The Yorkshire Ranter

Some SAS men have been detected by local cops outside the PM’s residence, on a “Routine training exercise”. God knows what that was about.

This of people posing as hospital inspectors is deeply sick and Ballardlike.

Michael Howard, it seems, wants to say that his father came not from “refugee stock” but from “immigrant stock”. Let us leave the point that the very phrase suggests a genetic superiority of one over the other, and move on. As one says. Howard initiated the Great Asylum Cry back in the mid-90s when he…

Years ago, I asked why the aircraft belonging to the new Iraqi Airways were all registered under 9L-, that is, Sierra Leonean registration. Stranger yet, some of the well-travelled Boeing 737s involved had Sierra Leone registrations sequential with various VB ships. 9L-LEG, serial no. 22885, for example, had seen service at Trans Air Congo with…

An Mi-8 helicopter (NATO name Hip) has been destroyed by Iraqi rebels/insurgents/terrorists. Aboard were eleven men – three Bulgarian aircrew, two Fijian guards, and six US “security contractors”. They are all reported dead. One of them apparently survived the crash and was then murdered by the shooters, who filmed his death and published the film…

A week ago, I asked exactly who had experienced the fear, harassment or distress that led to anti-Menwith Hill campaigner Lindis Percy being slapped with an ASBO. I now know something about this: the body that applied for the ASBO was the Ministry of Defence. Just think – one old lady committed on pain of…

The Independent on Sunday: “Amid mounting anger last night among more than 5,000 workers facing redundancy, it emerged that the so-called “Phoenix Four” directors, led by John Towers, are the biggest creditors to MG Rover. This means that the directors, who have already made about £40m from the company after buying it for £10 each,…

It is reported that China is in the grip of mass demonstrations against all things Japanese. I’m sure it’s true, but then again…what about this? If this is accurate, here we have a serious rising that chased off the police and the local administration, with no sign of “anti-Japanese”. Two things come to mind: one,…

What with the go-go oil market, refinery bottlenecks, Nigerian strikes, global tension and stuff, there’s been a considerable degree of interest in the US zone of the blogosphere in questions relating to the price of petrol, the future of oil supply etc. Interestingly, this debate has not seemed to touch down in the British blogs…

I’ve just remembered, in the light of the shameful phoney-photo affair, that the FPO managed to pull that one too: their attack-dog parliamentary floor manager, Peter Westenthaler, produced a photo in parliament which he said showed a Green MP, Karl Öllinger, fighting a policeman. This, of course, showed that the Greens “were the party of…