Curly's Corner Shop, the blog!

This man needs a bigger platform

There are one or two videos emerging from this weekend’s Conservative Spring Forum held at Cheltenham Racecourse, and none of them of a really high standard, and I mean in terms of the production quality rather than the content. I had been keeping my eyes open for South Shields Conservative candidate Karen Allen, but I think she’s too busy bashing Miliband over the head with a bingo book! (Mr. Miliband has failed to convince the Chancellor or the Prime Minister over the taxes levied on Bingo).

However I’ve had the chance to see a couple of videos of emerging star MEP Dan Hannan, one shot in a bar, and another on the main conference stage, good performances both with strong messages. Here’s the first recorded at the D’Fly Bar fringe meeting of  The Freedom Association with Conservative Future.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srejv6rG1vo&fmt=]

His main speech was a much stronger affair (and without the book plug) where he lambasted Gordon Brown for being unable to listen to criticism, but unfortunately it won’t embed here, but you can see it at Play Political. The speech drew a two minute standing ovation marking him out as a star of the present, surely he must find a Westminster seat in the future.

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Barack Obama and ‘Words matter’ speech

“Junior” found this for me, he’s a bit of a fan of ‘Family Guy’ (something I don’t get the time to watch on TV) it had me creased, but only for a few seconds. I’m sure a few of my American readers will appreciate this little video

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8JkvOgF-y4&fmt=]

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South Shields Picture special

Yes, I know it’s Sunday and that St. George’s Day was on Thursday, but here in South Shields we had our annual St. George’s Day Parade with a special service at the Parish Church of South Shields, St. Hilda’s in the Market Place. The service is a traditional gathering for our Boys Scouts (which now include girls) as well as the Cub Scouts, Beavers, and Sea Scouts. They were joined this afternoon by some members of the Boys Brigade and the band of the Living Waters Church in Laygate.

A march past was held after the service where the salute was taken by the Mayor and Mayoress of South Tyneside Cllr. Alex and Mrs. Brenda Donaldson before the youngsters paraded with their flags and banners through the town centre. This tradition goes back many years here and there were plenty of people present to witness the event in bright sunshine, it is evident that Lord Baden Powell’s scouting movement is in a healthy state in South Tyneside and all local troops were represented this afternoon, including one from Bill Quay.

With a little extra publicity and a few more bright ideas from other organisations, the celebration of England’s national day and national saint could go with a real big bang next year, the foundations are firmly in place.

Click thumbnails to enlarge.

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A quick question

Have we seen too much of these people in South Shields now?

I was in the Market Place yesterday to find only six stalls selling outrageously over priced goods that nobody seemed to be interested in, the novelty appears to have worn off. Would you really pay £5 for a large sausage?

It’s hard to know when these people were last on the continent, from what I was hearing last night they’ve spent the last four or five years rorting about the UK from town to town gathering as much wonga as they can from those who think they’ve just nipped across from Bouloigne or Calais, it’s getting a bit farcical really.

I took a picture of one stall and the owner got a bit ‘uppity’, a lady approached me and gave me her rather caustic opinion of the ‘daylight robbery’ she thought she’d suffered over a bag of sweets for her grandchildren. I think I’ll publish the picture in South Shields Daily Photo, it shows some pistachios and cashews with the price cards next to them, I’ll just entitle it “Nuts!”

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66-1 against apparently

According to a government minister.

I wonder who it was? More to the point, what are the odds on him keeping his job in Gordon Brown’s pre-election reshuffle after Nick Brown has sent the hit squads out to discover the ownership of the betting slip?

Fascinating insight to the mood in Brown’s bunker don’t you think?

These Parliamentarians are certainly well versed in making a bob or too.

Update

So The Daily Telegraph tells us that it’s Lord West, Dizzy calls him “not a simple sailor”

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Petition growing

A few days ago this petition on the No. 10 website had attracted around 500 signatures, now having had a little extra publicity on a few blogs the signature count has risen to almost 8500 in just three days.

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to resign.

I’d like to help this grow a little more, in fact I’d like to see a million or two names on it, so go sign it now. (Although you need to be aware that in a few months time, or more likely in the run up to the election, you will get an email signed in Brown’s name pleading with you to change your mind.)

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Just listening to the radio was embarrassing.

Dear Niall

I’ve been following the fortunes of Sunderland AFC since 1964 when we had a proud team promoted to the top flight at Roker Park backed by in excess of 50000 fans for the last five home games of the season, I suppose many of those who are still alive and following The Lads now would be feeling just as ashamed and embarrassed as I am now. The current team are totally inconsistent, disjointed at times, and display little or no passion and pride in wearing the red and white stripes.

Listening on the radio this afternoon was an excruciating experience, and I’m sure that I could hear the steam hissing from Gary Bennet’s ears, we have two strikers who plainly don’t get on and are incapable of striking up any meaningful relationship either on or off the pitch, one of whom is clearly not a team player and the other seems to have less fight and spirit than your old mucker Kevin Phillips at the end of his last dire season at the Stadium of Light. It was plain that whatever game plan Sbragia had dreamed up to compete against WBA had gone out of the window when we shipped the first goal, and plain too that Sbragia has too much loyalty to some of these overpaid primadonnas, why oh why did he wait so long to make the necessary substitution and fetch Healey on?

Talking of Ricky Sbragia, he is a good coach and initially steadied the ship after Keane’s shock departure, however, in my opinion, he is not the man to move the club forward. I fear now that we are about to be sucked back into an almighty relegation battle as the season closes, with our most bitter rivals up the road in Newcastle. I wish I could adequately convey my feelings about the mess that the team is in, but without swearing like the proverbial trooper I would struggle. Sbragia is not the man for next season, regardless of which league we might be playing in, Cisse must be allowed to return to France as he does little to contribute to the overall team ethic and there are other useful strikers around who are just as productive, Kenwynne Jones (on the evidence of his last few games) has not improved in the Premiership and ought to have been sold to Spurs when they came offering a wad of cash. Craig Gordon might well become a great Scottish goalkeeper, but realistically he’s only good enough for the SPL, and I’m still at a loss as to why Keane got into a bidding war over him, at £9m they knew how to fleece a fledgling manager! We have no wide men with the two qualities that you desire at this level, pace and good delivery, one has pace the other has the delivery, shame they couldn’t be cross bred eh?

I empathise with your position and recognise that majority shareholder Ellis Short is not going to be comfortable with either the playing results, our position in the table, or the potential of his investment, he will no doubt be demanding major changes over the coming months, and so he should. Today’s defeat humiliation at the hands of the Premiership’s current worst team WBA is more than this lifelong fan could bear and if I was in Short’s position I’d have erupted in fury by now, changes are needed Niall, and I mean major changes.

I recognise that since you took over the Chairmanship from Bob Murray the club has progressed and found itself back in the Premiership but we still don’t look secure two seasons later, and we don’t look as though we have a strategic plan for confirming Premiership status. I hope and trust that the board will be addressing some of these issues, urgently, and that a succession plan is in place before the end of this season, unless there are changes in personnel before the start of the next campaign we could find ourselves being either the North-East’s only embarrassing team left in the Premiership or facing a lengthy stint in the Coca Cola Championship.

Yours with pessimism,

Curly

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Hoping for an away win

I really believe that Sunderland have sufficient quality to beat WBA today, even though the Baggies are a good passing team who score goals. Hoping our defence will be up to the test and I’ll take an ugly one goal win, also hoping for wins for Fulham and Aston Villa today and praying that the Mags manage to take a point against Pompey on Monday night.

Don’t see any streaming yet and online commentary seems to have gone to the moneymakers too, so I guess I’ll be listening to the radio this afternoon.

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Osborne may not necessarily be Cameron’s Chancellor

Some interesting comments from Mike Smithson at Political Betting talking up the potential for Philip Hammond to be the surprise choice of Chancellor in David Cameron’s first government rather than the younger George Osborne. There is also evidence at Conservative Home that the MP for Runnymede and Weybridge is steadily moving up the rankings and is currently above George Osborne in Conservative members and voters minds.

He was educated in the state school system he went to Shenfield High School – an above average comp and has no connections with the public schools attended by Cameron, Osborne, or Johnson, he has actually owned and worked in his own businesses so knows a thing or two about real life outside of politics.  Therefore he’s got a lot more in common with the average Briton suffering from the recession, and much less attack-able. The big question of course is whether or not Cameron could dispense with loyalty and go for the meritio-technocratic choice? Hammond could be the safe pair of hands that Cameron needs particularly if this story in The Daily Mirror develops.

Hammond is certainly worth keeping an eye on.

Anyway let’s call this video this weekend’s entertainment, it’s from last night’s Question Time and features historian David Starkey

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em1sYyg5JyU&fmt=]

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Come off it, do you take us for fools?

Lord Mandy of car sales rooms has given an interview to The Times supposedly before Wednesday’s budget in which he said of the new top tax rate:

he had been genuinely taken aback by suggestions that the decision was anything other than linked to raising revenue. It did not have a political motivation or some ulterior motive. “None of us sitting round the Cabinet table, as far as I could make out, wanted it or welcomed it but you are faced with a really difficult choice. If you want to maintain current levels of spending and investment to speed the recovery you have to take a responsible fiscal position where the tax take goes up.

“As new Labour we do not tax for the sake of it. Increases have to be justified and fair. At the core of new Labour beliefs are the commitments to aspiration and reward for enterprise. If we turn away from either of those things we will cease to be new Labour and that will be over the dead bodies of many of us. It won’t happen.”

Come off it Peter, raising revenue! The tax take will be little more then £1bn to help towards the £750bn mortgage that Labour has taken out on the UK! How can you possibly justify that?

He knows that the game is up of course, as do many ordinary Labour supporters, in the closing comments at the foot of the article we find this:

“If we imagine, as some argue, that the antidote to Cameron is to make him the ‘rightwinger’ and us the ‘leftwingers’, that will lead to defeat. There are not enough people prepared to man the barricades to keep us in the winning position we had before.”

Not enough, doesn’t he mean hardly any?

Staring defeat in the face? Wishing he hadn’t pulled his wagon into Brown’s garage at all?

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