In which a young man setting out on a noble career finds that ultimately it’s easier to make living through a dishonest path than by staying true to his public. Any similarities between persons living or dead purely coincidental.
Hat tip Mark
Prospective mayoral candidate Boris Johnson is no fan of health and safety regulations, apparently regularly declaring his hero to be Larry Vaughn, the fictional mayor in Jaws, who refused to close the beaches after expert testimony and evidence of the first shark attack, leading to another free lunch for the film’s eponymous anti-hero.
Apparently the odd gobbled bather here and there is a small price to pay for the business freedoms that come with under-regulation. The latest gaffe from London’s would be gaffer is taken from a speech he gave last year at Lloyds of London:
“The real hero of Jaws is the mayor. A gigantic fish is eating all your constituents and he decides to keep the beaches open. OK, in that instance he was actually wrong. But in principle, we need more politicians like the mayor – we are often the only obstacle against all the nonsense which is really a massive conspiracy against the taxpayer.”
Wonder how many more safety reps are going to be out canvassing for Ken now? 
Hat tip – Mars Hill
New evidence suggests that Dave’s rude kid photo-op curse started long before we’d first thought:
Our left blogohemisphere is getting quite excited about Sen Barack Obama’s race for the Democratic presidential nomination over the pond. It’s like Howard Dean never screamed, hurrah!
And there’s quite a lot to get excited about – as this video shows (thanks, parburypolitica!): Top orator, Impeccable community politics CV, all career moves covered by good altruistic reasons. He’s a kind of fantasy football candidate, and if he loses will have a great potential career playing inspirational presidents in disaster movies.
Naysaying seems to be focused around good old fashioned racism (including his rather unfortunate middle name of Hussein), his lack of cash and national campaign team, and possibly more tellingly that he’s new kid on the block, without the Washington experience of Howard Dean, let alone Hillary Clinton.
Anyway, watching the vid confused me a little. He does a great spiel on breaking down false divisions between red & blue, though I wondered a bit who he was trying to reach out to. The hardcore religious right deal in moral absolutes, so might be pretty immune to the shades of grey involved in trade-off politics and coalition building. For every one he won over with talk of worshipping “an awesome god” in the blue states, he probably alienated them again straight away by acknowledging the mere existence of “gay friends” in the red states.
As a tack for uniting those on the near right, with self-hating liberal tendencies though, I think it might work very well!
Maybe he is actually Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest character – trying to sucker the two sides into something which will make them both look silly.
Jak sie masz?
This post from Tom Watson scared me not inconsiderably! A creationist lobby group sending DVDs to MPs, purporting to offer evidence why creationism should make it into the GCSE biology syllabus. Made me wonder after reading Mr Tony’s recent New Scientist Interview:
NS: One subject that is of great concern to scientists is creationism. There has been a suggestion that creationism is being taught in some British schools. What are your views on this?
TB: This can be hugely exaggerated. I’ve visited one of the schools in question and as far as I’m aware they are teaching the curriculum in a normal way. If I notice creationism becoming the mainstream of the education system in this country then that’s the time to start worrying.
If they’ve got as far as the Palace of Westminster inboxes, does that mean that word from the top says it’s time for us good science-fearing folk to pack up and run for the hills?
I think the only rational response to this news is a knee-jerk cartoon:
Bigger version here…
Check it out – I’ve got a sneak preview of the latest service from everyone’s favourite search engine:
Okay, only joking, but here’s an interesting piece in the Guardian today about new media behemoth Google’s first forays into politics, sponsoring candidates in the States (so far a Republican who’s in favour of net neutrality – admittedly an endangered species) and cosying up with Dave in front of the webcam over here.
The Google name itself has already done more than money could for the Tories – adding instant modernist kudos to their conference and the webcameron adventure. This new NetPAC sounds odd though, getting its funds from Google staffers.
Wonder if it will start to open any schisms at the Googleplex, where many of the hip young things are also of a fairly lefty bent. Heaven forbid the footsoldiers could start doubting the company’s “Do no evil” motto – something they may well be doing already, given the company’s wavering stance over its China operations and censorship.
After my post on political geekery, I thought it only proper that I should put up my own homage to the WWW – so here is “Camsterdance” (wtf?):
Play music – courtesy of Hampton the Hampster at Juno Records
Now, who’s for Dave Çagri “I kiss you!” – or would we get a case of the Sion Simons?
This week’s B3ta challenge “How to re-elect the Tories” is turning out quite amusing (mind you, they always tend to). Dave loves MySpace and the interwebnet apparently, so I hope he is listening to some of the excellent freebie think-tankery on offer. Here’s my suggestion.
Visit the rest at http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/tories/
