media

  • Badly raised boys

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Official portrait of over-promoted fireplace salesman Gavin WilliamsonYour ‘umble scribe likes to think he was properly brought up: polite, courteous, not swearing people, particularly women, and such like. As regards swearing, his sister has more than once revealed that when she and my late father were on a bus once, he admonished fellow passengers for swearing because women were present.

    As regards swearing, step forward over-promoted former fireplace salesman “Sir” Gavin Alexander Williamson CBE MP, the dishonourable member for South Staffordshire who has been inexplicably elevated to cabinet rank (again!) as Minister of State without Portfolio, who appears to have been taught and abide by completely different standards of social conduct to those of your correspondent.

    News has emerged over the weekend that Williamson sent ‘expletive-laden’ text messages to the then Conservative chief whip Wendy Morton all moaning about not being invited to attend the late queen’s funeral.

    The right dishonourable Oliver DowdenAccording to the messages published by today’s Sunday Times, Williamson accused Morton of exploiting the Queen’s death for political purposes, particularly as he was out of favour at the time with the English Empire’s shortest serving ever prime minister, one Elizabeth Mary Truss, now safely removed from high office and returned to the back benches.

    The actual words quoted by the press reveal that Williamson has a fine command of monosyllabic swear words having their roots in Old English (which some still call Anglo-Saxon. Ed.), particularly ones beginning with f and s.

    Not only did Williamson use foul language towards a woman, but this morning his cabinet colleague Oliver Dowden (also inexplicably honoured with a CBE like Williamson. Ed.)defended Williamson on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme, claiming Williamson’s offensive text messages were sent ‘in the heat of the moment‘.

    I blame both of their sets of parents.

  • Germany – photographing illegal parking is lawful

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Privacy, Security, Tech

    German newspaper <a href="https://www.welt.de/regionales/bayern/article241937155/Urteil-Buerger-duerfen-Falschparker-fuer-Anzeige-fotografieren.html".Die Welt states that it’s so obvious: people wanting to report an illegal parker just pull out their smartphone and then send the picture to the police. However, two men in Bavariahad trouble with the state’s data protection authorities. A court has now decided who acted corrected.

    A Ferrari parked on the footway being booked in Munich. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
    A Ferrari parked on the footway being booked in Munich.
    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    Anyone who sends photos of illegal parkers as part of a report to the police does not normally violate data protection legislation. This emerged on Thursday from two landmark rulings published by the Ansbach Administrative Court. With these the court agreed with two men who corroborated their reports of parking infringements on footways and cycleways with photos. For using this they received a warning and a fine of €100 each from the Bavarian State Data Protection Office (LDA). Both objected and went to court with the support of Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V. (DUH)

    The administrative court combined the two procedures in a joint hearing because of the identical questions and ultimately ruled that the procedure involved lawful data processing. However, the actual statement of is not available. The verdicts are of fundamental significance from the legal point of view, but are still not absolute.

    The DUH, which supported one of the two plaintiffs in a test case, welcomed the verdict. “Illegal parking is no trivial offence, but endangers people who are travelling by bike, wheeled walking frame, wheelchair or pram”, commented Jürgen Resch, its Federal director. “The authorities should not take action against civil society commitment, but rather take consistent measures against blocked footpaths and cycle paths, illegal parking in front of dropped kerbs or at junctions; and do so not just in Bavaria, but nationwide.»

    The crux of the proceedings was the question of whether digital transmission of the photos constituted lawful data processing within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation since there must be a legitimate interest in forwarding the image files. On the other hand, data transmission and processing must be necessary.

    Accordingly, the parties to the proceedings before the court argued about whether the plaintiffs had to be personally affected by the parking violations and whether a written or telephone description of the facts including the vehicle registration number, was not sufficient. In addition, the LDA pointed out that other data such as other cars with registration plates and people can often be seen in the pictures. In reply, the plaintiffs stressed that the police had asked them to document the parking situation as accurately as possible with photos as evidence.

    The LDA stated that once the judgment’s statement of grounds was available, it would examine whether the decision was an individual case or whether a reassessment of the use of photos in public places that was critical for data protection had been initiated. In addition, it wants to agree clear and uniform guidelines with the police regarding which information is required when reporting illegal parking and which communication channel should be used.

  • Celebrity?

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Matt HancockThe disgraced former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, one Matthew John David Hancock, has lost the Conservative Party whip for agreeing to take part in trash TV show I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, The Guardian reports.

    Tory chief whip Simon Hart is quoted as saying, “Following a conversation with Matt Hancock, I have considered the situation and believe this is a matter serious enough to warrant suspension of the whip with immediate effect”.

    The dictionary definition of a celebrity is someone who is famous, especially in areas of entertainment such as films, music, writing, or sport. Unless politics has become a branch of the entertainment business, classifying Hancock as a celebrity is a tad far-fetched, even though politics has previously been described as show business for ugly people.

    Your ‘umble scribe would contend that Hancock is no celebrity. However, what he does have is notoriety, particularly from his term of office as health secretary. In June 2021, after it was shown he had breached COVID-19 social distancing restrictions by kissing and embracing an aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his Whitehall office, Hancock resigned as Health Secretary, having been caught not only cheating on his wife, but also breaking his own social distancing rules. At the time Ms Coladangelo was a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care. She was also an old college friend of Hancock’s from his time studying PPE at Exeter College, Oxford.

    However, Ms Coladangelo’s appointment to the DHSC is not the only example of Hancock’s cronyism. There was the revelation of his ownership of shares in a family company used by the NHS, not to mention the award of an NHS contract to a neighbour. Furthermore, Hancock is the member of parliament for the West Suffolk constituency, which includes Newmarket, capital of the country’s horse-racing business. One of the reasons the pandemic took such a strong hold in the country was the delay in locking the country down, which allowed such superspreader events as the traditional March Cheltenham Festival to take place.

    Of course, Hancock is not the first MP to be lured onto I’m A Celebrity. There was of course the notoriously useless Right Dishonourable Member for Mid-Bedfordshire, one Nadine Vanessa Dorries. Dorries also famously lost the whip for appearing on the show (where she famously ate ostrich anus in the bushtucker challenge. Ed.), apparently for committing the ultimate discourtesy of not informing the whips’ office of her absence from Halitosis Hall. However, this disciplinary action did not do much to dent her career prospects as she was subsequently and inexplicably elevated to the cabinet position of Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport by disgraced former alleged party-time prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

    Come the next election, will the good burghers of West Suffolk decide that Hancock belongs on a show entitled He’s A Calamity… Get Him Out Of Here!?

    Update 5/11/22: Hancock’s decision to take part in the show and leave his constituents without parliamentary representation while he earns a fat fee – rumoured in the media to be £350-400K – in addition to his £84,144 p.a. salary as an MP has not gone down well with some constituents, The Guardian reports.

  • Robust systems?

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    generic smartphone image
    Not safe in Troy hands
    Today the Mail on Sunday broke the news that the phone of one Mary Elizabeth Truss was hacked while she was Foreign Secretary before embarking on her disastrous seven weeks as the shortest serving prime minister of the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.). The general consensus is that the Russians were the culprits and they were able to obtain private messages between Truss and foreign officials, including some about the Ukraine war.

    The security breach was discovered when Truss was campaigning for the Tory Party leadership in the summer, but was apparently hushed up on the orders of Truss’ predecessor, the equally useless disgraced alleged former party-time PM, one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who has since returned to his old habits of doing no work for his long-suffering constituents in Uxbridge & South Ruislip.

    It is also claimed that private conversations between Truss and her equally useless (and rapidly dismissed, serving less time in office than his boss. Ed.) Chancer of the Exchequer Kamikwasi Kwarteng criticising Johnson were also amongst the information acquired by the hackers, leaving the Britannia Unhinged duo at risk of being blackmailed. One has to wonder how much kompromat the Kremlin has on Truss, Kwarteng and other present and former members of the alleged government.

    Whilst all this is highly amusing to those of us on the left of the political spectrum, one disturbing aspect is the tone of the typical official .denial that a breach has occurred. According to The Guardian, a government spokesperson is reported as having stated the following:

    The government has robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats. That includes regular security briefings for ministers, and advice on protecting their personal data and mitigating cyber threats.

    Robust is another of those weasel words and stock phrases trotted out by officialdom when its shortcomings have been exposed.

    The adjective has two dictionary definitions, depending upon whether people/animals or objects/systems are involved:

    (of a person or animal) strong and healthy: and
    (of an object or system) strong and unlikely to break or fail.

    The only comment your ‘umble scribe can make on that is that the security breach would not have occurred had the government’s systems been robust enough, besides adding that if security is a major concern, Suella ‘Leaky Sue’ Braverman would not have been re-appointed as Home Secretary by this month’s Prime Minister only 6 days after she had been sacked by Ms Truss for a major security breach by using a personal – not official – email account to send privileged government information to a right-wing Tory MP and accidentally copying the message to another MP’s aide, who alerted Number 10.

  • Non-essential reading

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

    The corpse of the political career of one Mary Elizabeth Truss, briefly the English Empire’s shortest serving prime minister is scarcely cold and the vultures of the fourth estate have already surrounded the corpse and are tucking in heartily with the aim of depriving the gullible each to part with the sum of twenty of your English pounds; or so they would like to think.

    Harper Collins have somehow engaged Messrs Harry Cole and James Heale to draft her political biography.

    Screenshot of Harper Collons' forthcoming Truss biography
    That’s £19.99 too much.

    Cole’s Wikipedia page describes him as (journalist). Note the brackets; they are most important. Cole works for The S*n, so therefore cannot be a proper journalist. At this point, your ‘umble scribe is reminded of the wise words of John McDonnell MP, former shadow chancellor, as reported by Adam Bienkov of Byline Times.

    Tweet reads John McDonnell: I got a phone call saying I'm a journalist from The Sun. I said look you can be one or the other, but can't be both.

    James Heale is political editor of The Spectator, reputed to be the world’s oldest surviving weekly magazine. It also acts as a cheerleader for the Conservative Party.

    Your correspondent is wondering if, given the pedigree of the authors and their role to date as stenographers to the Blue Team, the original draft has been/is being written in crayon.

    Update 07/11/2022: The book is now out and Andrew Anothony in The Guardian has characterised it as “a 300-leaved lettuce that was past its sell-by date before it reached the shelves“.

  • Good news

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Alexander Boris de Pfeffel JohnsonGood news was received by your ‘umble scribe late yesterday evening: disgraced former party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was withdrawing his candidacy for the Tory party leadership and this his bid to regain the premiership just three months after he had been ousted from 10 Downing Street in the wake of a mass resignation by no fewer than sixty government ministers.

    Since resigning as prime minister, Johnson has spent very little time doing the job he should be doing, i.e. representing the interests of his long-suffering constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, speaking in debates and filing through the division lobbies to vote on legislation, preferring instead to take 3 holidays, whilst managing to fit in a lucrative public speaking engagement in the USA. On the return flight from his last holiday in the Dominican Republic, Johnson was reportedly booed by fellow passengers.

    Given his preferences, any sensible person would question what Johnson’s priorities actually are.

    AS per usual, Johnson’s priority is – as always – Johnson, as is apparent from his withdrawal statement, which was faithfully reported by this morning’s Grauniad and reproduced below.

    In the last few days I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who suggested that I should once again contest the Conservative party leadership, both among the public and among friends and colleagues in parliament.
    I have been attracted because I led our party into a massive election victory less than three years ago – and I believe I am therefore uniquely placed to avert a general election now.
    A general election would be a further disastrous distraction just when the government must focus on the economic pressures faced by families across the country.
    I believe I am well placed to deliver a Conservative victory in 2024 – and tonight I can confirm that I have cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations, including a proposer and a seconder, and I could put my nomination in tomorrow.
    There is a very good chance that I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members – and that I could indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday.
    But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.
    And though I have reached out to both Rishi [Sunak] and Penny [Mordaunt] – because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.
    Therefore I am afraid the best thing is that I do not allow my nomination to go forward and commit my support to whoever succeeds.
    I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time.

    There are a number of comments one could make on Johnson’s statement.

    Firstly there’s the assertion at the very end ‘that this is simply not the right time‘. Indeed it isn’t. Johnson is under investigation for misleading the House of Commons, specifically for lying in the Commons chamber about the Partygate scandal. If found guilty, Johnson could faced suspension from the Commons (not a good look for a serving PM. Ed.) and if suspended would more than likely face a recall by-election, which polls suggest he would lose.

    Then there’s ‘I believe I am therefore uniquely placed to avert a general election now‘. Modest aren’t we sir? Johnson re-emerging as PM after having done more in living memory to disgrace the office (think of being the first serving premier to be sanctioned by the police whilst in office – and for breaking his own government’s regulations too – never mind lying to the queen to prorogue parliament, an action subsequently ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.Ed.) would be indicative not only of his but his party’s lack of integrity, morals and standards.

    Turning to the rifts in the Conservative party, Johnson remarks: ‘ I have reached out to both Rishi [Sunak] and Penny [Mordaunt] – because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.‘ This is a well-aimed swipe at the 2 other leadership contenders, implying it’s their fault that the rifts in the Tory Party can’t be healed.

    Your ‘umble scribe doubts very much that with which Johnson tried reaching out to Sunak and Mordaunt was not an olive branch, but to ask them to withdraw and leave the field clear for him. When they refused Johnson issued the statement above,

    Finally, there is the widely reported claim – repeated above – that Johnson had the backing of 102 MPs. As a list of those 102 supporters has never been disclosed, this also must be regarded as more of Johnson’s dishonesty.

    PS: Never trust a man who combs his hair with a balloon.

  • Shropshire Star exclusive: Clun migrates 50 km

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

    Clun in the far south-west of Shropshire is quite a sleepy place with romantic castle ruins, some fine real ale pubs, a wonderful youth hostel in a former water mill and the Offa’s Dyke Path within staggering distance.

    It is a world away from Telford, the largest urban area within the ceremonial county with a population of 185,600.

    Nevertheless, Friday’s Shropshire Star reported that due to dodgy website tagging and editing, Clun has moved 50km (that’s 30 miles in old money. Ed.) and has now been absorbed into the unitary authority of Telford & Wrekin, as shown by the following screenshot.

    Screenshot of Shropshire Star article placing Clun within Telford

    The reaction of the good burghers of Clun to the news of the town’s eastward migration has not yet been reported. 😀

    However, the fact that the article’s tagging bears no relationship to the copy hints that the tags are edited by a different person to the one writing the actual report.

  • Red menace in SW1

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics
    Your ‘umble scribe recalls a phrase from his Cold War childhood – the Red Menace. This was a term used at that time to describe the Soviet Union or an “international communist conspiracy”; an alternative was the Red Scare. By the time of the Cold War, the Russian revolution and establishment of the Soviet Union caused widespread concern among the political elites of the major powers for many decades.

    However, Larry the Downing Street cat (aka Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. Ed.) has been dealing with a red menace of his own in the shape of Reynard the Fox.

    Any connection of Larry’s interloper with Keir Starmer’s Labour Party should be dismissed. The fox’s colouration far too dubious to be allowed into his nominally red party. 😀

Posts navigation