Gordon Brown's legacy

BBC News has been running a story titled 'What is Gordon Brown's legacy?':

Nothing, apparently.

'Both the good and decent people'

This is what Labour MP Margaret Hodge had to say after BNP leader Nick Griffin came third in her constituency:

"This is really a great moment in our history, a never-to-be forgotten moment for both the good and decent people of Barking and Dagenham."

So there are only two good and decent people in Barking and Dagenham?

Cameron cocks up

This picture of Conservative leader David Cameron went viral last week, but with election day on Thursday I think it's worth sharing:

Thanks to Gareth for sending me the photo, and Michael Schofield for taking it in the first place.

Only party X can stop party Y

Yesterday a booklet came through the post titled "Election addresses by candidates for Mayor of Lewisham".

The election address by Conservative candidate Simon Nundy says: "Only the Conservatives can stop Labour on May 6th." (From context it is clear that he is referring to the mayoral election, not the general election.)

The election address by Liberal Democrat candidate Chris Maines says: "At the last Mayoral election, it was a close finish between the Lib Dems and Labour. This time, the Lib Dems are set to win."

So - only the Conservatives can stop Labour, but the Lib Dems are set to win? How does that work?

I feel strongly that political parties shouldn't be allowed to make statements such as 'only party X can stop party Y here' or, in effect, 'a vote for party Z is a wasted vote'. Such statements only serve to reinforce the status quo - they are self-fulfulling prophecies, not statements of fact.

Jobless recovery

I spotted this on the Conservative Party website recently:

The phrase "jobless recovery" was new to me. At first I thought it was just a synonym for "return to high unemployment", but it turns out that a jobless recovery is something more specific. Wikipedia defines it as:

Recovery from a recession, where "recovery" is defined as growth in gross domestic product (GDP), which does not produce strong growth in employment

Wikipedia also points out that the phrase is "used by economists, especially in the United States" - I'm not sure whether it has entered common use in British English (although here's a Times Online article from February that uses it prominently).

Anyway, perhaps the Conservative Party article should have clarified what Theresa May meant by "jobless recovery". I certainly didn't know.

Ex-minister Blears' car attacked

I didn't know that Hazel Blears' car used to be a cabinet minister:



According to a BBC News story today:

Former cabinet minister Hazel Blears' car has been attacked while she was out canvassing voters.

I wonder whether the car fiddled its expenses. Sorry, I mean her expenses...

Headlines: 'Blears jumps ship as Labour sinks'

Today's thelondonpaper has an interesting front page headline:

Blears jumps ship as Labour sinks

This is, of course, referring to Hazel Blears' resignation as communities secretary.

However I've always thought that someone who 'jumps ship' doesn't just leave one ship but joins another (metaphorically speaking).

To an extent, the Cambridge Idioms Dictionary (2nd Edition) agrees with me, saying:

if you jump ship, you leave a job or activity suddenly before it is finished, especially to go and work for someone else

So before reading the full story, I took thelondonpaper's headline to mean that Blears had jumped one ship (the Labour Party) to join another (probably the Conservative Party). I was, obviously, wrong.

And if you consider the literal meaning of 'to jump ship' - "to leave a ship without permission while it is temporarily in a port in the middle of a trip" (Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms) - there's no reason to involve a second 'ship'.

So why do I feel like it was a bad choice of headline?

Shadow climate change and Jim Fitzpatrick MP

A bit of a strange one here, from the Department for Transport website (you may have to click on the image to see a larger version):


Why does Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, have responsibility for "shadow climate change"? As a Labour MP he is a member of the government, not the shadow government.

Is this just a daft mistake, or am I missing something? Perhaps it is Fitzpatrick's responsibility to keep tabs on the shadow climate change secretary, Greg Clark.

Whatever, there's definitely something shadowy going on.

Why such fuss over Jacqui Smith's expenses claim?

I'm sorry to blog about Jacqui Smith two days in row, but I'm a little baffled by the whole situation.

Has the Home Secretary come under such criticism because she claimed a "TV package" on expenses, or because that package included two pornographic films?

The BBC says: "MPs can claim for subscription television services but they have to be used wholly, exclusively and necessarily to perform their duties."

Obviously, the blue porn movies didn't help Smith perform her duties (so to speak), but neither, presumably, did Surf's Up or Ocean's 13 – the other films covered by the claim.

Had Smith only claimed for the latter films, I'm sure she wouldn't now be facing quite such criticism and anger – but what, really, would be the difference? The same rule would have been broken.

This suggests that the anger aimed at Smith is fuelled in part by people's feelings towards (legal) pornography, and not solely by misuse of the expenses system.

Anyone care to agree or disagree with me?

• Guardian.co.uk: 'Home Secretary Jacqui Smith embarrassed by new expenses row'

• Telegraph.co.uk: 'Jacqui Smith is clinging on by her fingernails'

"Indians of all races - Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs"

On Friday, foreign secretary David Miliband was quoted by Metro as saying: "The majority of people killed [in the Mumbai attacks] were Indian – Indians of all races – Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs."

"And I thought those were religions," says Jason, who alerted The Engine Room to the quote.

Miliband, right, with an Indian (race unknown)

Metro: World condemns Mumbai terror attacks

Acronyms: AM, MP, MEP and MSP

Raw copy today made reference to:

Plaid Cymru’s Chris Franks, South Wales Central AM

Who is this man, I wondered – a politician or a Welsh radio station?

AM is actually an acronym for Assembly Member; that is, a member of the National Assembly for Wales.

As such it is akin to MP (Member of Parliament), MEP (Member of the European Parliament) and MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).

But I think that AM is less widely understood than the other acronyms, at least outside Wales...

The House of Kitty Ussher

As regular readers of this blog will know, one of our preoccupations is names - company names, product names, project names and especially personal names.

On that theme, this morning I was tickled to learn that the Labour MP for Burnley and Padiham is called Kitty Ussher. What a brilliant and unlikely name for a politician - to me it seems very 1920s. And I love that double 'S'. Anyway, here's a picture of Kitty (taken from her website), in which she sadly isn't dressed as a flapper:



Any other politicians with good names that you know of?

(Oh, and isn't Wikipedia great? Apparently a previous Burnley MP and indeed relative of Kitty Ussher was the equally impressively named Gerald Archibald Arbuthnot...)

Lights out

This was from Friday's Evening Standard:

Bosses are being advised to call the police if workers get aggressive when told to stub out cigarettes to comply with the smoking ban. The government guidance... was branded "heavy-handed" by Conservative shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley who said: "The last thing we need is police involvement. Responsibility lies with the individual and environmental health officers."

Violent staff? Sort it out yourself or call environmental health - just don't bother the police!