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Al_Ford

Listed below are comments made by Al_Ford between Tuesday, 27th January 2009 and Monday, 26th October 2009.

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The word on the street 00:53am on 26 Oct 2009 #676

How pointless of the moderators to remove my link. The document is easily googled.
The word on the street 00:36am on 26 Oct 2009 #669 cynicalHighlander

Yes, our favourite professor of polemical vituperation is back, and this time he means business. The concerned academic who warned us all about "the Edinburgh-Tehran Axis" has, however, probably now got about as much credibility in Scotland as that fellow Griffin may be conjectured to have.

On the subject of that gentleman, what a week it has been. Race, race and more race, a subject which, if you will forgive yet one more unseemly display of sanctimonious self-righteousness, I avoid like the plague . . . and swine flu, of course, although I think one is supposed to call it something else now, the flagrantly anti-porcine 'swine flu' having apparently been hastily brought in as a makeshift substitute for 'Mexican flu' after Mexico objected. If there are any viruses out there that feel discriminated against by the term 'H1N1', I feel your pain.

Anyway, I have been passing the time reading a publication that I thought I might share with you, on the improbable off-chance that you haven't all read it already: The Unspoken Constitution, by Democratic Audit. For the benefit of anyone who has not read it yet, it is at

[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]

and is a form of writing down of the UK's unwritten constitution. Laugh? I fell off my chair, but that was all right. Anything that takes one's mind off English fascism can't be all bad.
Courageous stuff 11:05pm on 26 Apr 2009 #558

PS. See the Western Mail for coverage of FM Morgan's speech if you are interested.
Courageous stuff 10:56pm on 26 Apr 2009 Addressing a Labour Party conference in Swansea this weekend, Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan issued a warning about the damage he said he believes the Conservatives will do to Wales if they win the next UK general election. In the course of a somewhat coarse discourse, into which the leader of Welsh Labour somehow managed to drag in Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, disparagingly, he uttered the following familiarly sententious sentence:

“Government is no place for SNIPING FROM THE SIDELINES."

Is it just me or does it look rather as if the leader of the Labour group at Cardiff Bay cribbed this from a draft of today's Scotland on Sunday article by the leader of the Labour group at Holyrood? Either that or Mr Gray got it from Mr Morgan or, more likely, it was handed down to both of them by London Labour.

Here we were imagining that that wodge of stodge in Scotland on Sunday might just possibly be all Gray's own work; yet all the time he was, surprise surprise, merely a message boy delivering a message from London as part of a centrally coordinated spin campaign to attempt to distract attention from the enormity of the damage that Labour was revealed in last week's budget to have inflicted on the public finances of the UK during its excessive period of excesses in office.

In support of my point the Morgan quote can be compared with the following line taken from the Gray article:

"It is not so much that Alex Salmond has been posted missing during the economic crisis as he has been guilty of CARPING FROM THE SIDELINES."

So we have Morgan in Wales complaining of "sniping from the sidelines" and in the same weekend Gray in Scotland complaining of "carping from the sidelines". One would have thought that they might have managed to cover up the collusion a little better by changing more than just the one word.

What else can we compare from the same material? Here is Morgan waxing lyrical again about the Tories:

"But being in government is not a spectator sport. It is a participant sport. You’re on the field of play. You’re in government to do a job."

Similarly, we have Gray declaring that the "SNP have to (...) accept the responsibility that comes with government (...) They cannot be allowed to continue to behave like opposition politicians (...)"

In each case the message is the same: splendid, wondrous Labour accepts responsibility and is responsible, whereas the opposition to Labour (whoever they may be and wherever) cannot be trusted to act responsibly at a time when responsible government is needed.

Rather a brazen message considering that the Labour Party has just beeen shown to have wrecked the public finances of the UK. Rather brazen (or incompetent?) also to use the same material in this way to attack two different parties in two different parts of the UK in the same weekend. Of course, Mr Morgan could hardly have directed at the Party of Wales the attack which Mr Gray directed at the Scottish National Party, as Labour is, of course, currently in office with Plaid Cymru at Cardiff Bay while Mr Gray glowers bitterly at the entirely SNP administration across the floor of the chamber at Holyrood.

Dictation from London or a mere coincidence? Judge for yourself. Don't pay any attention to me, at any rate, as I am merely one of those irresponsible fellows sniping/carping "from the sidelines" who are outside the great Labour family which rules the roost in the UK and has been making such a splendid job of it that there is, as Labour HQ is apparently telling us, no legitimate scope for "sniping" and "carping" by those who do not belong to it. Well, they would, wouldn't they? Leaving office and trying to find a job in the economic climate that has been created during their tenure of office would be no joke.

On the subject of jokes, here is Iain Gray concluding the Labour Party's Scotland on Sunday missive:

"The First Minister has to take responsibility that comes with the title and get on with the job. With every passing day it becomes clearer that he simply does not have what it takes."

Laugh? I fell off my chair again. This from a chap who has managed a lower public-approval rating then Wendy Alexander as leader of the Labour delegation at Holyrood! Quite an accomplishment if you think about it. Who would have thought it even possible?

Anyway, that's enough carping from the sidelines for one evening. I'm away to balance my budget.
Goodwin's goodies 2:33pm on 19 Mar 2009 #63 aye_write

Worry not. I changed my mind.

I'm sure you are wise and knowledgeable. I, on the other hand, do occasionally forget which century I'm in, which is not good. Now I'm sounding like Dr Who. So, if you don't mind, I'll just step into this polis box and be on my way.

Afternoon all.

PS. Metrical scansion is no longer taught in schools? No, don't tell me. I'd rather not know.
Goodwin's goodies 10:09am on 19 Mar 2009 #56 timepassescarmichael

"(...) perhaps I'm not supposed to apply logic to Labour's proclamations of outrage (...)"

Oh yes, apply logic to Labour's doings. Endless fun to be had from that.

Logic and politics are strange bedfellows, which is why they keep parting company.
Goodwin's goodies 09:19am on 19 Mar 2009 #54 aye_write

Good morning, aye.

I realise, of course, as someone who was not taking his own post all that seriously, that you were not taking yours all that seriously either.

Shocked, stunned and gobsmacked, however, am I to find that you "don't know what 'it doesn't scan' means". Back to school, young lady. Hint: it relates to metrical structure. Don't call me back to ask what 'metrical structure' is whatever you do, or I shall have a fit and leave the scene in high dudgeon and low spirits.

On the subject of the brigadier I have my own thoughts, naturally, but my approach to chaps whose style I don't care for is generally to steer clear. Simple but effective. It works for me.

You really, honestly, truthfully, sincerely - cross your heart and hope to die - don't know what "it doesn't scan" means? Sorry, I am obviously from another era and have lived too long. I am away now to shoot myself. Goodbye, cruel world.
Goodwin's goodies 11:35pm on 18 Mar 2009 #27 aye_write

It doesn't scan. Actually, if the truth be told, it reminds me a little of the verses that Sid James scrawled on the walls of Hancock's house to show that "Lord Byron lived here." Except that they scanned even though they were dire.

Never mind. It's the thought that counts. And a very uncharitable one it is too. Still, I don't suppose the gentleman in question cares one way or the other. He will, of course, be back in any case, in some guise or another. I know a blog addict when I see one.

But no, let us take the generalissimo at his word. It is the least that we can do, having failed so signally to appreciate him while he was among us. He is gone, and we are woebegone:

"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.

"The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

"Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.

"No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God."

(Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard)

Rest in peace, Brig. We shall not see your like again. Don't call us. We'll call you.
Here and now 11:55am on 28 Jan 2009 #37 and others
aye_write

Have just been following your latest adventures in the NR blog, having had to make a space in my diary for that. Actually, I love your monster posts. Time just whizzes by. How is your keyboard standing up to this, by the way?

I think the Appeal to Fubar needs to be published separately. It may even one day become required reading in schools and find itself framed and hung on walls by the citizenry of a grateful nation.

When are you entering politics?
Oh, such wickedness! 9:48pm on 27 Jan 2009 #257 aye_write

Good luck with your next charm offensive in the NR blog. If anyone can wipe the floor with them, it will be you. I'll see you in there some time. Will look forward to it.

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