Attlee

[therealpm]

I can't say the man and I ever enjoyed much by way of conversation, but it was a pleasure today to unveil a statue of one of the Labour party's all-time greats.


In other news, it appears that yet another yougov poll has been doing the rounds,this time about who is the nation's most irritating politician. In no particular order the results are:

	Irritating	Not Irritating	Don't Know
Ed Balls	51	31	18
John Bercow	36	18	46
Lembit Opik	63	18	19
Baroness Warsi	39	17	44
George Osborne	52	30	18
David Cameron	48	45	7
Vince Cable	39	38	24
Nick Clegg	52	41	8
Ed Miliband	52	37	11
Gordon Brown	58	33	8
Peter Mandelson	65	18	16
Harriet Harman	54	28	17
William Hague	50	40	10

Comments

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

I highly doubt that constituency work has decreased in intensity and volume since your time as a member of the Commons.

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

Oh in this computerised age, I'm sure it's all a doddle.

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

Not when they're cutting the number of MPs. Stupid idea, I told him so from the start, but would he listen? Of course not. One comment, just one comment over five years ago and he still can't let it go...

I think you're underestimating how hard honourable and right honourable members work and, if you remember, the House has cut back on holidays in recent years...

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

"I find the fact that backbenchers have no means of directly questioning prominent Ministers of the Crown because they happen to sit in the House of Lords to be less than satisfactory.

That is even more true at a time when the Cabinet contains the esteemed Lord Mandelson, whose empire is of a scale not seen since the death of Alexander the Great."

...a slight exaggeration.

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

Not that you mind, of course.

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

Your obsession is somewhat amusing.

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

Don't flatter yourself.

Top my glass up, would you?

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

I don't need to, you seem perfectly willing to do it for me; with your talk of empires and so forth.

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

Oh stop it and pass the bottle over.

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

.

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

*tops up glass*

Are you ok for the moment or do you want a top up too?

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

Go ahead.

*holds out glass*

...I appear to have confused The Machine, poor thing.

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

*tops up drink*

Tut-tut Peter, don't be so mean to it.

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

I am encouraging her his its critical faculties, as any reponsible parent creator would.

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

Most parents would give some kind of hint - lay out the possible places it went wrong and then get it to reason through each one individually rather than simply say "Well, that's wrong - figure it out yourself". You have to wait until they're older to do that sort of thing.

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

Most children aren't blessed with a multi-Mz processor or three. Besides, I pointed out that the fault was in one of the premises, not the logic itself.

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

True. And I suppose The Machine doesn't exactly behave like a normal child...

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

When have you ever met one of those for an extended period of time?

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

As any good MP does, I do my fair share of school visits. I'm sure I've spent great amounts of time with normal children, if it is all added up.

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm...

...that's a point, I can hardly send The Machine to a school to interact with its peers.

Maybe I could build another one to keep it company?

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

...does it even have any peers?

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

Possibly. It certainly didn't just pick up that last virus, it was deliberately infected.

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

It was?

...is there any way of tracking where it got the virus from to try to discover where the other one is, if indeed there is another?

[therealpm.livejournal.com]

John, given The Machine's potential to cause havoc at inopportune moments when incorrectly programmed, do you really want to make contact with a similar entity, especially one which we have reason to believe is hostile?

[bamfbercow.livejournal.com]

Can't you figure out where it got the thing from without the other one finding out that you've found it?

...I'm not good with technology, as you know full well, just humour me on this point!