Peter Crouch shows how to celebrate a goal

God proven by a banana - honestly!

Absolutely bizarre!


HAT TIP: Bartholomew's notes on religion

Labour Party threats

This item apeareedd in Labourhome today. It is written by Alex Hilton who is the Labour Party PPC for Chelsea.

Today I got a disturbing a threatening phone call from a Labour member upset that I have a relationship with the Tory blogger Guido Fawkes.

Some time ago I set up a cross-party advertising system for political blogs called messagespace - and the ads on Labourhome are delivered through that system. Messagespace delivers ads onto I think about 40 blogs now from the very left to the very right. I no longer have any role in the company and own a small minority of shares in it - just 10%.
The reason for it being cross-party was that advertisers who had to be politically impartial could not advertise on a system that was wholly left wing.

This has been discussed on Labourhome in some depth a year ago.

More than my shareholding in Messagespace, I count Paul Staines (Guido) as a friend and I have many friend whose politics I disagree with. Some of them are Labour members.

Labourhome was never meant to be the Alex Hilton Ego Show and I'm very cautious not to post too often which I feel would make readers and writers think that there is an editorial line. I do have strong opinions on many subjects and this is just one of the places I express those opinions - but I wanted this to be a space where the entire breadth of Labour thought is welcome.

Now I won't say who has been threatening me because that would be unfair and I still hope he will change his mind. But I have been told that if I don't extract myself from Messagespace I will be painted as endorsing every offensive comment or article on the Guido Fawkes site, that of Devil's Kitchen, Iain Dale and every other right winger on the system.

I have been told that I don't have Labour values by owning shares in Messagespace though, frankly, I feel more guilty about not checking where my tiny pension pot is invested. I have been told that there will be a campaign to rubbish me in the Labour Party and this will inevitably reflect badly on Labourhome.

Now I really am not going to comment on who made this threat. What I would like is your views on whether I am wrong about my 10% ownership of Messagespace or my friendship with Paul Staines. I'm not saying I'm going to do anything different on the basis of your thoughts, I just felt that as you contribute to this site, you ought to be able to say in the open what you think and be able to hold me accountable.


Now I would not link in any way to the Guido Fawkes site but most of the others named are perfectly respectable - and surely a man can choose his own friends!. What concerns me is that the ruling party is now so completely fuddled as to be caught up in such an insane civil war mentality. This sort of threat belongs to obscure Trotskyite sects. Still what can one expect from a party that has in recent times been bringing back its top practitioners of the dark practices of political assassination. Death wish?

A creed for the Church of the Free market

I believe in Greed, the Market Almighty,
the creator of Money,
and in the Profiteer,
His only Son our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Capitalist,
born of the free market economy,
suffered under His own pompous piracy,
crucified himself, died and was buried.

We descended into Recession.

The third day he rose again from the dead.

He ascended into profit
and sits at the right hand of Greed the Market Almighty,
whence he shall come to fleece the living and the dead.
I believe in the holy catholic bank, the communion
of bankers, the covering of their sins, the resurrection
of the economy, and riches everlasting.


This may seem frivolous but it is the frivolity that is today destroying lives. It is the voice of an ideology that is sheer heresy!


HAT TIP: Conscientisation

Congratulations Richard and Donna

Congratulation to Bideford Methodist Church members Richard and Donna on the birth of their lovely new daughter Emily Louise, a sister for Lloyd and Curtis. Emily already has all the signs of being a future heartbreaker. I look forward to meeting Richard and Donna on journeys back to North Devon after we finally leave the area in 2 1/2 years time. Doubtless in 20 years time, Richard will be able to take me on a tour of the patio below which I trust he will have placed unsuitable suitors after his daughter's hand.

Death on wheels

Read about China's execution vehicles. And when you are next in rage of a representative of that deathly regime, greet them with an avalanche of shoes! And for goodness sake, throw accurately!

The Zeray Gazette

The skids come off the Brown government

This must be just about the worst weekend for the Brown government yet.

A week ago I blogged on the need for the government to come clean on torture I based what I wrote against a background of wriggling by HMG concerning special rendition. The performance by Geoffrey Hoon on Question Time was evasive in the extreme on the Binjam Mohamed case. However, I could not have guessed at the scale of Foreign office duplicity in this case revealed by today's Observer claims that the US letter which kept information out of the public domain was actually written at the request of the Foreign Office. Well Hoon and co didn't tell us that. At best they have been economical with the actualite. At worse their involvement in torture is on a criminal scale. Pass the sick bag!

Next we hear that David Freud who was the man behind James Purnell's welfare reforms has resigned in order to join the Conservative Party with a peerage thrown in. I guess the government deserves that one. If you adopt Tory policies, it is as well to join the real thing. Once more the death of the politics of conviction is laid bare.

And if this is not enough, HBOS former head of risk Paul Moore claims to have the documents which well and truly finger Gordon Brown as responsible for the banking crisis. Judgement is wisely withheld on that matter until the full evidence is produced but surely the time has come when the old portrayal of Brown as some sort of economic whizkid, needs to be jettisoned. After all it is Brown who produced his so called economic miracle against an orgy of government off sheet accounting, personal debt and a wildly inflated housing market. The mantra that we were at the end of "boom and bust" was always false however much Brown convinced himself otherwise. Now, may are paying for foolishly believing a government who should have known better.

And finally just as with the Major government, the spectre of sleaze is all around be it peers on the take, cash for honours or todays tawdry revelations concerning Home Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

I do not doubt that the government will brazenly go on until the last possible moment in 2010 but they go on as a throughly discredited and dishonest government who are increasingly reviled by their natural supporters. The end result will be a Conservative government which will probably be worse for the most vulnerable people. But when that happens, it will not be the fault of those who in disgust absent themselves from the polling booths or even those who defect. It will be 100% the fault of a government which long ago abandoned its more compass be it through unleasing war with its gung ho partner George Bush or through its sycophantic infatuation with the obscenely rich.

And in all of that the peoples' party has betrayed both a nation and the principles it once held dear! Shame on them!

Torture - time to come clean

Watching Question Time last night, I could not but be impressed at Shami Chakrabarti giving that ........ Geoffrey Hoon this verbal thrashing regarding the Binyam Mohamed case





Anyhow the British Government has form as demonstrated by this letter by Craig Murray concerning complicity with the torturing regime in Uzbekistan.


Last night i thought that Hoon like Miliband was shifty in the extreme. Surely, time tio has come when we are entitled to know if we are complicit in torture for to be so would mean that we have become like those whom we oppose.

So my challenge to the government is to;

1/. Provide straight information as to whether Binjam Mohamed was tortured.

2/. Who did it? Who authorised it. Who knew of it and when? names to be provided.

3/. Seek prosecution of those engaged.

4/. Ensure that the Bristish government version is opened to riforous challenge.


Of course I am not optimistic. After all God botherer Tony Blair's government formed an alliance with the pits of Hell when they backed Saudi torturers over British victims of torture.

Indeed as Edmund Burke put it so eloquently;

"The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis."

Thatcher was crass but Draper is the real villain!

Let's not beat about the bush. the very name "Thatcher" sends me into apoplexy as one who lived in an area that suffered grievously when the Baroness was in No 10. Indeed I was shouted down at an eve of poll Conservative Party meeting in the 1987 General Election for trying to give 10 reasons why she was unfit to run even a whelk stall. I stand by all of that 100%.

Secondly, I have no time whatsoever for gollywogs. They are to me a form of racial stereotyping whatever the original intentions were. Only last Summer I cam across a number of them in a shop in South Devon whilst on holiday. My poor children had to put up with quite a harangue as to why these items are unacceptable today.

Yet I am uncomfortable with the fuss over Carol Thatcher's offscreen use of the term with reference to a tennis player. To be honest, Thatcher needs an eye test as the player in question does not resemble a gollywog. And certainly use of the term is crass. But and it is a big but, I see no evidence that it was other than misplaced humour which gave a nearby sneak an opportunity to do his/her damnedest. the result is that Thatcher is off the "One Show" and probably will be missing from the BBC for sometime.

Now I can't say that I will particularly miss Thatcher. Even when she was in the jungle, my longing each night was to see her landed with some grotescue bushtucker trial or other for no better reason that to let loose the feelings I continue to have concerning her mother. Yet I do not believe that Thatcher is a racist. Crass = certainly. Arrogant - possibly. But I know of of no evidence of her holding racist sentiments. And this brings me to a big problem. You see, there is no greater iniquity that can be visited upon a person than to be described as a racist. And because the allegation is so big, it needs to be used with the greatest of care. And I think that is lacking here. And if we fail to apply exacting standards to such an accusation, how long before we happily destroy all those who make crass statements in this sphere and doubtless others. A sick society is one in which people are always fearful that a spur of the moment ill considered comment will be used to freeze them in the annals of unnacceptability forever.

Now regarding racism, there are serious issues. These revolve not just around stereotyping but other issues such as opportunities in life. They revolve around unequal rates of incarceration albeit thankfully not to the extreme levels as in the USA)and threats to safety. Often the very newspapers that today are venting their spleen on Thatcher, have given less than positive images of ethnic minorities and god help those members of ethnic minorities who are Muslims. Yes, there is a need for racism to be properly confronted in all its forms. And as someone who went through a compulsory "race awareness" course before being let loose in ministry, I think many would benefit from such courses - including Carol Thatcher herself.

My main concern on this case is that it has unleashed a nasty self righteousness. Pour venom on Carol Thatcher (or even Prince Harry) and we have done our bit against racism. Bollocks, I say! What we have done is to trivialise a real problem and in the process we have become an even nastier country than before. Indeed, it seems that we are currently obsesssed with seeking hate figures/scapegoats. One week it is Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand (both guilty of shocking conduct yet both people I would not wish to be banished from television). Another week it is Prince Harry, again with totally inappropriate language made available to us by a thief of a private tape. Next week it will be someone else. If you think, this makes our country better then fine. But I think it makes us less attractive and the time is come to call ENOUGH!

Finally, I want to use an example of how this is playing out. One of the blogs that I often scan is Iain Dale. Now I regularly fume at what I read especially recently on the Gaza invasion. I am as far from Iain's politics as it is possible to be. But I have some respect for his defence here and here of Thatcher. Note that in neither case does he defend the word used by her.

But there are those who see in this a chance to play politics with the race card. Step forward Derek Draper's new Labour Party attack dog site Labour List. Playing the race card, Draper has come up with this disgusting headline Iain Dale is worried he is being seen as a racist - it is up to him to clear his name.

Well the fact is that Dale is not a racist. Indeed I have never read anything by him that could lead me to see him as a racist. Wrong - often! Racist - Never! Still Draper is playing cheap political games over the sensitive issue of race. He is resorting to the FASCIST tactic of the Big Lie which has no place in democratic politics.

What the Hell has gone wrong with the labour Party which is behind this McCarthyite site that it should sink so far. It is a disgrace when a man of the right can be seen as infinitely more honourable that Labour's very own attack machine - Draper is currently working part time for the Labour Party. I suggest that the Labour Party shuts this site down and apologises for its conduct. After all who wants to be ruled by a governing party that plays juvenile games regarding what has at times been an incendiary issue. Draper by his dismal conduct has let down every serious anti racist. He and his employers should be ashamed of themselves! You would have thought that they would have learnt after "Cash for Access."

Nonsense from Cambridge University

As someone who was privileged to study at Cambridge University during my ministerial training, I was astonished at the comment of the Cambridge University Vice Chancellor Professor Alison Richard following the incident in which a shoe was thrown at Chinese Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao.

"I deeply regret that a single member of the audience this afternoon failed to show the respect for our speaker that is customary at Cambridge. This university is a place for considered argument and debate, not for shoe-throwing."

Fine but this apparently was a gathering which was not intentionally opened to radicals. Indeed, she must have had a laugh as she said it for Wen's regime is not exactly debate friendly with its opponents. An example is the treatment of Hu Jia who is serving three and a half years precisely for entering into debate albeit far from the rarified atmosphere of Cambridge.

Quite why Cambridge University invited the Prime Minister of a regime that is Tope of the Charts for executions and which has a record of using undemocratic means to silence its critics, I do not know. I suspect the motivation is financial or to do with academic connection forming. BUT Professor Richards is descending into Orwellian doublespeak to embrance a representative of a regime that acts contrary to the very ethics of free thinking enquiry that once lay at the heart of Cambridge University. It is nothing short of a disgrace that a cocooned public relations enterprise should be laid on for the representative of a tyranny which locks its awkward thinkers away.


Meanwhile former Deputy Prime Minister writes of Wen as one who has become a "good friend over the years."

I tell you the ruling elites of the great powers of our time have more in common with each other than with those whom they exercise power over. Perhaps the concept of global revolution has something to commend it! As Prescott puts it;

"We still have to think global."

Indeed!

Chine Prime Minister presides over wors things than shoe throwing

Before condemning a shoe being thrown at the Chinese Prime Minister, please consider the fete of this human rights lawyer whom Amnesty International fear is being tortured in his own country.

I think this man would regard having a shoe thrown at him as the least of his concerns.

Shoe throwing - a protest whose time has come?

COMMENT: I cannot condemn the man who threw a shoe at the Chinese Prime Minister anymore than I can the man who threw shoes at President Bush - other than for their lack of accuracy. We live in a world in which leaders brown nose each other regardless of crimes committed. Those who condemn these protests must ask themselves how people can beter protest against the men of clood. Demonstrations seem to be ignored as illustrated by Tony Blair's ignoring of the 2 million who demonstrated against the Iraq War. I follow one who showed anger at the wrongdoings of the Temple establishment in Jerusalem so I have absolutely no problem with the expression of anger.

Perhaps those who like Bush launch wars, those who like Wen Jiabao preside over human rights abuses and all those who exploit or manipulate those with less power than themselves, ought to face the occasional hurtling shoe! After all compared to their crimes it is but a mild gesture.

Brown failed to publicly condemn Wen Jiabao's odious regime. I for one, salute the Cambridge One!

Methodist church reaches out to young adults.

The Revd Ian Bell has been appointed Pioneering Ministries Coordinator, overseeing a major new initiative designed to reach out to young adults who have no contact with the Church.

The church is investing £7million over ten years in the scheme, entitled venture fx, which will seek to recruit 20 lay and ordained people who demonstrate vision, motivation and the ability to inspire others. Over the next five years these people will be appointed to pioneer new Christian communities among the 20s to 30s age range in 20 different locations. They will be offered support and training and will be able to build new, viable independent Christian congregations rooted in the Methodist tradition.

“Increasing numbers of people have little or no understanding of the Christian story and might find the idea of going to church strange or irrelevant,” said Ian, “This is the challenge that the church is facing and we have to develop new models of church that speak to people about where they are in life and the issues that matter to them. venture fx is about tackling this challenge head on, meeting people where they are and challenging perceptions of what ‘church’ should look like.”

Ian is currently Superintendent Minister of the South West Tyneside Methodist Circuit, where he is developing an emerging church venture at Starbucks in the Metro Centre, Gateshead. In the past he has helped to establish several new expressions of church in the Sheffield and Doncaster areas, including a youth congregation and a cafe-based church.

As Coordinator for the scheme, Ian will be working part time until the end of August 2009, becoming full time from 1 September.

You can hear Ian talking about the scheme in the latest Fresh Expressions podcast, available online here: http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/section.asp?id=4138.

More information about venture fx with a list of FAQs can be found on the Methodist website here: http://www.methodist.org.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=opentoworld.content&cmid=2539

Methodist News Service

COMMENT: I do not presume to judge how this development will work out in practice. I certainly hope that the dreams behind it are fulfilled. What it does show is that in what are difficult times for the Christian Church, British Methodism is prepared to take risks to engage with young people today. This is surely the halmark of a forward looking church.

Get across the channel and look for work!

Well this sure beats the legend of Norman Tebbitt telling unemployed workers to get on their bikes to look for work.

Many thanks to Lord Mandelson and Caroline Flint for their noble efforts to calm the fears of unemployed people