Happy St. George's Day..

If you haven't discovered

Tory Rascal

yet then TB recommends you get involved. He has a cracking piece today about the English:

"England has survived a long-lived cultural onslaught that has worked to convince people that Englishness is somehow less special or worthy than Scottishness, Welshness or Northern Irishness. We have no individual national song to sing as we hurl chairs at foreign football fans. Our Saint's day is not celebrated by lavishly inebriated fourth-generation Americans who lay claim to other nationalities. We have the worst national sports teams since the invention of counting. Cliff Richard.

But it's not all bad. Sure, we're led by a dour, porridge-eating God-botherer with all the leadership instincts of a tin of sweetcorn, but, countrymen, we also have some of the most magnificent housing estates, the finest supermarkets and the most impressively capable benefits claimants in these islands. We excel in rare talents, from imposing our superior language on to unwitting foreigners overseas, to convincing otherwise neutral nations that we are the foulest people in Europe."

At least we got a better Google decoration to celebrate our big day than the Welsh got:

As you may have detected from the tone of this post TB isn't too concerned about the fact that St George's day isn't as popular as Paddy's or St Andrew's, however, that says something about our standing in the world. We don't constantly have to force out national identity down peoples throats for political gain. Nationalism has always relied on over doing and romanticising national tradition. England is a great country and we rightly should be proud of that fact.

Not just once a year but every day.

The Biggest Loser

TB couldn't help but crack up when he saw an advert for

this

on ITV tonight. Apparently Kate Garraway is set to host a new show looking for "The Biggest Loser". 

Hmmm where to begin the search for contestants.

The deluded nats...

There is a must read piece from Alex Massie over at

The Spectator

:

"Scottish public spending has essentially doubled since Labour came to power. (To what end, you ask? To very little end, I reply.) Now the British government has run out of money and it is obvious that there are going to have to be spending cuts if the public finances are ever going to be restored to some semblance of stability. This is obvious, I should say, to everyone but the SNP for whom any suggestion that it might be possible to cut even a tiny sliver of cash from the Scottish Government's £34bn kitty is the vilest sort of anti-Scottish treachery.

Then again, the Nationalists aren't responsible for raising revenue, so it's no great surprise they howl whenever any budget is threatened. And therein lies the great problem with the devolution "settlement"; power absent the requirement to raise revenue is all but bound to become power that is bloated, feckless and irresponsible. That this should come to pass should surprise no-one."

A deluded little hissy fit from a deluded little pressure group.

Osborne responds...

+++Cameron rejects expenses plan+++

Sky are reporting that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have just emerged from an hour long meeting with Brown. They have both apparently rejected the plans outlined for a daily allowance based on the equally corrupt European/Lords model. Instead Cameron will apparently be tabling an amendment with the Conservatives plan for reforming expenses.

+++developing+++

CF machine in action:

These just pinged into TB's inbox:

+++More to follow+++

UPDATE: 19:32 -Newcastle:

UPDATE: 20:45 - Birmingham:

UPDATE: 21:40 - Manchester:

UPDATE: 23:00 - Leeds:

He got nothing right.

Darling is an embarrassment. Sky have been crunching the numbers. Last March he said he believed that the economy was going to grow by 2.5% in 2009, it actually shrunk by 1.5% already. He has now said he reckons the British economy will contract by 3.5% by the end of the year. The IMF have politely coughed and whispered that this will actually be a 4.1% contraction. Darling reckons that there will be 1.25% growth, the IMF says it will actually be 0.4% shrink. And all this while clocking up 740 billion in debt.

Totally and utterly incompetent and grounds for resignation.

The CF machine kicks in...

20,000 of these will be distributed  by Conservative Future activists to commuters at major stations around the country tonight: Call the election Gordon, we're ready.

The dance of the comedian.

Everybody dance now...

Hat-Tip -

The Crown Blog

Prime Ministerial Cameron

Dave was on fire today... His speech was stunning. Waiting for the youtube footage...

How long before this becomes a reality?

Caption Contest: Balls up edition.

Ed "liar, liar, pants on fire" Balls should resign over

this

, but what's he just said to Gordo?

Rage must run in the family...

The DC gossip blog

The Wonkette

has a pretty cringe story about TB's favourite lady blogger

Meghan McCain

. John McCain's daughter has been running her blog for awhile now and she has risen in fame in the last few months, now writing for

The Daily Beast

. Well to cut a long story short a colleague there appears to have questioned whether Meghan had ever had a real job...

Cue one massive Twitter based freakout - start reading from the bottom:

Funnily enough the tweets disappeared very quickly, but not before someone got a screen grab of course!

Oh dear it seems she was pretty rattled by criticism.

YouTube Fail.

A masterpiece of spin once again from Mr Brown today, but once again, within minutes, it all unravels. Two birds, one stone - firstly he killed off the dying dregs of the smeargate story. Secondly he distracted the news agenda for the day - stopping people talking about the Budget. Tomorrow is going to be a day of dreadful headlines for Labour and it is no wonder Brown didn't want to face the press pack today. The ill thought out and rushed plans were broadcast in a painful and cringe-worthy attempt to not only look down with the kids, but to also hide from scrutiny. You can see how awkward he feels with his fake smile, weird gestures, and constant lapses back into grumpiness.

Brown announced when he came to power that he was going to end the days of spin that had dominated the Blair government. He promised to stop bypassing Parliament for big announcements. Well at least Blair had the balls to leak things to the press first, at least there was some degree of accountability. Instead Brown's announcement bypassed any editorial input, questioning and scrutiny from absolutely anyone. How can he lead the country when he is too scared to even face some awkward questions from journalists?

And if you want a vision of how Brown would really like to see this country run; "Children tell me that they want to be teachers, doctors, fireman" All good public sector workers suckling on the teet of the state. Who are these strange kids Brown is meeting who want to join his Utopian super state. There is no mention of entrepreneurs, businessmen, lawyers and dare TB say it bankers? And what a blatant lie about not meeting any young people who want to be MPs. The only people Brown associates himself with are loyal apparatchiks who have one goal and one goal only.

Climbing the greasy poll.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery...

TB's alter ego has been getting a lot of attention today, though he is glad to see that Liberal Youth haven't held a grudge about the muck raking he did during their elections. Far from it, as it seems they have

taken some campaigning tips

from Tory Bear's less than successful delve into student politics...

Seems they are set on coming third too.

Steak and Dan Han...

Surrey Area Chairman and top totty Alexandra Swann has pulled off the coup of having Dan speak at the

Surrey Conservative Future Dinner

in Guildford on the 9th of May. Tickets are £30 and TB hears that steak is on the menu. This will be followed by what will no doubt be a fantastic speech and even a cheeky question and answer session with the the man himself - Daniel Hannan MEP.

By the looks of her Facebook status Miss Swann is already very excited:

Sore to miss this one.

A very good reason to get a haircut...

TB was talking to his flatmate

@noiseporn

earlier. They don't really use each others blogging names when talking to each other, but for the sake of continuity...

NP: I really need to get a haircut.
TB: Ah no you should grow it... [it looks a bit silly but sssh.]
NP: Dude I have a bloody mullet.
TB: Yeah grow it, grow it.. it will be funny.
NP: No way man.
TB: Why not?
NP: You know who has a mullet!?
TB: Who?
NP: Derek Draper.

Lost for words...

TB doesn't quite know what to say... Meet Tory Barbie:

Click

here

to see more from Terrible Tory Girl. Now TB has seen everything...

Happy Birthday Ma'am

TB will be raising a glass tonight to wish Her Britannic, Canadian, Australian, etc Majesty a very Happy Birthday.

God save the Queen.

Osborne's big day...

George Osborne has been on fine form in recent weeks. Check out

his appearance

on the BBC last Sunday. After Darling gave the Pre-Budget Report back in November, Osborne hit him right where it hurts with this speech:



It's going to take something pretty special to top the "Labour has done it again" speech. This is possibly the most significant budget in a generation and Darling's opening line better be an apology for the blatant lies he told in November about being out of this recession by the autumn. Osborne is already warming up with talk of the "economic carnage of the last ten years" being laid bare on the "day of reckoning." Do us proud George.

You might even get another TB remix...

UPDATE 12.31:

James Burdett

has pointed TB to the fact that Dave will get the first crack at the Budget response. Silly Bear. Go Dave go...

Agreeing with Tom Harris, again.

TB was contacted by a journo this morning inquiring about whether he knew the identity of the Scottish blog

A Leaky Chanter

. The Times ran a bit of a

non-story

about it today, claiming it was Scotland's answer to the Red-Rag smears. Only one problem. The Leaky Chanter doesn't make up stuff about the private lives of the SNP members and their families. Instead it is a legitimate, although brutal, attack blog. Tom Harris has come in for some criticism for linking to the site and he comes out fighting:

"An “attack blog” is a completely different animal from the kind of smear blog that McBride and Draper were planning to set up. By all means attack your opponents’ policies, but when you attack our families, or invent stuff to attack, you’ve crossed the line. And you’ve exposed yourself for having nothing of substance to attack on. And that means you’ve lost the argument, and deservedly so."

Hear hear.