Scrapbook wishes that Fox News would just say what it really thinks.
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Author Archives: Conor Pope
Perils of the Parliamentary emails
As those familiar with the Parliamentary email system will no doubt know, if you are going to send out an insipid email to every MP and staffer, then you have to be prepared for people to respond by telling you exactly what they think in front of every MP and staffer.
So spare a thought for Charlie Campbell, a Parliamentary researcher who had to send everyone an invitation to ‘Northumberland Day’ on behalf of his boss, Tory MP Guy Opperman.
You might have thought that everyone would’ve been happy to have been invited to a celebration of all that is great about Northumberland as a tourist destination for two hours on a Monday afternoon, but it appears that the MP for Stockton North, Alex Cunningham, was less than impressed. In his open reply, he opined:
“Shame the government stopped the RDA’s advertising budget for tourism and numbers of visitors dropped last year in the North East whilst they increased in Yorkshire and Cumbria whose budgets were retained.”
It’s fair to say that Charlie’s area of expertise is probably not British tourism; he recently sent out a similarly open email asking if anyone fancied going skiing in the Alps with him next winter. Unfortunately, the pompous nature of the email (Scrapbook had to Google “après”) left fellow researchers musing whether it was all a joke.
What a proper Charlie.
Mubarak in hospital after “slowly turning into blobfish”
The stress of being ousted from office by your own people after 30 years in power has clearly taken its toll on former Egypt president Hosni Mubarak. While Gaddafi has adopted Charlie Sheen mode to deal with the pressure (by acting mad) Mubarak has begun a transmogrification into a blobfish:
Few will have sympathy for this particular ugly, bottom-feeding, endangered species rarely seen by humans.
Just say "Argh" to AV!
Scrapbook plans to stay neutral throughout the electoral reform campaign, but with No to AV’s garish and somewhat overblown campaign already ripening for satire, it would be wholly wrong of us not to guide you towards the wonderful ARGH to AV site.
Operating along similar lines to the Daily Mail-o-matic headline generator, the “No” camp could probably save themselves quite a bit of time using this tool. Although “The professional Elvis impersonator needs to STFU not an alternative voting system – Say ARGH to spending less than George Osborne’s inheritance on AV” is good, our personal favourite is:
Unfortunately, nothing quite reaches the heights of the original “Vote No to AV or the baby gets it” advert.
Former Conservative candidate's paranormal activity
Scrapbook wouldn’t dream of mocking people for their interests (glass houses, etc.), but we would like to bring to your attention former Tory PPC and Euro candidate Rupert Matthews, whose new career path came as a bit of a surprise.
Matthews, who describes himself as “A Winner” despite his unsuccessful campaigns to be elected to both Westminster and the European Parliament, is now a tutor at the International Metaphysical University for the course ‘Understanding Our Paranormal Universe’. During this online course, you can learn about ghosts (Week 2), poltergeists (Week 4), aliens (Week 6), and even Bigfoot (Week 7). The icing on the cake though, is the seven minute long introductory cringe-fest video:
Almost as good is the video promotion for his book, Paranormal Surrey, which contains the immortal line:
“Now I’m all grown up of course, I know there really is a ghost here at the Marquis of Granby.”
Scrapbook wonders if Mr Matthews has been finding skeletons in the closet of a certain senior Lib Dem.
Throw Pickles to the sharks, says Lib Dem councillor
Terrible poll ratings, broken promises, grassroots unrest and an imminent scandal – things aren’t looking great for the Lib Dems.
Until the scandal breaks, however, you’ll just have to make do with this Lib Dem councillor from Colchester, Nick Barlow, calling for a senior Coalition partner to be thrown to the sharks.
Scrapbook thinks the “Coalition’s passive aggressive hippo” wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Sinn #Féil
With the Irish General Election looming, our Gaelic counterparts are really stepping up a gear. Sinn Féin, who currently hold only five seats in the Dáil, will be hoping to make gains from the useless gobshites, ahem sorry, current Government. However, that won’t be easy if they continue to send out press releases before they’re finished:
How odd, also, that the party should use “Jane Bloggs” as a placeholder name.
Surely any republican worth their salt would write “Shainin Ni Bhloggigh”?
Hat-tip: Padraig Reidy
Nick Griffin: My car "smells of cat piss"
Some politicians use social media to connect better with their constituents, humanise themselves and improve transparency in politics. Not BNP leader Nick Griffin, however, who uses his Twitter account to inform people that his car smells like a cat has done a bad thing:
To mask the smell, Griffin purchased a bigotry and ignorance-scented air freshener at a service station outside Bourbourg.