Murder: By George

A TEENAGER appeared in court yesterday accused of murder after an adviser to Chancellor George Osborne’s Treasury team was found dead in his home.

Paul Jefferies, 52, a senior HMRC official who helped shape Government tax policy, died of multiple injuries.

His body was discovered in his cottage in a village after neighbours raised the alarm on Thursday.

Mr Jefferies was yesterday described as a loner who was obsessed by his privacy and was rarely seen by other villagers in Mayfield, East Sussex.

One ex-neighbour said: “He was the most solitary man I have ever met' ...

A 17-year-old male appeared before magistrates in Brighton yesterday accused of murder.

Police are believed to be trying to discover the nature of the relationship between him and the dead man.

Mr Jefferies worked at HMRC for more than 20 years.

Yesterday it emerged he had not seen or contacted his family since 1985. Mr Jefferies, who was gay, left home in Newport, Gwent when he was 21. He said he was going away for a weekend but never returned... 

The Sun.

Erm, don't think working for the tax office makes you 'George Osborne's aide', but there you go.

Poppers: Blunt

Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, a former prisons minister, says he is a user of the popper recreational drug and that a proposed ban on its supply would be "fantastically stupid".
 

Respect for the law among users would "go out of the window" if there was a ban, he told MPs during a debate on the government's Psychoactive Substances Bill.

BBC News.

Legalise all drugs, not just the ones that help old gay Tories get bumfucked.

Everyone should be soveriegn over their own body!

But how refreshing for a Tory politician to be candid about liking sex and drugs.

PS Will Attitude be publishing a multi-page exposé of this chemsex menace????

George Osborne: No Tongues

GEORGE OSBORNE was so convinced that the Tories would not win an outright victory in the general election that he offered to give Lynton Crosby a French kiss if they got a majority.

The chancellor made the bizarre pledge to the Conservative campaign chief on election day as senior Tories tried to predict whether David Cameron would be returning to Downing Street.

When Cameron stormed to an unlikely win, Osborne was forced to “consummate” his promise but withdrew his pledge, as one senior Tory put it, to give the architect of the campaign “a proper snog”.

The chancellor planted a kiss on Crosby’s cheek in front of Cameron and fellow strategist Jim Messina when they met in No 10 on the morning after their triumph.

Crosby said: “It’s true. His aftershave still haunts me. Fortunately tongues remained withdrawn. The pledge was on election day. The consummation was the day after at No 10.” ...

The Sunday Times.

I guess if you went to a posh school you find this sort of thing 'bloody hilarious'.

Budget: Not Sure What's Going On Here...

The Independent: Another Baffling Cartoon

Err, can anyone explain this to me?

Quiz Time: Is This Man A Cunt?

Hello, I'm a millionaire and I want you to starve...

Budget 2014: Bingo!

Fagburn makes no apologies for posting this, even if it has been RT-ed to buggery today.

A quite spectacular piece of wonderfully woeful own-goal satire-killing patronising Tory toff fuckwittery that will surely see the Conservatives ousted from power forever and replaced by a loose federation of democratic (non-majoritarian) free workers' councils by Friday teatime - at the very latest.

Yes?

PS Though tbh, like the Daily Mail, Fagburn thinks the really big issue today is; Is George Osborne wearing a hairpiece?

Clue: Yes. Can we ever trust him again etc etc...

Alan Turing: Oh No He Didn't!

Alan Turing was a renowned scientist who cracked Germany’s Enigma code during the Second World War.

Experts believe his work shortened the conflict by two years.

Working at the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, in Buckinghamshire - the forerunner of Britain’s spy centre GCHQ - Turing devised groundbreaking techniques to crack the wartime communications codes used by German military chiefs.

But he courted controversy when he was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to “chemical castration” in 1952.

He died two years later, aged 41, of cyanide poisoning, which an inquest determined was suicide although his family believed that it was accidental.

After a long campaign to wipe the conviction from his record, the Queen granted Turing a posthumous pardon under the Royal Prerogative of Mercy.

The pardon finally clears the name of the man who has often been described as the “father of modern computing”.

Daily Mirror.

How many more times???

Turing did not break the Enigma code - that was Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski, three Polish dudes who never get any credit.

Turing and his colleague Gordon Welchman - another all-but forgotten name - invented a machine, BOMBE, which rapidly sped up the decoding of Enigma.

A Turing-Welchman BOMBE, not pictured recently.

Budget 2014: Thanks For Nothing

Mr Deputy Speaker, in my maiden speech here in this House I spoke of Alan Turing, the codebreaker who lived in my constituency, who did more than almost any other single person to win the war, and who was persecuted for his sexuality by the country he helped save.

I am delighted that he has finally received a posthumous Royal Pardon.

Now, in his honour, we will found the Alan Turing Institute to ensure Britain leads the way again in the use of big data and algorithm research.

George Osborne in today's budget speech.

So you'll name an institute after him...

A meaningless sop to wet liberals and daft gayers?

All is forgiven.

The obvious question is, what will this Alan Turing Institute do exactly?

It would be a bit ironic if it was finding new ways for corporations and the state to spy on people.

Or as we say now, 'analyse big data'.

With all due lack of respect Mr Osborne, Alan Turing would have thought you were a total cock.

Good day. 

Paul Flowers: Glass Houses

TORY GEORGE COKE WHORE SHAME!!!

Chancellor George Osborne is to order an independent inquiry into how Paul Flowers was deemed a suitable chairman of the Co-op Bank - BBC News

George Osborne 'owed' Andy Coulson after NotW editor 'downplayed' sex and drugs scandal coverage, claims lawyer acting for escort girl

Daily Mail 2011

PS They're discussing public figures and their private lives - and hypocrisy - on Radio 4's Moral Maze as I type...

Paul Flowers: Spectator Sport

The cover of this week's Spectator starring a feature about Paul Flowers by... Melanie Phillips!
It's not out yet, but apparently Mad Mel doesn't mention his sexuality.
We shall see...

PS And here it is - and it does - but you only need to read the title really, the rest is filler.

The Revd Paul Flowers ticked all the right 'progressive' boxes — that's why he could get away with anything

Unthought For The Day: George Osborne

“A landmark piece of social legislation has been passed this year – it is not universally popular in this room probably.

"But gay marriage is a very big piece of social legislation. There is a Conservative story which is not told often enough.

“Of William Wilberforce, being the man who freed the slaves, of Shaftsbury, who said we will limit factory hours and we are not going to let children work down the mines.”

“That is a very powerful part of the Conservative story and it is a part that I am very happy to associate myself with.”

George Osborne, speaking at a meeting of Tory party activists during conference, quoted in Pink News.

Ovelooking the little matter of the Conservatives' historical hostility to any gay rights legislation...
Should you be grateful for gay marriage, if you can't afford one cause you've had your benefits cut? 

Comparing getting equal marriage to the abolition of slavery shows a complete lack of proportion.

And his argument is rather undermined by the facts that William Wilberforce sat as an independent MP, and slavery was abolished under a Whig government.
Enough of this silly, disgusting Tory revisionism.

PS And gay marriage makes it to the opening credits of the new series of Have I Got News For You.
Though I think it's meant to be Nick and Dave getting gaymarried - yes, that old chestnut!
Hard to be sure as the cartoonist clearly can't draw for toffee.
Other new news featured are HS2, Kim Jong-un, and George Osborne trying to get a payday loan.

Tories: Enemies Without Benefits

Morland cartoon for The Independent,

Grandmaster Melle Mel And The Furious Five - We Don't Work For Free.

Not much of note in gayland this morning, it seems.
White rabbits! etc

Best wishes to anyone who's not stopping smoking or is not growing a hideous moustache or whatever we're meant to do this month.

Are we allowed to eat gay hate spaghetti again now?

Spending Review: What A Load Of Cuts!

Top 10 Richest Cabinet Ministers

Lord Strathclyde £9.6million. Inherited Wealth, stake in family's estate management company, Auchendrane Estates. Also private directorships.

Philip Hammond £8.2million. Stake in healthcare and nursing home developer Castlemead; consultancy work

William Hague £4.8million. Income from public speaking, two books, a newspaper column and various business advisory roles

Jeremy Hunt £4.8million. Stake in Hotcourses, a publisher of guides and websites for educational courses, which he co-founded

Caroline Spelman £4.5million. Wealth figures primarily reflect the value of properties owned by Spelman and husband, a Senior Partner at Accenture

George Osborne £4.5million. Property (inherited); stake in family-owned fabric and wallpaper designer Osborne & Little (inherited)

David Cameron £3.8million. Property, most likely funded from parents/inheritance

Francis Maude £3.2million. Work as managing director at morgan stanley and various directorships

Dominic Grieve £2.9million. Private investment, funded by salaries as barrister and QC

Andrew Mitchell £2.2million. Former investment banker, owns a number of homes, contributing to most of his wealth.

2012 figures, taken from the well-known leftist publication the Daily Telegraph.

In a bid to grab headlines and push Labour into a corner ahead of the 2015 election, Osborne announced an unexpected package of welfare reforms and confirmed he was ending automatic pay rises for employees in the public sector.
The chancellor said he was extending the current three-day wait before the jobless can claim benefits to seven days. He also said he would require jobseekers to attend jobcentres every week, rather than fortnightly, and order lone parents with children aged three and four to prepare for work. People will also be required to attend English language classes as a condition of claiming benefit – with the Treasury indicating the measure could affect 100,000 people. "If you are not prepared to learn English, your benefits will be cut," he said.
The total package will save £425m, Osborne said, sidestepping the Liberal Democrat insistence that welfare benefits are cut no further.

The Guardian.

Current weekly rate of Jobseeker's Allowance for Under-25s - £56.80.

Update: 'The government is undermining its good work on equal marriage by axing vital workplace protections for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transsexual people'  Frances O'Grady, TUC general secretary.

Daily Mail: The Boy George Budget

Uh-huh...

Marriage: The Other Boy George Says...

It is astonishing that Mr Romney won the election among men by a clear-cut margin of 7 per cent; but it was Mr Obama’s 11 per cent lead among women that won it for the President, even though many of those that voted Democrat thought Mr Romney would manage the economy better. President Obama’s high-profile endorsement of equal marriage for gay couples also enthused younger voters. But polls found that a majority of all Americans supported him on the issue and voted for it in all four states that held ballots.

I should declare my personal position on these social issues: I wouldn’t change the current abortion laws and I strongly support gay marriage on principle. Of course in Britain these issues are ones of individual conscience and free votes, but I am proud to be part of a Government that will introduce a Bill to allow gay marriage. It is worth reflecting that in Britain, as in America, a clear majority of the public support gay marriage, and an even bigger majority of women support it. That majority support is just as high in the North as it is the South, and it is equally high among all socio-economic groups.

Successful political parties reflect the modern societies they aspire to lead. As Margaret Thatcher said in the first sentence of her introduction to the 1979 Conservative Election manifesto: “The heart of politics is not political theory, it is people and how they want to live their lives. 

George Osborne writing in The Times. 

Almost certainly the first time anyone has invoked Margaret Thatcher to support gay marriage.
Although this article is presented as being "In praise of Obama", it's more about how the Conservatives should learn from Romney's defeat.
Though unbelievably cynical, it's a victory of sorts that homophobia is now a vote-loser.
Further, when a senior politician goes public in support of or against a policy that's "controversial" within their own party, it's often a covert attack on a colleague.
Just putting that thought out there...

Update: Predictably critical - and lie-packed - editorial in the serial gay marriage-bashing Telegraph.

Gay Marriage: William Hague Comes Out

Daily Telegraph.

How very interesting.
Probably best if I keep schtum on this one.
But good to see William Hague, Liam Fox, Michael Gove and George Osborne all coming out.
For gay marriage, I mean.
Though if Tory cabinet ministers could actually say they were gay that might signal a real "generational change".

PS Actually I'm not sure if Liam Fox has come out - for gay marriage. Shall we ask Adam?

Marriage: Boy George Speaks

“I am a supporter of it, I will be voting for it when it comes to the House of Commons, but it will be a free vote issue – in other words every MP will vote according to their conscience – and I will vote according to my conscience in favour of gay marriage.”

George Osborne on Sky News, quoted in the Telegraph. 
The Tories are nice, yes.
They support the gay marriage.
While sacking public sector workers, cutting public services and slashing benefits, the impact of which on gay men's life is so much much greater than some silly legal semantics.
Wow, the Tories are so nice.
This government is engaged in the most relentless class war since the Thatcher years.
But they like gay marriage.
Fuck yeah!

We need guns.

PS Telegraph piece illustrated with some gay hands, natch.

PPS Yet another bogus voodoo poll from the homophobic lie-machine that is Coalition 4 Marriage, given credence in the Independent On Sunday. FFS! This heaven gives me migraine.

PPS 'Osborne in £10bn benefit cut vow'. BBC News. That's further to the £18bn they've already said they'd cut. Hoorah for government by in no way out-of-touch posh millionaires!
Ah, Ravachol, where are you when we need you most?

Update: Bit of nudge-nudge, wink-winkery in Monday's Daily Mail.

Gay Marriage: They Don't

 '[George Osborne] told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “We need to focus on issues that really matter.
“We need to focus on the economy, of course, and issues like welfare, education and healthcare.
“Look, when it comes to the House of Lords, Parliament will debate this — and Parliament’s perfectly capable of debating many things. It is not going to be the over-riding priority of this Government — absolutely not. The over-riding priority is fixing the economy.”
Mr Osborne also confirmed gay marriage — another policy which has angered Tory MPs — will not be included in this week’s Queen’s Speech. Instead, there will be a public consultation.

The Sun.
I don't like to gloat, but Fagburn has been alone in pointing out this was never going to happen.
More fool you.

Steve Bell: A Modest Proposal

From today's Guardian.