I’ll come to the snow later. The ‘plot’ to ‘settle the leadership’ broke just after PMQs at lunchtime today. Carl Gardner, author of The Head of Legal blog, has penned an interesting piece for the Wardman Wire. With customary precision, Carl takes us through the constitutional issues, discusses the prospects of Crudas, Miliband and others and concludes..“If Hoon and Hewitt wanted, as they said, to settle the leadership issue one way or the other – well, they’ve succeeded in that.”
Guido has the real deal... It is amusing… and Guido did appear to be the first to have the famous Hoon-hewitt letter on his blog at lunchtime.
The Liberal Conspiracy takes a most unusual line on the ‘plot’: LIVE pictures fropm the Labour Plot. Cat lovers will enjoy this one. Very good.
Reclusive Tory blogger Iain Dale tweeted…
The snow
Scots and Northerners are expressing outrage that now London and the fantastically well off South-East is under siege from snow, the nation has gone into a state of hyperventilation and PANIC BUYING. I did point out to my Scots friends that they must understand that we have “London Snow”. This is quite different in texture and quality from Northern or Scottish snow. I get up most mornings shortly before 4.00 am.
Regular readers will know that many deaths occur at 4.00 am. My plan to avoid the Grim Reaper, before he visits at 4.00 am, appears to be working. It also allows me to get a bit of work done before Twitter and blogs start to weave their spell. The BBC does many things well – although on Newsnight last night Paxo had to listen to a very jolly Bishop who must spend a fair bit of time telling parables in very simple language. Unfortunately, the BBC seems to think that anyone who is conscious between the hours of 5.00 am and 9.00 needs a good kick in the ass from Jonathan Charles who shouts the business news in a very manly way (nodding his head every 5.5 seconds to punctuate his points – I timed him one morning, so obsessed did I become with his ‘nodding dog syndrome’) and then, between 6.00 and 9.00 we get the autocuties (irredeemably good looking men and women) who, lovely people they may well be, smile far too much and speak to us as if we are children who really ought to eat more vegetables. (Fortunately BBC Radio 4 still caters to those who enjoy adult news).
Today, BBC News 24 went into overdrive. I have never seen so much coverage on snow in my life. Every conceivable angle was covered. We had the obligatory news anchor standing outside in the stuff, wiping slabs of snow off a car roof to prove it. There was even a bit of confusion as to whether the snow was 15 INCHES deep or 15 CENTIMETRES deep. Oh the angst. We then went to the regions and were treated to regional autocuties, all standing about in the snow, and then we had snow analysis, endless severe weather warnings and finally… requests to send pictures of our own snow in. I was, I have to say, tempted.
Panic buying was much in evidence at my local supermarket. Bread – none. Milk – None. Salt – |None. Fortunately, as I observed on Twitter this morning – there was plenty of garlic and coriander – so being a MIDDLE CLASS PANIC BUYER… I cleared the shelves of the stuff.
Finally… see what I mean?
It’s all done to control us!
but it can’t stop dale from his relentless self-publicity – how many channels was he meant to be on??? he must be so cool.
I’m glad someone else picked up on Johnathon Charles “Nodding Boy” It’s annoying 🙂