Guest Post - What a pathetic move...

This was an email from an Edinburgh student who is clearly a little pissed off about the ridiculous attempts by EUSA to ban the Daily Mail from it's outlets:

Adam Ramsay's press release explaining his stance is one of the most pitiful attempts at political argument yet to dribble from our most abhorrent champagne socialist. It demonstrates the mental capacity of a three-year old to claim that the paper is "not worth the paper it is printed on," considering that every day 2 million people cough up for it. And it constitutes downright irresponsibility to make cavalier claims (on behalf of the student body), about a newspaper which regularly pays its libel lawyers £1200 an hour to defend it's reputation.

Fair enough, The Daily Mail occasionally prints some fairly radical points of view and not everyone can agree with them. But let's remember here that Adam is taking a decision to restrict a product's distribution on campus, thereby making a direct impact on profit & loss within EUSA shops and henceforth affecting fiscal re-investment into student services. (Basically, it could affect the price of your Teviot pint) So surely it would be fair to provide some concrete evidence to back up his claims?

Oh yes, of course - he does! He glibly informs us that it's "really, really bad." Aside from the weak double adverb, I'm afraid arguing that it's just "bad" simply doesn't cut it Adam. Neither can you boldly claim that "Daily Mail headlines are misleading," without providing substantial evidential backing for this. I'm sure the legal staff at Associated Newspapers would have something to say about that accusation, should this cause a stir nationwide.

Another poorly formed argument stems from the premise that "27% of our students come from other countries." The Daily Mail, he argues, is in the newspaper business to vilify these people, so it should be banned. Whether it's editors promote this agenda or not is simply irrelevant, Ramsay's argument doesn't hold much water, and here's why. On any typical afternoon outside the library, we're all regularly accosted by members of Edinburgh University Socialist Society, pushing copies of "Socialist Worker." Aside from the irony of these guys actually selling this publication for fifty pence a pop, I'd wager that it's content includes some material which vilifies the capitalist outlook of many students. But judging from membership of their Facebook group, their society represents just 0.001% of the university population. Therefore, by Ramsay's argument, it would make sense to ban this publication as well, on the grounds that it vilifies 99.99% of Edinburgh students (who aren't fans of socialism/institutionalised thievery). Adam Ramsay, is there anything between those big ears of yours?

But I don't want Socialist Worker banned either, mainly because I believe, especially at a university, that we should retain a fondness for free speech and a passion for promoting choice. Adam Ramsay and his cronies seem to blindly ignore this. They're more interested in being the big fish in a small pond than pursuing student interests. They think that because their own political views don't align with The Daily Mail, it can be dismissed as "hateful" or "homophobic." They forget of course that this newspaper promotes views in line with Green Party policy (for instance supporting a ban on GM crops) and that it refused to print this advert on the grounds that it was racist. They also forget that Edinburgh students are all bright, intelligent young people who are consistently tutored to be aware of their sources and make up their own mind. We simply don't need babysitting when it comes to choosing what to read and what not to read.

Adam Ramsay has made a pathetic last-ditch attempt to make a name for himself after a year of ineffectual pontificating and perennial promise-breaking. This will undoubtedly spark some media controversy and perhaps a jibe on "Have I Got News For You." And maybe Adam's name might make into a few more newspapers, just before he slips into his ultimately trivial career within the Green Party. I can think of no other reasons why someone might go to such extreme lengths to restrict freedom of speech on campus, other than last-minute ego masturbation. It's an outrage, an embarrassment to the whole university, and shouldn't be allowed to continue any further.

Exclusive footage of Brown and the IMF:

TB has managed to get hold of some exclusive footage secretly filmed of

negotiations

going on between 10 Downing Street and the IMF:

First they came for the Kit-Kats...

TB is still pretty pissed off about this ridiculous move to attempt to ban the Daily Mail from union outlets at Edinburgh University. In discussing this with real students tonight, those who aren't warped by the bubble of hackery, there has been wide spread outrage at is this totalitarian and deluded action. He finally got round to getting hold of the offending press release that went out on April Fools day. Would have been a great prank if it had actually been a joke:


Awaiting the press release that announces student association re-education camps.

Caption Contest: Not waving but drowning!

Seems Dolly really should go back to spin school:

Rule no 1: Avoid stupid photos.

A high price for a 3 point poll boost.

The Labour lot are

orgasmically proclaiming

that the glorified press release that was the G20 yesterday has saved the world's problems and that the trillion dollars being pumped into the global economy is going to somehow stem the inevitable tied of recession. What utter twoddle. It's a joke that Campell is saying this is substance over style. By the rulebook he wrote this is a textbook Labour piece of media engineering. Brown himself said good media coverage was the benchmark for success for the summit and yes he got some good headlines. But at what price? Now TB is sure

these pics

have been posted elsewhere but just in case anyone is unsure, lets look at what "a trillion dollars" really means:

Let's start with $10,000:

A million dollars:

A billion... now we're talking...

There it is Dr Brown your one trillion dollars, not a sum to be thrown around lightly:

It makes TB sick to think that this money is just going to go down the drain. As Daniel Hannan said, it's as if there is this big magic wand called Keynes that will make everything better. It won't, we can't afford to be wasting this money. Gordon is quite literally attempting to buy time. We might think we have it bad suffering under his premiership but that is nothing to the suffering that this man is going to cause our children, and their children and their children...

Obama wasn't the only President in town...

As many a hack knows TB has his eyes and ears everywhere. He sent one of his undercover moles to penetrate the most left-wing of institutions - the LSE (where the conservative society is the largest political group!) yesterday for a speech given by the president of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev. For someone who declared in his 2007 accounts that he has $80,000 in savings and an $80,000 salary despite being on the board of Gazprom since 2000, he had a very nice suit and apparently an iPhone too. He referred to President Obama as his 'new friend' and 'comrade'.

Despite being late to due to "G20 issues outside of his control" the president gave a speech which was on the whole decent (translation blunders aside) and cut through a lot of the spin and blunder that characterises our own beloved prime minister's speeches. He talked about resisting protection and trading on 'equal terms'. As well as how history will make it easier for Russia to nationalise companies, although he emphasised that any state control should be temporary. He also lambasted NATO and other Cold War alliances as out of date and unnecessary, he suggested that these should be replaced by an organisation that can maintain stability through discussion of domestic and foreign issues.

On the question of reintroducing the Gold Standard, he maintains that he was 'misquoted' by the media. Instead he praised currency blocs stating that 'despite their flaws they had been useful during the current crisis'. He stated that his point was to stress the importance of a global reserve currency. He argued that this would be best achieved through the use of SDR's and not gold as he is quoted as supporting.

He took (unplanted) questions which was a nice touch and answered those questions on the whole without a lot of waffle. When asked whether Putin was still really in charge he responded that there were certain responsibilities for himself and certain responsibilities for Putin, but ultimately it was he who was the head of state. Essentially yes, Putin is still in the driver's seat. This was the only bullshit answer of the lot. The next question was by a Georgian student who when he heard the news that she was Georgian, he responded by saying 'oh, wonderful' and the proceeded to wink and tell her that he would never speak to her country's government until it changed. British politics would certainly benefit from more of this type of honesty.

A mistranslation of the IMF injection turned it from a trillion dollars into a Dr. Evil-esque "one trillion hundred billion dollars" this led to a swift change of translator mid sentence as a KGB heavy took the previous translator away for some light waterboarding for the evening.

Overall, everyone seemed to walk away from the event liking him as a person and respecting his no-nonsense approach to answering questions. It seems the Soviet propaganda machine has relocated from Moscow to London.

If you would like to be a TB mole get in touch here.

The henchman's comeuppance...

TB has given his new best friend

Tom Miller

enough time to deny that he and his little chums think the police are "fucking pigs" and gave him plenty of opportunity to do so. After he attempted to stir up trouble on the left by speculating, that through their brutality, the police had "killed" someone, Miller went on to give a weak defence of the Labour Party's record on policing in the comments section here.

For those of you who are new to this particular Labour chump, Miller is a high profile hack within Compass and Young Labour, indeed he is even

standing

for one of the junior positions in their upcoming elections. He is also the chief brown-noser to

Sam Tarry

, who is almost guaranteed to be the next chairman of the organisation. You can see Miller's coat tail endorsement of Tarry

here

:

Seemingly set to be the eternal bag-carrier, Miller is also a minion to everybody's favourite psycho therapist - Derek Draper. Dolly uses Miller to do the menial and boring research tasks that even he can't be bothered to do. Ever the keen hack, Miller is only ever too keen to help out and he puts in many an hour battling to keep LabourList afloat.

Miller has yet to apologise for his ill-thought out comments regarding the police and remains stubbornly naive to the potential danger of spreading rumours like that on the internet - especially at a time when tensions between the police and the left are at it's highest for a long time. TB has dug a little deeper and come to the conclusion that this could well be what Miller wants. He has not denied he hates the police and as you can see below, he proudly nails his true colours to the wall:

Just in case he attempts to weasel his way out of this little controversy too, TB can also provide you with a screen grab of what Miller really thinks of the police. With a simple "Awesome", Miller confirms his belief that this country's law enforcement officers, who risk their lives and welfare on a daily basis to protect this country, are "pigs". There he stands, in his silly little hat, supporting the sentiment of those who smashed up the City on Wednesday. No wonder he wants to turn people against the police by implying they are murderers - to Labour's Tom Miller "Fuck Pigs" is an "awesome" statement:

No wonder policing in this country is in chaos under Labour. No wonder there are riots are in the streets and no respect for private property or the rule of law. Tom should stick to

worshipping

Chavez on his blog, if it's police brutality he is after, why not go live in the socialist paradise? In the limited contact that TB and Miller have had, the Labour stooge questioned why TB would let pictures of himself in a tailcoat appear on the internet, cynically citing the supposed unattractiveness of this image to a floating voter. Well Tom your casual disregard for these public servants and defenders of the peace, is unattractive to everyone, except you and your wannabe anarchist cronies. Or is "Fuck Pigs" a view shared by all of Compass, Young Labour, the "Sam Tarry for Chairman" team and the rest of the LabourList staff?

If not, perhaps now would be a good time for them to distance themselves from their henchman...

i⋅ron⋅ic /aɪˈrɒnɪk/ [ahy-ron-ik] –adjective

There are hundreds of photos on Facebook from yesterday's protests in London, but these ones have to be some of the best:

Only a true entrepreneurial capitalist swampy sets up a food stall at a riot.

While protesting against capitalism, a climate camp hippy checks their stock in the FT.

If they spent more time in school instead of protesting, they might realise grass doesn't grow on concrete.

Obama has some competition as "The One". Who Would Jesus Bail-Out?

Look out Zac Liberal Youth is coming

TB understands that Richmond Conservatives are bracing themselves for an onslaught of Liberal Youth activists this weekend. London Liberal Youth campaigns guru Edwin Loo will be coordinating a multiple pronged leafleting attack in order to try stem the tory tide of support behind Mr Goldsmith.

Saturday is set to go down in campaigning history as the best attended event of any political party:

The tories are clearly terrified! Peter Smallwood from London CF said "I think this just goes to prove what a joke Liberal youth has become. Myself and London CF were pleased to run a successful campaign day. It was a joint effort between a determined London CF Team and a dedicated Membership. This comparison once again shows that the Lib Dems aren't the answer and only the Conservatives can clear up Labour's mess"

Well that should wipe the irritating little grin of Loo's face.

Tom Miller really is scum.

TB doesn't lose his temper lightly but posts such as this are a step to far:

"Thursday, April 02, 20o9

More G20

Further to

yesterday

, unconfirmed, but I'm hearing that police have killed a protestor.

- Miller 2.0 at

10:59 AM

"

Who the hell does this little shit think he is? Yesterday evening after a farcical day, a man died of natural causes, as the newspapers and wires reported. Whenever large amounts of people congregate together at sporting events or concerts etc, statistically someone is more than likely to fall ill and sadly sometimes die. As Tom's beloved

Guardian reported

, it was the protesters who were hurling missiles at the police medics as they tried to resuscitate the dying man. The man had collapsed through natural causes and everything possible in the circumstances was done to try help the man but sadly it was too late.

How dare Miller somehow suggest that the big bad police had "killed a protester". This is the lowest of the low, scummy spin and he should hang his head in shame. Lest we forget who Miller is - Dolly's heinous

henchman

at LabourList and a

candidate

for the executive of Young Labour.

TB thinks the voters of the South East region where Miller is standing might have something to say about the filth and lies he is peddling.

That's more like it...

TB was pretty disappointed with Sarah Brown's

tacky choice

of Topshop clothes for Obama's kids when she went to visit the White House. So what a relieve it to see that one politician's wife can judge the right tone for this sort of thing and actually get a meaningful and appropriate gift to give to a child who has the world in the palm of their hands.

Sam Cameron

gave

Michelle Obama a copy of The Railway Children and an illustrated Stories from Shakespeare for Malia and Sasha Obama. Both books are perfect for children of that age and reflect this nation's glorious literary heritage. The fact that Sam Cam feels these are appropriate gifts bodes well for the future of British youth. Instead of a generation growing up studying Shrek for their SATs or doing their A-Level English coursework on Harry Potter, under a Conservative government, with a little gentle encouragement from the PMs wife, perhaps we can get back to the childhood classics being installed at a young age.

Instead encouraging the classy and well turned out Michelle Obama to dress her kids like some British plebes in order to flog cheap and tacky British goods on behalf of your mate Philip Green, perhaps Mrs Brown should have looked a little deeper at what this country's history has to offer children.

Sam Cam 1. Sarah Brown Nil.

Who is Dan Han?

To celebrate

that video

hitting two million views, TB has a new T-shirt up for grabs for the bargin price of a tenner:

Get yours

here

.

"Twitter? It's only for narcissists and wankers"

In an excellent bit of marketing for the film In the Loop, it seems that someone had the bring idea of putting a fake Malcolm Tucker account on Twitter:

You can follow "Malcolm"

here

.

Definitely worth it, though not for prudish, stuck up types.

The counter revolution will not be televised.

Nic Conner is a good friend of the bear and TB still owes him one for the excellent couple of nights of partying he hosted at his house during the Henley by-election last summer. Just spotted this rather good account of his day at the counter swampy protests yesterday on the

CF website

and thought it deserved to be shamefully nicked reproduced in full:

You have to give it to the Anarchists and Communists, this protesting lark is hard work. When I got up this morning I had no idea what was install as this would be my first protest. After my morning shower I popped on my suit, picked up my copy of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom and headed to Reading train station to get the train into London.

When I finally arrived at the Bank of England; after getting lost in the city, I found my fellow Pro-Free Market Capitalists. At the start it was just us, the media and some happy dancing hippies, so we reserved a lot of press attention. We had numerous photos taken and interviews with the worlds press, which was a good chance for us to use our YBF media training. I am not holding my breath though to see any of it broadcast as it looks like the UK press has taken a different editorial slant on todays G20 demonstration, but do look out in the papers to see our message getting out there.

Whilst we where chatting to Tim Montgomerie of Conservative Home, who came out in a suit, a sudden barrage of noise filled the air and like if to appear from thin air the protest was upon us. At this time we where standing on a island in the middle of the roads which was joined to the entrance of the Bank of England (museum, but don’t tell the protesters as they seemed to think it was the Bank itself) in the center of the island was the statue of the great conservative PM Wellington.

We headed to the edge of the island to the great crowd control barriers they put up. I stood with banner and Hayek in hand ready to stand up for Freedom, Liberty and the Great British way but only the media walking with the march seemed to notice. After that side filled up the other side of the island became full so we ran over there. There we met our first form of conflict. People where shouting to us “Capitalism is not working” but they soon were on their way after telling them that their Sony camera, the clothes they are wearing and the march they are on are all because of capitalism and the freedom which comes with capitalism.

We started getting people coming over and asking what we were doing or why we were supporting capitalism, we got into some excellent debates! The hard liners we never win over but after explaining our stance to people we began to win over the crowd; so much so we had a chap in Che Guevara tee shirt come over and hold up our banner.

It’s been said one of the biggest problem with right wing politics is that it is not explained to people so people don’t understand what we stand for. We told them we would like to get the Government’s nose out of economics and bring in an independent Bank of England with the power of regulation it had century’s before New Labour. It seems that the majority of the people we spoke to agreed with us and like us they do not understand why they did not fix the roof during the sunny days.

After listening to music from Billy Bragg; including Red Flag, (I found out from a radio interview on the way home he was bring out a new album and in true communist style was out to promote his album to make more millions) we decide to leave. Walking through the crowds we did not experience any agro. We found ourselves at the police barricades where ‘no one may leave’. We waited for 3 hours amongst the protesters, journalists and innocent bystanders. One poor lady thought to make use of the area being pedestrianized to cut through to an interview but when she got to the other side she was not aloud to leave. For the next 3 hours we chatted to the protesters, converting Communists to our way of thinking. People tried to make a run for it by running through the police line but they just ended up get arrested. A communist chap started chanting ‘Sorry I care about my children, Sorry I care about my country, Sorry I did not take a wee before coming here’ after the police would not let him through to go to the WC.

We finally got out and went home past anti-capitalists in Starbucks. It was a great day and we did not have any bother. I must say the violent protesting the BBC are reporting was non existent from what I saw and looking at the footage of the RBS trashing (which is ironic as it is now state owned) you see 6 trouble makers surrounded by a press pack egging them on. We mange to convert some lefties to sound thinking and got our message out. We saw some real extremists like a group who had banners saying “MI5 was behind 7/7′ and people calling for the abolition of money.

Today we were a non party political group, just some individuals who joined up under the common idea of freedom and pro free market capitalism. We had a fun and productive day. If you are keen to join us on a counter protest one day I know the Freedom Association is looking to do more so keep your eyes open for future events.

If you would like to write a guest post for Tory Bear then email him.

Tweet o'the Day...

TB is enjoying the Mayor of London's

Twitter feed

. Especially Boris-esque classics like

this

:

Does anyone actually know if it's really him or one of his press officers?

FFS

Now TB knows that some of you get grumpy when he blogs about Edinburgh University, well more specifically about

EUSA,

but this is in an issue that goes far beyond local student politics. It has come to TB's attention that the outgoing leaders of the organisation are... wait for it... as a parting gift... attempting to have the Daily Mail banned on campus.

As TB commented to a eager Edinburgh journo last night, it's as if they want an uprising on their hands and do these things to make people go militant. Well luckily the plans have gone down like a cup of cold sick on both the left and the right and TB will now turn to his old sparring partner, a Labour hack and blogger

Super-Man-Can-Fly

. While TB has few problems with the Mail, it's often light relief, even the left are up in arms at this ridiculous move:

"If I do not like a publication I do not call for its removal but instead exercise my democratic rights and do not purchase it. I give my money instead to papers and organisations I agree with. Taking the choice away from students smacks of intolerance and totalitarianism. Trust in your constituents instead of trying to ban them from engaging with such garbage.

Engaging is what must be done and is a much more mature approach, than going in a huff and stamping ones foot. We must challenge the Daily Mail. We need to demonstrate where their hate goes, the weakness of their arguments, the falsehoods of their evidence and examples. You do not win debates with censorship. We, on the left, should trust in the power of our arguments to defeat the Daily Mail. We can demonstrate that what they put forward is wrong with faith in our beliefs. To try and ban it is a sign of weakness and ideological deficit.

I believe that true political people do not hide behind bans and censorship but have the faith in their politics to fight for their cause. Not simply make the opposing viewpoint disappear because that is the route of the tyrant.

EUSA must not attempt to ban the Daily Mail but instead have faith in student's ability to decide for themselves what is right or wrong."

You can read the rest of the rant

here

. This piss take course of action defies all logic. It tacitly says that students are morons and therefore their glorious student union must decide what they read and what views they should subscribe to.

It's getting to the stage where TB can't even be bothered to get angry with this lot any more. Time and time again ridiculous and unnecessarily patronising ideas are banded about. Whether it be the need for "liberation officers" (welcome to the 1980s!) to attempts to ban a student society on account of the fact that they were pro-life. Two more months and he is in the real world and away from this farcical control.

TB just feels sorry for those he'll leave behind.

UPDATE: 18.38: TB just had to bite his tongue while speaking to an extremely hostile and rude hack at the Scottish Daily Mail newsdesk about this. You know if you listen before going off on one you might have realised TB was defending your rag you bloody idiot!

Barack could you pass the er er salt...

Nice touch from

Sam Coates

(of the Times variety.) He's managed to get hold of the seating plan for tonights casual supper party:

TB hopes Merkel gives Obama indigestion as she savages his ridiculous plans.

Blaney solves the US economic crisis:

Just spotted this at the

Ministry of Sound

:

Dear Mr. President,

Let's call this the "Patriotic retirement" :

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force, so why not pay them $1 million a piece severance with these stipulations :

1) They must leave their jobs. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed .

2) They must buy NEW American cars. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They must either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

Should do the trick.

Dead Duck tantrums

The Liberal Democrats just don't get it. They are due to get a savage kicking in the next election and look like fools when they go around with their "Shadow" team pretending that they actually have a chance of forming a government. Such illusions of grandeur can be seen in Nick Clegg's pathetic yet comical hissy fit that he didn't get to go for a cup of tea with "The One":

"I am really annoyed. As it was not a state visit I understood I wouldn't get to see him. But when I found out Obama was meeting the Queen and David Cameron I got on the phone to David Miliband to ask him what was going on. Frankly, it doesn't look good for Cameron to see him and for me not to."

Hate to break it to you Nick, Obama is meeting Cameron because he is going to be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland and frankly doesn't have time to meet the convener of a jumped up pressure group.

Hat-Tip -

Richard Kay

Caption Contest...

Via the excellent

Hopi Sen

TB has learnt that this picture of Dave has been

awarded

the Press Awards Photograph of the Year:

Not only is he an Ian McEwan fan but like all the best people it seems DC is a double parker too.

Good man.