Good to see the Tories leading the fightback against obesity by saying it’s all your fault, you fat f**kers!

And now, here’s some pictures:

And guess who ate ALL the pies?

John Bercow is today suffering a mauling on Conservativehome after calling for an extension of sex education to combat the levels of pregnancy and infectious disease amongst British teenagers.

This rather puts me in mind of a story I heard recently about the MP Nadine Dorries, who accidentally left behind in her room her Ladyshave after a Tory MPs’ away-day at the end of June at Latimer Place.

Following the away-day, a member of hotel staff cleaning her room found the Ladyshave, and the hotel passed it on to officials from CCHQ to be returned to Nadine. According to insiders, both the hotel staff and the CCHQ officials mistook the item for an implement of personal massage. The Ladyshave was returned to Nadine in a plastic bag in the Tory whips’ office in the House of Commons.

Naturally the story has gone around Tory circles and Nadine is reported to have told colleagues: “I think I know the difference between a dildo and a Ladyshave”.

It is clear from this that any extension of sex education should start at CCHQ, where they obviously are incapable of distinguishing sex aids from innocent household appliances.

Ms Dorries was unable to provide an image of her Ladyshave as this article was published, however, Philips helpfully display their entire selection online.

Earlier this month, Michael Gove released his note that documents the failure of Government’s educational policy over the past 11 years in which he alleges that the educational inequality gap has widened under Labour.

You can read it here, although Recess Monkey suggests you don’t bother, now that a couple of experts have taken the time to go through it – it’s, essentially, a pile of crap.

Speaking to the EducationGuardian, Dr. Ruth Lupton, a senior lecturer at the University of London, Institute of Education says:

“Gove’s document shows extreme carelessness or disregard for truth and accuracy.”

She goes on to say that:

“Gove is wrong about the direction of inequalities.”

Dr. Lupton’s full analysis (which she wrote with a colleague, Dr Natalie Heath) can be found here.

Quote of the day, though, goes to the Conservative Party spokesman who denounced the experts’ findings as…

…wait for it…

“A skewed and partial analysis which reflects an idealogical agenda”!!!!

Ha!

OK, so I was relaxing with my pipe and my terrier, reading The Telegraph, when I came across this article.

At a police station in Bolton, we took a tour of the station and its cells and were given a debrief about local crime. Cameron was attentive, but appeared to get irritated when one officer began describing the paperwork needed whenever taking down someone’s details to put on file.

Eight minutes seemed to be the minimum needed to complete a form successfully, and when Cameron asked, “Why don’t you just write down their name and address and what they look like?” he was met with bewildered stares. As we said our goodbyes and started to leave, Cameron noticed a small electronic screen by the entrance of the station.

“What’s this?” he asked, with genuine interest. It turned out to be a rotating photo parade of the most wanted men in the area.

The staff sergeant asked Cameron’s camera team to turn their equipment off (the visit was being filmed for Cameron’s website), in case it caused “complications”. Why? Would it affect their human rights? Would it add another tranche of paperwork to the arresting process?

Cameron was dumbfounded. But when he asked why the photographs couldn’t simply be put up in every off-licence and bus shelter in West Yorkshire, again the blank stares returned.

Possibly the blank stares returned because Bolton is in Lancashire?

…supposedly

From the Night Editor

Last week’s Sunday Express was riddled with appalling, slapdash and lazy writing and subbing. The style sheets handed out were studiously ignored, as can be seen by the list attached to this e-mail. There were also two errors so horrendous they moved one reader to e-mail Martin Townsend to point them out. The kind of bilge submitted last week will not be tolerated any more. The rest of this e-mail is a list of the drivel that made it into the paper but doesn’t include the numerous dashes scattered liberally through copy, counties being abbreviated (Hants and Wilts were two that appeared), the headlines that were centred instead of set left, the ignorance about how the word ‘but’ should be used, the literal in one of the phoneline questions and the inability to grasp the simple idea that companies, organisations and political parties are referred to in the singular. My apologies to anyone who wasn’t in last week but look on it as a reminder of how not to do it. So here we go:
>
> P2 > -> The lead begins with a name but the surname is not capped up. The stupid phrase ‘ahead of’ appears three times in the copy. We are then told ‘fewer than one in five voters were happy with Brown’s premiership’. That means none. The GCSEs story said ‘almost six in 10 pupils’. So is that five or four? Voters and pupils don’t come in fractions.
>
> P3 > -> Why wasn’t there a drop cap start to the story? Those weekly paper staples ‘local residents’ and a ‘local fan’ put in an appearance.
>
> P4 > -> The splash turn says Maddie was kidnapped. Really? I thought nobody knew what happened to her.
>
> P5 > -> Someone is described as an ‘ex-pat’. At the very least that’s amateurish. Look, let’s make it really simple; if you don’t know what a word means or how it’s spelt, don’t f***ing use it.
>
> P6 > -> The caption says ‘rail-soaked’ instead of rain-soaked.
>
> P9 > -> The conflict in Georgia provides us with some classic bollocks. What is a ‘battle tank’? Does this mean wars now have referees who decide whether or not a tank is allowed to go into battle? Are all other tanks to be described as big metal cars for soldiers with a decorative gun on top? Also, what is a ‘ground invasion’? Is that the one that comes after a sky invasion?
>
> P11 > -> Copy refers to ‘heroine addict Boyd’. Disgraceful. This is one of the errors pointed out to the editor. There’s also a reference to the LAPD. Not acceptable; do not assume everyone knows what it means.
>
> P12 > -> The feature about Princess Margaret’s party paradise of Mustique says the island ‘floats in a blue-green ocean’. No island, not even a super-duper one like Mustique, floats. There are then two examples of that patronising phrase ‘of course’: ‘Colin Tennant knew, of course, that…’ and ‘The world’s press, of course….’ Read the bloody stylebook and what it says about ‘of course’. Finally, did we really need to tell readers twice that Margaret was the Queen’s sister?
>
> P14 > -> The Focus starts with a name but again the surname is not capped up while the word taking the second drop cap is all lower case. Ahead of appears again and what the hell is an ‘empty dwelling management order’ when it’s around?
>
> P16-17 > -> The lead intro talks about the murder of a ‘newlywed English couple in Antigua’. Since when has South Wales been in England? To make matters worse, the third par says the husband was flown home to Wales! For f***’s sake!
>
> P18 > -> The Fergie and Andy story says they’re in the Scottish Highlands, probably to make clear they’re not in the English, Welsh or> Lithuanian bloody Highlands.
>
> P21 > -> The comment standfirst has the nonexistent word ‘parenting’ and ’spokesperson’ in it. It names the piece’s author as a bloke and then calls HIM a spokesperson. Utter sh*te.
>
> P22 > -> In the Ulrika Jonsson quote, what is a ‘marrow fat pea’?
>
> P23 > -> Virginia’s lead talks about women working ‘long hours in the office’ and later tells us women are ‘unhappy both in the office and in the home’. So, tough sh*t to the thousands of women who read our paper and don’t work in an office.
>
> P25 > -> Neil Hamilton says: ‘In 1908, the last London Olympics’ organising committee…’ And there was me thinking the last one was the 1948 committee.
>
> P30 > -> At the end of the Dando story there’s a reference to a ‘master assassin’ being captured. Earlier we’d been told how he failed to kill someone with FIVE bullets. Not so masterful then.
>
> P37 > -> The game poachers story talks about ‘organised’ gangs cashing in on the culinary revolution sparked by celebrity chefs. Does that mean all the disorganised gangs are kicking themselves about their lack of a formal hierarchy then?
>
> P38 > -> Instalment is spelt wrong.
>
> P40-41 > -> ‘Leading British male Tim Don.’ NO, in the Sunday Express they’re men or women.
>
> P45 > -> Wellbeing is NOT hyphenated. What does ‘confronted one of the them’ mean? There is then a reference to Pope’s Tower, where ‘Alexander Pope lived and worked for two years’. Oh come on, you must know; that 17th-century poet who everyone is talking about in the pub.
>
> P46 > -> The standfirst says: ‘When a teenage concert hall worker snapped pictures of visiting bands, he had no idea that, 40 years on, his dusty collection would provide a valuable insight into Britain’s musical golden age…’ No sh*t, Sherlock. That will be because, like the rest of us, he couldn’t tell the sodding future. The copy mentions ‘Britain’s then vibrant live music scene’. Was that just after Britain’s vibrant dead music scene then? Once again an idiotic use of the word live. There is mention of a picture showing the Beatles and Billy J Kramer having a laugh with Susan Maughan yet the picture on the page purports to show the Beatles and Billy J Kramer having a laugh with Elkie Brookes.
>
> P48 > -> The foreign lead has reopened and re-opened in the space of six pars. It’s NOT hyphenated. The copy says Rockefeller’s Chichester alias is connected to a double murder in Los Angeles, then says it’s his Cross alias and then goes back to his Chichester alias.
>
> P49 > -> The Putin caption has the last word missing.
>
> P54 > -> There is a reference to a ’stay-at-home mum’. No, it’s mother. The copy constantly switches between calling the author by her first name and surname. The main caption names five people but there are six people in the picture.
>
> P58 > -> In the Eric Idle spread ‘of course’ rears its useless head yet again. What is this paragraph on about then: “There’s even a Bob Dylan-like character complete with guitar, harmonica and dark glasses who Idle plays himself. He comes in to help Brian talk about individuals,” Idle explains. Eh?
>
> P60 > -> Rehash is not hyphenated but it is in this copy. Later on we have ‘…which may tie-in nicely with…’ That doesn’t need a hyphen.
>
> P61 > -> Opera copy says ‘around 30…’ No, it’s ABOUT 30.
>
> P69 > -> Copy refers to Liam Finn’s dad and Natt Weller’s dad but SX style is father. Abigail Hopkins is then quoted thus: “I didn’t have tonnes and tonnes of money.” Do we know for a fact this woman talks in metric measurements then? F***ing ridiculous.
>
> P83 > -> The blurb for P86 refers to ‘an historical tour’. No, that would be a historical tour.
>
> P84 > -> Neil Hamilton writes: ‘See Venice and die, the saying goes.’ Er, no it f***ing doesn’t, as our angry reader was quick to tell the editor.
>
> Stop writing this drivel and subs, stop letting it through.

Boris Johnson “clarifies” piffle comment.

So is David Cameron’s “Broken Britain” campaign bollocks or not?

Boris evidently doesn’t know.

George Osborne, the shadow cabinet’s answer to a Foxton’s Estate Agent has been tarting himself around the papers attacking Labour on “fairness“.

Because … you see … the Tories are all for fairness. They believe that every Etonian deserves a job… and schoolmasters at Eton are just perfectly placed to advise on education policy.

Jonty Olliff-Cooper

From: j.olliff-cooper@etoncollege.org.uk [mailto:j.olliff-cooper@etoncollege.org.uk]
Sent: 16 August 2008 15:26
Subject: - New contact details - Jonty Olliff-Cooper [s-t]
Dear all,
After two fantastic years as a school master, I am leaving Eton.

Next week, I am very excited to be joining David Cameron’s team as a policy adviser. (I am hoping to defer my Foreign Office position.) I am moving to London, and will be living in Holland Park. Let me know if you would like to know more.

My personal email and mobile details remain the same, but my Eton email will expire shortly. Other details, which are changing, are below, or in the address card attached.

If this is not the best address to contact you on, please let me know.

Best,

Jonty

Jonty Olliff-Cooper
MA (Oxon), MPhil (Cantab), GMRINA
Ex Eton College
Ex Sidney Sussex College
Ex BCG
Ex Magdalen College
Ex Winchester College
Ex Pilgrims School
Ex Hordle House School

…or “Who cuts the cutters?”

OK, so I have bastardised the phrase without any knowledge of Latin whatsoever, but it doesn’t detract from the irony that Boris Johnson’s number one political appointee, employed specifically to downsize London bureaucracy, has just downsized himself.

Alternative headline; “Deputy Mayor resigns to spend more time with his hair”.

Perhaps Boris Johnson’s mayoralty needs a theme tune?

Online Tory Magazine Conservativehome publishes this performance ranking of the Shadow Cabinet.

While Caroline Spelman’s recent buffeting explains her ranking “plunge”, Recess Monkey notes that five of the bottom six spots are taken by women. The only other woman in the Shadow Cabinet is Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, who breaks into the heady heights of popularity with 12th position.

Though she has been an arms dealer so maybe a gun is as good as a penis in Tory circles?

Policy Exchange, formerly known as “David Cameron’s Favourite Think Tank” you would think would be looking to turn to their serious side after the furore over their “The North Is Crap” report.

Instead, they have poached Katy Taylor-Richards, a diary columnist at the Daily Express as their new head of media.

To be fair, after the speed with which Opus Dave excommunicated Policy Exchange, they really do need to take advantage of Katy’s excellent contacts on the Tory benches.

I’m sure they will in no time have her working under a series of Tory front benchers, influencing the shape of the next manifesto. She may yet be the saviour of Policy Exchange.