United win the cup

A wonderful goal. You just cant describe the emotion when a "lesser' club wins a a major trophy. I have supported Dundee United since 1979 and the middle of the night web feed had just as much drama as being there as a 10 year old in 83 when they won the league.

Labour MP insults Maori

This morning on TVNZ's breakfast programme Labour party MP Jacinda Ardern said that Maori "cannot count".

That's right, Jacinda "my little pony" Ardern has insulted all Maori by implying that they are not smart enough to do basic math.

Can you imagine the howls of faux outrage if these words had been uttered by a member of National or the ACT party?

My little pony owes all Maori an apology.

http://tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news/breakfast-thursday-may-27-3569205/video?vid=3569338

Latvian Blonde Festival

New Zealanders have a lot to learn from post Communist Europe. It seems that people get all gloomy during times of economic doom.

Latvia on the other hand got their shit together and the Latvian Blonde Association last year created a parade and other events to brighten up everybodys mood. This involved several hundred blonde women (and other women I'm sure) to dress up in mini skirts, pink tight tops and high heels and they marched down the main street in Riga. Needless to say, this gathered international exposure and thousands of photos were circulated around the globe making everybody happy :) Funds raised went directly to building a playground for disabled children in Riga.

The success for this festival has meant they are doing it all again this year. In fact this coming weekend, May 28-30th, blondes from all over Europe will take part in a festival including Marilyn Monroe competitions, the parade and of course a pink after party. Going by the amazing photos of last year it is going to be epic...

Which begs the question, why am I going on about it.

Because, I am going to it.

Flights booked last year, acommodation in Riga booked even earlier... I have contacts in Riga including the chief organiser the 2008/9 Mrs Universe - whom I will be meeting the day I arrive! I have been in contact with the organisers pretty much as soon as I read about the first one last year and I am going to every single event while enjoying a 4 day weekend in Riga.
When I organise trips, I don't go half way!

Riga is an ideal place for this sort of event to be held in as it is where many gorgeous women live and of course the surrounding countries of central/eastern Europe have many equally stunning women who will attend. You would honestly have difficulty having this festival in NZ :)

So expect a few days of quiet from me over the latter parts of the week and I shall post photos here or Facebook to share of this exciting and fun festival!

Air NZ Best Blog Award

The Bloggers Union have put together a REAL blog awards competition to counter the piss poor offerings put up by Qantas with equally terrible judges.

Click here to go to the blog, The Air NZ Best Blog Award.

They even have a few decent enough judges...
Matthew Hooton, Martyn "Bomber" Bradbury, Ricardo Simich, Tim Selwyn and
Regan Cunliffe.. well I said decent enough, Bomber is a tool.

Anyway, enjoy!

Barry Laverick, my favourite poet.

I was cleaning out my email inbox this afternoon and came across this little cracker, I know it is somewhat out of date but it still made me laugh.

'Twas doon by the inch o' Abbots
Oor Johnny walked one day
When he saw a sicht that troubled him
Far more that he could say
A fanatic muslim bastard
Wiz doin what he'd planned
And intae Glesca's departure hall
A Cherokee Jeep he'd rammed.
A big Glaswegian polis
Came forward tae assist
He thocht "a wumman driver"
Or at least someone half-pissed
But to his shock nae drunken Jock
Emerged to grasp his hand
But a flamin Arab loony
Frae Al Qaeda's band
The mad Islamist nut-case
Had set hissel' on fire
And swung oot at the polis
GBH his clear desire
Now that's no richt wur Johnny cried
And sallied tae the fray
A left hook and a heid butt
Required tae save the day.
Now listen up Bin Laden
Yir sort's nae wanted here
For imported English radicals
Us Scoatsman huv nae fear
Oor hame grown Glesca Asians
Will have nae bluidy truck
So tak yer worldwide jihad
An get yersel tae F***

Barry Laverick

You can't please some people!

Despite across the board tax cuts, Kiwis are still a nation of whingers and whiners.

Don't believe me, read these reader comments from the Herald.

Seems that people don't like being given their money back. Fuck, we may as well nuke NZ and start again.

In all fairnes there are some gems in there, but the others need their heads knocked together!

How to wind up the left - The Budget Edition

It is very simple to upset The Labour Party and their paid blogger mates The Standard.


Cut taxes and give everybody in NZ more money in their back pockets every payday.
Cut corporate taxes to 28& to try and beat the Aussies and drive investment to NZ.
Reward workers with a lifetime of more take home pay.

Keep it up! The howls of outrage are only from the fringes of society, most of them will do very well out of the tax cuts... but they won't tell you that!

Follow their tears here...

Is this Mohammed?

Whaleoil has truely got into the spirit of Draw Mohammed day today, pop over and see some of the images he has been sharing!

Poor old Kiri

I am not big on nationalism, the sight of the NZ flag or the All Blacks does not send a shiver down my spine, or, bring a tear to my eye.
I find the whole idea of national pride to be embarrassing, often it results in vulgar displays from those who like to reflect or bask in the glory, or achievements, of others.
One of the worst traits of our people is the way we handle our rare sporting or cultural success's, as a nation we are quick to attack others who we consider to be big headed or cocky yet the arrogance of an All Black fan is unsurpassed.

Having said that, there are one or two traits that I do like in Kiwis, possibly the best one is that we as a nation do not have a lot of time for snobs, as a rule we are quick to knock them down or remind them that they are no better than anybody else, usually this works, snobs are not thick on the ground in NZ, this is one of the good things about being a Kiwi.

However, every once in a while we hear something from one of our fellow countryman that just makes you cringe, normally the words we hear are uttered by a fading star who may have had a brief fifteen minutes of fame on the world stage, well sadly, another one of those Kiwis has managed to make a fool of herself again.

Yes, it is our very own tired old snob Kiri Te Kanawa, when I was young we were told that Kiri was 'world famous', yet outside of NZ I have NEVER found anybody who has heard of her.
While it is true that I do not mix with the opera set (eating glass would be preferable) I can honestly say that most people have no idea who the hell she is.

All that makes her latest outburst even more embarrassing and idiotic, Te Kanawa has had a petulant swipe at Susan Boyle, now, I am not going to pretend that I can tell the difference between a good opera singer and a bad one, they all sound like strangled cats to me anyway, but, I find it incredible that Te Kanawa would be so small minded to attack Boyle.

Te Kanawa obviously cannot handle the fact that Boyle is far more popular than she has ever been, and, far more famous. I would wager that Te Kanawa could walk down any street in the world and hardly be noticed, the same could not be said of Susan Boyle.

Face it Kiri, the public (as unwashed as we are) do not like you as much as we like the lady from Glasgow, you might have had the 'classical training' but that does not matter, many of us prefer real people to snobs.

I suspect this outburst from Kiri is a desperate cry from a primadonna who knows that her career is just about washed up, a desperate attempt at one last moment in the spotlight, it really is quite sad.

Tax Cut Envy

I love it, the article explaining tax cuts begins specifically by saying: Prime Minister John Key is urging Kiwis not to be jealous if the rich get more from Thursday's Budget tax package – because the rich are crucial to the economy. and the article is headed: Budget Gifts for the Rich. Did Vernon Small write his own headlines or doesn't he get irony?

It's going to take a lot more than John Keys words of wisdom to calm down the pathetic whining we're going to hear from Labour MPs and their supporters, who are supposedly happy to be shelling out high taxes to politicians. However I don't feel any confidence that Kiwis will understand the importance of tax cuts for all, or the basic mathematics that higher wager earners will of course gain more from a tax cut than those on minimum wage.

Why don't teachers at our state schools teach the kids this? I may as well break out the good old restaurant tax cut story, which of course most people know already so you can read it by clicking here :)

Personally, I don't know why people are so stupid.

Dear Willie Walsh...

British Airways is under siege. The economic crisis hurt them and they are struggling with the effects of the ash cloud from Eyjafjallajökull. But the biggest threat to British Airways is the militant union that is holding them to ransom. Something needs to be done...

To willie.walsh@ba.com

Dear Willie Walsh and the Board of British Airways,

I speak to you as a concerned member of the public and ex BA customer. Workers in the United Kingdom are all suffering due to the current economic crisis. Last week the figures showed the UK had 2.51 million people unemployed, at 8% - the highest in 16 years.

Everybody has had to make sacrifices - and I know BA have also had to cut staff, bonuses an pay increases in order to stay competitive during this time. All sensible thinking people understand that these cuts are necessary if BA is to remain operating as a business.

We also understand that your cabin crew are paid well, in many cases double of those with other airlines. Staff get generous holidays and all cabin crew get 90% discounts on BA flights for themselves and family or friends. We also know that BA still staff their planes more than opposition airlines and even when you axed one staff member off each long haul flight there were still more staff working on these planes than your rivals.

Overall, we know that BA staff have it very good.

This is why I am volunteering to work for you and your airline. As a careers advisor, I am quite active in the local job market for my clients - all of whom would be very grateful to join me working for your organisation. Worklessness in West London is increasing and the amount of people trapped on welfare is alarming by any standards. We'd even be willing to work for free for the first month, to show you how committed we are to working and to keep BA flying and we won't join the Unite Union either as they are singlehandedly destroying your company.

Unemployed people up and down this country would be grateful to have any opportunity to work for BA, so I urge you to sack staff who do not wish to work for you and those union organisers to also be let go in favour of people who wish to work.

Unite is sucking the life out of BA forcing customers and frequent flyers like myself to actively seek alternative airlines. If BA were to reduce the influence of Unite, customers will flock back and we could all lend a part in bringing BA back to prosperity.

I look forward to your response.

Regards,

Clint Heine

England voted Conservative - Get rid of the Scots!

Next time a Labour leftie tells you that the Conservatives have no right to rule Scotland, tell them that their coalition partner the Lib Dems have 11 seats (out of 59 Scottish constituencies) so this Government does have *some* legitimacy in Scotland. Personally, the Scots have nothing to whine about after so many years of a very generous Labour Government and should be thinking of cutting themselves off from the UK if they really feel so strongly about this.

Here is an excellent Times article that specifies exactly why this is a great thing for Scotland, I'll paraphrase just a little bit :)

Wow,” said a wide-eyed young Liberal Democrat voter babe, staring over my shoulder on Friday at a coloured election map of Britain. “England is, like, totally blue.” How true. Huge swathes of England are Conservative. And, she noticed in the next instant, Scotland is, like, totally red and yellowish gold. Only one single constituency north of the border is blue.

As Alex Salmond of the Scottish National party said in the wee hours of Friday, it is “overwhelmingly clear” that Scotland does not want a Tory government: “I don’t believe they’ve got a mandate to run Scotland from fourth place.” Again, how obviously true. Yet, equally obviously, the Tories have got a genuine mandate to run England.

Look to the map and towards Hadrian’s Wall for both reason and solution. Cameron got 306 seats (against Brown’s 258), just 20 seats short of an overall majority. But Brown’s 258 included 41 from Scotland (out of 59 Scottish constituencies). Without these Scottish seats, the Labour party would have got only 217 to the Conservatives’ 305 and Clegg’s 46 (to which he would be reduced if he did not have his current 11 Lib Dem seats in Scotland).

This injustice could be put right simply by saying politely to the Scots that we would like to separate, psephologically and politically. Let them run Scotland their own way. They are perfectly well equipped to do so. They could even turn themselves into a rich tax haven, a mini Switzerland, given their wealth of world-beating financial services, lawyers and golf courses.

They already entice the super-rich with their castles and grouse moors. And they have their oil wealth, insofar as it belongs to them, their deep-sea ports, their shipbuilding, their IT, their magical Highlands and islands, their arts festivals and an abundance of game, fish and marketable tourist tat.

The Scots have two highly developed important cities and several great universities and medical schools; their intellectual and entrepreneurial tradition is second to none. They don’t need us.

Quite!

See the full article here.

Why would anybody want to join the Euro?

Estonia has been given the green light to join the Euro. Now before any of you start to scoff, Estonia is doing fantastically since being released from the shackles of the Soviet style command economy forced upon them. It would be safe to say that they ignored all their socialist/communist past and embraced free market capitalism with vigor and they have been well rewarded for doing so!

The EU have set minimum standards for member states in order to qualify for acceptance to their club. These are to have public deficit of 3% of GDP and debt of 60% percent of GDP. Estonia has public deficit of 2.4% of GDP this year and debt of 9.6% of GDP - light years away.

What are they thinking after seeing the Greek economy self destruct as a combination of lavish and insane public spending and the behaviour of the unions who act very similarly to the communists that Estonia rejected? It's madness!

The Greek communists, socialists, trade unions and other left wing agitators are stuffing Greece and the EU should have cut them off unless they told the unions to bugger off. But the Greeks are so used to being subsidised by the EU for their cushy lifestyle....so they get exactly what they deserve.

Estonia is best to sit back and watch the EU implode and offer to be a leading partner in the rebuilding of Europe, along with Latvia, Czech Republic and Slovakia - the low flat tax nations who aside from Latvia are humming along quite nicely.
Latvia will eventually pick itself up from the disaster it is in and start looking pretty good - expecially to Kiwis sick of being taxed to death by Labour and National. And before you laugh at this, In 1994, Estonia became one of the first countries to adopt a flat tax, with a uniform rate of 26% regardless of personal income. In January 2005, the personal income tax rate was reduced to 24%. Another reduction to 23% followed in January 2006. The income tax rate was decreased by 1% annually to reach 18% in January 2010. Eat that John Key and Labour.

Story here

Brown Resigns... Cameron PM!

And about bloody time!! Follow this via the Times live here.

After leading this country to bankrupcy, indecent and unchecked illegal immigration, breaking down social society and a rampant culture of welfarism and entitlement... we can finally say - GO AWAY!



As this is being typed, David Cameron is in Buckingham Palace giving the Queen his answer to whether or not he can lead a new Government.

Update.... HURRAH!!!

Socialists and the rule of law

14-year-old Alfie McKenzie from Lancashire was caught out voting in last weeks election.

"It was just too much of a temptation to resist," he said. "I'm a socialist, I'm really, really interested in politics. I'd been reading up on it a lot before the election, and I'd got very interested in tactical voting. Nobody asked me for ID or anything, I was literally in and out of the polling station in about 15 seconds.

"As I said to my headteacher today, regrettably I'm only sorry that I got caught.

You'd have thought that his parents would punish him for this, alas his mother is a Labour supporter, and his father is a socialist estate agent. They were unperturbed: His mother, Nadine Wiseman, is finding it hard to take a suitably stern line on her son's behaviour. She said: "He's fabulous – there's never a dull moment with Alfie around."

Socialist attitudes to the rule of law seem to be one law for them and another for other people. No wonder the socialist world is in disarray and poverty.

His parents should be ashamed for brainwashing their kid.

Story here.

Belgium - Beer, Chocolate and Division

Today's Guardian had an interesting article on the seemingly massive divide between the Flanders and Wallonian sectors of Belgium. The language disagreements and resulting bureaucratic nonsense surrounding enforcing the "rules" are becoming a real farce:

It's surreal, absurd," says Thiéry. "And it's not democratic." He sits at the very heart of the conflict, in the town hall of Linkebeek, a comfortable town that is home to 5,000 and sits astride the city limits. He is a French-speaking Walloon, born and bred in Linkebeek, who has been elected mayor with 66% of the local vote in a town that is 85% francophone.

But Linkebeek is in Flanders, not Brussels. The Flemish interior minister has barred him from being mayor because he sends out election literature in French to French-speakers, and not in Dutch, as required.

Linkebeek's municipal life is consumed by petty challenges, demonstrations and taunts. Separatists deface bilingual street names. The language police show up at monthly meetings of the local council. If the proceedings are conducted in French – 13 of the 15 councillors are French-speakers – the session is deemed invalid.

At the local primary school, French-speaking kids are downstairs, Dutch-speakers upstairs. The curriculums are different. The public library is denied Flemish government funding unless 55% of the books are in Dutch.

There are six such small towns on the fringes of Brussels, all with large francophone majorities, all in Flanders, three of them without mayors who defy the rules, three of them with French-speaking mayors who toe the line.

No wonder the EU is based in this country! They should just do away with this state and split it into two... of course as the article states, this won't happen that quickly as Belgiums national debt is at 80% of GDP.. oops.

The rather telling part of the article was that the right wing voting parts of Belgium are pretty well off and the left wing parts are reletively poor with twice the unemployment rate of the north. Makes you wonder why people continue to linger with failed left wing policies doesn't it!

I have always enjoyed my trips to Belgium. Gorgeous towns and cities, incredible food and of course beers that leave Kiwi beers to shame. I usually speak French when visiting the place so it doesn't really bother me. I suspect that they will eventually split in about 50 years barring any major catastrophe - and knowing the Belgians, it will be pretty nondescript!

Story here.

(photo is from my last trip to Bruges, and *that* was one hell of a beer eminating from the De Garr brewery in a very hard to find bar. Bliss)

The Chavez revolution continues.....

Chavez is at it again.... this time he is confiscating land.


This blog is no friend of Mr Chavez, not one little bit.

So lets see what he is up to:

Over the past eight years, his government says, it has seized more than 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of farmland, targeting property that officials contend was either fallow, underused or whose ownership could not be proven through documents.

Chavez called Arria corrupt during a televised speech Friday night. Holding up a photo of Arria's colonial ranch house, the president said, "This is now in the hands of the people, of the revolution!"

"It looked like 'Falcon Crest,' do you remember that?" Chavez added, alluding to the former U.S. television soap opera.

He held up a photo with an aerial view of the farm in a river valley, then another of a swimming pool under palm trees.

"Tremendous pool. That's the bourgeoisie," Chavez said. "Now he's going around squealing that he's going to get it back. Well, he'll have to topple Chavez to get this back, because it belongs to the revolution now."

Now Diego Arria has worked hard for Venezuela for his entire professional career:
Arria, a former governor of Caracas in the 1970s, was ambassador to the United Nations from 1991 to 1993 and represented Venezuela on the Security Council, including a monthlong stint in its rotating presidency in 1992. He was later an assistant U.N. secretary general under then Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He has every right to be angry, and others who fall foul of the hardline socialist regime should also be very worried about who will be next. Chavez has amassed huge reserves of weapons from Russia and has built up a militia to defend the regime. He has managed to help change the constitution to keep him in power indefinitely.

I have said for years that he is trouble. At the moment he is a bug that is irritating, but he is following the script towards sending Venezuela into a political and social hellhole.

Story here.

Finally, some truth from Key and English.

I note that over the weekend both Neville Key, and Bill "double dipton" English, have warned their party cheerleaders (and National party voters) that some issues on the horizon will "test their support".

Now, to anybody but a cheerleader this has been obvious for some time, we now know that the future holds precious little for those who believe in personal responsibility, we know that this government is going to keep offering bribes to Labour voters and the apartheid party as a way of keeping themselves in power.

Key and English have confirmed that the only people who will be upset about the governments plans are true National party people (and the few knuckle draggers who populate places like the Standard) and ACT voters.

Gone are the promises of "ongoing tax cuts", gone are the promises to the middle class, gone are the weasel words of Key prior to the last election about "ending the welfare dependency cycle"

Key has told us that he would rather upset his own people than upset swinging voters.

After nine years of being financially raped by the corrupt Labour government the middle classes they have been let down by the very people they trusted.

Meanwhile, this country keeps borrowing a billion dollars a month so parasites like Natasha Fuller and Philip Ure can sit on their backsides all day, in the mean time, hard working middle class family's are having to make drastic cutbacks because our gutless PM and his supremely arrogant deputy are more interested in staying in power than they are about doing the right thing.

Eighteen months on and the nation is no better off than it was the day these two took over, that, is inexcusable.

Do you believe FINSEC?

A FINSEC survey has put ANZ as the most hated bank in NZ... yes FINSEC. I remember FINSEC quite well, they were the chosen job paths for such NZUSA ex Presidents Karen Skinner and Andrew Campbell.. two characters who honestly soent much of their lives attacking capitalism, free trade, wealth... you name it.

Makes you wonder if this survey was based on accurate findings or has ANZ pissed off FINSEC lately?

The rhetoric does sound like the handiwork of Andrew Campbell doesn't it?
The "Better Banking" survey, carried out for bank workers union Finsec, also revealed Kiwis are fed up with executive fat-cats and overseas call centres. Finsec spokesman Andrew Campbell said the survey showed opposition to overseas ownership, and overseas outsourcing: "New Zealanders don't want banks, particularly Australian-owned banks, sending jobs to Bangalore." (Emphasis in bold)

Fat cats? What sorts of people use that term these days outside of the Dunedin branch of the Alliance Party?

The ANZ has a long history of client dissatisfaction - but this is mainly to the clientele that they have - angry elderly people, those who were too lazy to leave Post Bank and beneficiaries. My experience dealing with these people when I was employed with the ANZ wasn't always rosy. I feel for the bank staff as these people have unusually high expectations of their bank, coupled with sheer ignorance with bank fees. Post Bank if anybody remembers, was the only bank Kiwis had to choose from before Prebble did the right thing and sold it.

FINSEC had a history of trying to take over the ANZ call centre many years ago and they royally screwed it up as they got caught out lying to ANZ staff quite badly.

Andrew and his FINSEC buddies have it in for overseas ownership and any business making profits that are not filterd down directly to union employees. It's probably good advice to ignore anything he and his union have to say - relevance wise they are a union that would not be missed if they disappeared from the face of the planet.

See the story here.

More whining from No Right Turn

Malcolm over at NRT truely is whiny. Not only that but he really doesn't like the idea a quality education system. He prefers the grey "Government knows best" system that is failing kids up and down the country. If there is a problem in his world, his mates the PPTA will come to the rescue.

For parents and children however it is a different story. They are the consumers of the education they pay for and they get very little say in anything to do with the final product.

The problem is that teachers unions have an agenda. They oppose ranking tables for schools and they are against performance pay for teachers. They don't like bulk funding and they are against any form of private competition in the public system.

In other words, they vote Labour.

Thankfully the saviour of freedom, Sir Roger Douglas, who actually does care about a pupil’s right to have a quality education, has stepped up to the plate (again) with another bill to give more freedom to schools instead of Government bureaucrats and unionists.

Malcolm isn't happy... in his words:

Education (Board of Trustee Freedom) Amendment Bill (Roger Douglas): This bill would amend the Education Act 1989 to make school boards of trustees (rather than the government) responsible for employing and paying teachers. The goal is to destroy the PPTA and the current national pay scale for teachers. The effect would be to introduce significant pay disparities between rich and poor schools, allowing the former to pillage resources from the latter, and to entrench socioeconomic disparities in education (which are a key driver of social inequality). ACT's gluesniffers think this is a great idea (after all, they don't send their kids to poor schools, and every dollar saved from the education budget is one they can give to the rich in tax cuts). The parents of New Zealand may feel rather differently.

Oh fuck off. National pay rates are ridiculous in this day in age and paying good teachers more is an INCENTIVE for the shit teachers to get better or they can reconsider their profession. Don't be fooled by all the gibberish about 'social enequality' - all schools will have choice, regardless of their financial status, and it will give the boards the ability to hold onto teachers that make a true difference. Sure teachers might get greedy, but if you have been held down by unionist pay awards then I don't blame them.

What Malcom needs to do is be honest with us all. He won't allow others to question him on his blog, so he needs to front up and say why he hates competition, opposes school choice and the right for kids to have the best education available.

Election Day!! (updated regularly!!)

ooh look, I can embed the coverage here too now, thanks BBC! I will still be updating the blog while I am awake, see below...





And we are off!

How to vote details here.

Election seat calculator here.

Follow it live on BBC here.

Download your BBC party pack for tonight :) It even has lifesized masks of each party leader!

Also watch the Channel 4 online coverage (and if you can, watch their alternative coverage tonight from 9pm)

And of course the ITV and SKY election coverage...both promising equally as good coverage, all live and all night!

Enjoy! I will attempt to blog later, but if not then lets hope there is no hung Parliament! I predict there will be a few surprises over the next 24 hours and I also believe there will be a new Labour leader in the week to come - and a LOT of bloodshed from Labour.

**Update**



**Update 2**

The BNP harvested names off the electoral roll of "African sounding" people to send this gem.

8pm - I have just voted, had to wait 20 mins in line to get in to vote. Lots of different demographics on parade including a very drunk woman who was harrassing the polling booth workers and voters. The silly woman tapped me on the shoulder when I was voting and asked me who to vote for.... oh dear. The polling booth was chocka and other reports from London are also saying that there is a high turnout. 70% is the number being thrown about. By saying that, we had 2 tables going at our polling booth - our table was very busy while the table that serviced the housing estate was pretty empty. Interesting.

**UPDATE 3**

First seat in and a 8.4% swing for the Tories in a safe Labour seat. The big story now are the large amount of people turned away from the polling booths. Hundreds in many instances! I don't know why so many people waited until 9pm or later to get out and vote... mental!

Update 4

On two results there have been swings of 8.4% and 11%... the predicted bloodbath is getting started. Follow BBC here. The Channel 4 TV coverage is very good - already managed to call every party leader every name under the sun... and have just called Geoff Hoon (the Labour MP caught selling votes to a lobbyist) a fucking cunt...

**Update 5***

Now the results are slowly trickling in.. it's 1:05am here and the Tories are looking at a swing of at least 8-9%. The hung parliament predictions are evaporating slowly. Kingswood in Gloucestershire is a Tory win with a swing of 9.4%. BBC unfortunately bitching about money donated to the Tories by Lord Ashcroft. Doesn't surprise me. As I type, the results of Torbay are being announced, they were a Lib Dem Seat - the Lib Dems have just held it by 4078, a swing to Tories by 1.1%

The Green candidate looked like a true greenie, complete with ponytail and dopy expression :) Putney SW London is now being called... getting closer to my constituency. Looks like a good victory to the Tories, by 10,0053 and a swing of 9.9%! Massive!

**UPDATE 6**

Gordon Brown has been elected in for the 7th time into his constituency.
I took this screen grab, apologies for the quality, but the gentleman with his fist up was posing like this for the entire results and speeches. Ha ha.


UPDATE 7

Big win for the Tories unseating Lembic Orbit from the Lib Dems, the man who has dated half the Cheeky Girls and a few models (power is sexy as this man most certainly isn't!) in Montgomeryshire a 13% swing! As I type, a few more Tory gains are being announced. The ever helpful BBC live viewer at the top of this post is coming up with the goods. The Lib Dems are also doing very badly.... and now Basildon South & Thurrock East is being announced and the winner is...the Tories. A significant win and a 7.5% swing.

**Update 8**

It's 3am, and results are still slowly coming in. I'm knackered - so am off to bed for a couple hours sleep. Follow the live BBC player on top of this post for the results and also visit the BBC results page for numbers. They are just announcing the results for Broxtowe...and the winner is Tory by 389 and a 2.6% swing with a 73% turnout. Not bad. Now they are showing David Camerons seat of Witney, and boy what a crazy bunch of candidates on the stage! Is that guy trying to be Jesus?? The Monster Raving Loony William Hill Party candidate was also brilliant in defeat. A good win and a swing for the Tories in a easy seat. And for me, good evening and more results later... follow the BBC on top!

**Update 9**

Safe to say I didn't get the sleep I wanted. Was woken up by the Mrs to say that the Tories have not got a majority despite all the mad swings from last night. BBC are saying that Brown *could* still form a coalition Government - in fact many within Labour are saying that, which would probably bring a civil war in some parts of the country - Brown really was disliked! Obviously not enough it seems as he led the Labour party to victory in many seats and kept both Cameron and the Tories from romping to victory, which was a dead cert a few months ago.

Today they will do the council vote counting, and this will be more of a direct influence for us. I suspect the Tories will make some more inroads this time, Tory councils have done pretty well lately and the last council election they romped away in many so called Labour seats.

A quick news roundup for the morning:

Labours Jackie Smith and Charles Clark were booted out. Smith was a prize trougher, caught neck deep in the expenses controversy. The Sun exposes her and a few others in this mornings edition. The Times also wades in with their list of high profile scalps.

BBC talks about Britains first Green MP, down in Brighton. She beat the Labour candidate and will no doubt support a change in the electoral system, like the Lib Dems (who were humiliated last night)

If anything big happens, I will update through the day - but keep an eye on the BBC ticker on top of this page.

The Times discusses Labours early plans to try and piece together a coalition. Early days Labour! However today will be interesting to watch and see what happens.

The Independent reports of the BNP being crushed in Barking and being told by Labour MP Margaret Hodge to pack their bags.

**Update 10**

Plenty of talk from Labour supporters urging Clegg to talk to them first. it's fantasy at the moment as Clegg has said he will chat to Cameron first to see if they can sort something out. I can guarantee he will choose the party that will give him and the Lib Dems more power, putting Labour in the front seat as they need his party to have any chance of piecing together a coalition.

Now the local councils are reporting back and there are not too many changes so far. See the results here.

Meanwhile London Mayor Boris Johnson has talked about the need for the Tories to be the "meat in the coalition sausage" Entertaining as usual!

Meanwhile, already fulfilling pre election promises, Conservative party's Nicola Blackwood promised to sing if she won, and so she did, revealing her opera trained past :)

Quite silly

Just read over at Kiwiblog that there is a lot of justified ridicule over policy ideas that Phil Goff is looking at.

Don't know why the Nats seem to think it's all that terribly bad. Give it a few years and they will be adopting exactly the same thing and the same Nats laughing now will be fully blown disciples of each and every Labour Party policy.

This is god speaking

Why oh why are Sir Rogers talents being wasted by a gutless National party government?

In one column Sir Roger makes more sense than we have heard from National in eighteen months.

We live in a small nation, people of Sir Rogers ability are rare, we simply cannot afford to ignore Sir Rogers message because the gutless government are scared of the messenger.

http://craccum.co.nz/?p=1672

Who are the real homophobes?

So it looks like another Labour MP has been caught with their snout in the trough, I do find it interesting that so many who seek to defend Street (and Carter before her) do so on the basis of her/their sexuality, many of them suggest (some very subtly) that to question them is an attack on their human rights.

To them an MP's sexuality (if Homosexual or Lesbian) somehow puts them above or beyond question, they see it as "not fair" or "cruel" to question them, they seem to be suggesting that being homosexual or lesbian is an illness and therefore specail allowances must be made for them.

Of course, what these politically correct fools fail to realise is that 99% of us who want answers from Street and Carter are the very same people who could not care less about their sexuality, to us, their sexual preferences are irrelevant.

The spotlight that is now shining on Street should serve as proof that the battle for homosexual and lesbian rights has been won, we are treating them no differently than we would a heterosexual MP who has allegedly rorted the system.

The ironic thing in all of this is that the very people who seek to treat homosexual and lesbian people differently are the very same people who have been supposedly on the front line in the battle for their rights, they are the ones who hide behind the "you are only attacking them because they are homosexual or lesbian" line, they are the ones who think that being homosexual or lesbian puts one out of bounds when it comes to normal standards of accountability, in short, they are the ones treating homosexual and lesbian people differently, by their actions and words they are obviously of the opinion that homosexual and lesbian couples are not able to live by the same rules as the rest of us.

When you go into battle for somebodies human rights you do so with the goal of equal treatment and equal opportunities in mind, I have no issue with that, however, you must also be aware that when, and if ,those rights are won that the days of making excuses for those people are over, human rights are hard won, there are obligations that come with those human rights, the most obvious of which is accountability, you simply cannot have it both ways, if you want or seek full human rights (and you should) then you have to be able to account for your actions and deeds should those actions or deeds come into question.

Those who seek special treatment for homosexuals or lesbians simply because they are homosexual or lesbian are the real homophobes.

Mining Whining

Good grief. It's a bit of a worry when protest organisers can't even tell the truth about how many people attend their marches. Left wing friends of mine were talking about 50,000 people attending the Auckland protest while others were saying it hit about 20,000. That's a heck of a difference. Calling it the biggest protest in a generation is a little OTT too don't you think?

Pity that those who attended this protest were so easily sucked into exaggerations made by the Green Party and think that mining in NZ was invented by the National Party. Labour approved over 200 permits for mining on conversation estate during the nine years they were in power - but where was celebrity do-gooder Robyn Malcolm during all this?

Kiwiblog bought up an interesting fact recently:

“It turns out Labour approved a permit in 2006 for mining gold, garnets and other gemstones on 168.5 hectares of land at Hart Creek, inside Paparoa National Park.

And they mined national parks.

“The information shows Labour were happy for mining to take place on 21,961 hectares of land, meanwhile the government is seeking approval to release a mere 7,058 hectares of Schedule Four land, of which as little as 500 hectares might be mined,” Mr Brownlee said.

Quite so. Yet 20,000 people along with the gullible media and other trendy Greenie types are more interested in attacking the right, rather than looking at the available facts. The sad thing is that facts are hardly a strong point with the environmental movement - look at the climate change nonsense!

See article.