EU

Annabel Shaw, who?
When Boris Johnson started his campaign to become Mayor of London, the political elite, apparatchiks from all parties and assorted journalists were caught on the hop. The rest of the nation saw it differently. They could see beyond his effortless performances on 'Have I got news for you.' He was seen as the least political politician in the UK, this they liked a lot. Viewed from across a crowded street most 'real' politicians look the same, when they speak it's not much better, the minor differences only adding to the irritation. Political journalists are even worse.

Boris became MoL but for some the bewilderment carried on. Ridiculous predictions such as: “Boris would be bad for the environment,” did not come to pass nor did babies die and Londoners were not reduced to making tea by boiling the bark from trees. Even so in some places the fight went on, certain parts of the BBC have never given up the fight. This was the foundation to the recent Boris Johnson/Jeremy Paxman interview.

This year's Tory Party conference was bound to be awkward for David Cameron, the MSM would see to that, or so they thought. But, far from being damaged by the EU question the Tories seem to be doing just fine.

The two fiddlers?
It was clear and obvious that the elections in Afghanistan would be dominated by Hamid Karzai's ruling elite and various hangers on. The reaction of the EU's election monitors was very relaxed. Now after the result in Karzai's favour come the revelations: “I was ordered to cover up President Karzai election fraud”, sacked UN envoy says, see HERE.

So what will happen? Well high minded liberals will tut- tut and fuss but with friends and hangers on from the 'top drawer' Karzai will hang on for now.

And so to the Irish Referendum. It was clear and obvious that the ruling elite would call the shots and the President of the EU, Manuel Barrso did just that. But did this 'enthusiasm' go too far? There are people suggesting that all is not well with the Irish result – see HERE.

So what will happen? Well that remains to be seen, until there is more confidence in the result it's all eyes on David Cameron.

Linwood, the dawn
When Northern Rock wobbled, Nulabour rushed in to stabilize things. That the Rock was not shaken by some unforeseen seismic event but was the victim of its own stupidity counted for very little. What shook Nulabour into life was the location of the Rock headquarters, the North East of England. Geordie Land is like a stick of seaside rock with Nulabour all the way through; both Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson had safe seats up there it had to be saved, it was a political fix.

It was irrational and counterproductive, the Rock should have been allowed to go broke. So an opportunity to send a sharp lesson to the UK banking sector was missed. Thus UK banks carried on and on doing the same old tricks. For some bankers the last year or so has only been a bit of a problem, for the UK taxpayer who is now picking up the tab it's going to be a nightmare. This sort of thing has happened before.

Harold Macmillan's government had put immense pressure on the Rootes' Group to build the Linwood factory in Scotland knowing that the local authority for Ryton in Warwickshire had refused planning permission to extend the existing works. Rootes had a grant for Linwood but in reality it was never going to be enough.

The factory opened in 1963 and soon became famous for all the wrong reasons, the cars had niggling faults and production was hindered by strikes.

Somaliland flag.

If you think we've got it bad, then consider Somaliland. Private Eye printed a letter from Hargeisa (the capital):

Somaliland is the only place in the Horn of Africa that is democratic, stable and tolerant ... our record of closely contested polls compares pretty well with our neighbours. Our friends faraway nevertheless thought that what we really needed was a state of the art biometric finger printing and facial recognition system to compile a voter's roll ...

Alas, this model of donor co-operation has somewhat underperformed. Presidential elections have been postponed four times now and are 18 months late, and now we have the prospect of civil war as our politicians cannot agree on a way forward.

Eurofighter.

Soldiers lives are being put at risk by “endemic” failures at the Ministry of Defence which have led to the equipment procurement programme being £35 billion over budget and five years behind schedule, according to an official report that ministers are accused of trying to suppress. See here.

Surely it couldn't get any worse? Certainly it could.The new directive on defence and security procurement entered into force on 21 August 2009. The EU's propaganda release tells us that: