Something interesting (h/t Jamie) about the Chinese military. The strand I found worthwhile is this: As a result, for the past decade, a major theme pounded into the troops by the General Political Department is the persistent threat from outside forces (non-Party elements) to separate the military from politics, depoliticize the military and “nationalize” the…
Read More Peasants into…potential CCP membersSo, Bradford West. Chris Brooke already made the point that everyone and his dog has written a Why The Bradford West Result Means We Should Support My Politics. Meanwhile the jamiesphere is having some sort of left-of-the-left carnival of the marginally relevant, although to be honest that could be the banner over the entrance to…
Read More Why Bradford West means we should…Here’s a story from the Grauniad about privatised forensics lab LGC getting it Very Wrong Indeed. Now here’s another. LGC said one of its staff members made a “typographical error” while inputting code, leading Scotland Yard to spend more than a year trying to trace a non-existent suspect. It was confirmed last month, when LGC…
Read More utterly predictable and indeed predictedFedorcio out they cry! See also this New Yorker piece on Viktor Bout. On April 26, 2005, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in the Treasury Department, unveiled sanctions aimed at Bout, thirty companies associated with him, and Chichakli. That morning, F.B.I. agents went to Chichakli’s home, in Texas, to search his office. They…
Read More out!I had a request on Twitter for more Francis Maude blogging. (Not another one who wants flogging, I said, wearily pulling on the boots and polishing up the cat-‘o-nine-tails.) This obsession goes back to this post of Tom Barry’s which identified him as: being the real power behind the entire administration, and making everyone forget…
Read More Exactly what you’ll be missing when Francis Maude gets sackedThis comment at Inspector Gadget makes a lot of sense, and makes the various efforts by the Tories to convince their base (and themselves) that It’s The Miners All Over Again look even sillier. I spoke to the owner of my local garage earlier today. He has 8 pumps on the forecourt, “as a rule”…
Read More PR men who are incompetent, or men who are incompetent at PR?More of a scratch pad for me than anything else. It’s not like your friendly local Clinical Commissioning Group would have a web site. Is it. Anyway, there is a list of names in this PDF. Chair / Central Lead Dr Helen Pelendrides*Vice Chair / North East Lead Dr John Rohan*Borough Director Andrew WilliamsWest Lead…
Read More Links about NHS privatisation in HaringeyRed Brick blogs on the new regulations regarding council tenants who want to take over control of their estates. Their view is that this will be much more likely, and therefore that the campaign to prevent the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham demolishing a lot of homes in order to redevelop Earls Court has…
Read More It’s personal. Play your partWell, speak of the devil. Peter Foster makes his appearance in the Murdoch scandal and fingers the Sun directly. He said he then received an email from a Dublin-based private investigator calling himself ”Autarch”, who told Mr Foster he tapped into his mother’s phone in December 2002. That month, The Sun published the ”Foster tapes”,…
Read More the missing link between slimming tea and tactical electronic warfareI don’t think Jonathan Freedland will be wanting this piece of his in the Bedside Guardian book-of-the-year. In terms of basic journalistic standards, it may be the worst article to appear in the paper in the last 12 months. Look at this: His autobiography is similarly unrepentant and notable for its repeated interest in Jews,…
Read More Hack.