This is Prodicus's Typepad Profile.
Join Typepad and start following Prodicus's activity
Prodicus
Eastern England
Interests: Politics, music, life.
Recent Activity
Diff styles, possibly, yes, but I use all four of these platforms all the time so no clue there.
More than one SteveHiltonGuru?
Lots of folk are intrugued by Twitter's funny and well-informed spoof, SteveHiltonGuru. But perhaps they should be thinking of SteveHiltonGurus in plural. Because, there may be more than one Guru in the Wigwam of Trust, a possibility that the highly perceptive Paul Waugh recently raised. For...
Prodicus is now following Tom
Jan 21, 2012
Neatly done, Mr Lilico, placing the crucial argument where it properly belongs - in the definition of personhood.
Your 'when did you stop beating your wife' trap should (but may not) discomfort not a few philosophical cowards and ignoramuses. Then there are the unthinking drum-bangers and the cynical axe-grinders.
Overall, I fear that you have entered a battle of wits with some unarmed opponents and in consequence may find the contest less than satisfying.
Andrew Lilico: Repeal all abortion laws
By Andrew Lilico In my view there should be no laws against abortion, and no laws in favour. We need no such laws. The same laws (and principles underlying those laws) should apply to all human animals. This view comes down to two key propositions. One is an indisputable scientific fact: that...
Love the moniker. Hilarious.
Tom Burkard: Red tape is delaying the foundation of a Free School staffed by ex-military teachers
Tom Burkard undertakes Education research for the Centre for Policy Studies and is a member of the NAS/UWT and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Buckingham. He is currently working to start a free special school staffed exclusively by teachers with experience in the armed forces. Since 1994...
e.g. Peston cutting his 'No 10 back door' Murdoch clip to omit 'but much more often with Brown & Blair', leaving just the Cameron part. Shameless. They just do not care a damn about balance or what the public think.
Which British politician has Rupert Murdoch met most?
By Tim Montgomerie Follow Tim on Twitter. Yep, Gordon Brown. Let's record for posterity that during his evidence to today's special meeting of the Culture and Media Select Committee Rupert Murdoch said: (a) The British politician he met most in recent years was Gordon Brown; (b) At those me...
The BBC is coming out of this very badly. Let's hope there are repercussions. Not holding breath, etc.
Which British politician has Rupert Murdoch met most?
By Tim Montgomerie Follow Tim on Twitter. Yep, Gordon Brown. Let's record for posterity that during his evidence to today's special meeting of the Culture and Media Select Committee Rupert Murdoch said: (a) The British politician he met most in recent years was Gordon Brown; (b) At those me...
Brown's a fantasist who knows a bandwagon when he sees one.
(I am too well-brought-up to pollute this blog by calling him an incompetent, immoral, self-serving, whingeing, bitter, egomanical, shameless, lying ******* ****. I go elsewhere for that pleasure.)
Which British politician has Rupert Murdoch met most?
By Tim Montgomerie Follow Tim on Twitter. Yep, Gordon Brown. Let's record for posterity that during his evidence to today's special meeting of the Culture and Media Select Committee Rupert Murdoch said: (a) The British politician he met most in recent years was Gordon Brown; (b) At those me...
Mark Pritchard's piece at PolHome expresses my views better than I could. For Cameron to **** on Lansley now after encouraging him *for years* to become the best-informed MP on the NHS in order to take the problem by the throat would be appalling. To do it to please the increasingly appalling junior party in the coalition would be nothing short of shameful.
If the Coalition doesn't reform the NHS it will never get control of its budget
By Tim Montgomerie The Lib Dems were fully signed up to the NHS reforms until a few months ago. Nick Clegg - with David Cameron - personally signed the introduction to the NHS White Paper. John Redwood posts the additional evidence. But, now, it is obvious that the pause in NHS reforms is becomi...
What he said.
Bernard Jenkin MP: No more concessions to Clegg. No more appeasement. No more sell outs.
Bernard Jenkin is MP for Harwich and North Essex. So electoral reform has been lost. Changing the voting system for many LibDems was the sole justification of entering into coalition at all, let alone with the Tories who many LibDems dislike far more than Labour. But Nick Clegg rightly does no...
So, all funded by taxpayers directly or indirectly but not, in every case, by the local council tax payers. So that's all right then.
Tory council leaders reply to Rod Liddle's Non-Jobs charge
Further to the recent post about Rod Liddle's criticism of "non-jobs" at Conservative councils some of the Council leaders have now responded. This was the list produced by Liddle: Havant District Council (Conservative-controlled) Workplace travel co-ordinator (£22,000+) Herefordshire County Co...
It is disheartening that so many commenters here would outlaw Swiftian irony if they could, failing so completely, as they do, to either recognise or understand it. I blame the education system.
Islam should become our state religion
The Guardian became outraged when Iain Duncan Smith suggested that it was a "sin" that society had negligently abandonned 4.5 million people to live permanently on out-of work benefits instead of find ways to get them re-integrated into working life. His "mask" was said to have slipped, though ...
May I suggest some background reading? http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
Islam should become our state religion
The Guardian became outraged when Iain Duncan Smith suggested that it was a "sin" that society had negligently abandonned 4.5 million people to live permanently on out-of work benefits instead of find ways to get them re-integrated into working life. His "mask" was said to have slipped, though ...
'Pre-budget Report'? Brownian slip. Abolished. Autumn Statement.
How Osborne should set out a path to lower taxes in the budget
By Paul Goodman A passage in his budget speech should run roughly as follows - "I turn now to income tax. No-one on either side of the House would dispute that, in the medium term, lower tax rates can sometimes deliver higher revenues - and that higher tax rates can sometimes deliver lower rev...
What a miserable, po-faced lot (most of) you are. Can't see that you're in a truth-wood because you bumped your little shinny-shin-shins on a irony-tree stump. Tsk. Anyone would think you were French. Or American. (See what I did there?)
Clegg must intensify his new macho strategy
by Paul Goodman Yesterday morning, Nick Clegg shocked the Independent by claiming that the Prime Minister's been talking "complete bilge" about AV - and that he told him him so in the Commons. Later in the day, he stunned BBC Sheffield listeners by saying that he wants "to wring the necks of ...
In office, Mr Bercow might have neutralised himself (so to speak) politically and in due course night have mollified most Tories. But he hasn't (yet) - and of course his loose-cannon wife does him no favours for which one can only pity him, wondering wickedly about their private conversations... but let's get on.
His gravest error, which he must surely now regret if he has any wit at all, was to disdain the regalia of his office which are there for a purpose: to show that the office is greater than the office-holder, as with court and judicial dress. Thus Mr Bercow made clear both his unedifying vanity and his intention to superimpose himself on the ancient office of Speaker. This was contemptuous, and probably fatal to his reputation and place in history, although I doubt he realised the enormity of his action at the time. The ridicule in which he is held by many may have caused the truth to begin to dawn... but probably not.
Traditions survive ─ when they do ─ for a reason, but the apostate-Tory Mr Bercow pointedly dismissed the very suggestion. And so he no longer enjoys the protection afforded by traditions which he so airily waved away in favour of his own urges. He may wish he had the warmth of the regalia around his shoulder when ordure-bearing Arctic winds start to blow in earnest. His pathetic, petulant, shouted demands for 'respect' will prove bootless: he has personally abolished the means to acquire the very respect he craves.
And so by his own hand he positions himself as the mere simulacrum of a Speaker, nothing more than an annoying lucky pole-vaulter beholden to the doomed, dishonest leaders of the most corrupt and incompetent governing party in the modern history of the House of Commons, at least half of whose Members despise him and wish him gone. He remains in the Speaker's Chair only because the House and the country have serious business to attend to and dealing with him as he deserves would be a distraction.
The John Bercow I knew
By Paul Goodman My heart isn't really in being unpleasant about John Bercow, although I confess that my tongue's been so from time to time. Perhaps I'm too lily-livered - or kind-hearted, or bone idle to knuckle down to the task. Or maybe there's too much competition. Or perhaps I hold back...
I'm confused. (Shut up at the back.) 'Seventeenth century language' vs. 'his style seemed less dated'. Eh? Less dated than what? Dryden's verse?
The John Bercow I knew
By Paul Goodman My heart isn't really in being unpleasant about John Bercow, although I confess that my tongue's been so from time to time. Perhaps I'm too lily-livered - or kind-hearted, or bone idle to knuckle down to the task. Or maybe there's too much competition. Or perhaps I hold back...
This is the most important article yet posted on ConHome. Thank you. And God rot the wreckers, from Heath to Brown via Major and Blair. Traitors, all.
Andrew Lilico: Is constitutional Conservatism finished, and what would that mean?
The Coalition has a constitutional agenda overwhelmingly set by the Liberal Democrats. At the 2010 General Election, the Liberal Democrat manifesto contained (on page 88) the following two promises: Introduce fixed-term parliaments to ensure that the Prime Minister of the day cannot change the ...
Then, Mr Docherty, let there be a statue to Mr Blair in Labour Party HQ, for the 'achievements' you describe are wholly party political, not national.
Now, about Mr Blair's 'achievements' benefiting the United Kingdom and thereby warranting the tributes of the entire nation. You go first. Begin with his choice of Chancellor and go in from there.
Conor Burns leads opposition to statue of Tony Blair being erected alongside Thatcher and Churchill
Tim Montgomerie According to the Mail on Sunday, Conservative MP Conor Burns is leading the opposition to a plan by a Labour MP to erect a statue in the Members' Lobby of the House of Commons, alongside Winston Churchill and Lady Thatcher: "It is preposterous to say that Mr Blair deserves the ...
May I suggest placement of your explosives somewhere under the box office manager's lair? He or she runs the least efficient, rudest, most rapacious and customer-unfriendly booking system in London.
Their credit voucher system for returns is shameful and quite unnecessary. Visitors to London who may not have the opportunity to come to another performance within six months of returning a ticket have to lose their money. In my case this week, £130-ish for two Bartoli tickets. A nice little earner for the Barbican, eh? A business with any ethical sense (let us discount leftie whining about 'Access to The Arts') would **REFUND MY MONEY**, Sir Nicholas.
Cecilia Bartoli proves Handel has no rivals
Cecilia Bartoli - Barbican, 9 December 2010 On a cold, damp winter's night with the Barbican totally bereft of sandwiches (again), half its ladies loos out of action (still) and bar staff who chuck ice into into your essential V&T without even asking - that's when you need Cecilia Bartoli, rel...
Ah, ok. Good show. Thanks.
George Osborne considers using £45 billion profit from nationalised banks to fund economy-boosting tax cuts
Tim Montgomerie If the Chancellor of the Exchequer's first budget was about cutting the deficit his second budget is likely to be all about economic growth. That is the hope I expressed in my Sunday Telegraph column and the News of the World (£) suggests that on 23rd March 2011 George Osborne ...
OT
Is it just me or is there a delay of several minutes before one's comment appears?
George Osborne considers using £45 billion profit from nationalised banks to fund economy-boosting tax cuts
Tim Montgomerie If the Chancellor of the Exchequer's first budget was about cutting the deficit his second budget is likely to be all about economic growth. That is the hope I expressed in my Sunday Telegraph column and the News of the World (£) suggests that on 23rd March 2011 George Osborne ...
Hear, hear. Louder.
George Osborne considers using £45 billion profit from nationalised banks to fund economy-boosting tax cuts
Tim Montgomerie If the Chancellor of the Exchequer's first budget was about cutting the deficit his second budget is likely to be all about economic growth. That is the hope I expressed in my Sunday Telegraph column and the News of the World (£) suggests that on 23rd March 2011 George Osborne ...
Green was acceptable while Gordon was PM. He only became a complete bastard when the ******** Tories got in. Now get out of my way. Don't you know who I am?
Polly Toynbee snapped at Topshop protest: captions, please
My thoughts exactly.
The American Embassy's view of Labour: Brown was "abysmal", Harman "lightweight", Balls "dull", and McBride "a particularly unpleasant person"
by Paul Goodman Whatever one thinks of the Wikileaks saga, the American Embassy's view of Gordon Brown, his potential successors (the Embassy doesn't seem to have spotted Ed Miliband) and his aides is irresistable. Gordon Brown "The US embassy in London wrote off Gordon Brown within a year ...
My thoughts exactly.
The American Embassy's view of Labour: Brown was "abysmal", Harman "lightweight", Balls "dull", and McBride "a particularly unpleasant person"
by Paul Goodman Whatever one thinks of the Wikileaks saga, the American Embassy's view of Gordon Brown, his potential successors (the Embassy doesn't seem to have spotted Ed Miliband) and his aides is irresistable. Gordon Brown "The US embassy in London wrote off Gordon Brown within a year ...
More...
Subscribe to Prodicus’s Recent Activity