Fearless leader diary

The hardest working Mayor in the World

Tonight I’m at my desk until 3am, updating my Enemies of London list. Enemies of London are in their own especially high council-tax band. Their Oyster cards deplete faster. Nobody collects their bins or recycling.

Right now, Enemies of London include my rival mayoral candidates, Trevor Phillips, anybody who works for the Evening Standard, Channel 4 or the New Statesman, Jews, Americans, somebody who once pushed past me in the queue for a cash machine and people who don’t like bendy buses.

High-larious.

Not in good conscience

Londoners were treated to a Channel 4 Dispatches expose on the methods and madness of our dear leader, Mayor Ken Livingstone. Among the charges:

• violating electoral rules – appointed staff working on his re-election campaign while being paid from the public purse – on his orders.
• spending vast amounts of money on thinly justified foreign junkets
• allowing millions of pounds to be funneled to sham companies owned by cronies and fellow travellers
• drinking on the job, not just at his desk, but brazenly drinking whisky at council meetings and at “town hall” style question time with the public
• appointing inappropriately skilled cronies to high paying jobs

Really, this is more than enough to not only turn the man out of office – this is enough to start criminal investigations. Any one of these alone represent a bad sort of politics, but together render the man wholly unfit to represent perhaps the finest capital city in the world.

And this is before taking into account that the man acts like an ass. That he refuses to answer legitimate questions from friends and foes alike – the key means of accountability for elected officials. That he bullies, blusters and evades. That he name calls like a child in the playground.

And this is all before you take account that he associates with some rather nasty characters like Qaradawi and seems to overtly endorse a radical, political Islam. And anyone who questions his association with Muslim Brotherhood fronts and members is called an Islamophobe.

The worst thing about all of this is that dear old Red Ken is likely to get away with it. His jocular bluster seems to sway large parts of the electorate. And in this country Socialist is not a dirty word, so his association with the Socialist Alliance doesn’t sound so bad. Never mind that they don’t practice the kind of socialism that’s essentially benign -no – it’s that deconstructionist, let’s destroy everything that’s good so somehow, some way a new society will come rising from the ashes – meanwhile we’ll wander around drinking champagne and totter around on our hind trotters unless our snout is in the trough type socialism. And folks seem blind to the difference.

I know a lot of people don’t like Boris Johnson. I know his manner is odd and his hair is wild and he’s a master of the self-deprecating. I know that Mr Johnson hasn’t yet really communicated his vision for London – and he must do that. But please, Londoners, you cannot in good conscience re-elect Ken Livingstone.

At least he made the buses run on time

While the American readers will be focusing on an election months and months away (ok, I know the primary season is upon us), the London electorate have a campaign coming up in May. For London mayor.

It’s Boris v. Ken – and it should be interesting. And just based on the names, if you didn’t know the characters involved, you’d be surprised at which one of them has nasty Trotskyite tendencies.

It’s no secret that I really, really, really hate Ken Livingstone. I hate his Marxist style empire building amongst the London boroughs. I hate his divisive politics under the name of cohesion. I hate the cozying up to the Islamist elite.

Apparently there’s to be an expose on some of his political shenanigans on Monday night through Channel 4’s Dispatches programme.

Check out a little foreshadowing here at Harry’s Place.

Is this the sort of rubbish…

….that passes for art these days?

South Bank, London near Waterloo Station

with Friends like these

Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) is what I would describe as a radical Islamist group. To put this in perspective a fundamentalist Muslim I know thought they were a dangerous cult. This group is proscribed in a number of European countries, but not the UK.

I would guess that many of the members of HT in the UK are of a Pakistani origin. I don’t know what the ethnic breakdown is, but I’d guess there are enough that they feel they it’s legitimate for them to turn their organisational attention to the situation in Pakistan.

And it’s no surprise what they feel the right solution is for Pakistan – more Islam. Sharia law – the whole thing – the establishment of the Caliphate or Khilafah. That’s what a brochure I found on the street in my neighborhood says anyway:

And here’s the text:

Since its inception in 1947, Pakistan has been tormented by failed dictators and political parties.

The US and UK, constantly meddling in the affairs of Pakistan, are desperate to save their only hope in the region, General Pervez Musharraf, by working to ally him with failed politicians such as Benezir Bhutto. They have thus brought about an alliance between the most treacherous leader and the most corrupt politician in Pakistan’s history.

Pakistan is in need for anew type of leadership which look after the needs of the people according to the Quran and Sunnah, and implements a system which is truly representative and that has an independent judiciary: the Khilafat State.

Hizb ut-Tahrir, Britain has organised a conference to artculate the need for a new leadership and new system for Pakistan – an alternative to the failed leadership and systems of the past 60 years.

It doesn’t really disturb me that HT is calling for a Caliphate state. Yep, that’s what they want – what they’ve always wanted for all countries, not just Pakistan. What does disturb me is that Friends House – the home of the peace loving Quakers in Central London is hosting this conference. Why oh why oh why are they providing a venue for a group which would give all Christians and all women second class citizenship or worse.

For many years of my childhood we attended Quaker (Friends) meetings. I’m pretty sure that Quakerism is incompatible with the establishment of a global Caliphate. I’m pretty sure that message of tolerance and forgiveness that I learned in First Day school are not in line with the harsh, biased justice of Sharia.

With friends like these….

Wild wetlands

I’ve been wanting to go to the London Wetland Centre for years. It looked like fun. A little wildlife reserve right in the middle of London. We could see the birds and the water plants and yadda, yadda, yadda.

Well, we never managed to go. Until Monday. You see, I finally feel like getting out a little bit and we wanted to do something different. Something we could take a baby to. A baby who does not sleep much in the day. A baby who does not suffer from a weak cry. So a nice outdoor activity seemed good.

Except, apparently, a lot of what makes the wetland centre so fun is its interpretive exhibits. Exhibits that are pretty much all inside. And an adventure playground that we’re too big for and Cletus is too little for.

So we walked around the vast acreage – but the only thing was that path space was actually quite limited – and you’re only allowed to walk around maybe two-thirds of the perimeter and none of the wetland area – which is all blocked off from both foot traffic and they eyeline of anyone shorter than 12 feet – to respect the bird’s privacy or something.

Of course, there are hides from which to watch the birds. And on the outside of each hide there’s a sign saying

Quiet. Birds have ears.

Really? I’ve never seen a bird ear. Have you?

But Cletus can’t read yet and he did scream every time we entered an indoor area. So we couldn’t really see any birds except the ones on the main paths. But those were just regular old birds – birds that I could see in just about any old London park.

And we paid big bucks for the privilege. I wanted to tell those shy birds behind the hedges: “Hey, this is London. Nobody but Russian oligarchs get everything they want in terms of real estate. If you can’t stand sharing your space, why don’t you bugger off to the country?”

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Some people did seem to be enjoying the centre, though. But these visitors fell into two narrow categories:

• Mums with children between 3 and 8
• Slightly creepy looking men, on their own, carrying cameras with giant lenses

And I couldn’t help but wonder how the park managed to sort out the bird watchers from the pedophiles.

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Some photos I took:

And this frog which was sitting in the drainage ditch outside the centre. The Vol-in-Law, whose one word review of the centre was not glowing, said he enjoyed the frog the best.

Good news, bad news

On the upside, a big ol’ car bomb failed to detonate in London.

On the downside – I realize that I was at absolutely no risk of being at a popular London nightclub at 2am on a weekday.

While I was birthing

What with a new baby and all I haven’t been following world events as closely as I might have liked. But fortunately, it seems like it was kinda a slow news week, despite the G8 summit and the weird Azerbaijani compromise. And was there a Republican presidential candidate debate? Wouldn’t matter, ’cause I’m not blogging about it until it’s an actual election year. And then in the UK, there’s a little kerfuffle over the matter of a few hundred million pounds in kick backs to a Saudi prince Bandar (and Bush buddy) in the mega, mega Al Yo-Mama arms deal. You couldn’t make it up (OK – I did a little, it was the Al-Yamamah arms deal)

But now that I’ve kinda lifted my head from the epidural haze – I can see that the big stories brewing have been:

1. The London 2012 Logo.

I hate to admit, London Mayor Red Ken is right. The people who came up with this logo should be loaded into a burlap sack, along with their logo and a live rooster and throwed into the Thames. Well, Ken Livingstone just suggested that the designers not be paid, but I really don’t think that’s good enough.

Do you?

2. Paris Hilton’s return to the slammer.

Regular readers will know I don’t usually spare much time for celebrity goss. But clearly, this is the story of the week.

It’s not the drunk driving or the probation violation that bothers me. Hey, we all make mistakes. It’s the being dragged screaming from the courtroom, I can’t stand.

No class.

They shoot foxes, don’t they?

Did you know that if you live in London you can hire a man with a rifle and a night vision scope to come to your house and hang out with his gun propped on the sill of your bathroom window? And that he can take out any visiting foxes with hopefully no more than one shot (per fox)?

I did not know that. I found this out on a show called Meet the Foxes – which was all about the foxes of North London.

I’m not sure this is such a good idea.

I know it’s only a .22, but my patio is made of some kind of composite concrete. That’s the kind of thing that might chip if dude missed.

my neighbourhood

Fellow American expat – who also lives in Tooting – (but in the Northern bit) tell us why she loves living here.

I like this neighborhood, too. And I’ve liked it more since I’ve been more involved with the local area. Recently, I’ve been reflecting on my relationship with this house, this neighbourhood, this city and my hometown(s).

• I’ve lived in the house I’m in now for longer than I’ve lived in any house.
• But I’ve lived in Knoxville longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in the world.
• Only recently, I’ve lived in London continuously, longer than I’ve lived anywhere. (My Knoxville years have been broken up)
• I’ve had (and maintain) Lawrenceburg, TN as a permanent address longer than any place else – even though it’s a distant third to Knoxville and London as places I’ve actually lived.
• I’ve lived in Tennessee longer than anywhere.