pm.

Pride’s theme this year is “Paint the Town Ruby Red”, to mark the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Gay Liberation Front, which was formed after the Stonewall riots, when police clashed with gay demonstrators in New York…

Herbert said he wouldn’t be following the sartorial lead of Boris Johnson, who famously wore a pink stetson when leading Pride two years ago, and will march again on Saturday. “I’m not telling you what I’ll be wearing,” said Herbert, preferring to talk about how seriously the government was taking the reporting of homophobia as a hate crime…

Though David Cameron cannot attend himself, two weeks ago he held a reception for the organisers in the garden at Number 10. He has also charmed most of the LGBT groups with the coalition manifesto, which said the government will help schools deal with homophobic bullying, pressure other countries to support gay rights, push for international recognition of UK civil partnerships and stop deporting gay asylum seekers at risk of harm.

The coalition is so pro-gay that not only have they has set up a cross-government programme of work addressing LGBT policy, but they have promised “additional action for transgender equality” – exactly the sort of initiative the Tories used to mock Harriet Harman for daring to suggest when she held the equalities brief. To return to the Home Office float’s Shakespearean theme of yore: “The wheel is come full circle.”

Anyone out there think anything more than rank-and-file Republicans in the Log Cabin Club will lend support to parallel efforts in the GOUSA?

They’re the biggest chapter in the country and still not officially recognized by the state GOP.

Nick Clegg has surged into contention as a potential prime minister, according to a Guardian/ICM poll carried out following last night’s TV leaders’ debate. A quarter of voters who watched the three leaders on the ITV programme say they will switch their vote, with most changing to the Liberal Democrats.

Clegg emerges from the telephone poll as the overwhelming winner, with 51% who watched saying he came out on top. David Cameron and Gordon Brown trail in far behind: 20% say Cameron won and 19% Brown…

The Guardian poll coincides with a survey of voting intentions carried out by ComRes for ITV…Among those voters who had watched the debate, the surge in Lib Dem support was more dramatic: up 14 points to 35%, only a shade behind the Conservatives on 36%, who were down three. Labour languished in third place, at 24%, also down three.

Overdue.

Labour and the Conservatives vied with one another to claim the other had been the bigger loser from the unprecedented debate, watched by 9.9 million viewers at its peak, as Labour’s election co-ordinator, Douglas Alexander, admitted: “It is now impossible to predict the course of the next three weeks.”

David Cameron conceded that Clegg had performed strongly, as his aides reviewed how they could puncture the Liberal Democrat leader’s image as the anti-establishment outsider. Tory sources, ruing Cameron’s personal decision to grant Clegg equal status in the three debates, started to point to his past as a full-time European commission bureaucrat, as well as his firm Europhile views…

Labour, happy to see a Liberal Democrat wave so long as it does not convert into a tsunami, continued to emphasise the similarities between Lib Dem and Labour policies. Lord Adonis, the transport secretary and a former Lib Dem, took hints of postelection co-operation a stage further by saying he would not tell voters whether to back Labour in Lib Dem-Tory marginals.

The stodgy incompetents are falling over each other trying to blame the old rival as having lost the most. They both deserve to lose.

A hell of an object lesson on why the TweedleDeeDum parties in the US fear a solid 3rd Party movement more than anything else.

Embarrassing disclosures about the vast expenses claims of British members of parliament amount to a “McCarthy-style witch-hunt” that risks driving politicians to suicide, a lawmaker warned on Friday.

Nadine Dorries, a member of the opposition Conservative party, wrote on her blog that the two-week scandal, in which the Daily Telegraph newspaper has drip-fed details of how members of parliament have abused their generous expense allowances, was forcing politicians to the brink…

European and local elections to be held on June 4 are expected to reflect the level of popular disgust, with lower voter turnout and a move toward fringe parties predicted.

“The atmosphere in Westminster is unbearable,” Dorries wrote on the blog (blog.dorries.org). “People are constantly checking to see if others are OK. Everyone fears a suicide. If someone isn’t seen, offices are called and checked.”

Asked about her comments on BBC radio on Friday, she sought to back away from the suicide suggestion, but said the disclosures, including that politicians charged for duck ponds, horse manure, bath plugs and pornographic films, were forcing members of parliament to breaking point…

“I have to say the last day in parliament this week was completely unbearable. I have never, ever been in an atmosphere or an environment like it, where everyone walks around with terror in their eyes. People are genuinely concerned.”

Dorries, whose own use of expenses to buy household goods was exposed by the Telegraph, joins a number of politicians who have attacked the disclosures rather than apologizing.

Is this a threat of suicide – or a promise?

Losing corrupt politicians by whatever means is a praiseworthy goal. If they enhance and accelerate the process – by their own hand – that’s just the icing on the cake.