Author: wilks

I called myself wilks when I first started blogging. The idea was that it would afford a measure of anonymity. For much the same reason, there was no photo. Times change, hence the photo, but I decided that even when I changed the blog’s title at the start of 2009, I should remain wilks.

Essex crabs

The drive home this evening was brightened up by a report on PM (Radio 4) about Chinese mitten crabs, and the damage they are causing along the Thames. Apparently, however, they are edible when they are sexually active.

When the interviewee from the Natural History Museum was asked by Eddie Mair when that was, the answer was that we don’t exactly know: but that when they feel the urge, they move towards more saline water; so  they decamp from their Chiswick Eyot burrows and make their way downstream to Deptford. The suggestion was that they should then be harvested and sold ~ I suppose to the Chinese.

Can it get any worse?

Not the economy (it will) but this endless parade of insincerity. Watching the RBS and HBoS bankers yesterday was hardly an edifying experience. Humbled they weren’t. The coverage has been extensive, but two posts to read.

The first from Matthew Taylor yesterday, in which he argues that

Perhaps it’s time to take a more systematic approach to apologies. After all, not all ‘sorries’ are worth much. When I worked in Number Ten, Tony Blair used occasionally to admit he’d made a mistake but only when he wished he had listened to himself earlier!

A distinction to start with when grading apologies is between apologising for the act and apologising for the consequences. Insincere apologies will tend to be weak on one or other side; either ‘I’m sorry for what happened but there was nothing I could have done about it’, or ‘I made a mistake but I’m not responsible for what happened as a result’.

The second from Martin Bright

Now word reaches The Bright Stuff that the man who has never knowingly apologised for anything is preparing his very own “mea culpa”. I am told that Whitehall officials have been ordered to make a compilation DVD of Obama’s various apologies to the American TV networks to be studied by the Prime Minister.

The idea of Gordon Brown practising a humble self-deprecating manner in front of the mirror based on what he has seen on his training DVD doesn’t bear thinking about. But then again… maybe it does.

What will be Gordon’s reward?

Gordon Brown quoted in The Telegraph this morning

“We are leading the world in sweeping away the old short term bonus culture of the past and replacing it with a determination that there are no rewards for failure and rewards only for long-term success”  and

“In the future there must be rewards for success – but long-term sustainable success and not just short-term gains”

I am not sure where this rule about rewards for long-term sustainable success will leave Gordon Brown come the next election. Although he may not be wholly to blame for the current state of UK PLC, his years at the Treasury and the policies he then promoted have played a significant part. 

There is a measure of political self-delusion in trying to claim that we are better placed than others to weather this recession/depression; similarly in the argument that he is merely the victim of circumstance.

If he is pinning his hopes on the electorate believing him, then today’s Times/Populus poll  will be a great disappointment.