Today's Sunday Times Leader on HS2 is total bollocks:

Could not agree more with this on-line comment below today's Sunday Times leader on HS2:
The Sunday Times should be ashamed of writing such drivel as a leader. The argument that it only saves 23 minutes to Birmingham is facile; the line has to go through the Midlands to get to the North, where the savings will be far greater. You can't seriously believe the government intends going only to Birmingham.  You say trains are better than cars because you can work on them, then argue that the money should be spent on improving motorways not railways.  You say the money should be spent on a new Thames airport not on HS2, when the two serve utterly different needs for our economy - BOTH essential.  You completely ignore the government's argument that it is IMPOSSIBLE to meet future rail capacity needs by improvements to the existing lines; that only a new line can achieve that.  Does the writer of this tosh possibly live in the Chilterns and is he or she a member of the anti HS2 campaign?

In Terms of Bollocks 9

A BBC World News presenter interviewing someone about the death of Joe Frazier: 

"A lot of people talk about the difficulty in terms of beating him".

It really does defy belief.

In Terms of Bollocks 8

The judge to the jury in the Michael Jackson trial: You have been remarkable throughout this trial in terms of your patience and dedication  =  You have been remarkably patient and dedicated throughout this trial  or Your patience and dedication throughout this trial have been remarkable.  

Why are even the greatest among us so determined to make their sentences unnecessarily complex in order to find ways of using the words "In terms of"?

Merkozy Greek Euro Bollocks

Don't you just love all the total euro bollocks coming out of Greece and Merkozyland?  Papandreou announces a referendum to ask the Greek people if thay are willing to accept the deal struck with Merkozy.  Merkozy jump up and down and, we are told, 'summon' Papandreou to Cannes. (Who the hell do they think they are 'summoning' the head of government of a sovereign state?  Papandreou should have told them to get lost). Then Merkozy announce that the Greek referendum question will be 'in or out of the euro'?   (Who the hell do they think they are telling another sovereign state what its referendum question will be?). The Greek media then scream the message that the Greek people just love the euro and are determined to stay in it so there is no need for a referendum, and every Greek vox pop face the TV broadcasters can find confirms that this is the case.  They love the euro they say for all the wonderful economic benefits it has brought to Greece.  Then they go back to rioting in the streets in protest at all the austerity measures they have to accept as a result of the massive destruction the euro has inflicted on them - massive destruction that all resulted from the Greeks falsifying their national accounts on a mega scale in order to qualify for entry to the euro, then spending billions they didn't have when the banks were conned by those falsified accounts into lending them the money to do it.  So they want to be in the euro but don't want to have to stop spending billions they don't have or to repay even half of the money they've borrowed let alone all of it.  They don't want to leave the euro because they know it will be financial ruin for them, and they don't want to stay in the euro becasue they know it will be financial ruin for them.  So they want someone to wave a magic wand so they can stay in the euro and carry on spending bllions they don't have for evermore.  Simple, as the meerkats say.

Only the French could have dug europe into such a deep pit of shit as this.

In Terms of Bollocks 7: The Greatest Yet

Jane Hill on BBC World News reporting today on the findings so far of the Met's internal review into the Tottenham riots:

 

"Unprecedented in terms of anything they had seen before".   

Not clear if these were her own words or those of a BBC news editor or of the Met itself, but either way they are an absolute classic; just about the greatest example of "In terms of" bollocks I have seen yet - which is saying something. Delete all but the first word and you have absolutely no change in meaning and perfect clarity.

Not content with that, a little later reporting on the Turkish earthquake, the BBC told us that "Time is running out in terms of finding people alive" = "time is running out for finding people alive"

Any EU referendum should follow re-negotiation, not precede it

Negotiating to see what changes in the terms of the UK's membership of the EU can be secured is surely not something that needs a referendum. It is not a change in our constitutional position; it is simply an exercise to see what change to our constitutional position could be negotiated.  A referendum would be needed only if the Government then decided  to go ahead and implement the changes negotiated.  The only point in having a referendum now would be to ask the single question: should the UK leave the EU now regardless of what changes in the terms of our membership it might theoretically be possible to negotiate?

The Tory backbenchers getting their knickers in a twist about this should change their motion to that end - if in fact getting out is really what they want.  There is no point even in changing the motion just to one calling on the Government to start negotiating now without a referendum, because it is crystal clear that changes to the treaties are going to have to be negotiated anyway to pave the way for the federalisation of the Eurozone.  The time for an in-out referendum will be after those negotiations are concluded.  The Tory leadership is absolutely committed to holding a referendum then anyway, so the backbenchers should just be keeping their powder dry and waiting to demand then that the referendum question includes the get-out option.

Why is it only euro-sceptic Tories who can't see this? 

Theresa May Right about the cat; Ken Clarke past his use-by date

Read the judge's judgement in the case concerned and it's clear that Theresa May was absolutely justified in what she said about the cat.  Of course the judge did not say the illegal immigrant could stay because he had a cat; but he did say that he could stay because he had a family relationship with a woman and that he was reinforced in that view by the fact that they had a cat.  The implication is quite clear: if they had not had a cat their claim to be in a family relationship would have been weakened in the eyes of the law.  Whether fatally weakened or not we cannot know, but it is undeniably theoretically possible that in the absence of a cat the judge might have come to a different view. So the message to illegal immigrants from that judgement is clear; if you want to avoid being deported, shack-up with a woman and buy a cat.

The case vividly illustrates just how crazy judicial interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights has become, and how urgent is the need to put things right.  Regardless of whether repeal of the Human Rights Act and the introduction of a new Bill of Rights is the right way to do that, or whether saner interpretation of the Convention by judges can be achieved while retaining the Human Rights Act, Theresa May was absolutely right to use the cat case to try to get Ken Clarke off his backside.  Ken looks to me less and less like a serious politician and more and more like an old duffer past his use-by date.