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Tuesday 13 October 2009

Verity Murphy | 17:37 UK time, Tuesday, 13 October 2009

Here is what is coming up on tonight's programme:

MPs from the two main parties at Westminster may challenge the independent auditor - and their leaders - about requests to repay some parliamentary expenses.

Gordon Brown and David Cameron have urged those on all sides to comply with the process. But there is growing anger that the review of claims made over the past five years has led to retrospective limits on some allowances. David Grossman is on the case.

And, who carries the blame when an innocent man dies after being assaulted by the police? That's a question raised following the death of Ian Tomlinson at this year's G20 protests in London.

But it is also a question that is still unanswered 30 years after the death of a teacher in another London demonstration.

His name was Blair Peach and the Metropolitan police commissioner has finally promised to release the findings of their investigation into his death after keeping them secret since 1979.

It was widely reported at the time that the inquiry recommended charges be brought against individual police officers. Tonight, for the first time, the inspector said to have been a prime suspect speaks about his role in an exclusive report from Peter Marshall.

Also, a law firm has abandoned a bid to prevent the British press from reporting proceedings in Parliament.

Carter-Ruck had tried to stop all media revealing that a Labour MP had tabled a question relating to oil-trading firm Trafigura and Ivory Coast toxic waste.

When Paul Farrelly asked about an injunction blocking the publication of a report on the waste, called the Minton report, Carter-Ruck argued that an order stopping media revealing that the report had been blocked applied to Parliament.

Tonight Liz McKean will report on this case and the prevalence of media laws being used by large companies to restrict information.

Join Jeremy for all that and more tonight at 10.30pm on Ö÷²¥´óÐã TWO.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    from mim
    Streetphotobeing

    I am just leaving the Poets' Society
    And am looking forward to Newsnight Variety

    P.S. You won't believe it but for a whole half an hour I had the ice to myself. I may later ditty about it.

    Have a good evening

  • Comment number 2.

    Please emphasise that the threat doesn't just come from Justice Eady and 'English Libel Laws'. We will soon have much more of Mosely case 'Privacy Law' and the use of the Human Rights Act and European legislation.

    Please also remind viewers that whilst the Americans have constitutional protection of 'free speech', that 'libel tourism' and the internet can have draconian effects on books and periodicals published in the US of A.

  • Comment number 3.

    Also, please allow yourself some crowing over the people in the blogs who were saying 'You wouldn't know who Trafigura were if it were not for us rebel iconoclasts with a Twitter account..'.

    I agree they provided a very important boost to the mainstream media, but the idiocy of the likes of 'Tory Bear' who is no more a journalist than he is a small furry blue critter is rather hypocritical.

  • Comment number 4.

    Here's some more JJ
    Did we realise what we were signing away when we joined the EU I don't think so! : (

  • Comment number 5.

    I also think you should place rather a lot of emphasis on gagging the press. It seems that our courts are more than willing to hand out a gagging order to protect some incompetent or negligent private company or government individual. The gagging order placed on Baby P whistleblower, Nevres Kemal, by Harringey Council springs to mind.

    We rely on the press to hold the State to account, and this includes judges handing out gagging orders contrary to public interest. Someone has to hold them to account - even if the best we can hope for is another "Independent Public Inquiry" carried out by the chums of the guilty, without anyone being under oath, and then the final report being redacted!

  • Comment number 6.

    By the cringe.... Adrian Chiles is paid a million quid a year by the Beeb, what in hells name for! : (

    Sorry just had to comment! : (

  • Comment number 7.

    Good on you mim, glad you enjoyed yourself. Where do you think all the skaters were?

  • Comment number 8.


    Streetphotobeing

    I've just had some chips in a MacDonald's place
    Hoping the creeps are abandoning their race.

    Mim

  • Comment number 9.

    Watching?

    Don't know Streetphotobeing

    mim

  • Comment number 10.

    ON BEING THE PERSON WHO DID IT RATHER THAN WHO GOT IT RIGHT (#4)

    Hi Lizzie. I think Globopoly players gain more kudos for the 'big move' than for actually achieving a valuable goal. It appears that signing up to some gigantic folly, or starting an un-winnable war, counts far higher in the minds of Globopoly players, than quietly laying a sustainable foundation, albeit low key, or having the nous to avoid a war.

    It has a male - animal - quality to it. The silver-back's roar - the peacock's tail. The type who rise to leadership in this Wonderland, do not need to get anything right. They have the kind of fantasia-mind that, retrospectively, makes everything a triumph.

    I know of what I speak. On the snooker table, I prize far higher the impossible shot that goes in, than winning the frame. But then I am bloke through and through. Where I differ from the Blairs and Browns (let's not forget Bloke Thatcher) is I would not equate inert balls with human lives.

  • Comment number 11.

    AND THEN THERE ARE THOSE FACES YOU INSTINCTIVELY WANT TO PUNCH (#6)

    Not my kind of viewing Lizzie. I always wondered as I passed through.
    I suppose the same sort of Wonderland logic applies as my #10?

  • Comment number 12.

    Meanwhile, the Russians have given Ms Clinton a polite refusal.

  • Comment number 13.

    let us all go to school again, not an ordinary school, I am talking the school for evading questions, it is a pretty rigerous learning curve but you must never get flustered or you will blow the whole deal, take Stuart Bell, what a pro, he's a past master on evasion. On C4 News or NN he can foil the most persistent grillers and Jeremy knows when to give up and even he threw in the towel and smiled, whilst we fumed in our living rooms but these guys will have to be taken out and flogged before they will ever admit that they are wrong and they have been found out, even Jeremy seems to have tired of the whole thing and that is what they want....we are all bored now and that is tragic...

  • Comment number 14.



    A bit of a Bhutto moment? What's going on. This can't be an error of judgement, surely?

  • Comment number 15.

    But there is growing anger that the review of claims made over the past five years has led to retrospective limits on some allowances. David Grossman is on the case.

    =========================================================================

    If the anger shown by our MPs was not so morally wrong the above comment would be laughable.

    As for their comments about 'retrospective limits' what about all the retrospective legislation that Labour and the previous regimes have inflicted on us the taxpayers?.

    Mr Brown and Mr Cameron should both show some moral/civic courage and resign their respective leaderships, only then will this 'rotten Parliament' be consigned to the dustbin of history.

  • Comment number 16.

    from mimpromptu
    Streetphotobeing
    As promised, I did ditty on the bike, the first verse, that is, and the next one just now.

    It was a kind of luxury
    To have the ice to myself
    Where I could freely express
    My glides, my lunges and twirls.

    I started off with Moroccan Soul
    Moved on to Mexico and Elvis,
    La Vie en Rose and Bob Marley,
    It felt a bit like a party.
    mim

  • Comment number 17.

    SHOW ME AN ASPECT OF WESTMINSTER THAT IS GOVERNMENTALLY EXEMPLARY

    There's your problem. From 'votes for the dim' to 'leadership for the deluded' with whipping, rituals and claptrap in between, Westminster is a folly, full of folly. The list of terrible errors and massive misdemeanours, enacted in that place, grows ever longer. Watching Blair 'Teflon off' the most heinous of these, will soon be more sickening than Big Brother or Weakest Link. I repeat: they are all guilty by association.

    No one frequents a house of ill-repute, without knowing the nature of its activity.

    Weep Britain.

  • Comment number 18.

    as we learned from london mayors questions a conviction for assault does not debar people from the met.

    given the guardian are not too keen to shed light on journalists they say they have evidence of criminal acts what moral high ground do they think they are on regarding parliament? is it not hypocritical to suppress one lot of wrong doing then claim they have the right to report any other news?

  • Comment number 19.

    MPs still don't get it about their expenses.

    Their employers the electorate are not happy with their performance: they've been doin g a bad job and taking too much money off UK plc for the quality of the job they've been doing.

    Their choice is simple - deliver better value to their employers - the UK electorate - or get a new job.

    It is that simple - and all this whingeing about 'retrospective changes' is pompous bluster and smokescreen. They should just shut up and make their decisions - in or out?

  • Comment number 20.

    Good grief, I'm really in shock the "New Labour" party have suddenly remembered the old one!
    They've suddenly thought of their core voters again, I wonder why, it can't be surely because hundreds of them now vote BNP, the current socialist party!

  • Comment number 21.

    SOUTHALL 1979: NF, ANTI-NAZI/RACISM? THE CITY 2009, G20? LOOK MORE CLOSELY

    What people rarely see clearly is how in both cases (and others throughout history), the NF, ANTI-NAZI LEAGUE, ANTI-RACISTS etc just serve as foils, i.e a means to attack/discredit the state (i.e police).

    It wasn't really about race in 1979, or about the G20 in 2009. It's always been about erosion of policing (i.e. the state) - which works to aid economic anarchism.....

    In 1979, this was the agenda of the anarchistic Conservative Party.

    These things happen when the state is needed for regulation. It's just a way of thwarting that. That's what Thatcher's raison d'etre was, just as it is the three Liberal-Democratic parties of today. Same with the Brixton etc riots in the 80s, Poll Tax riots etc.

  • Comment number 22.

    Outstanding debate by Jeremy with Matt Nicklin & Mark Stephens on injunctions.

    Also excellent report by Peter Marshall on the 1979 and G20 riots where there were unlawful killings by the police.

  • Comment number 23.

    THE LAST DAYS OF THE SPG

    According to a Guardian report, a Commander Cass raided SPG lockers, and various 'weapons of maniacle destruction' were found. Shortly after they were 'disbanded'. When violent blokes go equipped for attack - they usually do.

  • Comment number 24.

    I thought the Newsnight poster of "Mp's V Public" summed up the position in this country very well. Illustrated by senior Tory Sir George Young defending Jacqui Smith then reinforced by the sight of Michael Martin being rewarded with a Peerage for his antics. It truly is us against them and they don't care what we think as long as they can keep lining their pockets. Top marks for greed and arrogance.

    I hope Sir Thomas Legg keeps them squealing as the more people that see the true nature of the politicians in this country the better chance we have of getting some real change at the next election.

  • Comment number 25.

    The Minton Report has been on Wikileaks since Sept 13, so the injunction preventing publication should not have been granted as it was already a matter of public knowledge, so the real question is did Carter-Ruck commit perjury to obtain the injunction?

  • Comment number 26.

    from mimpromptu
    Streetphotobeing
    A bit on a somber note this morning, I'm afraid:

    You may be witnessing Madam Mim’s destruction
    The ranging gorilla has gone bonking mad
    Madam Mim is not giving in to monkey protraction
    Madam Mim in black today will be clad.
    mim

  • Comment number 27.

    Streetphotobeing
    I have a couple of suggestions and here they are:

    Madam Mim is running after no bloke
    All it would take was to have a chat
    Or in Parliament honest, real talk
    One or the other would be just fine
    To keep Madam Mim to the globe aligned.
    mim

  • Comment number 28.

    from mimpromptu
    I thought the choice of subjects was a bit odd on Newsnight last night or the way the way they were dealt with by the producer.
    The discussion about the forthcoming legal processes in the Law Courts was topical but there seemed to be something fishy about it.
    The best item, in my view, was the discussion about the expenses issue that the MPs now face and I thought Sir George Young's contribution was the best.

  • Comment number 29.

    and one more contribution this morning from mimpromptu:
    I've just learned that Lady Thatcher is to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Lodz, Poland, which she will collect in the near future in London. The way Lady Thatcher's fall was cooked up by we know who was abominable. David Mellor indicated to me last year that Lady Thather and I were 'linked' and treated accordingly. I'd like to repeat, I never identify with anybody to the point of losing my own integrity. I may be supportive, etc, but me is me and that's how it will always be.
    The way David Mellor put it was something to the effect 'Oh, I thought Mrs Thatcher was boring, or something like that, and then went on to say that something 'extraordinary' was happening, referring to myself, and that there were no clear winners at the time. For some reason he thought he stood a chance and joined their game, having kept, quite clearly, an eye on the whole thing throughout.

  • Comment number 30.

    SELF-CENTREDNESS

    mimpromptu (#29) On the basis of your demonstrable failure to get even the basics of matters right even when they are spelled out for you, I think it only fair to point out to you that your reports to this blog of your encounters elsewhere do not have much credibility. What's worse is that when you are offered a guiding hand to make matters a little better for yourself, you resent it!

    What do you have in common with Thatcher? Well, in her later days she had dementia. In her earlier times she was groomed by Keith Joseph who managed to make a gullible electorate believe that The Conservatives were good for Britain when in fact they were anarchistically sequestrating (i.e. asset stripping) it to the benefit of internationalists. The Conservatives ruined Britain, just as you are ruining this blog.

    Like so many people these days, if you can not see/understand something, it simply is not true/relevant. Sady, that is not the way that intelligent, or even rational, people think and behave.

    Your grandiosity and frequency of self-reference is alarming but sadly predictable and revealing. Your oddity is a consequence of your lack of concern for the critical views of others.

  • Comment number 31.

    #30 JJ What do you have in common with Thatcher? Well, in her later days she has dementia. In her earlier times she was groomed by Keith Joseph who managed to make a gullible electorate believe that The Conservatives were good for Britain when in fact they were anarchistically sequestrating (i.e. asset stripping) it to the benefit of internationalists. The Conservatives ruined Britain

    Absolutely true JJ, and then Blue Tone, and Red Brown carried on the practice, and now we are bankrupt. : (

  • Comment number 32.

    does the mps anger mean they do know right from wrong and natural justice so knew what they were doing was wrong?

    anyone who knows what the anti nazi league was really like will know violence went with them.being part of their 'protests' meant violence was not far away. if people get hurt participating in riots the police should not be blamed. why should people be allowed to throw bricks at the police?

    why does the guardian not publish the names of all those journalists it said it had evidence of law breaking? one standard for them...? in the same way the yapparrazzi say they need to know if a politician is taking drugs or has other issues but what about the journalists. should we not also know their 'problems' to see if they are fit people to be telling a story?

    the uk courts are not about justice but about extracting fees and defending the rights of rich people. any justice that comes out of the uk justice system is accidental.

    the same happened about that drug blackmail case that involved a member of the royal family. you could read the story and know the identity of the person everywhere except the uk.

  • Comment number 33.

    bookhimdano (#32) "does the mps anger mean they do know right from wrong and natural justice so knew what they were doing was wrong?"

    Unlikely/improbably/rarely. It's more likely to be . Study this link well. Many of the people attracted to this showmanship will tend not to have a very good conception of right from wrong, just self-serving legalese. I am not being rude or offensive, just descriptive. This is a major problem in public service and public life in general - it's why in the democractic-centralist system of democracy, party membership is a privilege and why there are frequent purges (replacements).

    Barrie put it succinctly - the people we really need in power are those who least seek it and have to be pushed into such roles. We need people who exercise power out of a sense of care and duty to others. Narcissists care almost exclusively about themselves, and others are just a source of supply to them. This is a subtle point, narcissists can never grasp this :-(.

  • Comment number 34.

    #30 jaded_Jean

    "What's worse is that when you are offered a guiding hand to make matters a little better for yourself, you resent it!"

    A guiding hand from a Holocaust "agnostic" who admires Hitler and would see National Socialism replace democracy would be rejected by the vast majority of the population.

    In an excellent article in the Guradian Johann Hari mentions:

    '
    One of the areas where everyone should see Griffin being challenged is over this question of far-right violence. He claims he is "strongly" opposed to these freelance attacks – yet he has kept violent attackers in his senior team.
    His chief lieutenant for years was a man called Tony Lecomber, who was jailed for three years in the 1980s for plotting to blow up the offices of a left-wing political party. After he was released, he and a gang then beat a Jewish teacher unconscious. When he was freed after another three years inside, he was swiftly promoted through the BNP ranks. He was only ditched after he approached a Liverpool hitman to discuss how they could "take out" a cabinet minister.
    ...
    He [Griffin] reacted to the Soho nail-bomb by one of his own party's members by attacking the victims, saying they were "flaunting their perversion in front of the world's journalists, [and had] showed just why so many ordinary people find these creatures disgusting".
    '

    In fact most people would react to the unhinged far right - or plain evil - National Socialists as weird and disgusting creatures who do not respond to moral and intellectual standards. Hence the race "realism" and the eugenics and so on.

    Most would spurn a "guiding hand" from them.

    Shortly their largely soft support will come to know their true face and then they will hopefully slip back into obscurity and the swamps of their own minds.

  • Comment number 35.

    #21 jaded_Jean

    "It wasn't really about race in 1979, or about the G20 in 2009. It's always been about erosion of policing (i.e. the state) - which works to aid economic anarchism....."

    As ever you parody yourself brilliantly. Make yourself sound like a total lunatic.

    So where do we start ripping first.

    Well first off in your own definitions anybody who is not a National Socialist or a Stalinist is "an anarchist and Trotskyite".

    Therefore as the BNP are "not a Nazi party" 99.9% of the public are "anarchists". As the state is an elected democracy and there are no National Socialists in Parliament then they are "anarchists" too.

    Do I need to point out that makes your arguments bunk? Probably!

    Secondly you are implying an erosion of policing by "anarchists" - who are everybody. You fail to mention that while Blair Peach could have been killed by an individual who was an NF supporter the BNP (successor to the NF) can't be in the police or the army.

    This is all as muddled as your previous claims that the Holocaust was "made up to put people off statists" - and then you promptly add that any violent deaths were due to the Stalinist Russians who of course were "statists" in your view.

    But then you find that your racial theories survive the accepted science that genetic variation is greater within a race than between races.

    As I have pointed out its a non-existent list of the major scientific establishments who support your addled views on the matter.

  • Comment number 36.

    thegangofone (#34) quoting anoter lost soul "One of the areas where everyone should see Griffin being challenged is over this question of far-right violence."

    Here's a guiding hand for you too:-

    Instances of far-right (libertarian, democracy-extending) mega-violence in recent times:

    1) Iraq
    2) Afghanistan

    All clear now? If not, please read piece in the freedom-loving 'libertarian' press and be sure to check out what they are about (also look up Living Marxism = 'communism', but not as Stalin knew it).

    People can become very muddled by words. You need to learn something about politics and much else besides. It will help if you stop biting hands which feed you. Let's see if you have the intelligence to learn.

  • Comment number 37.

    #6 ecolizzy

    "By the cringe.... Adrian Chiles is paid a million quid a year by the Beeb, what in hells name for! : ("

    For being a good egg and being popular and being a good broadcaster.

    The far right don't really have any broadcasters of note and so there is no comparison.

    As for Ashley Cole (who also gets mentioned by you far right hate mongers) he is a very talented footballer and gets even more money. Pots of it! He is VERY English and is very popular. Not something the BNP would really know about.

    Just had to mention it.

  • Comment number 38.

    #11 barriesingleton

    "AND THEN THERE ARE THOSE FACES YOU INSTINCTIVELY WANT TO PUNCH (#6)"

    Surprised the moderator let that through so I would just say that
    traditionally the far right only starts violence where they heavily outnumber the opposition or they can leave a bomb and so on.

    They are cowards.

  • Comment number 39.

    Is the Trafigura libel injunction and the expenses row really just reflections that our constitutional arrangements are out of step with modern society.

    A still unreformed Lords, no written constitution, no proper oversight and scrutiny with checks and balances.

    The US system is not perfect, and their electoral system is positively undesirable, but they cracked the big issues some centuries ago.

    With all due respect to the Queen bring on a Republic.

  • Comment number 40.

    thegangofone (#37) "He is VERY English and is very popular."

    Yes, but he is not White British, he is Black British. The Government 16+1 etnnic coding scheme (used by education, Ö÷²¥´óÐã Office/Justice etc) classes him as Black British. This has nothing to do with whether he is English or not. He is British, but he is Black. It is not racist to say that. What you're posts have in common with mimpromptu is that they are thought disordered, and incorrigible.

  • Comment number 41.

    #30 jaded_Jean

    "The Conservatives ruined Britain, just as you are ruining this blog. "

    Rush to that mirror!

    Do you see somebody who reveres Hitler and is "agnostic" on the Holocaust? Silly ideas about race "realism" and eugenics based on a twisted notion of reality with no basis in science?

    I think you do. I think you do.

  • Comment number 42.

    Johann Hari makes an excellent analysis of the far right terrorist threat in the Guardian today.

    I have commented before that in terms of sentencing the far right get treated like crazy eccentrics with chemistry sets.

    In the past it could be said, with little substantial evidence I suppose, that there were those in the establishment who in the Cold War took the view that anybody who was not a Communist (though Jaded_Jean would be quick to point out the far right are "left" and quite close to Stalinism) was a friend.

    Therefore there was perhaps a greater tolerance of the far right than was sensible.

    I assume that those days are over and that we do not still suffer from a cultural hangover.

  • Comment number 43.

    #33 Jaded_Jean

    "Barrie put it succinctly - the people we really need in power are those who least seek it and have to be pushed into such roles."

    Really? Hitler was somebody who did not seek power? What was that putsch about? Why was the gay Rohm (see Griffin's comment above) shot again? Why did Staffenberg leave the briefcase bomb for Hitler as a "going away present"?

    Why do the far right who seek power tend to bombs and violence (Lewington, Lecomber, Copeland etc) if they are so meek?

    You only talk rubbish when you post.

  • Comment number 44.

    thegangofone (#41) "Do you see somebody who reveres Hitler and is "agnostic" on the Holocaust? Silly ideas about race "realism" and eugenics based on a twisted notion of reality with no basis in science?

    I think you do. I think you do."


    I suspect you need psychiatric/psychological help as you have been provided with lots of evidence which shows how, and why, you are factually mistaken, and yet you persist in posting abusive nonsense day after day regardless.

    What other explanation can there be, other than that you have a learning difficulty or are suffering from psychiatric problem?

  • Comment number 45.

    can gangefone and jadedjean get a room

  • Comment number 46.

    WESTMINSTER AS A CASE STUDY.

    Let's suppose, for a moment, that The Telegraph disclosure had not occurred. Right now, under the nose of Prime Machiavellian, James Brown, the WHOLE GAMUT of fiddles would still be going on, with Shiny-Boy Dave and Cleggacy Nick tweaking the odd teat for a slurp of illicit cream.
    THEY KNEW! Or, to put it another way: those devious bounders who are now acting whiter than white - purer than pure, in rushing to install an honourable system (honourable in Westminster?) connived in blissful, undemocratic trough-snouting WHILE NOT ONE OF THEM SAID A WORD OF DENUNCIATION. THEY KNEW. THEY KNEW. THEY KNEW.

    Putting it right won't do. Resignation of every fool and every knave is the only honourable course. I know of a bloke who is messing around with another woman. When his wife accused him, he became over attentive. This is the pathetic truth of Brown, Cameron and Clegg - they have been rumbled so they are being over-attentive.

    I am just too hacked off to go on.

    PS Gango, I am a physical coward, my violence is all of the cartoon variety; in my head. When you have completed the irony course, do one on humour?

  • Comment number 47.

    leftieoddbod (#45) "can gangefone and jadedjean get a room"

    thegangofone needs a padded cell not a room! I'm not the only one that gets abused you may note.

  • Comment number 48.

    Nos44 - My first girlfriend, when asked preferred to be called Jamaican British and didn't like the term 'black'.

    Nos16 - Mim I'm jealous of all that fun your having being stuck behind a screen looking at the yellow metal price and processing images - boring.




  • Comment number 49.



    Give that this easily happens, just think what the abuse of intensional idioms of propositional attitude (thinks, believes, said etc) and the loose use of quantifiers (some, all, at least one, etc) misleads uncritical folk to accept as true. Then there's all the futile argument and debate as to what someone really means or will think or do etc etc, even on Newsnight - and especially by that dratted resident 'Political Panel' of fish-wives! ;-)

  • Comment number 50.

    streetphotobeing (#48) "Nos44 - My first girlfriend, when asked preferred to be called Jamaican British"

    I hope you told her that she wasn't allowed to make up the category. The correct '16+1' category is 'British: Black Caribbean'. ;-)

  • Comment number 51.

    Nos 50 - Oh she wouldn't tolerate any of that kind of preaching nonsense and rightly so.

  • Comment number 52.

    One for Barrie

    During the second world war my father was in the navy with a load of men from Glasgow. He said they could turn the accent on and off at will, depending on how awkward they were feeling! ; )

  • Comment number 53.

    streetphotobeing (#51) "Oh she wouldn't tolerate any of that kind of preaching nonsense and rightly so."

    Do you mean she wasn't very bright?

    If someone tells you that the official classification scheme for something is X and when asked what class you fall into, you say that you're having none of that, it just means you don't know how the classification works or that you are uncooperative.

    Say you go to a doctor and when asked what the problem is you say, 'I'm having none of that kind of preaching nonsense, you tell me what's wrong with me'. The first thing you might then be asked is why you've gone to seek the help from a doctor. If you persist with your line of talking you might be told that you're wasting their time, or raise concerns about your mental health/cognitive ability, something they're trained to quietly assess anyway. Do you understand?

    One tacitly accepts a classification system by learning to use a language. It's part of socialization. If you opt out, you will be regarded as odd at best, sometimes 'at risk'.

  • Comment number 54.

    A canny ken why the Starsuckers get away without being sued by the people they've spread false rumours about.

  • Comment number 55.

    #48 from mim
    Streetphotobeing
    If only you knew what price I have to pay for my kind fun which is not to jj's liking.
    Right.now I'm sitting on one of the benches opposite the Kensington Palace. A few minutes ago on the opposite side of the alley a woman was standing with a little white doggy staring at me. The doggy looked like one that my landlady had. He is now dead.
    A couple of enjoyable things happened to me this afternoon when I was still at home. Waiting for my laptop to 'warm up' I browsed through Alain de Botton's new book 'A week at the airport' and spotted a passage where words seemed to be rhyming and decided to make them into a ditty. I sent it off to him and he e-mailed me back with thanks and a lovely praise. I don't thinkk jj would approve.
    Besides I was contacted by one of my mum's longstanding friends who asked for some help.regarding Percy Thomas Etherton and consequntly I contacted Jeremy Paxman and Greg Neale to see whether they could possibly help me with this. My mum's friend is not only a tranlator from Czech but also a talenter with pencils and crayons. When I was little he once drew for me a coloured picture for me of a man and a woman in a sports car.
    If you find it so boring in Birmingham, why don't you visit me with your girlfiend in London. We could have some fun together but I'm not thinking of anything naughty here.

  • Comment number 56.

    #42 Go1 Try looking through the other end of your telescope

    "Therefore there was perhaps a greater tolerance of the far right than was sensible."

    As I've pointed out before, the English have been far too tolerant, and this characteristic has been well and truly abused by the invading hordes, our own politicians, and others with selfish agendas. Our tolerance is the reason most often given by the Calais crowds constantly trying to cross the channel rather than apply for settlement in France. And the failure of all major parties to address the problems - of overcrowding and the importation of alien cultures - is the reason why more and more citizens are turning to 'the far right' and other parties that advocate greater consideration for our own people.

    "I assume that those days are over and that we do not still suffer from a cultural hangover."

    You should also assume that the days are over for the complete indifference to our own native culture being hung over, hence the growth of parties and organisations that now feature the word ENGLISH in their title. We might even get back some pride and patriotism in our country, like Scotland.

  • Comment number 57.

    I've alsways thought that a bit strange; that doctors can only diagnose you when you tell them what's wrong with you.

  • Comment number 58.

    wappaho (#57) "I've alsways thought that a bit strange; that doctors can only diagnose you when you tell them what's wrong with you."

    Errrm they're not really asking you to diagnose your problem - they're assessing how you function. They're quite clever that way.... ;-)

  • Comment number 59.

    Nos 55 - mim think I would spend most of the time on my rear end, feeling more than a little cold on ice, watching you skating maybe a thought. Certainly street photography in London is quite something for me but others can find the way I do it disconcerting to be around.

  • Comment number 60.

    Nos 57 - I had more than enough nonsense from my doctor. After I visited an NHS walk in center I got the problem sorted with a whole heap of common sense and a professional attitude that was not only sadly lacking from my doctor but caused me 24/7 discomfort for a month.

  • Comment number 61.

    wappaho (#54) "A canny ken why the Starsuckers get away without being sued by the people they've spread false rumours about."

    They probably haven't got enough money to make it worth while!

  • Comment number 62.

    JadedJean .... stop rising to the bait ... please.?

    You have some interesting contributions to make, I do not profess to agree/stroke understand them all but they are, at the very least, interesting and worthwhile or better. And no, I'm not being patronising.

    ecolizzy ...... one possible answer to your question of worth, or lack of it IMHO, is alimony.

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