New twist on an old joke

Back in the 1970s, this joke was doing the rounds:

A canvasser knocks at the door of a house in Manningham, Bradford to ask about voting intentions. "Just give me a few minutes," says the man who opens the door. He returns a few minutes later, and reads from a piece of paper "Four Conservative, twelve Labour, five Liberal and three abstaining". "Thanks awfully." says the canvasser and writes this all down "But if it's not too much trouble, could you ask the people upstairs as well?"

The joke's different now:

A canvasser knocks at the door of a house in Central Ward, Slough to ask about voting intentions. "Nineteen." replies the man who opens the door "All Conservative*." and slams the door shut again.

See yesterday's Times.

* This is not a dig at the Tories in particular, Labour did this in Birmingham in 2005 and the Liberal Democrats did this in Burnley in 2004, for example. However scrupulously politically correct you are, it's difficult not to notice that most of these frauds were perpetrated by people of a certain ethnic origin...

Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester

Another little ray of sunshine ...

Thanks in no small part to Martin Cassini's tireless campaigning, there's this story in today's Times:

What would happen if traffic lights were suddenly switched off? Would there be gridlock or would the queues of frustrated drivers miraculously disappear? People in London are about to find out the answer in Britain’s first test of the theory that removing lights will cure congestion.

For six months, lights at up to seven junctions in Ealing will be concealed by bags and drivers will be left to negotiate their way across by establishing eye contact with pedestrians and other motorists. Ealing Council believes that, far from improving the flow of traffic, lights cause delays and may even increase road danger...

Ealing found evidence to support its theory when the lights failed one day at a busy junction and traffic flowed better than before... David Millican, a Conservative councillor and Ealing’s Cabinet member for transport, said... that the council was also considering having all lights flash at amber late at night, as in some European countries*, signalling to drivers that they could proceed with caution...  However, unlike switching off lights, these trials would have to be approved by the Department for Transport**, which is very slow to accept changes to traffic rules.

Sure, some grumpies will say that this is pro-motorist but anti-pedestrian, but..
a) what about bus-users? Do they belong to the favoured 'non-car user' class or to the despised 'would-benefit-from-not-being-stuck-at-traffic-lights' class?
b) aren't car-drivers also pedestrians, at least some of the time?
c) turning 'em off tends to benefits pedestrians as well, in my limited experience.

* I used to live in an area in Germany where they turned 'em off in the evening and at weekends, that was what they did and it just wasn't an issue. See also Lilley's Option

** What sort of a f***nut country do we live in, where you don't need approval to turn 'em off or dismantle 'em, but you do need approval for 'flashing amber'? Is there any part of 'flashing amber' that is not perfectly clear?

David Blunkett: Three strikes and you're out!

Strike One:

David Blunkett quits for the second time, this time as work and pensions secretary, after being accused of breaking the ministerial code of conduct over paid work he took while he was out of the Cabinet. He took a job as director of DNA Bioscience shortly before the May 2005 general election, without seeking advice from the relevant watchdog.

Strike Two:

Sir, David Blunkett points out the claim made by some that “ID cards could not survive” the “Datagate” debacle. Mr Blunkett claims: “This is simply a diversion by those who have never wanted ID cards anyway.” I wonder whether his brushing aside these claims might be related to his position as a paid adviser to Texas-based security firm Entrust. The company has declared a formal interest in bidding to run Britain’s ID card scheme. Garrick Alder, Bedford.
(Via Longrider, if memory serves)

Strike Three:

The latest register of members' interests shows that the former home secretary's incomings over the past year or so were boosted by a £30,000-a-year salary from a Sheffield-based international training and support services company called A4e... Blunkett, 61, the MP for Sheffield Brightside, has garnered some useful headlines for his new employers A4e with the Star newspaper in his constituency reporting in January: "A4e's free legal line wins Blunkett's approval". That was shortly before Blunkett took a job with the company.
(Via Watching A4E).

NB - A4E received £122,978,495 from various government departments in their 2008 financial year. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm no big fan of the Tories but Nulab make them look like choirboys.

Fun Online Poll Results & Trial By Internet

Thanks to everybody who responded to the question "What's a fair total 'package' for Westminster MPs, including salary, second home and staffing allowances?"

The final results are:

£nil - 28%
£20,000 - 2%
£40,000 - 18%
£80,000 - 31%
£160,000 - 21%

As there is no real consensus on this, I'll have to go with the arithmetic mean of the above, which is £66,000. Just out of interest, the harmonic mean is £3,440; the geometric mean is £19,699 and the median and mode are both £80,000. Yes, I know you can't calculate harmonic or geometric means if the results include zero values, so I stuck in a token £1,000 instead.
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Something else that has been bugging me for two years is this whole Madeleine McCann thing, I can't make up my mind about it. In fact, I can't even make up my mind about whether I can be bothered to make up my mind.

So this week I'm running a Trial By Internet, I'll go along with whatever everybody else says.

Dan Magness rocks!

Twenty-four hours of keepy-uppy, or "freestyle football" as it's called nowadays. Pointless but brilliant nonetheless.

Kate McCann on Oprah Winfrey

Oh, for f***'s sake...

From The Metro:

Police are investigating after faces of pupils and teachers were superimposed on to internet porn photos.

An 18-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the images of staff and pupils from Cowes High School on the Isle of Wight. Headteacher David Snashall said: "The school continues to work with police and provide appropriate support to those people affected by this incident."

A Hampshire police spokesman confirmed the teenager was arrested on suspicion of possessing and publishing pseudo-indecent photographs.

If you build it, they will come!

While idly perusing my 'recent visitor activity' in Statcounter, I noticed that somebody from 'Action 4 Employment Ltd, Barnsley' had dropped in at 10.51 this morning, a name which screams "FakeCharity"!

Yup. Their website is the typical garish fakecharity mess, and the sub-pages are interminably slo-o-ow to load. I took the liberty of downloading their 2008 accounts. Their turnover was £122,978,495, and their customers...? From page 2:

A4E provides the majority of its services directly to government agencies and departments. A4E's operational and development activity within government departmenrs and agencies includes work with JobCentre Plus; Regional Development Agencies; local Learning & Skills Councils; Local Authorities; the Department for Work and Pensions; the Department for Children Schools and Families; the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills; the Department for Communities and Local Government; the Department for Constitutional Affairs; the Legal Services Commission; the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Overseas, A4E holds contracts with central goverment departments or agencies in Israel, Germany, Poland and France.

The company paid out about half its income as salaries and wages, while the directors shared a pot of just under £2 million and received dividends of £1,675,070(so it's not really a fakecharity, I suppose, but a fakeprivatebusiness, but hey).

Nice work if you can get it.

UPDATE: it gets worse, somebody did some more digging on them here.

"Actively being considered"

Brilliant, after years of "radical shake-ups", "roll-outs" and "in the community", they've invented a new buzzword. There's an article in The Daily Express explaining that the government's much heralded 'Mortgage Rescue Scheme' has so far 'helped' only one family*...

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "Mortgage rescue is one part of a range of measures we’ve put in place to help households at risk of repossession and as the ­statistics show, over 450 households were actively being considered for this support between January and March. We always said it would take at least three months for a household to complete the mortgage rescue process from the time they approach a local authority, and overall we expect the scheme could help up to 6,000 households over the next two years."

* Which is good news IMHO, that means they are wasting less money on it and house prices will fall faster. Even if it did 'help' 6,000 households avoid repossession (by becoming local authority tenants), how is that not the same as being repossessed; having your home snapped up by the local council or a housing association; and then being granted a tenancy in the same house? Six thousand is a drop in the ocean compared to the seventy-five thousand who are expected to be repossessed this year.