The Sceptic Blog

@xanderpeters Gloomy and spitty all day. Up goes the awning out comes bags of food and wine. Just been to medieval town on Moncontour.

@xanderpeters grey in Brittany too. Brioche, coffee and imminent Muscadet compensate handsomely.

@OliverCooper @TimMontgomerie yes. the absurdity of the ‘must stay in to trade’ argument is we hand all that money straight back.

@TimMontgomerie http://twitpic.com/29gzk9 – Bet you the taxes paid by UK plc on profits from EU trade don’t amount to £14.4bn. Do you know?

I like disruptive ideas. The recruitment business has been in need of one for a long time. yourpeoplemarket.com seem to be onto something.  http://bit.ly/944z7A

It’s a debate about the future survival of newspapers. Rupert Murdoch believes peope will eventually pay to read the news online. I resist doing that, for now…but Imight get behind a paywall if the journalism there was as good as this.

Rebuilding Parkersburg after the tornado http://bit.ly/clCjcv

Lord March: I fear for future of horse racing. Calls for revolution in racing. http://bit.ly/czkXUU

IoD takens on the banks. Good for them. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/63cb806a-8de5-11df-9153-00144feab49a.html

RT @AMERICAblog: When in a PR hole, stop digging! BP puts fake photo of crisis command centre on its BP site http://bt.io/FfBL

@grantshapps Worth mentioning that the BigSoc has been working away in the background v. effectively for some time: http://bit.ly/bbx9AU

In the latest issue of Business First there’s a story about Kirdford in Sussex – the village was at risk of losing its local shop, so volunteers banded together to sell £10 shares to buy it, raised £200k, blagged free bits and bobs while local builders chucked in their time for nothing, and came up with a wholly locally-owned store that acts as parish pump, cafe, internet hub, arts centre and, of course, shop.

They were assisted by the Plunkett Foundation, whose founder Horace Plunkett’s philosophy is summed up as:

We seek economic solutions to create social change

We seek solutions that enrich rural community life

We see self-help as the most effective way to tackle rural needs…

Sounds like a big piece of the Big Society right there.

If this is anywhere close to being a true picture, then Apple may have peaked.  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/a2027809.html

Question Time is a joke. Sally Bercow? Who she? Nick Ferrari? Ex-Sun showbiz shill, George Galloway? Old joke. BBC – apologise.

Good news for rail travellers. About time.  http://www.businessfirstmagazine.co.uk/news.htm

Bit late onto this one. Government web site waste. Utter debacle, massive kick in the teeth for private web companies http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/07/the_105m_website.html

UPDATE: Cameron says he wasn’t trying to censor Facebook, just let them know what trash they were hosting. Well backed-down Mr. C. Unless you wanted, as @ftwestminster suggests, to get the Mr. Tough Guy headlines in the morning with nice liberal misunderstanding explanation in the afternoon. Which would be spin. But we don’t do that. Do we?

Freedom from government meddling means accepting things we don’t like, Mr. Cameron. Leave Facebook alone.

Britain’s energy crisis, the perils of office sex, the KGB Chief and the death of KAL 007, this and more in the latest Business First.

New Business First out today…increased circulation, hitting top addresses in the City via rack space and now in Star Alliance lounges as …

#bbcquestiontime Michael Forsyth’s look of barely concealed contempt for this idiot Ed Byrne is delicious.

Latest Business First at the printers. Increased circulation, great content, really pleased.

Interesting to see that Labour supporters – even Polly Toynbee – are reverting to type in opposition. The reaction of some to yesterday’s cuts announcement is astonishing, given that Alastair Darling himself pledged a future Labour government would halve the deficit in 4 years. They talk of class warfare, rich Tories (and Lib Dems too?) looking after their own, Marx was right, increase taxes and spending…it’s as if the deficit and the debt crisis doesn’t exist.
If they carry on like this, a merry nightmare awaits whichever Milliband is tasked with leading the party. Or will it be Balls in the end? It usually is with Labour.

Tim Price: Angela triggers a gold rush. Be afraid. http://bit.ly/d34734

@anthonypainter I’d like to talk to Stephen Adshead re his EDS article. Can you ask him to call me please? 07986 764525 Nick Peters

@grantshapps Good luck!

Feels like a giant national hangover. Everyone tired, dispirited, sore heads and we’ll have to do it all over again before long.

Afraid to say it out loud, but who else is really unnerved by the completely meat-headed thinking of our fellow citizens – of every stripe?

OK, so there’s some haggling to be done, but can we PLEASE get back to business?

How would you like a private jet trip to Champagne? Business First can make it happen! – http://eepurl.com/u2Kf

Mandelson at the IoD…says Labour will make £15bn in savings THIS year then hits Tories for promising to make £6bn in cuts. Huh?