Politics, The Final Frontier (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

Ever heard of Singapore? It's this mega-successful islet at the end of the Malayan peninsula. It defies all the rules. Like the one about having the same party in government for eighty years leading to rampant bribery and corruption. They've had the government but not the bribery and corruption.

Until now. Two government ministers have just been arrested for bribery and corruption. They made their name by bringing the Formula One circus to town a few years ago. What are they charged with: receiving some free tickets for last year's Singapore Grand Prix. Like I say, an unusual place.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Thailand is a strange country. Being a major tourist destination for westerners, they have to pretend to be a democracy but in reality Thailand is a military dictatorship. This requires deft handling. There have to be elections from time to time and the Thai people are wont to register their view that they would quite like not to live under a military dictatorship.

Their will is thwarted by the simple device of having a parliament of two houses: a lower one for the plebs and an upper one for the military. You need both houses to change anything. But there is a problem. The constitution appears to require the person with the most seats in the lower house becomes prime minister, which is a nuisance when operating military dictatorships. Ah, but you have forgotten the constitution also says that nobody can be prime minister if they've been convicted of a serious crime. So what happens when somebody emerges as leader of the largest party who hasn't committed a serious crime?

Did I mention the constitutional courts? These decide on whether putative prime ministers have or have not committed serious crimes and are appointed by the government a.k.a. the military junta. So, just to take a random example, if someone filling in his application form for being prime minister doesn't include details about a company he was involved with twenty years ago and which ceased trading eighteen years ago, is he guilty of a serious crime?

Yes, I'm afraid so. The soldiers will just have to soldier on until the next election.

[Mick Harper]

When will it ever stop?

Luis Rubiales, the manager of the triumphal Spanish women's football team, planted a kiss full on the lips of the Spanish captain at the end of ninety minutes. The film showed conclusively this was an excess of exuberance on his part and had no lubricity attached to it. La capitano didn't seem to show any undue embarrassment at the time but was pressured later into acknowledging that she wasn't a consenting participant. She didn't have much choice, that's true.

The manager got sacked. A bit of an overreaction, I thought, but these are the times we live in. Now he's been charged with sexual assault and might well end up in jail. That's not an overreaction, that's just plain disgusting.

[Grant]

It's interesting how women's football has become a variation of women's favourite game: complaining about men.

They used to play netball but realised the opportunities to blame men were too limited.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

The Pakistani elections are turning out to be a bit epochal. Normally the army runs the show and makes sure a pro-army party emerges on top. That party was Imran Khan's at the last election in 2019 and he formed a government. But he started being a bit ornery so he was deposed by a vote of no-confidence and another party took over. This was led by Shebhaz Sharif, a three times ex-Prime Minister, who had to be let out of jail where he was languishing on corruption charges.

Then a whole bunch of things put Pakistan in a tail spin and Sharif's party was being comfortably beaten in opinion polls by Imran's. So Khan was put in prison (ten years for corruption) and his party wasn't allowed to take part in this current election. His candidates were forced to run as 'independents'. In a country where illiteracy is widespread and party symbols are all important, they had no chance. A bit of a blooper there. People started voting for the candidate with no party symbol!

For the first few hours the results were showing it was practically a wipe-out, Imran Khan was winning everywhere. Then the Electoral Commission announced they would be suspending announcements for the night. In the morning it was much more even-steven. But they couldn't work miracles. At the last count:

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

Not sure about this line naming, personally Wiley would be up for getting on the Suffragette, but getting becalmed 6 hours on the Windrush, sadly holds little appeal.

[Mick Harper]

[Wile E. Coyote]

The BBC has a longish article London Underground: How the Overground's new names were chosen

We have a major problem that Londons overground is marked by a single orange line. We need to have more colours and names.

[Mick Harper]

This is really sick-making. Londoners have no affinity with any of these names but will be forced to use them. I can't think of a better way to bring these obscure and minorly worthy causes into disrepute. That's the Left for you. Their own worst enemies.

PS The current orange was itself a daft choice since it is difficult (at night, impossible) to distinguish it from ordinary underground red. I was however in on the birth of salmon pink for the Hammersmith & City Line.

[Mick Harper]

But thank you for drawing it to my attention, Wiley (I had no idea). I have put the following up on Medium this morning

What’s Your Line? It Isn’t Mine.
This may seem parochial but it’s a problem that will soon be hitting you squarely between the eyes wherever you live.

Where I live is London. As the metropolis of the country that brought railways to the world it has a profusion of railway lines. Some have names, some don’t. Some have point-to-point names (Hammersmith & City, Bakerloo), some not (District, Northern). Some even have celebratory names (Jubilee, Elizabeth). It has been decided from now on they are all to have names. And the new ones are all be to be celebratory:

The Lioness line
The Mildmay line
The Windrush line
The Weaver line
The Suffragette line
The Liberty line

Not being from round here, you might not know precisely who or what is being celebrated but fortunately I can help on account of being (a) a Londoner, born and bred (b) a social historian of some eminence and (c) an ex-employee of London Underground — station master, Ladbroke Grove, Hammersmith & City Line.

The Lionesses, for example, are the English women’s football team. I do not know if they have any connection with ‘their’ line but if it is felt that people saying, “I should take the Lioness if I were you, it’s quicker than the bus during the rush hour” will encourage young women to take up the sport, I suppose we must give this a cautious welcome.

I do not know who or what Mildmay refers to so I will have to leave that while I look it up on Wiki, but I do know Windrush was the name of the first ship bringing West Indian immigrants to this country. Many of whom got jobs on the London underground — many still there when I was, though mostly their descendants by then. The name ‘Windrush’ has got itself attached to some piece of Government folly (Tory government, I’ll be bound) so having it attached to a railway line seems… fair enough.

The Weaver Line has, frankly, got me beat. The Weaver Navigation was an early canal which the world’s first intercity railway, Manchester to Liverpool, had to cross but I find it hard to believe that is being celebrated in London. Bollocks to them. However, one of our significant immigrant groups were French Huguenots fleeing the Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572, and they set up as weavers in Spitalfields, so it may be them.

The suffragettes need no introduction. I don’t think many of them actually used the train to get round town, they were a well-heeled lot, and it has to be said their activities played no part in the eventual granting of women’s suffrage (unless they started the First World War) but they are more famous than, say, the Lionesses so they are entitled to a railway line of their own. I shan’t quibble. Liberty’s is a well known store in the West End so I have no objection if they have bought the naming rights. It all helps to keep the fares down.

So why should you be interested in all this? Well, it’s like this
1. This is total tosh dreamt up by a few lefty twats
2. They think these kinds of futile gestures advance their cause
3. In fact it brings the entire radical tradition into disrepute
4. It’s happening where you are too
5. That’s why you are currently groaning under a right-wing grown fat because they’ve only got lefty twats opposing them.

[Mick Harper]

I trust everyone spotted the police division re foxhunting this week? The Devon and Cornwall man in charge of national foxhunting policing was highly critical of the Warwickshire police doing a deal with the local hunt. This is very, very unusual among police. The disagreement was not even very nuanced.

Either foxhunting is on the way out or the police are beginning to split into left and right.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I am guessing Warwickshire, under the advice of their PCC have decided prosecuting those who engage in Fox Hunting is very costly, ( you are essentially up against the Countryside Alliance), and it is most unlikely to result in convictions. So are adopting a pragmatic light touch.

You might have noticed that the Police up to recently have taken a similar light touch approach with another group of loons Climate Change activists. However the public mood has recently turned against Swampy et al for being too sucessful at disrupting folks.

Personally I would fine and jail the lot of them, but the Home Secretary tells me the prisons are already at record full levels with criminals, including knife crime, robbery, rape, drug dealing, terrorism and murder, and in addition we now need more room for those that commit hate crime against persecuted minorities. I did ask at this point, if this including foxes, he has promised to look into it.