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sidevalve

Listed below are comments made by sidevalve between Saturday, 26th April 2008 and Monday, 11th May 2009.

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Parliament's reputation brought low 08:36am on 11 May 2009 I don't care about the MPs wanting to change things for the future. I care about the wrongs that have already been done. I want my money back and I want it NOW. We must start with these MPs who have 'flipped' their homes to avoid CGT. They are saying that it was within the rules but that the rules were wrong. Well, sorry folks - if you have any integrity at all you will do what is morally right, regardless of what the rules say. PLEASE PAY IT BACK NOW.
The big borrowers 08:39am on 01 Mar 2009 Just the kind of conditions in place to bring about World War 3. After all, the 1930s Depression was only finally laid to rest by WW2, and there are plenty of reasons for discontent, extremism and instability in today's world.
Merkel: an unlikely success 08:40am on 31 Oct 2008 Mar, Mark, Mark, Mark!!! You are a brilliant and entertaining correspondent, but I can't imagine how or why the BBC appointed you to the job you are in if you have no concept of how to pronounce basic German words. There was a time, when the BBC was the Gold Standard of the world, when an Europe correspondent would have been expected to be fluent in German. Now I think it would be reasonable to expect him at least to be able to PRONOUNCE the name of one of Germany's best-known newspapers correctly - the 'Die' in 'Die Welt' does NOT sound like the English word meaning 'to pass away', but rhymes with 'me' or 'fee'. Please, please sign up for some German evening classes if you are to maintain credibility in your role - it's not a lot to ask, and as I said, there was a time when it would have been a sine qua non (I think David Willey can speak Italian, for example...). If you are in England any time you can sign up for the German evening classes I run (I'm in Exeter, which might not be convenient for you, but I do my best to make German entertaining and accessible). Best wishes - Alan Wesson
The truce is over 3:38pm on 04 Sep 2008 Vince Cable said it first, but this picture at the top of this section shows it to perfection. Gordon Brown not only acts like Mr Bean - he looks like him, and he has the same ridiculous smile. As Mr Cable said 'FROM STALIN TO MR BEAN' - what's so amazing is the speed at which it happened. He must know he is doomed and is dragging his party to disaster after him, and if he had any integrity or decency he would resign and help others pick up the pieces.
No energy rip-off. No windfall tax. Glad that's clear! 9:40pm on 03 Sep 2008 John from Hendon - the dash for gas had two benefits from Mrs Thatcher's point of view, and one huge PR advantage for subsequent governments including the current one. Firstly, it enabled her to stitch up the NUM because we were able to ditch coal, and so they were a busted flush. Secondly, and massively more importantly, it is what has allowed governments then and since to purvey the fiction that our CO2 output is dropping and we are 'on course to meet our Kyoto obligations'. We are indeed on course to meet Kyoto, but this is because Kyoto is a joke. Specifically, it demands a reduction in CO2 output using 1990 as the baseline year. And guess which year the dash for gas took effect? Yes, you've guessed it - 1990. So we had an automatic and enormous reduction in our CO2, at exactly the 'right' time (from the point of view of massaging our CO2 reduction efforts). The trouble is, almost all of the reduction we can now lay claim to stems from that - apart from that, if anything, it has gone up. So our 'Kyoto compliance' is a figleaf for which we (actually Tony Blair and Gordon Brown) have to thank Mrs Thatcher for, because it has almost completely absolved us from reducing our CO2 in other ways. We can sit around smugly and slag off the Americans, but actually we have done absolutely naff all to help reduce our CO2 output since then - we have just spouted spin about it and paid 'green' taxes in the faint hope that this will magically address climate change (whereas all it actually does is allow us to pollute without feeling guilty about it). I think the recession we are now entering might do a bit more to reduce our CO2 though - although it won't bring the government any revenue (so they will ensure they get it elsewhere - I hear they are already considering resurrecting their ill-advised plan to introduce road pricing).
Opening up 07:39am on 09 May 2008 Pete(No. 35) - there's nothing 'decent' about Gordon Brown. He is the most Machiavellian and ruthless of politicians (as Peter Mandelson and many of the other members of the Labour party whose charred political corpses line Brown's path to the top will affirm). He was prepared to go along with a morally bankrupt war that he patently didn't agree with, just to serve the purposes of his own career. At least Blair, albeit deludedly, seems to have believed in what he was doing; Brown just appears to have gone along with it for his own self-serving ends. How much more lacking in integrity can you get? Vince Cable's 'Stalin' was the most accurate assessment I have heard of this scheming, devious, stealth tax enthusiast who is now engaged on a plan of redistributing income tax money UPWARDS, for Chrissake.
Opening up 07:32am on 09 May 2008 Gordonmustgo - you are right on the money about what a rubbish chancellor Gordon was. I just want to hear lots of tapes of him saying over and over again (as he did, ad infinitum) that we weren't going to have 'a return to boom-bust economics'. Well Gordon - we had the boom and now we're getting the bust, and it is because you SOLD ALL OUR GOLD RESERVES FOR A THIRD OF THEIR CURRENT VALUE and then you taxed us until the pips squeaked in the rich years when everyone could afford it, but you wasted all the money on public service bureaucracy and a pointless and morally corrupt war, and so when the lean years came (as they inevitably do), the cupboard was bare. You really do deserve to rot in electoral hell - and the most delicious bit is that you are shortly going to do so. Good riddance...
Opening up 07:25am on 09 May 2008 Jesus - a picture of Gordon Brown trying to look like a carbon-based life form! Who does he think he's trying to kid? On yer bike, Gordie - roll on 2010 and the chance to vote you out...
Humiliation for the PM 08:41am on 26 Apr 2008 Brown is reaping the whirlwind that he sowed with the stealth taxes. Stealth taxes were so clever and complex that no-one realised they were being taxed; now he is trying to get out of the hole he has dug for himself by giving people tax credits that are so clever and complex that no-one will realise that they are being credited, so they will kick him in the local elections anyway. His downfall is an exact mirror image of his success - it's SO ironic, and absolutely delicious!
Fuelling the panic? 07:58am on 26 Apr 2008 I rather like it when things like this happen, because they divert the Beeb from churning out the usual biased propaganada about climate change, and highlight the fact that oil underpins EVERYTHING we do. Motorists get taxed, blamed and clobbered, but in fact they are only responsible for about 15% of fossil fuel use, and oil or coal is behind every single action we take and every single thing we buy. No oil, no western society. You might not like it and you might want to change it, but for the time being it is like that and there's not a darn thing anyone can do about it. More power to the Grangemouth workers for highlighting the issue for the first time since the fuel protests of 2000.

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