saintbletch

To an extent Jonnyboy, I'm sure you're right. But with many you get the sense that they are inevitable with the recipient throwing racist, bigoted or slanderous remarks onto their own funeral pyre, before finally climbing onboard themselves. With pap, the feeling I get is that this happened all very quickly (dramatic). I haven't had any contact with pap to confirm this, hence my request to The Man.

Steve, pap appears to be/have been a popular poster - even amongst those that he seemed to bang heads with. Here's a polite request that you expand a little on the cryptic post above and perhaps share your rationale. Could you also confirm if pap's banning is permanent? Without being party to the machinations of moderation, it all seems to have been a little dramatic.

As I've got a working knowledge of forum software, I know that it's possible for those in the spirit world to read our messages here - even though they're banned. And as I've seen The Enfield Haunting (*well the first two episodes so far), I also know that it's possible for those in the spirit world to communicate with us. I'm going to lightly place my fingers on an upturned wine glass, and periodically check @papingu.

Very funny BTW, papster.

Beg yours. I was looking in the election thread... ...So it was you that grassed up pap then Hypo. You ****ing weasel-dicked ****.* *Bletch in "shooting from the hip in homage to pap" mode.

Hmm. Holy missing comic strips shurlock! I seem to remember seeing another batman comic strip earlier, but because I was reading on the phone I thought I'd study the detail when I got back to my desk. But now... ...it's gone. Riddle me this...Who could have fired a polaris missile into pap's heart? Quick, to the bat-sub. There's not a moment to lose!

With your permission, Toke, I'd like to try to contact pap from beyond the grave. pap, if you can hear me, who would you like me to forum-arse-**** for you? Knock once for Hypo. Knock twice for UJ. Knock thrice for Batman... Not saying that you had a lot of nemeses, but this could take some time. ...knock 12489 times for Verbal. Nice tits BTW, Toke. ...knock 24563 times for....

Oh! I was watching that.

You'll be missed - until we've had enough beer, then you'll be discussed. It'll be like Take That without Robbie. Much better!

I'll follow your trail of droppings back to the Saints Web table, Toga Yob! I look forward to hearing about your idyllic childhood in The Wales. There's lovely, isn't it. To be honest Lou it wasn't papster, Flyd Owl and Gay Boot that 'turned my head'. I wanted to ensure that I was a member of the cocks for Lou club. P.S. I've already been scalped.

Lady and gentlemen, what time will you be leaving the pub? I'm not going to the game, but I *might be able to get to the pub afterwards. The opportunity to meet both Flyd Owl and papster in the same room at the same time is just too great to pass up. We just need to get Halo along and it'd be like some sort of word-bore version of The Blues Brothers. Halo? Come on, we can still save the orphanage! *'might' because I know this sort of tarting about pushes pap's patience-buttons.

Interesting blog entry stressing the importance of every vote (and that we need voting reform) as the Tory majority hung on the decisions of only 901 people. http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/majority-2015.html?m=1 The article itself supplies the caveats, so I won't bother.

Shame.

I would think he would, but he's here justifying it. Whatever the rights and wrongs, this will surely have an impact on (particularly youth) voting? How big is the question. Whilst the production quality of his videos are normally pretty high, this one looks on a different level to me. Has he had extra help/funding to make this one? Perhaps the Labour party contributed? Perhaps this was always going to happen?

Would anyone here entertain using a vote-swapping web site to ensure that their vote 'counts'? How do people feel about this as a means to influence FPTP results - where otherwise you might not have any influence? http://www.swapmyvote.uk/ http://voteswap.org/ http://www.unitetheright.com/ And here's a write-up discussing the 'trend'.

VFTT and others, I apologise if I've overstepped a mark, or caused offence in my rush to implement Godwin's law. I think it's important that I try to explain my thoughts, because it really didn't leave my brain that way, but I can now see how it looks. If I had attempted to suggest that anything Clegg had done was in anyway comparable with anything Hitler did, then that would be in very poor taste. But I hoped it was obvious that I wasn't making drawing a parallel on policies or impact between Clegg and Hitler. I was attempting to link the fact that they both were put into government by their supporters, then took decisions that their voters surely did not want, and then through powerful oratory were able to justify their actions. I've just finished reading Time's Arrow by Martin Amis. It's told backwards and is truly one of the oddest books I've ever read, but it centres around a war criminal who was a doctor and did some really **** things at Auschwitz. It set me thinking about how on earth Hitler was ever put into power in the first place. Surely nobody would have voted for a policy such as that? I thought Nick Clegg's defence over his pledge/un-pledge was incredibly ballsy and showed what an excellent speaker he is. But it left me in mind of how people who have that natural ability to carry an audience feel that they can do whatever they want, because when they next get in front of that audience, they will be able to talk them round and reconcile their actions. Given the book I've just read, the Hitler comparison came to mind. Inappropriately it would appear. The only parallel I was hoping to draw was that voters in both instances were left wondering how their 'mandate' had been twisted in a way that was surely not in line with their wishes, and then they watched as those powerful speakers were able to ignore that breach of trust and justify their actions. For the avoidance of doubt, the common themes I was aiming for were a breach of trust and the ability to reconcile that breach through skillful oratory. Nothing more.

And even if he did whelkster, how would that income have magically appeared in the first 2 years of their term? Far from being meaningless, Jack Frost, I think it is a small fact worthy of bearing in mind when we now hear criticism of Labour's disastrous management of the economy. Because, surely, if the Conservatives then felt that it was disastrous to spend in the way Labour had planned, they surely would have been looking on Exchange and Mart for a second-hand Mondeo, not agreeing to keep up the payments on Labour's Ferrari? I'm not suggesting this, discrete fact blows apart some myth that Labour overspending. It doesn't. But it's also not meaningless.

Forgot to add that Miliband's handling of the "Did you spend too much?" question was poor. There was a chance to take some heat and gain some credibility there. But as it's a nuanced argument, and it's late in the campaign, perhaps he had no choice.

Nothing more than two politicians reconciling a breach of trust. The two are not comparable in any other way BTT. Did I need to add that?

I'm sure I can rely on you all to interpret these words in the light of my little dot on Johnny Bognor's chart, but here are my thoughts on QT. In no particular order, the thoughts of Chairman Bletch. I thought the format was excellent. I loved that the public was allowed to ask tough questions, quickly follow-up, and shout-down the politician if they weren't answering the question. I went to a hustings event in Eastleigh last week and got the chance to ask questions, and many of the ones I asked appeared last night. I thought Miliband got more of a grilling than Cameron. I suspect this might be down to the audience being warmed up by Cameron first. Miliband answered the SNP question excellently. There was no debate about where Labour publicly stands. It seemed to completely shutdown debate on that point, and may serve him well in the final days of campaigning. That said, I don't believe him. As CB Fry said below with tongue in cheek, that trip at the end just sums him up. He's got most of the ingredients to be a great leader, but like the dog that chases Tom in the cartoons, he always seems to manage to step on a rake. Overall I get more and more impressed by his performances - coming from a low base as he was. As I mentioned before, when I see Cameron chucking out triplets of his successes and others' failures in the HoC at PMQ, it leaves me cold. It's successful at PMQ, but when I see him doing the same on the campaign trail it makes him look, I don't know, robotic, unengaged, unoriginal, a puppet of Lynton Crosby, but most of all unstatesmanlike. That said, when he wasn't doing that he performed pretty well. I think it's a shame that he feels the need to continually bring his dead child into the NHS debate. It makes me feel pretty uncomfortable. I listened with interest for him to completely rule out child benefit changes, but I didn't hear an unequivocal response. Whilst Dimbleby did ask him a second time, I would have preferred that he had kept going to get that answer, but the format and the clock didn't allow for that. Clegg? Why was he there? Again, as others have mentioned he is a really good speaker, and a little like Blair he does the mock sincerity really quite well. There was one point where (I think) he was talking about foodbanks, and he broke eye-contact with the questioner for a split second to take a brief and wistful look into the middle-distance, before managing to control his obvious emotional turmoil to resume his answer. I was nearly sick in my hands. I think their campaign has been pretty well played - given the kicking they were likely to take. This banging of the "We're the buffer between the bastards and the buffons" line will, I think, protect some of their vote that might have softened otherwise. Whilst he and I irrevocably fell out over his handling of the tuition fees pledge, I thought his defence of it was very, very impressive. Impressive in a sort of "I wonder if Hitler's followers ever thought he would really kill all those Jews?" sort of a way.

You're in good company KRG. If you want, we can get together and throw stones at papster - he's the one standing just below and to the left of Julian Assange and Phil Ochs.

There you go Johnny Bognor... Your Political Compass Economic Left/Right: -5.13 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.79

I thought this was an interesting quote from that article, trousers - especially as Adam Memon is employed by the free-market focussed Centre for Policy Studies. Surprising viewpoint, and surprising that you posted the link.

There's a deeper message in here somewhere... Just not sure what it is.