The Independent on Sunday tells how the Labour Party is playing merry mischief over plans for a vote on switching to an AV electoral system. While the plan has Conservative opponents, LibDem MPs are being targeted by Labour who claim that the accompanying review of constituency boundaries will hit LibDem representation most. Of course, what Labour really mean is that they quite prefer the current boundaries that have an in-built Labour advantage.
The Sunday Telegraph exposes how taxpayer money is being used to pay the wages of trade union representatives. Public sector employees, paid for by the public purse, commit some or even all of their working week to union duties. It reports: "A survey of 77 English councils by this newspaper found that they spent around £11 million last year on the salaries of individuals who were employed by the councils, but in fact spent their time on trade union duties." The NHS and the BBC are also singled out as publicly funded organisations where this practise is taking place.
As a taxpayer, I'm not comfortable with funding the duties of any representative of any organisation that makes substantial donations to the Labour Party, so we hope these practises are stamped out and quick.
The Mail on Sunday has the quite harrowing story of a woman in her mid-fifties and the horrific injuries that she suffered as a result of police brutality in Wiltshire. The woman - who was hospitalised as a result - tells the paper: "Had I been beaten up by a gang of thugs in a busy city centre, I think I would have been able to come to terms with being a victim a lot sooner."
In and amongst it's regular array of now dull eco-apocalypse stories, The Observer reports that John Prescott is "furious" at the Met police, demanding answers to documents suggesting he was targeted by the News of the World phone bugging scandal.
We note with interest that, when politicians' phone lines are bugged, they are built up as "furious", their stories put into print, and they then demand police action.
When Diana, Princess of Wales alleged her phone calls and home were being bugged and other intrusions were taking place into her privacy, the political class and their servants accused her of suffering from the "advanced stages of paranoia". Such an attitude has been widespread throughout investigations into her death.
With that in mind, we'd invite Mr. Prescott to go onto TV and express the view that Diana was right all along and so incredibly perceptive that she was well ahead of the game...
Staying with Royalty and politicians, the Sunday Express reports that Her Majesty The Queen is so furious with Tony Blair and his biographical indiscretions that she intends to withhold a honour from him. Royal biographer Hugo Vickers takes the most subtle of stinging swipes at Blair by noting: "You know when the Queen respects a Prime Minster. She awarded Margaret Thatcher the Order of Merit as soon as she left office."
Meanwhile, Blair's dubious "recollections" have already been blogged about, but there are further question marks over the credibility of the Blair biography today with news in The People that General Sir Mike Jackson "has rubbished Tony Blair's boast he personally stepped in to avert World War III". Turns out that neither General Sir Mike Jackson or anyone connected to him has the foggiest idea of what on earth Blair is wittering on about.
We would help those wanting to buy Blair's book, but we're not sure whether it is categorised as a biographical or a fiction title either...
And finally... the News of the World dedicates a lot of pages to stories about the alleged sex life of footballer Wayne Rooney which are no doubt intended to make us 'tut tut' in disapproval. We would provide the links, but it seems that the newspaper might well have some tasty eye-candy that everybody is coo-ing and phwoar-ing over (get the subtle point we're making?)... only we keep getting an error message saying: "The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time."
We'll bet that the printed story about a man accidentally skewering his penis on a rusty nail isn't accompanied by online pictures...
0 comments:
Post a Comment
This blog seeks to uphold the right to free speech. However, comment moderation is used to prevent the posting of comments which could be considered libelous/offensive etc. We do not, however, guarantee to publish all comments and we reserve the right to refuse to approve any comment submitted at our discretion. Views expressed are those of the comment author and do not neccesarily reflect those of this blog.