Welcome to the Club

As highlighted by this blog a few weeks ago Iceland is set to join the European Union, I think this is fantastic news. I like Iceland and its people and I think they will be better off inside the club. It may also be good news for whales as I hope the EU will use membership negotiations as an opportunity to restrict Iceland's hunting.

No time ....

When did life become so busy.. so little time for blogging. so in the best style of a lazy b******d here's a few links that have tickled my fancy in the last few days.

1 - The man Prescott shows us Labour bloggers how it should be done.

2 - The FT questions new boy Ken Clarke's position on Heathrow

3 - French Politics raises some cynical questions on what the current French general strike will achieve.

Enjoy

Good Grief!

Well well arn't we doing well!!!

Slum Dog Millionaire

Last night I had the pleasure of going to the movies, for the first time in months, to see Slum Dog Millionaire. Having heard the response of critics to this film, Kermode for example views it as Danny Boyle's Best, i was looking forward to an outsatnding film.... It wasn't. It was good, very good in fact but certainly not Boyle's best and certainly not the best film of the last year.

I can't help feeling that the normal cinema audience has been fed such light weight crap over the last few years that any film with a touch of magic and depth is seen as a work of genius.

For those who care these are in, my opinion, the ten best films since 2000:

1 - Goodbye Lenin (2003)
2 - The Lives of Others (2006)
3 - The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
4 - Bad Education (2004)
5 - Downfall (2004)
6 - Y tu Mama Tambien (2001)
7 - Hotel Rwanda (2004)
8 - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
9 - Last King Of Scotland (2006)
10- Cockles & Muscles (2004)

Just typing that list has made me feel good.

Issrael & Gaza

To understand the conflict in the Middle East, if that is possible, you could do worse than start here.....

The Euro - Time to re-open the debate?

I have just listened to an interview of Radio 4 (details to follow as soon as i can get hold of them) on the subject the Euro. Ten years on is it time to reopen the debate? I would say yes, i know that there is little chance of the UK adopting the euro in the short term but with Iceland, Sweden and Denmark all looking to join isn't the UK and its pound becoming dangerously isolated?

Tory gerrymandering?

David Cameron has made a few suggestions about how to re-balance the House of Commons. Naturally as a Labourite i would love to be able to attack these proposals as gerrymandering but unfortunately in all good consciousness i can't. The fact is that the UK's election system is skewed in favour of Labour at the expense of the Conservatives. This is quite simply unfair. Whilst no system can be perfect there is clearly still something slightly wrong with our system when Labour needs as little as 35% to form a majority whereas the Tories need over 40% (assuming the Lib Dem vote doesn't collapse completely)

Politically I believe that politics is self correcting, voters will get the outcome they want, so whilst a few extra seats for the Tories might make a minor difference now in the long term it will have little impact on who gets to run the country.

Super Sarko to the rescue!!!!!

I would be interested to know on what basis Nicholas Sarkozy is negotiating his way around the Middle East?

Is it .....

A- As president of France?
B - As last year's president of the EU?
C - As just some bloke who likes to get to any international crisis first and make alot of noise before heading back to Paris safe in the knowledge he has achieved sod all?

Any ideas?

Predictions for 2009

1 - There will be no UK general election in 2009

2 - The BNP will win a seat at the European Parliament

3 - The Liberals and Tories running Birmingham will start to fall out

4 - Aston Villa will qualify for the champions league - but will go out of of the UEFA cup at CSKA Moscow

5 - Sarkozy will become increasingly dominant in the EU

6 - Iceland will hold a referendum on membership of the EU and vote in favour of joining.

7 - Clegg will find himself in troubled waters as Liberals receive a thrashing in the European Parliament elections

8 - A Bill to regulate blogs will be introduced following a series of high profile libel cases.

9 - Sarah Brown will assume an ever increasing public role.

10 - The Pound will regain much of its value and return to around 82p to the Euro.