Saturday 2 October 2010

Miliband, Trump, and the Lav-Nav

Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour Party Conference on Tuesday could hardly have instilled even his most ardent supporters with too much confidence. Granted, he’s only been leader for three days but he took the easy option of walking a tightrope between advocating responsible policies, and trying at the same time to avoid upsetting his union backers.

It was easy for him to state that it was wrong for Britain to go to war with Iraq in 2003—we can never tell how he would have voted at the time, as he wasn’t elected as an MP until two years later.His two-faced and ruthless approach to politics can be gauged from the fact that he managed to talk his brother David out of launching a coup to oust Gordon Brown – he knew that David had every chance of succeeding, which would have scuppered his own chances of becoming leader, for a few years, anyway. By appealing to left wing activists and trade unionists, he knew that he had a better than even chance of defeating his brother in the ballot for the leadership. David’s wife Louise understandably views his behaviour in the past few months as a betrayal, as do many MPs and party members. It is difficult to see how he can unite his MPs in the months ahead. Of course, in Scotland, things are different, as he is viewed as a saviour by the Labour MSPs there, due to his leanings towards the left. They reckon that their vote will rise dramatically in next year’s Holyrood election. However, they tend to forget that the SNP are more leftist than right wing as well – as everyone knows, one of those parties will end up with the highest number of votes, leaving a lot of disillusioned voters who prefer other parties, but realising that their vote would be wasted, will vote for one of those two. Most of those will not want to see a Labour administration in Edinburgh, so will put their ‘X’ opposite the SNP candidate.

I see that Donald Trump is to receive an honorary degree from Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University. Ex-University boss Dr David Kennedy is furious at the decision, and is sending his own honorary degree back. He points out that there are many entrepreneurs in Aberdeen who are much more worthy of the honour. It’s a sad day for British educational establishments when they bestow honours according to a man’s wealth, rather than any worthwhile achievements of his.

A mother of one from Easter Ross in Scotland has been found guilty of benefit fraud, by claiming a total of £17,000 for 11 children who didn’t exist – she did NOT claim money for the one real child – maybe she forgot that he/ she existed. Some of the dates that she had down as the children’s birth dates were within a few months of each other, which suggests either a lack of scrutiny on the office staff’s part, or lack of knowledge of the human gestation period. The sheriff remarked, “It is quite appalling how one can claim to have this number of children when they don’t exist. It was something you did knowingly.” Quite! What words of wisdom from the beak!

With the Ryder Cup getting underway yesterday, it was heartening to hear of a hole in one – in fact quite a few holes in one, as the United States’ team waterproofs “did not repel the water” according to the American PGA.

A new device called a Lav-Nav is to help guide boozed up guys in the toilet to hit the target. When the seat is up, it uses the latest in sensory technology to shine a red light into the bowl with a target for the blokes to aim at. It makes me wonder if the inventors of this contraption have ever been a bit, let’s say sloshed, themselves. If they had been, they would know that having had a few too many, the aim would definitely be a few degrees to port or starboard of the red light!