Category Archives: incompetence

Please don’t sack him.

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There was his declaration of war against Murdoch. There is his continual nagging and bleating. There is the fact that he’s the business secretary when he has, as far as I can make out, no qualifications for the job.

Then we come to the VAT problem, which was described as being ‘an oversight’. Funny, isn’t it, how when an MP screws up his VAT, makes iffy expenses claims, or anything else that would have us dragged naked on a hurdle through town to the court regardless of if there was any intent on our part, it is always an oversight or an honest mistake?

Now, just to demonstrate that a LimpDim can be just as bottled pig shit thick as any Tory, Vinnie the Wire has been found dumping paperwork. Given the lack of continuing story, it would appear that Letwin’s faux pas did not include confidential documents. Well, we can’t have that, can we? Look kids! Here comes Batshitmental Man! He’s showing us all that he can make an arse of things in a far more effective fashion than a Tory ever could! See how it looks so effortless!

Vince Cable has apologised “unreservedly” after confidential documents were discovered in bins left outside his constituency office.

POW!

Unshredded paperwork containing letters from ministers was found dumped outside the business secretary’s Richmond and Twickenham office.

SOCK!

The transparent recycling bags also contained personal details of the Liberal Democrat’s constituents.

Holy breach of the Data Protection Act, Batshitmental Man!

Mr Cable said the blunder was an “unacceptable breach of privacy”.

Oh, does that mean he’s going to resign?

No, of course it doesn’t. It’s that whole Gordon Brown finding who is responsible thing, and sacking a minion, or an intern who is working for free anyway. Really all he has to do is look in a mirror. But he won’t. He’s an MP, you see, so is incapable of making a mistake, and when he does it’s an honest one, so it’s OK. For him. Not for you, so don’t get any ideas prole, it won’t wash.

I did give a little chuckle when I heard this news, I was convinced it was agents from Murdoch’s Eeeeevil army come to take out the man who dared to declare war on the old man, but it would appear not.

The paperwork was collected over a nine-month period by a local resident and was then handed to a local newspaper, the MP said.

Nine months! I’d love to know why this local resident was going through Vinnie’s bins, but that isn’t really the issue. So when Vince says:

A system is in place for shredding of confidential files and for safeguarding case work.

It means he’s a liar liar pants on fire, or he isn’t even competent enough to institute a regime for putting bits of paper into a shredder. Just to remind you, this man is the business secretary, the man who is tasked with getting businesses to turn our economy around, and he can’t even get a receptionist to shred some letters.

Give me strength.

Given his stunning lack of self-awareness, astonishing levels of hubris and complete absence of competence, you’d think I’d be calling for him to resign. But there’s no point, is there? Because the person who replaced him would be equally as incompetent and arrogant, because they’d be an MP, someone with no experience in the real world, no qualifications.

So, don’t bother sacking him, he can’t be any worse or any better than any replacement, and this is just so entertaining! What’s he going to do next? My money is on him tipping a toddler out of a pushchair and into the path of an oncoming bus.

Wolfer’s Note: I am obviously now back from Lisbon. It was very nice indeed, and can heartily recommend it to you all for a visit. Fags less than £4 a packet, that’s proper fags like what you can buy here, I didn’t even think to try the cheaper local brands.

Which are you?

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Two statements for you:

Statement one:

It is my intention to design, build and pilot the craft that will allow me to be the first person to reach Mars, complete an orbit and survey the surface of the planet with the naked eye.

Statement two:

I will never leave Earth. It is my home, and I see nothing to be gained by leaving.

Now, you’d think that those two statements were mutually exclusive, wouldn’t you? You’d be right to think that. If one is accurate, then the other has to be inaccurate. I cannot comply by the terms of both statements. To lead people to expect me to discharge the terms of both statements would mean I have a fundamental lack of understanding of the issues, or it would mean that I am a liar.

So, on the day when the Office of National Statistics reveals that net migration has gone up 21% over the last year, I have to ask the following question of David Cameron:

Which are you sir, an incompetent or a liar?

You see when you come out and say that you intend to reduce migration to the tens of thousands, then that’s fine, that’s a perfectly attainable goal.

But when you also say that you ‘believe Britain should be an active member‘ of the EU, then you are either lying to us regarding the first statement, or you simply do not understand the simple facts of the matter.

Let us assume that you are an ignoramus rather than a liar. It’s a simple point, but I’ll spell it out for you, because I’d hate to think you were wilfully misleading us; under the treaty of Rome every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States.

What that means, David, is that if the every German woke up tomorrow morning and thought to themselves ‘Hey, I fancy moving to the UK’, there is nothing you can do about it. No-thing.

So, your statement that we should stay in the EU is mutually exclusive with your statement that you will reduce net migration to the tens of thousands. It cannot be done.

What’s that? Yes, yes, that’s true, you also said ‘the EU has some serious failings too and there are certainly areas where its powers should be reduced.’ But, if you are expecting us to believe that you can persuade the EU to remove the requirement for member states to permit the freedom of movement for citizens, then well, we both know that is never going to happen.* It is one of the foundations of the EU, one of its core principals. So that takes us from the realm of ignorance into the realm of deceit.

It would also seem that a hefty portion of the MPs who belong to the very party you lead are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with either the UK’s relationship with the EU, with your timid leadership of the country and party, or with Conservatives signing up to join UKIP at a time when political party memberships are falling.

So, I ask you again, Prime Minister; are you an incompetent or a liar?

* You’d be laughed out of the building if you suggested it. And like the spineless lickspittle you are, you’d skulk off with the laughter ringing in your ears, and you would not dare to do anything about it, because you are an utter coward.

The cows refused to be milked.

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I’ll hijack an Orwellian metaphor here.

The farmer’s house is on fire and his well is empty, the only way he can put out the blaze is by dousing it with the milk from his cows. But the cows know that the farmer enjoys watching old celluloid movies on his home projector, and will sit in his living room gazing at the old movies, his only other source of light is a candle, which he sits atop the open reels of film.

“Why would we give you our milk, when your own stupid actions have caused the fire?” they ask. “It isn’t our fault.” They refuse to give their milk.

That is exactly what has happened in Iceland where the population have rejected, for a second time, a cunningly worded invitation to bear the fallout of the Icelandic banks and politicians incompetence.

I applaud their actions.

Private banks, egged on by a venal and short-sighted political class, bankrupted themselves in an orgy of lending they could not support and returns on investments they could never meet. Why the hell should the public of Iceland be forced to pay the debts that accrued as a result?

The Icelandic Prime Minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, is not happy saying that this is the worst option that could have been chosen.

Really? For whom?

Why do you think that your population should pick up the tab for the idiocy of your class? If a private citizen in Iceland makes a stupid decision, who is there to bail them out? No-one, as is right. One has to take responsibility for one’s own actions. Unless, that is, you happen to be a politician or a banker. How wonderful it must be to live in a world where every success is yours and yours alone and every failure is down to everyone else.

Apparently, when Landsbanki went under, the British and Dutch governments had to reimburse 400,000 citizens.

Did they? Why?

When you are putting your money into a bank, you are investing in that business, and every business that that bank invests in. How many times are we told if it seems too good to be true, that’s probably because it is? This was a Ponzi scheme, the same thing we’ve seen repeated time and again since the 1920s and people still fall for it. Well, tough luck. Perhaps you’ll show a little more thought next time.

The governments can’t very well turn round and say that, as all over Europe and North America they were encouraging this behaviour, both from the banks and the individual savers. And having burned their fingers in the house fire, they now expect the cows to surrender their milk.

Politicians would argue that this bank held a good deal of public money from Britain in the vaults. Well, why? Firstly, taxes are not paid for local authorities to stick the funds in a high interest account. I expect the balance to be zero at the end of the financial year, if you’ve got some left over, then you’ve taken too much – you obviously didn’t need it. If the balance isn’t zero, then you reduce the tax burden for the next year. What you do not do is stick it in the bank and then come back for more, especially in light of the fact that levels of council tax went up pretty much every year under Labour.

Secondly, why the hell were you so bloody stupid? I can understand Joe Soap being taken in by slick advertising and glossy leafelets, but why the hell were supposed professionals taken in by this? Again, it was not your money, surely best practice would dictate that if you absolutely have to put your surplus in the bank, you pick the safest, most boring option. Local authorities and County councils should not be in the practice of making a profit, that is not what they are for. Any employee of the corporation that made this decision should be sacked for poor performance. Any elected individual involved should have this brought up at every available opportunity by his/her opponents at election time.

The Icelanders have said no. It looks like it will go to some court or other. Let them make their judgement, Iceland has not surrendered it sovereignty yet, what will these courts do if the Icelandic people refuse to pay if the court orders them to?

This is a very important point. Your government does not own you. Iceland owes no money, Iceland is its people. If it is judged that the government of Iceland owes this money, then declare the government of Iceland bankrupt – it doesn’t matter. It has no assets, all those buildings, roads, vehicles, all the trappings of nationhood, they aren’t owned by the government of Iceland, they are owned by the people of Iceland, the government is just the management company. If that goes bust, then you just make a new one. I really see no problem with that, for the politicians it would be a disaster, but for the man on the street, what difference does it make?

Go to Belgium and see how terrible life is in a country with no government. You’ll not see a difference, honest. Business still runs, kids go to school, you can still get the bus, the streets are still swept. That’s the frightening truth for the politicians, we don’t actually need them that much. Looks like the Icelanders may be realising that.

More power to them.

Update:

According to Nanny Beeb, by voting no, the Icelandics are jeopardising their chance of joining the EU as both the UK and the Netherlands could veto their entry.

What are the chances that the good people of Iceland are well aware of this, and having seen what has gone on in Greece, Ireland and Portugal, have no intention of getting involved? Not a nation it is easy to pull the wool over the eyes of, is it?

I also love this comment:

the British and Dutch governments had to reimburse 400,000 citizens – and Iceland had to decide how to repay that money.

Evidently the people and President of Iceland do not concur with that.

So, if you spank your wages on lottery tickets, I’ll stand your losses and then demand that the ‘good-causes’ reimburse me? Uh-uh, I don’t think so. I’d love to see how they’ll justify holding the population of a country liable for losses incurred via a private business, which they were silly enough to bail out without checking that the liability existed in the first place.

The perils of making a political decision rather than the right decision.

The One That Is Asking Can You Please Stop It? . . .

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I’ve been driving around all over the place for work today. I can’t stand commercial radio as it’s all the same four shite songs interspersed with adverts of toe curlingly bad quality. I can’t stand Radio 1 as it’s like commercial radio but without the adverts, that tool Evans is on Radio 2, Radio 3 is so ridiculously worthy and Radio 4 is as dull as ditchwater. So given I didn’t have the foresight to bring my CD’s with me that leaves Radio 5. And it’s been getting right on my wick today.

Two stories it’s been leading with all day have driven me to the edge.

Firstly, they’ve been reporting this story about a report about the number of children being admitted to hospital with preventable diseases such as tooth decay and obesity. Sigh. Well, you remove any meaningful cooking lessons from school for a generation and what did you think was going to happen? All this citzenship guff started creeping in during my last couple of years at school, and that was under the last Tory administration. Indeed I’m certain I did a project in the 5th year (early 90′s) in these extra-curricular yet timetabled lessons called ‘Challenge’ (God help us) about global warming and how we’d all be bollock deep in glacial melt water by the time 2000 came around. Nothing changes.

Anyhow, I digress. These lessons were at the expense of other lessons about how to cook and child development, and PE and useful stuff. This is what happens when you stop teaching and start indoctrinating. Good isn’t it?

So, when I arrived home this afternoon, I was not in the slightest bit surprised to see what the subject of tonight’s Panorama is.

From obesity to alcohol misuse, from rotting baby teeth to hearing problems caused by passive smoking – Britain’s largest children’s hospital is treating younger and younger children for health problems which are ultimately preventable. Many are the result of kids’ lifestyles and are, according to the experts, causing them unnecessary suffering.

BBC Breakfast News and 5 Live have form in this area. Look, arsewipes, it’s perfectly simple, if you are going to do news and current affairs programming, at the least I would expect the news to be reported. I do not expect you to make a programme and then build your news coverage around it. At best this is ethically questionable. I’d complain to them about it, but it would make no difference. The sooner this bunch of leeches lose their public funding the better. Let’s see how much takeup you get on subscription for pretend news, Eastenders, the promotion of Lloyd-Webber’s latest show and celebrities clearing out their lofts and heading off to the bootfairs.

The second story that has annoyed me is this constant whining from CEOP about Facebook not having a panic button. CEOP, which is like an elephant’s graveyard for retired senior coppers even went over to DC to demand, Demand, a panic button on Facebook.

You can already log complaints of inappropriate conduct and content with Facebook, but it doesn’t go to CEOP. You see, an American corporation who generate a huge amount of revenue off the back of advertising on their site have no vested interest in making sure that their users are safe, that their users’ parents are satisfied it is safe, and in making sure that their sponsors are happy to be associated with a safe product.

Any parent who allows their kids uninhibited access to the ‘net is just plain lazy and naive or neglectful, and it is not the place of a corporation to take over parenting duties for them.

Who the hell do CEOP think they are? How would we react if an American ‘law enforcement’ agency came over to London and started brow beating our corporations over how they do business?

Oh. . .

One final point in this ridiculous story. Isn’t it strange how CEOP start stamping their feet and shreiking about how awful this is, and how they are absolutely the only people who can sort this out just as it seems likely that a Labour government is going lose office and herald a round of significant cuts in the public sector?

It would be cynical of me to draw any connection and to point out that CEOP’s record thus far is not entirely glorious.

The One That Demands They Shut The Hell Up. . .

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Not content with taking money from your pockets and handing it over to charities in the form of your taxes (remember this is the cash that is taken from you under the threat of sending you to prison with all those nasty bin over-fillers and people who take photos in public spaces, if you don’t pay up) the Treasury Select Committee has now demanded that more of our taxes be handed out to ‘Charities’ that lost millions in the Icelandic banking collapse.

All those collectors on the high street, taking your bank details, but not your cash. All those crises that desperately needed cash to urgently tackle the problem of X, all that money was taken and lodged into a bank as an investment.

And having paid out, either by choice or having it ripped from your pay-packet, the Treasury Select Committee wants you to pay again for the charities avarice and incompetence.

But not for the avarice and incompetence of the local authorities, who lost even more of our money, ripped from us and hoarded in Icelandic banks.

I think we can assume when the soup kitchens and doss houses spring up as we spiral to bankruptcy, they will be funded by these charities and not by the local authorities. How will that lump of bread and bowl of broth taste, knowing you’ve paid for it twice, and will get to eat it only if you pass the completely subjective assessment of a member of the Righteous?

If you’ve not been, go and have a look at Fake Charities.

The One That Feels For The Scapegoat. . .

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Can you hear that dripping sound? Listen carefully, that is the sound of my heart bleeding.

Poor old Rose Gibb, I blogged yesterday about this horrible woman, well she’s started her case in court today, and you know what, it just isn’t fair.

I might have got her wrong.

According to her testimony, the Healthcare Commission’s report into the state of hygeine in Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS was ‘full of inaccuracies, innuendo and unfounded criticisms’ and that she disagreed with the findings. She has also said that she resigned as she ‘understood that this [her treatment] was a reaction to the impending HCC report to manage the public and any fallout. I was to be the scapegoat.’

Scapegoat? You were the Chief Executive of an almost criminally dirty hospital, indeed if memory serves correct, Al-Beeb made an undercover report into conditions in another hospital in M&TW NHS Trust.

Damn right you carry the can, you were getting paid £150k per annum, so you’d better take fucking responsibility. How I long for a job where I can get that amount (and probably a tasty bonus as well) and then absolve myself of any fault if it all goes tits up.

I hope you lose your house, AND contract an illness which requires you get treatment in a hospital as filthy as the one you ran.

The One That Wants You To Take A Good, Hard Look . . .

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This, my friends, is what a total fucking bitch looks like.

Take a good hard look.

‘Who is this contemptible non-entity?’ I hear you ask.

Her name is Rose Gibb she was the Chief Exec of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust. On her watch 90 people died of C.diff infection. That’s 90. The hospital under her charge was so filthy that hygeine standards were revealed which would have caused concern in some fly-blown sub-Saharan hell hole hospital.

Health Sec, Alan Milburn did one of the few correct things this government has tried to do by attempting to prevent her receiving a pay-off. Bearing in mind this is a woman that walked away from a contract of employment having overseen the deaths of the better part of 100 people, just before a damning report into standards at the hospital were released.

Even though she’d failed to stop the death of 90 people, even though she’d walked away from her job, even though the Health Secretary had figured out it was a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money to pay her off and asked the Trust not to do it, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, amazingly, negotiated a £250,000 pay-off but then witheld £175,000 of that following Milburn’s little campaign.

Excuse me? What the fuck? She walked away from her job, where she had spectacularly failed in her job (how does it go? ‘First do no harm’ or something isn’t it?) and actually expected a pay-off! Only in British Public Service would this happen.

But poor old Rose, obviously £75,000 isn’t enough, oh no, she’s taking the trust to the High Court now to demand the balance of the £250k. I suppose she’s been advised she’s got a decent case, or she wouldn’t have taken this action. I can only hope the Judge tells her to fuck right off and saddles her with a huge costs bill.

Proof positive, public service at the high level in this country is dead. It isn’t about doing the best by your country or your community, it is about as creaming as much of the taxpayers’ money as possible and having no shame or self awareness.

Rose Gibb, in a country that is administered by the sociopathic, hubristic, avaricious, arrogant, incompetent and detestible, you truly are one of the stand-out candidates. You have been shown to be one of the biggest wastes of space in Kent. I hope you lose your house, bitch.

The One That Wants To Know How. . .

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A senior political advisor, earlier today.

It seems to be death by a thousand cuts, doesn’t it?

First there was the knife crime figures, released with indecent haste, and even by the standards of this government’s tractor production figures, laughable. Apology from the floor of the House.

Then, and this is a real doozy, somehow this bunch of elected and appointed fucktards managed to embark on an efficiency drive that ended up spunking £81million up the wall, when it was meant to cut spending by £57million.

I would absolutely love to know the details of that one. How on Earth do you set out to save tens of millions of pounds, but then end up spending almost twice that in the process? It really does beggar belief. Heads should roll. They won’t, because no-one has the decency to hold their hands up anymore (certainly not in the public sector, I work there and see it every day) and fall on their swords, and they won’t get sacked because the halfwit minister that appointed them would be expected to follow them out of the door. I love the faux-hubristic bluster and fingerpointing across the floor of the House when anyone has the temerity to suggest they should go. How fucking dare they?

And then, and this is the real killer, despite us having the largest prison population in the EU, the largest DNA database in the world and more people inside now than at any other point in our history, there are a ‘substantial’ amount of prisoners who have yet to be put on the database. These are the people that should be on the database. How? How in the name of holy fuck can anyone be that incompetent? It isn’t as if they are difficult to track down, is it?

My feelings regarding this government and the machinery they operate swings from abject terror to incontinence inducing mirth and there is a line that connects the two.

Firstly, the politicians have an attention span akin to that of a four year old dosed up on skittles, they must run around the table at cabinet meetings whooping and shouting as they try to get through the latest ‘ideas’ as quickly as possible. They are playing at government and are as effective as a paper condom.

Secondly, and with deepest regret, I must announce the death of Sir Humphrey. He doesn’t exist anymore. In his place we have:
- A collection of absolutely batshit mental psychopaths who think that the film Wall Street is a modern management manual, who then destroy staff morale and wipe out goodwill.
- Those who have managed to persuade the civil service that in order to get the best they must pay private sector wages, but can’t obviously match the bonuses and share options handed out. It doesn’t attract the best, just those who think they are the best.
- The Righteous who see it as a mission from God to be ZNL’s ‘fixers’.
- Those who have been promoted way above their abilities, but have got there by vigourously following the civil service’s ridiculous box ticking diversity and equality agenda. This will be implemented, whatever the cost to practical and operational matters.

The result? Make no mistake about it, we have a cross between Stalin, Mr. Bean and Darth Vader at the top, but his generals are all morons, his stormtroopers are armed with spud guns and all the spuds are ten miles behind the lines. The potential is frightening, the reality is like watching the Keystone Kops rolling across the Polish border in leased, poorly maintained Panzers.

Leg-Iron is quite right when he says the Righteous will never agree, it is all about personal glory coupled with insane arse-covering. They are doomed to failure, unfortunately as they self-destruct they will take an awful lot of bystanders with them.