Retirement

With great regret I am now announcing my retirement from blogging and Twitter. I can no longer compete with the sheer bloody brilliance of satire that my spoofer Ian Dale has in his blog. It has been fun jerking my knee off and completely ignoring any responsibility I have to try and research facts properly. The great thing about blogs is that I can say what the fuck I want and completely abdicate any accountability for telling the truth, as long as I meet my own personal political agenda and further my burgeoning media career.

I was going to go quietly but having consulted my lawyer, Jack from Kent, he has informed me that legally I have to write a terribly self important post about "my work on Twitter being done" before signing off. Jack also reminds me that I can always renege on my decision to retire if I want at a later date without looking like an arse, and that if anyone tries to sue me for breach of promise he'll wade in for reasons of self publicity, sorry, justice.

A break

I am still an emotional wreck after the sheer devastating beauty of Osborne and the CSR yesterday. He swung his axe quicker than I can jerk my knee. Indeed there was a very real risk that he would be stopped by health and safety goons, such was the speed and wanton blood lust with which he was brandishing his mighty rich smug weapon. It was a joy to behold. However, I am wrung dry so will be having a few days off, resting my aching patellas and getting ready for the next bout of smugness and leftie bashing.

Nick Robinson - wanker of the year?

Nick Robinson has won wanker of the year. This cheapens my success in this competition last year. I may hand my award back.

My good mate Dorries is cleared of lying about her expenses, he blogged smugly

But was pulled up for fibbing on her blog - but I won't mention that bit as lying on blogs is par for the course as far as I am concerned.

Bloggers who say that those who fund the Taliban are gulity of treason may be guilty of knee-jerk blogging without being in control of the facts

I will repeat something I saw on the telly and plant the suspicion that the Taliban is funded by British mosques while admitting that this may not be true but never let that get in the way of a good knee-jerk and sensationalist headline eh readers?

PS I may not fully understand the law regarding treason

On my LBC show tonight from 7

I give my reaction to the CSR: ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk ha ha ha ha ha ha knee-jerk

How Ken is defending himself against petty and illogical sniping from bloggers who don't like him

Who cares? Ken is doing something (anything) and I will twist it into an anti-Ken post simply because I can't abide him. I could pick him up on many legitimate things but will instead choose the fact he is speaking overseas when he should be in London, apparently, on day of comprehensive spending (which is the last two things that will be announced) review because presumably if he is overseas in foreignland he won't have access to any information or be able to react (not that most people will be desperate to hear what he has to say anyway). In fact, he should never leave London ever again in case something happens.

These people who try and milk a second career doing speeches are really deplorable aren't they? Especially if they get invited to Malta rather than some of the shitholes I get to go to.

Right, I think I have done enough to use a really tenuous non-story to get over some proper anti-Ken points, just in case any of my loyal readers/listeners were thinking of being stupid enough to vote for him over Boris in 2012 mayoral election.

Quote of the day

"A kind of Stephen Fry meets Gyles Brandreth."

Some person who could be anybody speaking under a pseudonym about Iain Fale's LBC radio show

I assume this means I am both gay, and am a Tory with a flamboyant dress sense and propensity for engaging mouth before brain.

Or has someone finally recognised my soaring intellect and "national treasure" status?

At least Gyles Brandreth got to be an MP...

Bypassing blogs

I'm going to jerk my knee about this every time it happens, even if I bore you to death, and jerk myself into an early grave. Today the Daily Telegraph has published on its front page many of the details which will be contained in the Strategic Defence and Security Review and formally announced in Parliament by the Prime Minister this afternoon. Clearly they have been deliberately leaked to the Telegraph in advance.

This a disgrace. If there is going to be any leaking and publishing of information in advance of either the full facts being known or it being official, that is the role of blogs such as mine NOT the right wing press acting on behalf of the Tory Party.

Insert your own golf pun HERE

Played golf today for first time in ages. It was a disaster. One minute I was knee-jerking the ball off far to the right, the next I kept getting caught up in the rough stuff on the left.

I really must try to get out more often. It's good exercise and I actually left my Blackberry in the car, so had four hours without any communication with the outside world. Which was nice. For the rest of the world.

Trying to cure knee-jerking

I read something the other day by @charonqc (click here) that identified kneejerkitis as a medical condition.

If it is I am going to sue lefties on a no win no fee basis for causing irreparable damage to my patellas.

And it occurs to me that my spoofer Iain Dale firing off knee-jerk reaction spoof posts of my own knee-jerk nonsense makes him almost as bad as me.

Because of this, I am trying to calm down and think things through in future before posting. But if I had been knee-jerking over the last few days here is an assortment of things I may have written about.

I might have mused on how reading a blogger blogging about the Chilean miners news coverage being like watching paint dry is like watching paint dry

I could have posted something one day attacking local government decision making then the next cranking up my support for an English parliament based on nothing more than a suspicion of the Scots. I might also have attacked Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell for doing their jobs and speaking out about tuition fees on the spurious grounds that as Scottish constituency MPS elected to a UK wide parliament they have NO RIGHT to interfere in English issues, which if I followed through the logic of to its rightful conclusion would leave me looking a right tit.

I might have jerked off some lame anecdote about Gordon Brown's portrait that had the double whammy of demonstrating that I have been poncing around Number 10 again AND my scorn for Brown without actually having to think up anything nasty myself.

I would certainly have asked whether it is time to ban anti-Union bloggers from blogging ignorantly about whether it is time to ban strikes in the emergency services.

Oh and hopefully I might have found a story where I could really get my teeth into leftie education standards and suggest with no evidence at all that a teacher I approve of was "resigned from her post" (ie. pushed out by lefties) after a row over her speaking at the Tory party conference. During term time. When presumably she should have been doing her job.

But luckily I did none of these things because if I had I would have looked like an arse.

From now on I'll stick to my new role as Cliff Richard's apologist, sorry publicist.

Guess who I saw last night?

I wasn't on LBC last night. Ages ago I had booked to see Cliff Richard at the Albert Hall so I was jerking my knee in time to Wired for Sound. I left my programme in the more than capable hands of Mehdi Hasan. Hang on. He's a rabid leftie. How the fuck did that happen?

I am really dedicated to my job except when Cliff is in town - then I will let notorious commies into my seat (so to speak).

I reduced Grunt Fucker to tears earlier by playing him Cliff Richard songs. I am an employment tribunal hearing waiting to happen.

Miss You Nights is the best song ever written and is about when I am not on LBC due to attending Cliff Richard concerts.

I would've got another chance at being MP if I hadn't fucked the Tory Party over by watching Summer Holiday on DVD the night they made the selection.

Am I for real? I know it shouldn't matter but can people really take political analysis seriously from someone who reveres Cliff Richard and Roxette.

Tory MP hacks and coughs out a statement on why he is tabling a bill to repeal the smoking ban

Conservative MP David Nuttall has explained why he's tabling a 10 Minute Rule Bill aimed at repealing the smoking ban. Unfortunately, any MPs who may be in favour will miss his speech as they will have taken the opportunity to have a sneaky fag break outside.

My reservations about knee-jerking about higher tuition fees

It's a very complex area so I will confound everyone by posting a largely logically argued, well thought through, factually robust analysis of this challenging debate.

Which I am able to do because of the skills I learnt (and usually do not bother demonstrating) at University.

Make up your own mind about whether this is evidence of if the large amounts of money spent on higher education are worth it or not, whoever foots the bill.

Quote of the Day - Andrew Marr

The danger of using Andrew Marr's

"Most citizen journalism strikes me as nothing to do with journalism at all. A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting. They are very angry people. OK – the country is full of very angry people. Many of us are angry people at times. Some of us are angry and drunk. But the so-called citizen journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night."

as quote of the day is that in a lot of regards he could be talking about knee-jerkers such as me. He's certainly referring to many of the people who read my blog and comment on it.

Blogger in lack of cleverness with patronising post about women shocker

Patronising comments about winding feminists up, including calling them "wimmin"? Check

Vaguely dull anecdote about Caroline Flint including bizarre story where I reveal shockingly that I accept that tampons are a luxury good? Check

Blog post complete

PS Re Flint, I am sure my chum Eric Pickles will enjoy his jousts with her, he'll probably have her made into a pie and doused with gravy.

A flash with cash blogger

I spent nearly £50 on a book and IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A DUST JACKET. It is a disgrace that in these days of austerity and people facing real economic hardship that a blogger can casually spend almost £50 on a book and then whinge about it. I am so appalled I am not even going to review the book but I will make sure there is a paid link to it just below this post so if people do want to buy it I at least get some coin myself.

I always buy hardback copies of this book as I have them all going back to 845 BC and they look so impressive on the new bookshelves I bought earlier this year. I never look at these books (they are merely for show) let alone use them as the source of factual knowledge, hence the importance of the protective jacket to protect them when they are gathering dust on said shelves.

As a publisher I would never let the books I send out into the world be unprotected. That's why most of them come with a straitjacket.

UPDATE on Sally Bercow post

Few people would take any notice of Sally Bercow's thoughts were she not married to the Speaker - and let's not kid ourselves as to why she's invited onto the telly, because it certainly isn't for her incisive political analysis!

So can someone explain why the fuck I get asked on?

Too quick to jerk the knee - too quick on the draw

An organisation makes a legal threat against someone who calls their bluff and stands up to them and then the organisation withdraws the legal action as they realise they had no basis for it in the first place.

In what way is this a draw?

In the same way that the Tories didn't really win the election?

Or perhaps I am so used to having to climb down myself over wild accusations not based on fact that I merely empathise when others that do it get found out so can't bring myself to say that they too are losers.

A speech about as meaty as tofu

I listened to David Cameron's speech while driving back to London. I wasn't expecting this speech to be especially memorable but a speech which invokes the collective spirits of Lord Kitchener, Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and JFK deserves to be remembered.

Did I really just type that? Well yes, it invoked the hoary, hackneyed establishment posturing of Kitchener (with hopefully less people ending up dying as a result), the power crazed delusion of Thatcher, the clarity of Churchill (after 14 bottles of port), and the brains of JFK (post Dallas, November 1963).

It was a speech which bore all the hallmarks of the Big Society. In that it empowered active citizens to volunteer to try and find substance in the endless rhetoric around the still muddy BS concept - so the government doesn't have to bother.

Top 100 People on the Right

100: Genghis Khan

Where are the facts?

Yesterday, I spoke at a fringe event which was discussing the job of an MP. I was the only non MP on the panel (not that IT BOTHERS ME).

One point I made which the audience seemed to agree with, was that MPs are elected as representatives of their own party and as such owed their party a duty to attend their party conference. Unfortunately, as usual at this conference the MPs are notable by their absence. Obviously I don't have the figures (to use FACTS would be too much to expect) but I am quite happy to make a guess to illustrate my general point.

Yes, it is expensive to attend a party conference, especially if you can't stick it on expenses any more, and Birmingham is a shit hole.

Next year, perhaps the whips might like to encourage the flock to attend. With cudgels . It would be appreciated by the party workers who worked so hard to get the MPs elected in the first place (though not the ones who worked with me in Norfolk, 2005, lazy, incompetent bastards) though it would mean less free food for Eric Pickles.

Is blogger right to u-turn on what he said yesterday about child benefit?

I haven't spoken to a single representative here at the conference who has welcomed, without reservation, the child benefit announcement yesterday. To a man and a woman they all think the principle of taking benefits away from top rate taxpayers is correct, but like me, they are worried about the impact on votes.

It's no good Cabinet Ministers going on the airwaves pretending that everything is sorted and that all is sweetness and light. Even though only yesterday I casually said I expected that it would all be sorted.

Any fool can see that there are issues to be resolved here. Yet until Dizzee Stinks pointed them out yesterday I was unaware of them. I am not even intelligent enough to be a fool it seems.

David Cameron has an acute pair of political nostrils. And if he is sniffing the wind this morning I think I know what he will smell. Fear, decay and bullshit.

Ignoring the detail for a moment (detail doesn't matter when you want to make generalist sweeping statements) I think it is worth asking how we got to this point, because the whole thing has come as a very unpleasant surprise. Especially to me who said about a year ago that it was "tripe" that a Tory government would ever do this. Never mind the principle, the whole thing has made me look stupid.

The hallmark of the first six months of the coalition has been the rigour of the policy formation process. And also a rigour for detail and factual accuracy that I am incapable of. For example, the Coalition has been in place for less than five months.

I am beginning to bore even myself now so I will get back to wearing some nice spectacles and appearing on TV a lot.

Blogger in "Guido sleeping with employee childish gay innuendo" shock blog post

Remember how I beat seven shades of shit (and believe me there are plenty more hues in there) out of Guido Fawkes for his gossip about Hague?

So what are we to make of the revelation that Guido Fawkes and his able seaman (tee hee, the gay pride movement must be so proud of me) employee Harry Cole have been sleeping in a barge?

Fuck all obviously. Because it doesn't matter. And even if it did it's completely different to the Hague situation, however I try and dress it up. Still no harm in using this an excuse to make some bad jokes.

Imagine it, a leading blogger banged to rights for rank hypocrisy. Who'd have thought it wouldn't be me.

UPDATE: I will now use an update posted onto the end of the original post to clarify any factual inaccuracies I may have presented even though people who have already read the post won't return and see it so it isn't the same as publishing an apology or proper correction really is it but that's the way I work.

A knee-jerk which even Labour can support

Am I going to jerk my knee about the child benefit cuts and second guess how Labour will respond without checking the facts properly?

And then rely on Dizzee Stinks to do the research, suggest the implementation of this proposal is idiotic, even if the principle isn't, but casually suggest it will sorted out without having a clue one way or another?

Am I?

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees

PS Shall I mention pre-election pledges to not means test child benefit?

Come on Yankees - show us your big sweaty bollocks

I feel very sorry for all those businesses who will be spending the next few days worrying about whether they will have any American tourists as customers buying their political magazines and memoirs after the US State Department issued a travel advisory today, warning Americans to steer clear of places which attract crowds if they are on a visit to Europe. There is no specific terror warning, more to do with the fact that large groups of Yanks annoy the fuck out of everyone.

The effect will be clear. Americans will cancel trips to Europe for fear of what might happen. We've seen it before. You might think they would be made of sterner stuff, and indeed, many are (so where am I going with this then? Surely not headlong into knee-jerk rubbish). Those who live in big cities may not be put off, but Mr & Mrs Average from Main Street, Iowa probably will be. Probably. I have no basis for saying this. Indeed one could even argue that these people would never have come in the first place. But I am caught up in a knee-jerk-off so logic goes out of the window when I can resort to classic stereotyping.

A few weeks ago, Patrick Mercer reckoned that there was a clear terror threat to this year's Tory Party Conference. And yet despite Nadine Dorries and Baroness Waris turning up and speaking some quite horrific and destructive nonsense I doubt whether a single Conservative Party representative decided to stay away. We're made of sterner stuff. Plus Eric Pickles threatened to eat us if we didn't.

So come on Mr & Mrs Average American. (I can't believe I am even writing this. Is anyone still taking me seriously? Check the comments later for the sad and truthful answer. My apologists scare me more than I do myself). Show some bottle (but less than 100ml of liquids in hand luggage please. We don't want anyone getting blown up on a plane just to buy some shite Ashcroft vanity tome exclusively from Bitepillow Publishing).

Don't give in to the terrorists, because every one of you who cancels your trip is doing a little bit of Osama bin Laden's work for him (cos he is the ONLY terrorist). Just as if we blithely accept some fuckwit blogger resorting to hoary old cliche about if we give into terrorists they have won, then knee-jerk bloggers pandering to hackneyed opinion will have won.

UPDATE: It is a good job I didn't also make some comment about UK travellers not being wusses and too scared to travel and then find out later our own foreign office has issued a similar warning, and our own press are getting hysterical as well, eh readers?

How to ruin the Conference atmosphere

I can guarantee that the question I will be asked most this week at the conference on the broadcast media is "Who are you? What are you doing here? Are you an MP? Do you have a radio show? You do? Well why don't you piss off and present it then?"

Other people will ask me "What do you think the atmosphere is like?" It's a question which invites the response: "It stinks. Here we are swanning around, pleased as punch that we are finally in (shared) power, and we have to listen to doom and gloom and pretend we care about cuts when all we want to do is paaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrty. By the way, do you want to come to my bash on Tuesday with a German comedian?"

In other words it's a facile question and any journalist or pundit or blogger asking it should spend a day in the Lazy School of Journalism, where they will see my picture on the wall as most decorated head boy.


If journalists and pundits and bloggers really want to gauge anything accurately, let me make a simple suggestion. Instead of spending all your time talking to other journalists and pundits and bloggers, do some proper fucking research. Check some facts. Don't just rehash the work of others or quote their nonsense or link to their posts.

My Conservative Conference schedule - Including toilet breaks

I am going to be all over the Tory Party Conference like Eric Pickles at an all you can eat buffet. I am so looking forward to it and my only real problem is that I don't know how many pairs of pants I should pack. I am bound to ruin some what with all of the excitement and knee-jerking-off.

I thought it would be useful to publish a detailed itinerary of what I will be up to so you can avoid me. But it is probably easiest if you don't come at all rather than run the risk

Tasteless quote of the day

By Grunt Fucker

I was going to post a funny one liner by Tony Curtis yesterday but then realised that it contained the words "Wouldn't be caught dead" so decided that might be deemed a bit tasteless on the day that he died.

On my LBC show tonight from 7...

7.10: How can we make our roads safer for cyclists? Perhaps obeying the speed limit would be a good start

8.00: Another topic chosen to provoke morally bankrupt knee-jerking from listeners in the interests of "good" radio debate

9.00: As above