Offmessage

I’ve tried to steer clear of this one.  I don’t live in London, so why do I care?

I care because he is the physical manifestation of the angry suburbs.  I care because he is the physical manifestation of a massive rise in voter turnout.

And that means that he is also the physical manifestation of the death of the New Labour project.  We knew Tony didn’t want to hand over power.  Now we know why.

On a lighter note, apparently he’s also the physical manifestation of the storm botnet.

I have a thought that’s been bugging me over the last few days…  Is the 10p rate of tax being abolished or doubled?  Seems to me that the BBC et al are being rather generous with their semantics.

UK politics makes yet another attempt to claim Open Source as its own.  You tried last year…  What happened?

IKEA accused of “teasing Denmark”

‘We have decided that the government can make their position clear, but that it is not for us to intervene directly in this matter’

This makes me very angry. I was genuinely pleased that the Gordon Brown government seemed to be willing to step in when Blair wasn’t. I can’t understand why they simply don’t act. A single statement saves a ludicrous amount of trouble.

• UK vs Russia
• Asda vs Bloomsbury

I reckon the incessant rain is getting to everyone.

This could be really entertaining…  Contrast the following stories:

• NatWest Three extradited controversially under UK/US treaty
• UK Government cans SFO investigation into alleged payments by BAE Sytems to grease the wheels of arms deal “to protect the national interest”
• US investigates the same alleged corruption

Mr Brown, your relationship with America is about to be tested.

Until only yesterday I would have said that the Olympics were the last real example of displaced warfare.  Lots of metaphorical and literal flexing of muscles in a thinly disguised version of kicking sand in the 7 stone weakling’s face.

However, yesterday we decided that it would be a good idea to start pointing missiles at each other again so the Olympics briefly returned to sideshow status and we get to have a nice diplomatic standoff, rather than all this sporting subtlety.

That said, the Olympics do still bring out the worst in countries – even towards their own citizens:

2 million displaced in the last 20 years by the Olympics

I am very slow. I had heard them take the piss out of our Dave’s webcameron project on the radio, but I hadn’t actually bothered to look. Oh. Dear. Lord. Apparently he’s in beta. b3ta more like. And he has a youtube channel. What a twat. I mean really, who sold him that load of old toot? (And it’s ASP.NET so he’s likely paying through the nose for it as well).

Adam Laurie has helped the Daily Mail crack a UK passport. They’re doomed. Doomed I tell you.