This is so true. Gordon Brown got into government in 1997 on the promise that he would bring an end to destructive booms and busts in the property market.
Eleven years as Chancellor (the money guy) and Prime Minister later he has presided over the biggest boom of them all. And now the evidence of his initial bold claims is starting to disappear from government websites. Shameful.
I am reading this book that explains it all:
This certainly explains why they nationalised rail, Air New Zealand, TVNZ etc.
Scrubone at Half Done has gone through years of Kiwiblog archives, and pulled out all the best posts about what the Government have done wrong. This is essential pre election reading.
Summary of 2003 and 2004.
Summary of January to May of 2005.
You can enrol to vote on this non-partisan site:
I have submitted a new definition for the word ‘palin’ to Urban Dictionary, an online dictionary where people can submit their own slang definitions and other people can vote up or vote down different definitions. If my submission is accepted it will appear here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=palin
Palin
To have enormous success at something that you are completely unqualified for.
As in “Wow I really did a palin landing that managers job straight out of school!”
[Note: 06 October 2008]
I have submitted this to Urban dictionary twice. Both times they have rejected it.
I saw this staggering statistic about English public spending in the latest issue of Money Week.
If public spending had only grown in line with inflation since 1997, we could have abolished income tax, corporation tax, capital-gains tax and inheritance tax, leaving the taxpayer £200bn better off.
Governments have gotten very rich in the ten years of financial boom prior to the onset of the credit crunch. In the UK the Labour government has managed to spend it all and nothing was put aside for leaner times like um a global credit crunch.
I suspect people will look back on the UK governments fiscal looseness during the boom and wonder whether they were mad, drunk, on crack or all of the above.
The Prime Minister’s photoshoppers have been slaving away day and night to make her look like everyone’s favourite auntie and not an angry socialist dictator who will do anything for another term in office.
Rachel and I had a packed bank holiday weekend.
On the Saturday we rode along the Regents Canal to the London river boat festival.
On Sunday we spent 8 hours on England’s wonderful railway service (making a journey that should have been 3 hours) to Monkey World in Dorset. Monkey World is sanctuary for monkeys that are saved from all over the planet. Some were kept in research labs for in one meter cages by themselves for year after for year. Others were pets that got too big to be pets any more.
Finally on the Monday off work we took our bike out to the country and covered them in mud. My bike the Canondale “Road Warrior” did okay in the muddy conditions despite it’s skinny road wheels.
Half way through the day the front tire split and I got two consecutive punctures which I fixed while everyone else was enjoying their lunches.
All in all a packed and fun May bank holiday weekend in England :)
This morning I got up at 4am and rode to Hyde Park Corner to participate in the Australian and New Zealand Army Core dawn service to commemorate the Aussie and Kiwi soldiers who have gone to war for their countries. The service starts at dawn to match the time that the ANZACs first hit Gallipoli beach in Turkey 93 years ago. Eight months of bitter military stalemate later 2721 New Zealand, 8709 Australian, 33,072 British, 10,000 French and 87,000 Turkish soldiers were dead.
New Zealand has had worse days while fighting for King and country but the Gallipoli campaign was the first.
In 1914, New Zealand’s population was just over one million. When the war began 124,211 men joined up and 100,444 went overseas. This was a staggering 10 percent of NZ’s population. 40% of all men aged between 18 and 45 signed up. Per capita New Zealand made the largest contribution to World War 1.
The last ANZAC dawn service I attended in London was on a hungover Saturday morning in 1998 just after I first arrived in London. That service was at an Australian memorial in Battersea Park and only a few dozen people turned up to hear legendary Australian orator Clive James speak. From memory he talked about how modern historian’s views about the Gallipoli campaign had changed and as he was saying what they had changed to a slow low flying plane flew over and I missed it all.
Today’s service at the new New Zealand memorial on Hyde Park Corner was attended by a much larger crowd as ANZAC commemorations seem to be undergoing something of a global revival. This service was a much more religious affair with lots of prayers and songs to Jesus the so called “prince of peace” etc. I guess it’s hard to tell young men to run towards machine guns if they don’t believe they will go to a better place when it inevitable goes badly wrong for them.
None of my Aussie/Kiwi mates who said they would come actually made the early start. Excuses included: sleeping, over-sleeping laziness trumping patriotism and just getting back from Nam.
This is one of the buses in the Olympic Torch procession through London. The were very clever by choosing to play very loud music to drown out the booing and chanting by the protesters. To distract us further the next vehicle to pass was full of dancing girls!
Rachel and I went down to Russell Square to see the Olympic Torch march and associated protests. Hundreds of protesters turned up to make their voices heard.
Naturally the police were out in force to make sure the torch reached it’s goal and to stop any trouble.
What really surprised me was the large number of pro-Chinese people there.
Many of the China supporters were very vocal and more than happy to argue their case. Their arguments came down to a few main points:
These seriously were the points made by many seemingly educated young Chinese men and women as a justification for the recent violent actions of the Chinese government. The irony of engaging in vigorous debate to support a regime that violently suppresses all dissenting views was lost on them.
Personally I think we are all lucky to be living in a country where people can have a vigorous and heated debate on the side of the road.
This is my favourite photo of the day. It makes me wonder if the huge number of police present are part of the Chinese dream.
It’s going to be an interesting year for all involved and sadly I don’t think we have seen the end of the blood.
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