'Lord' Jeff Rooker not so hot on logic
This nomination for the single most brain-dead comment made by a British minister, certainly this week and possibly for very much longer goes to Jeff Rooker. Care of the Evening Standard, we have this:
"The peer said that the best thing was for people to consider moving to wetter parts of the country, including Wales, Scotland and the Midlands. "There is no question that the population and resources in this country are spread very unevenly," he said. "There is something immoral about taking a resource from other areas of the country to the South East. Rather than build a water grid, it would be much better to move the population and centres of Government and reconfigure the country more fairly."
Right Jeff, if we can drop the title - how do you feel about the transfer of wealth from London to the rest of the country? Or redistribution full stop? What about the Labour governments in the 1970s you were lobby fodder for which nationalised areas of the economy supposedly for the national, rather than local, good? Maybe when you were a councillor in Birmingham, and then an MP for the same city you told voters interested in schools, housing, leisure centres or whatever that they should move house? Then again you introduced a bill to abolish the House of Lords in 1980, so long term consistency isn't your strong point, clearly. At the moment you are a Minister for Sustainable Farming and Food, so perhaps if the good people of Perry Barr, or come to that Croydon, want food they should move somewhere near an apple tree, or a pig or a tofu facory?
Meanwhile, I'm just itching to see what will undoutedly be your well-thought out plan "to move the population and centres of Government and reconfigure the country more fairly".
Honestly, battling against the idiocies of the age is like swimming through glue.
"The peer said that the best thing was for people to consider moving to wetter parts of the country, including Wales, Scotland and the Midlands. "There is no question that the population and resources in this country are spread very unevenly," he said. "There is something immoral about taking a resource from other areas of the country to the South East. Rather than build a water grid, it would be much better to move the population and centres of Government and reconfigure the country more fairly."
Right Jeff, if we can drop the title - how do you feel about the transfer of wealth from London to the rest of the country? Or redistribution full stop? What about the Labour governments in the 1970s you were lobby fodder for which nationalised areas of the economy supposedly for the national, rather than local, good? Maybe when you were a councillor in Birmingham, and then an MP for the same city you told voters interested in schools, housing, leisure centres or whatever that they should move house? Then again you introduced a bill to abolish the House of Lords in 1980, so long term consistency isn't your strong point, clearly. At the moment you are a Minister for Sustainable Farming and Food, so perhaps if the good people of Perry Barr, or come to that Croydon, want food they should move somewhere near an apple tree, or a pig or a tofu facory?
Meanwhile, I'm just itching to see what will undoutedly be your well-thought out plan "to move the population and centres of Government and reconfigure the country more fairly".
Honestly, battling against the idiocies of the age is like swimming through glue.
Labels: Cant, Rooker, The horror that is the Labour Party
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on Monday, October 16, 2006 at 6:07 pm.
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fairly
Whenever I hear that word faling from the lips of a politician I always wonder just how much this this latest half arsed idea is going to cost me.
Is he a lifer? If I were in Britain, I'd campaign to get rid of life peers. It's a ridiculous concept.
Baron Rooker, used to work under Prezza, is one of the barmier specimens of NuLabourdom. As Food Safety minister in 1999,Jeff Rooker put into effect the rules that British waiters have to be able to tell diners whether their food contains genetically modified soya or maize.
And if they cannot, their employers
face fines of up to 5,000 quid - typical NuLabour stunt.
Peter - oh aye. Shades of the old quip about the more so and so spoke about honour, the faster we counted the spoons..
V - He most certainly is. As I believe I've let rip in the past, the honours system can never be transparent, and there will always be the suspicion that time servers and the grotesquely incompetent (but loyal) have been rewarded as well as - or, more likely, at the expense - the able. My one line manifesto - you want political power? Run for office.
IT - doesn't surprise me, but it does appal me.
Croydonian, you want political power? Run for office.
I would,conversely, add to that injunction, if you definitely don't want political power but the responsibility gets thrown at you, that's a hereditary and that is unique and valuable..
The hereditaries were/are the best solution to our second chamber. Unelected, thus never driven to seek political power and political masters, because they already had it. Not really wanting to go in, but going in out of duty and history in the event of specifically important votes. A true breaker on the power of an over-mighty executive.
I say, toss the life tossers out (let them keep their meaningless titles so they can still swank around in restaurants and get theatre seats). Do not make the second chamber an elected chamber.
Get the hereditaries - who don't want to be there in the first place - back for key votes, out of their sense of duty. It was unique in the world, and it worked.
No wonder tone, the boy saviour, with initiatives with which he could be "personally associated", just hated it.
Before Thailand went in for democracy, they used to govern themselves by drafting in a monk who had had retired from the worldly life and just wanted to sit and think. So this poor monk would come in reluctantly and would do his best, his eye on the quitting date, presiding over the government and, duty-bound, looking out for its interests.
On the quitting date, he split back to his meditation and they got in another fellow who didn't want to do the job.
I feel the same about the hereditaries.
Kick the lifers out. They can still enjoy their titles but can't do any damage. The hereditaries will come in reluctantly, do the job of being a revising chamber in a mainly dispassionate way, according to their consciences, not the will of political masters, and bugger off, not foregetting to collect their attendance fees on the way out.
What could be better?
It worked. That's why the mental dwarf tony blair destroyed it. It was a threat.
Well what can we say to Jeff Rookers comments, apart from stupid!!!
He did nothing for his constituency in the way of economic development and blamed the Conservative Government for years and sadly got away with it.
Now he's another hypocrite sitting in the House of Lords that once loathed its existence!!!
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