2007/November    FINAL	Every edition of BFN is compiled in accordance with official 10 Downing Street guidelines on accuracy and veracity.
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SLEAZE NEWS "Not me, gov!" It's business as usual in the labour party as far as fund-raising goes. Everyone's been accepting illegal donations from a secret benefactor, the party's general secretary has been liquidated and the treasurer might also be terminated, but all the politicians have alibis and no intention of resigning in shame because there is no shame in being sleazy under labour's rules. Pull the other one, mate! A notorious control-freak and nit-picker would like us to believe he knew nothing about illegal donations to his leadership campaign – which never happened because there was no leadership election in the labour party. But given his mob's sorry relationship with telling the truth, scotch gordon is wasting his breath with his assurances of honest ignorance. Another little sweetener The European Commission has ordered its minions to stop fining member states for breaking the rules. This bonanza will last for the first 6 months of next year while the latest attempt to revive the rejected EU Constitution is on-going, and it is seen as the sort of bribe while will make everyone fall into line.

MISCELLANY Pub Quiz Question Of the Month "How many painters did Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch artist, assassinate while living in Arles in France?" A Question Which Doesn't Need An Answer "What's brown and dodgy?"

TRAVEL NEWS Iceberg 1, MV Explorer 0 The cruise ship hit a submerged growler in Antarctic waters and acquired a hole in the hull 'the size of a fist'. You'd expect closing watertight doors and getting the pumps going would have kept the ship afloat with a not too terrible leak, but it sank. Which doesn't say much for the safety standards of ships operating in the region, the regulations governing polar cruises, the quality of ship inspections and the degree of enforcement. Poor people must stay put Train fares are to soar by 5% (regulated) or up to 15% (unregulated) next year as part of the labour government's strategy of ending overcrowding by forcing paupers off the railways instead of giving travellers more trains.

MELTDOWN NEWS Government by blunderbuss HM Revenue & Customs emails show that the chancellor (him with the eyebrows) and the current prime monster have both been giving out false information about how the CDs containing the personal and financial details of 25 million people were lost.    In fact, the National Audit Office asked specifically for safe delivery and deletion of the bank account data. But HMRC didn't do either on cost grounds because of official standing orders issued by scotch gordon.    But labour's favourite accountancy firm, which gets work worth millions & millions of pounds from this government, is investigating so scotch & Co. have nothing to worry about and the whitewash will be applied. He's been a clunker all his government career! scotch gordon likes to think he has this reputation for being the bee's knees when it comes to financial matters. But, a long time after the event, the news has emerged that he made a total bog of selling of QinetiQ, the Ministry of Defence's research wing. He let the US firm Carlyle stiff the taxpayer and a gang of civil servants sell off a national asset for just one-eighth of its market prices and cost the nation hundreds of millions of pound. And, incidentally, 10 of the civil servants got to split £107 million pounds when the dust settled.    But this shouldn't come as any surprise. When he was chancellor, scotch announced that he was selling off half of Britain's gold reserves ahead of joining the euro (which didn't happen). He made his announcement a month before the sale, and the gold price plunged to its lowest level for 20 years. So that when the gold was actually sold, the nation lost hundreds of millions of pounds.

RECYCLING NEWS   A very brown strategy Part 1. Our clunking prime monster is grabbing headlines and personal publicity by announcing huge amounts of spending, which won't save the planet because it's all a drop in the ocean compared to the 'pollution' coming from the United States and China. Part 2. Our clunking prime monster is keeping very quiet about all the cuts in conservation and environmental protection programmes, which he's having to make to pay for his headlines. "Seriously, though; he's doing a grand job!" David Frost's famous put down from 1960s satire show That Was The Week That Was has been revived for the benefit of this sorry government's gang of screw-ups. It is being applied mainly to alastair 'him with the eyebrows' darling, the lame duck chancellor, but our clunking prime monster is also getting his fair share of fake endorsement.

CRIMINAL NEWS Blame the organ grinder, not the monkey sir ian blair (no relation), a.k.a. new labour's favourite copper, is being blamed for the Metropolitan Police's fiddled crime figures by newspapers which are desperate to see him sacked. But what the ranting tabloids seem to have forgotten is that it's the Home Office and the rest of the labour government which are behind the false crime figures. They were fiddled to 'prove' that crime is going down and this useless, corrupt government is doing a good job. British govt. please note! Italy has introduced a law to allow the expulsion of undesirables from other EU countries if they are 'a threat to society'. This extends the law to criminals as well as terrorists. Which means that the Italians can now chuck out shedloads of Romanian, whose exodus to Italy has reduced crime by 26% in their own country. Gesture justice, or a consequence of prison overcrowding? A Spanish court sentenced 2 Moroccans to 42,922 and 42,942 years in gaol for their part in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, but the maximum they can serve is 40 years, so they'll be 74 and 72 when they get out. The Spanish bloke who supplied the explosives got a mere 34,715 years, so he'll have to do less than 40 years inside. Was it beyond the wit of the Spanish judges to dish out consecutive individual sentences for each murder to ensure that these terrorists die in gaol? KGB Tour opportunity? The Pine bar at the Millennium hotel in Mayfair has reopened just over a year after a murder took place in it. Retired Russian spy Alexandr Litvinyenko was poisoned with radioactive polonium in a pot of green tea by another ex-KGB agent, who is now basking in the approval of the Russian establishment in Moscow. The bar had to be stripped of everything; carpets, wall panels, glasses, etc.; to tackle the radiation hazard. There's not much that can be done for the staff who were exposed to the radioactivity, however. Although their added cancer risk is officially described as small. An interesting scam In some areas, people who report a stolen mobile phone hear nothing from the police for 2-3 weeks, then a copper tries to persuade them to have the phone listed as lost property. Why? Because lost phones don't contribute to crime figures and pretending stolen phones have been lost helps the government to lie about the crime rate. If it's not one thing, it's another! sir ian blair (no relation) has the full support of our prime monster over shooting members of the public. But will he still be able to enjoy the dour one's patronage when scotch gordon finds out that the Met is being investigated for living it up with police-issue credit cards? On the other hand, like the Cash For Honours thing, maybe a little interference from Downing Street will also make this inconvenient investigation come to nothing. Totally useless? They must be! HM Revenue & Customs has lost 2 CDs containing the personal, national insurance and banking details of 25 million people. The data was downloaded, in flagrant breach of data protection laws, to CDs at the HMRC office in Newcastle on October 18th and sent to London via the HMRC internal mail system. They didn't arrived, which means that identity thieves are in a frantic scramble to get their hands on the dodgy disks.    The taxpayer will have to foot the bill for any fraud committed by either identity thieves or HMRC customers who think they can get away with a swindle. The "Bad Science" guy in the following Saturday's Guardian pointed out that biometrics, the government's mantra for such occasions, won't stop data being lost by low-level staff working in a system with no security protocols and lax management. And what does the customer do if a thief copies their fingerprint, either from something they've touched or by cracking the coded data on a passport or ID card? How do you change a PIN in the form of a fingerprint? Totally useless? They must be, Part 2 sir i. blair (no relation) has survived a no confidence motion at the Metropolitan Police authority; but only because the labour party stepped in and rigged the vote in his favour. It's what labour calls 'pro-active democracy', apparently. Totally useless? They must be, Part 3 Should we be outraged that HMRC won't be fined for the biggest data crime in the history of the universe? Well, no, actually. A fine would just have moved taxpayers' cash from one government pocket to another while shoving a ton of public money into the collective pockets of the legal profession. So, in fact, we should be relieved that the charade of justice won't be happening.    But knocking £10 million of the pension pot of scotch 'the useless bastard who caused the mess' gordon's pension pot? Now, that would be a great idea! Plea bargain accepted The worst bit of the sentence on the NatWest 3, the bogus banking martyrs who have admitted being part of the Enron fraud, is that as well as having to go to gaol for 3 years (less the usual deductions), they're going to have to pay back the $7.3 million that they made out of their swindle.

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CLIMATE NEWS   The truth behind the lies Why is the government lying about the number of migrants in Britain? Because the size of the nation's imaginary carbon footprint is calculated at a rate of an arbitrary number of metric tons of carbon dioxide per head of population. And a new labour way to get the size of the footprint down is to lie about the size of the population. Carbon con-men want it both ways Last month, we were told that the oceans are absorbing only half as much carbon dioxide as they used to absorb, so the atmosphere is becoming overloaded with this minor greenhouse gas. The month, the story is that the oceans are absorbing so much carbon dioxide that they are becoming too acidic for mussels to survive.    Next month, a different, mutually contradictory horror story! You can bet on it! Don't panic? Who are you kidding! The government says there is no reason to panic about shortages of energy and gas this winter. Which means that something is guaranteed to go spectacularly wrong, given the record of this sorry shower of tossers. This lot will save the planet? Who are you kidding! The monthly trek of the European Parliament to and from Strasbourg, to massage the egos of the Bad European French, is responsible for putting a quarter of a million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. So much for the EU's commitment to saving the planet. Grin brown reality scotch gordon is forever telling us he's going to save the planet, but he'll have a tough time explaining how that's going to happen if DEFRA (the Department of the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) had its budget for conservation and environment protection cut by £300 million.    The treasury cut the budget by £200 million after Margaret Beckett made such a bog of distributing subsidies to British farmers that the EU withheld £350 million of the cash and tagged on a huge fine. The rest is coming from abandoning vital projects, which have turned out not to be so vital after all under the new labour management. Didn't you just know this would be true! A study by the Building Research Establishment Trust has found that putting a wind turbine on the side of a house in a town or city area with weak winds increases the building's carbon footprint. Why? Because the turbine construction, installation & maintenance costs will never be covered by the amount of electricity generated.

DEPARTURES Lillian Ellison, b.k.a The Fabulous Moolah The First Lady of professional wrestling has died at 84. She broke into the grappling game in the late 1940s and became women's champion in 1956. She then went on to hold the title for an astonishing 28 years, which makes today's alleged superstars look very ordinary.    Moolah trained and promoted lady wrestlers as well as performing herself, and in 1972, so the WW$ tribute says, she became the first lady wrestler to perform at Madison Square Garden [which leaves us asking who her opponent was; was it a bloke? Ed.]. She was the first female wrestler inducted into the WW$ Hall of Fame (in 1995) and she continued to entertain at WW$ promotions into the 21st century, usually with her friend the indestructible Mae Young. DEPARTURES Charles B. Griffith A prolific writer of screenplays for 'B' and 'Z' movies has died at 77. Mr. Griffith delivered a ton of scripts to the celebrated Roger Corman, including the splendid Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), The Undead (1957), A Bucket of Blood (1959), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and the banned (until recently) Death Race 2000. He also directed half a dozen of the low-budget pictures and played small roles in them.    He wrote very quickly, because no one had told him that a writer is supposed to agonize over a screenplay, and he had the good sense not to take any of the films seriously. He retired in 1988 but his contribution to the world of films wasn't forgotten; Quentin Tarantino dedicated his most recent film, Death Proof (2007) to the memory of Chuck Griffith. DEPARTURES Norman Mailer A rumbustious novelist, journalist, poet & playwright, who thought nothing of punching someone in the mouth, had died at 84. Recognized as one of the great American writers of the 20th/21st centuries, he started his literary career with a bang. The Naked and the Dead (1948), a World War 2 novel partly based on the author's own experiences, became an unexpected best-seller.    Mr. Mailer spent a lot of the 1950s drunk and/or drugged, but he managed to co-found the influential Village Voice in 1955. He was famous for his feuds with other writers and he enjoyed controversy, which led naturally to politics. He was a vigorous campaigner against the Vietnam war and he ran for the job of mayor of New York. Strap on half a dozen marriages, and the whole adds up to a very full life! DEPARTURES Ian Smith The last man in charge of a prosperous Rhodesia has died at 88. Born in Southern Rhodesia, Ian Smith joined the RAF when World War Two broke out and served in the Middle East and Mediterranean theatres. He joined his country's parliament in 1948 and when the Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland collapsed, he asked the British government to grant the rest of Rhodesia it's promised independence.    Harold Wilson, the worst British prime minister since Lord North, refused so Mr. Smith made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, which survived sanctions and a war with black rebels for some 15 years. Robert Mugabe became prime minister then president of Zimbabwe and Ian Smith retired to his farm when the country became a one-party state doomed to descend to rack & ruin in the hands of another corrupt African regime. He spent his last years in South Africa.    He remained 'Good Old Smithy' to his many supporters and he retained world-wide admiration for his stance against the posturing Wilson, the ingenuity of his administration's sanction-busting manoeuvres and his role as the last bastion against black corruption in Africa. DEPARTURES Robert 'Evel' Knievel The King of the Motorcycle Daredevils has died at 69. As famous for his flops as his successes, Mr. Knievel got himself into the Guinness Book of Records with his total of 433 bone fractures sustained when motorcycle jumps over lines of buses and fountains at Las Vegas went horribly wrong.    His most famous flop was a much-hyped attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho on a rocket bike in 1974. His safety parachute deployed as his bike left the ramp and the only direction he went was down!    The last of Mr. Knievel's retirements came in 1980, when he was in his early 40s and after his son had picked up the torch. By then, Mr. Knievel had established enough of a reputation to let him live hard and enjoy himself to the end. DEPARTURES Robert Cade The inventor of the sports drink of choice for coach-dunking has died at 80. He created his beverage to help the college footbal team the Florida Gators survive while playing American crunch in high humidity at temperatures above 100 deg.F. Unlike water, Gatorade replaced salts as well as lost fluids, which could reach 16-18 pounds in weight during a 3-hour match.    It achieved national recognition in the United States when the Gators won the Orange Bowl in 1967 and the head coach of the defeated Georgia Tech announced that Gatorade had made the difference.    The sports drink is now sold in 80 countries and pouring a tub of it over the coach when an NFL team makes the playoffs, and wins the Super Bowl, has become an established tradition. DEPARTURES Sean Taylor This Washington Redskins' defensive back was murdered by an intruder in his Miami home at the age of 24. He was shot in the leg and died in hospital 24 hours later. The police have no description of the suspect. There was another break-in at Mr. Taylor's home eight days earlier, when it was unoccupied.    A knee injury meant that Mr. Taylor, a free safety, was not expected to play in the Redskins' match at Tampa Bay the following Sunday. As a mark of respect, every NFL team has added a decal bearing his number, 21, to their players' helmets.    At the time of his death, Sean Taylor was having his best ever season. He had settled down after a wild start to his life, he was becoming one of the team's leaders, and he had been elected to the players' committee, which meets regularly with head coach Joe Gibbs.

DOSH NEWS The brown legacy . . . MoneyFacts.co.uk, a mortgage comparison website, has found that if you've heard of a mortgage provider, they'll rip you off. All the big-name banks offer bad deals and only smaller building societies are worth using. Just so you know Banknotes issued by banks in Scotland & Northern Ireland aren't legal tender anywhere in the UK – not even in the country of issue. Bank of England notes are legal tender only in England & Wales. It's called getting your own back! Members of the House of Lords are running up record bills for expenses, particularly for hotels and travel. It looks like the ones who paid the labour party for their peerage have found a way to get their cash back. It's only money! The latest estimate for the cost of an ID card and a new-generation biometric passport is now £5.6 billion. So would-be travellers are advised to start saving at once! The most overtaxed petrol in Europe . . . . . . hit £1/litre this month; another portion of scotch gordon's Stealth Tax legacy. Noises of protest blockades by truckers are in the air again. "Gee, thanks!" The Clunking Fist has wished upon us the biggest trade gap since the 1680s, when records of such things began. How's that for fiscal prudence? No surprise really, just the usual government fraud The government is pretending that there was a higher than expected rise in inflation in October; up to 2.1% from September's 1.8%. Who do they think they're kidding? Everyone knows that the inflation figure for September is always held down artificially as that when the Treasury sets the level of benefits, including pensions, for the next financial year. No surprise really, just the usual government fraud The government is looking for a way to write off over £2 billion owed as interest on taxpayers' money borrowed from the Treasury by the Northern Rock bank. Why? To protect labour votes in the North-East, where the bank is based. Who's the Wally with the Lolly? The tabloids got themselves in a real lather after England threw away their chance to be in Euro 2008. But we have a government under which rewarding failure is expected and no one is ever to blame. So if a failed England football coach gets himself sacked to collect a contract pay-off of £2½ million, he's just following government policy and it's what you'd expect to happen. Pay more, get less The Royal Mail plans to abandon morning deliveries to cut costs. Its managers are blaming an EU 'green' directive on the speed of lorries making overnight deliveries to sorting centres but the real reason behind the reduction in service is a wish to eliminate night shifts and cut down on overtime.

Words Of Our Time ENERGY REBOUND – Give motorists more fuel-efficient vehicles and they use them more often and drive further; as a result of which, they use more fuel than before!

HEALTH NEWS How to live forever If you want to avoid getting cancer, stop eating! That's the latest advice from the 'experts'. Red meat, junk and processed foods (especially bacon and sausages), cakes, snacks in packets, biscuits, crisps, sugary drinks, chips, salt, vitamin pills, boozing strong drink and putting on weight all cause cancer and have to be avoided. In fact, would-be immortals have to give up everything that makes life worth living and if they can get to less than Size Zero, that's great. Which raises the interesting question: "Who would want to live forever like that?" We're all doomed! The medical profession has come up with something new for us to worry about: GRE. this new superbug is so antibiotic-resistant that if patients get MRSA as well as GRE, a totally antibiotic-resistant, unslayable version of MRSA could be created.    The GRE problem has arisen because doctors are so busy trying to meet government targets for the likes of MRSA that they are ignoring other superbugs until it's too late.

HOME NEWS Desperate times, desperate remedy The government is worried about an energy crisis this winter, and shortages of gas and oil for generating electricity. But BlackFlag News can offer a simple solution to the problem – round up the nation's fatties and install them at exercise bike ranches, where they can pedal off the pounds while keeping the nation's lights burning. A day to remember? November 1st has been declared a national holiday whenever it falls on a Thursday. Bottler Thursday will commemorate scotch gordon's chickening out of calling a general election this year because he shot himself in the foot and tipped the opinion polls toward the Tories. Virgin Media sticks it to the customers Calls to 01 & 02 phone numbers go up by one-third from the first of this month, the weekend rates for these and all other numbers are abolished, the connection charge goes up 17% and the 3p Talk Plan is upgraded to the 4p Talk Plan. Thanks very much, Mr. Branston. Posturing or politics? The object of this month's Queen's speech, apparently, was to reverse scotch gordon's slide in the opinion polls, which rather misses the point. He's being paid a small fortune in cash, expenses and pension contributions to look after the interests of the British people. So maybe it's time he got on with that and stopped massaging his own ego and feathering his own next. Clunking Fist, Closed Ear The listening prime monster heard 95% of those asked say they don't want Genetically Monstered crops but scotch has decided to ignore them and let DEFRA go ahead with further plantings of GM spuds, oilseed rape, sugar beet, etc. Ever wondered why our borders are so porous? The truth can now be told. The Home Office, via the Security Industry Authority, has been letting illegal immigrants take jobs as security guards in all parts of the government machine, and the illegals have been letting their mates in. The alleged Home Sec., j. smith, has been letting this sorry tale dribble out. First, there were 5,000 illegals with security jobs and she admitted being told about them in July. Then it was revealed that there are 10,000 of the buggers and the Home Office has been looking for a way to put a positive spin on the mess since April. How does brown government work? The pompous Admiral Lord West, who was lured into the Big Tent as Britain's chief security minister, found out when he dared to go off message over detaining terrorist suspects for more than 28 days. He was hauled to Downing Street to be sat upon by the Clunking Arse and an hour later, he was spouting the party line like a regular labour party stooge. Magic! Our teenage foreign sec. davey boy miliband, is also in line for a clunking. Following scotch gordon's poor performance, davey has been trying to get his campaign to be class president rolling again and the clunking prime monster is feeling 'destabilized'. More clunking Having failed miserably with his campaign to put British people into British jobs, which is illegal under the EU laws introduced by labour, the Clunking Fist is trying again by the back door. He now wants football clubs to get rid of their foreign players and show off home-grown talent. "Cobblers to the lot of them!" So it's Hitler Huhne versus Calamity Clegg now? What a brilliant choice for the trivial democrats when they pick their new leader. Looks like Clottish Compo and Festering Foggy have to be back in with a real chance! And what about Cruncher Cable, who pounded scotch gordon with his 'Stalin to Mr. Bean' gibe? Except that he's on the wrong side of 60 and well past it, as far as the Triv-Dems are concerned. GOATS go official scotch gordon's GOATS aspiration; a Government Of All the TalentS, a.k.a. Big Tentism; is to be formalized via a new quango called GoatsGov, which will be outfitted with a staff of the usual labour cronies on fancy salaries, and a hugely expensive website, in due course. Balls to the inconvenient truths? Our education minister (and scotch gordon's chief crony) eddie balls has just confirmed that brown labour is every bit as spin-happy as blair labour ever was. He has torpedoed the UN's conclusion that British children have the worst quality of life in the developed West by getting his civil servants to cherry pick just the good bits out of 150 academic reports to prove that everything in the garden is really rosy. Magic! Balls to the inconvenient truths, Part 2, or "Who's the nutter over there?" Prime monster reject antonio b. liar (a.k.a. smug bugger) is trying to shift the blame for his bog-ups and outright disasters onto a higher being. He has admitted now that he is a religious nutter (something which he was afraid to do in office), and he reckons God told him to do everything from building the Millennium Dome and invading Iraq on a lie to abolishing ministerial responsibility and selling honours to labour donors.

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SPACE NEWS A comet you can actually see! (just about) An old comet, which was first spotted by British astronomer Edwin Holmes in 1892, brightened up dramatically in the last week of October. Astronomers are speculating that the comet has a fragile structure, which collapsed partially and released a vast cloud of dust. This is supported by the comet's appearance; it is a fuzzy ball of light with no discernable tail. It is alleged to have a magnitude of 2-3 and to be a naked-eye object; but only in places with a dark sky.    The clouds over Romiley parted on the Saturday before Bonfire Night to allow Romiley Astronomical Society to locate the 'W-shaped' constellation of Cassiopeia and lower their binoculars to the region of Alpha Persei (a.k.a. Mirfak) and Delta Persei (about 30 degrees above the horizon at 18:30 hours). The two stars, and the comet on their left, filled the field of view of the binoculars, which were necessary as the comet is just about visible to the naked eye but not recognizable as a comet. Rockets and roman candles let off by people celebrating Bonfire Night a couple of days early provided further diversions for the comet-hunters. Mission accomplished The space shuttle Discovery has made a safe return to Earth, despite the obvious handicap of a female pilot, after "the trickiest and riskiest mission ever" to the International Space Station. During the landing, Discovery flew across the United States from north-west to south-east for the first time since the loss of the shuttle Columbia. Previous missions have approached Florida from the Gulf of Mexico as a safety precaution.    The tricky part of the mission was tacking together damaged ISS solar panels, which were torn by a snagged wire when they opened. Astronaut Dr. Scott Parazynsky spent more than four hours risking electrocution while performing the stapling job. The primary aim of the mission was to deliver the Italian-built Node 2 "Harmony" module, which will connect the future European laboratory "Columbus" and the Japanese "Kibo" laboratory.    The mission was launched despite a recommendation from a committee of NASA engineers that three of 44 thermal tiles on the wings should be replaced. NASA, which has a history of unfortunate engineering decisions, concluded that the risk was not high enough to delay the launch for the 2 months needed to replace the tiles; and got away with it this time.

SPORTS NEWS England 2, Croatia 3, or "No wonder the call it the FA!" "There were guys in England shirts, especially defenders, who were dozy enough to be in the government!"    If Steve McLaren was such a disaster and so obviously unsuitable as a replacement for the Swede as coach to the England football team, why aren't the Football Association tossers who hired him also getting the sack?

WAR NEWS No scam too strange when targets at stake Recruiters for Burma's armed forces, who are paid by the head for their new signings, have found that they can get away with putting children as young as 10 on the books. They get away with it because Burmese military commanders have their own targets for troop numbers, and they'll take anyone who can walk to meet those targets. "Don't call me, my phone's switched off!" Lord Drayson of Vaccine has decided to go motor racing in the United States because he's fed up with the Clunking Control Freak messing about with his Defence Procurement portfolio and blaming him for the shambles created. Can all of them be wrong? They must be! Everyone who used to be in charge of a branch of the armed services is queueing up to yell how they've been neglected and overstretched under labour. Every finger is pointing at the Clunking Control Freak now occupying No. 10, who took no interest in the forces until he became prime monster and he had to start announcing the names of the dead in Iraq & Afghanistan. Given a superfluity of examples of labour incompetence, it looks like the fingers have got it right in the blame department.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT BlackFlag News plans to launch a social networking website for people who don't use the Internet. "Why should these people be left out?" our Editor asks. Watch this space for further details!

WORLD NEWS The ultimate in DIY news management? FEMA, the US government agency which is supposed to tackle major emergencies (like the fate of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the effects of last month's wildfires in California) has a plan for news conferences which the meeja ignore – or fail to attend when they get about 10 minutes' notice of the event. When faced with ranks of empty seats, they just make up their own questions and supply self-congratulatory answers.    The British government is reviewing the plan to see if it can be used to relieve the embarrassment of ministers of the accident-prone broon regime. The road to true democracy Pakistan's government has taken a giant step toward true democracy and relief from terrorism by arresting shoals of lawyers and defusing the judiciary. All they have to do now is get round to the trade union leaders and the job will be more or less done. Thanks a bunch! Something else the English taxpayer will be expected to pay for – the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Advice of the month "Por qué no te callas?" – King Juan Carlos of Spain to Motormouth Chavez, the totally tedious president of Venezuela. Yet more ignored corruption & incompetence The EU's accounts have rejected by the auditors for the 13th year in succession. The European Court of Auditors found that the European Commission failed to check on how €63 billion was spent out of the total EU budget of €105 billion. Which explains why Greek, Italian and Spanish olive-growers got away, yet again, with exaggerating the number of trees they have and bridges with no connecting roads were built in the Third World parts of eastern Europe. Comment Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani presidential hopeful, is lucky to be under house arrest instead of banged up in gaol awaiting investigation on multi-million pound fraud charges. Homogenized out of existence – another brilliant, if recycled, idea from the EU The EU's campaign to obliterate national identities by stealth rolls on. The latest wheeze is to recycle a rejected idea from 2004 and ban 'Made in Britain' labels in favour of 'Made in the EU' labels. The idea was proposed by the health commissioner of Cyprus, who clearly needs an urgent appointment with a mental health commission. Waste, Waste, Waste – The EU's motto EU quota regulations are forcing North Sea fishermen to dump a million tons of dead fish back into the sea every year. This happens when they go after one species and catch another species living in the same area. Up to 90% of the catch can become seagull food thanks to EU boneheadedness. We always knew it was a scam The UN has admitted exaggerating the extent of AIDs in the world in order to extract more funds for the AIDS industry. UN scammers invented an extra 6 million infected people to bring the worldwide total up to a nice, round 40 million instead of the actual total of around 33 million. One law for everyone? It is to be hoped that the Islamic government in northern Sudan will show a bit of fairness. A teacher from Liverpool was arrested for blasphemy this month. Her 'crime' was letting her class name a teddy bear Mohammed after the most popular boy in the class. So we expect the Sudanese government to lock up the kid's parents, and the parents of everyone else called Mohammed and just to be completely fair, everyone in the country called Mohammed.    Note: there's nothing in the Koran for or against calling a toy Mohammed but jihadistas never let such inconvenient facts stand in the way of their synthetic outrage.

	sir ian blair (no relation), for his unaccountable Metropolitan Police, which can go around killing Brazilian visa-overstayers and it's no one's fault. GMTV for giving Heather Mills the air-time for her whinge binge. The Sunday Post for thinking it was a bad idea for GMTV to give Heather Mills priority for her whinge over scotch gordon delivering some tosh on his plans for screwing up the education system. Fining the Metropolitan Police for shooting a visa-overstayer in mistake for a terrorist. It's just moving public money from one government pocket to another, and throwing a lot more public cash at the legal profession, and no substitute for sacking the dope(s) responsible for the shambles. The Spanish judges who gaoled the 2004 Madrid train bombers for 42,000 or 34,000 years, knowing the maximum sentence is just 40 years. Silly gestures like that make a mockery of the whole judicial process. Home Office minister and convicted criminal Liam Byrne, who thought he was exempt from the laws forbidding the use of a mobile phone while driving. Hilary Beach, the buffoonish labour mayor of Chepstow, who tried to stop the 1st Battalion of The Rifles from carrying rifles at a Remembrance Day because weapons 'are too violent'. The council parking wardens, who were handing out tickets during the 2-minute silence on Remembrance Day and didn't know what all the parades were about. Public Health Minister dawn primarolo, who thinks binge drinking is confined to middle-aged, middle-class wine-drinkers! West Midlands police, according to Ofcom, which rejected their complaints about the Channel 4 documentary Undercover Mosque, which exposed Islamic preachers engaged in hate crimes, which the West Midlands police ignored. HM Revenue & Customs, with which we would like to couple alastair 'him with the eyebrows' darling and clunking gordon. Transport for London, which dropped a lady who did their recorded announcements because some idiot at TfL got the hump over what she didn't say and didn't bother to check what she'd actually said about travelling on the Northern Line.

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