UKIP London Mayoral election broadcast

In the credit where credit is due category, I think Gerard Batten's UKIP message for London is very good. However, best will in the world, I can't help him or any of the other contenders, unless I buy the Bob Mugabe Box of Ballot Fixing Tricks. I can only vote in Solihull.

But here is the video, so at least Londoners who haven't seen it can see it here.



And for the English Local Elections here is Nigel Farage MEP speaking directly about some of the ills afflicting local democracy!

TV host Mark Speight

The BBC reports that missing TV presenter Mark Speight was found hanging on a building adjacent to Paddington railway station. British Transport Police have confirmed this. All very sad. A tragedy for all concerned.

Wachovia gets a big wobble

Wachovia, the fourth largest bank in the USA, has posted a quarterly loss, the first since 2001. The bank made an ill-timed $24.6 billion takeover of Golden West Financial Corp. in 2006, at the peak of the housing boom. Now things don't look so rosy. Andrew Seibert is a portfolio manager at NexTier Wealth Management in Pittsburgh, which oversees $400 million in assets. He has some pithy remarks to make. "They obviously didn't take a close enough look at Golden West. They made a mistake in buying Golden West. The driver of all this is summed up in one word - Greed. They saw the big dollars and they went for it.''

What is it with current the crop of bank bosses? They appear to be doing exactly what they advise their customers NOT to do! Wow! David Hendler, an analyst at CreditSights Inc., went a stage better. He said, "Wachovia is now looking almost as bad as Washington Mutual on the mortgage side. This shows investors have to be more cautious and not take management's word for granted.'' That's telling us they can't be trusted.

Integrity out - greed in! Great banking motto, I must say. And all this talk of losses? Unless the bank is burning dollars in some dumpster at the back of the building, somebody else is benefiting from the cash. Nobody loses money unless they drop it in the street. It is a game of winners and losers. A sort of snakes and ladders for bankers!

Ron Paul speaks to 1500 enthusiastic students!

The message continues and on this video you'll see that the crowds are still there, the enthusiasm is still there, and the message resonates well.

In front of a cheering crowd in Gym 1 in the Intramural Building, Penn State University, Ron Paul spoke about reducing the role of government. Combating rising national indebtedness and a war that is going in the wrong direction are all part of Ron Paul's Revolution. John McCain appears to be in denial on both counts. Pity!

Robert Mugabe - King of the Voteriggers!

Voterigging is not something that happens just in Zimbabwe. It has been a problem in the neighbouring council to me - in Birmingham. Ballot abuses are not unknown in England. Northern Ireland has had its share of dead men going to the polls. George Bush managed to get the Florida vote tweaked in 2000. Italy is a problem that needs a whole book on the subject. But nobody beats Zimbabwe and Bob the Ballot Rigging Man!

There used to be a saying in London about a suspect person, "He's got more front than Sainsbury's!". In Mugabe's case, I reckon he's trying to pass Sainsbury's off as Tesco into the bargain. He's got front and side together. Maybe a kick up the backside is all he knows.

I can't believe the other African leaders take all this so seriously. They obviously know the guy's a rascal and a vagabond. But they can't bring themselves to break ranks. They probably think it will do their "liberation" creditials no good. Well, stuff those and just get rid of the tyrant. Any further delay, and things could get far worse. Is it any wonder that the world looks at African leaders and does a double take?

Gordon Brown viewed as most disastrous PM!

It's not good reading for Gordon Brown. According to a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times, he's careering into the pit occupied by Ramsay Macdonald and Lord North! Only 2% think he's doing "very well". That's a feeble number of diehard New Labour fantasists! 26% are prepared to say he's doing "fairly well". That's a bit like telling your mother her cake is a bit stodgy.

Against his plaudits come the overwhelming group, 65% who think he's performing "fairly or very badly". So two-thirds of the electorate want him gone is the message. It's not just the Tories complaining of his dithering. Now, the Blairites are chipping in, too.

He waited ten years for Blair to disappear, and now it's all going pearshaped for him (and us, of course!). I think the biscuit-taking came to a head with the 10p tax band abolition, but there are loads of other cockups and crises.

Should we wait another two years with grumpy appearances at the dispatch box, a crumbling economy, and a control-freaked cabinet? My answer is NO!

Humpty Dumpty English!

The English Language is getting a pounding of late. Does it matter? Are we troubled by the way English is used? The BBC are helping two words flourish in ways they should not be used. The first is REPOSSESSION. Only this morning on News24, Declan Curry was happily chatting about REPOSSESSIONS! Does he know what the word means? Probably yes, but his self-regulatory mechanism is failing to get him, and countless others, to use the word FORECLOSURE!

Now a lot of Brits have a go at Americans for what they see as abuse of the language, but in many cases it is the Americans that are correct. A person or company can only repossess something that they already own. A car on hire purchase can be repossessed. A bank or building society does not own property in these cases. They are not landlords. By constantly repeating this word, REPOSSESSION, it conveys a message, on a drip-drip basis, that property ownership is in the hands of the banks.

The Americans quite rightly speak of mortgage foreclosures. One forecloses on a loan if a person is in default. However, that person has options to safeguard their financial situation. They can 1) Remortgage to get a better deal, or 2) Sell the property for a cheaper one, or 3) Pay off the loan in its entirety (not the most likely situation, I admit). In all this, the lender does not and never will own the property, providing the mortgage is paid according to agreements.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.' Taking the Humpty Dumpty view of language, using the word repossession in place of foreclosure, the whole emphasis is moved from one of ownership to one of dependency. It is very easy for people to say "Oh, well, the bank own's my house!", even if they mean it in gest. It is also not the right word in the first place!

The second word is tiny, but, boy, has it permeated the whole of society. That word is OF! Here again, BBC News and almost everyone else is using OF when it is not necessary. ALL OF THE TIME! All OF this, all OF that! It is not needed. All this, and all that! That is all that is needed!

I appreciate that it is not a great grammatical sin. Most who say "all of" will resist stepping into "off of", but it appears to be a symptom of the way English is going. Pendantry can be self-destructive, but I think a certain maintenance of standards should be encouraged without letting the pedants loose!