Ed Balls, the UK Government’s resident embarrassing uncle, has been let out of the cupboard again. Despite holding down his full-time job as Children’s Secretary, Gordon Brown’s Siamese twin and all-round prick, Balls has still found time to create a website that teaches grandparents to be… grandparents.
At a cost of £60 million, the ridiculously named www.begrand.net is stuffed with patronising bollocks designed to bring grandparents round to the ways of the State. Consider some of these stunningly brilliant articles: Seven ways to be a grandfather, What to feed a pregnant woman, How to make teenagers eat their greens. For £60 million I would have expected a cure for cancer, not this condescending tosh. Come to think of it, wasn’t £60 million the amount of dodgy expenses trousered by MPs last year.
I particularly liked this little nugget from a discussion about what your grandchildren should call you: “Pretty much any noise your new grandchild makes can be claimed as the word for you, even if not in your own language. When your grandchild grunts 'Ugogo', that’s Zulu for Grandma, or ‘Thakur-da’, when it's Bengali for Grandad.”
However, the quote that managed to send a shiver down my spine was this one: “Grandparents often have strong and sometimes strange opinions”. Oh really? By this, I think Balls means that grandparents can often be possessed of common sense and non-PC points of view. Can’t have that now, can we? What’s the point of brainwashing them at school only to have the work undone when they see grandpa at the weekend?
No doubt the bug-eyed twerp thinks he can reprogram the nation’s elders and get them more ‘on message’ once they’ve read the wisdom contained on his silly but expensive little website. It never ceases to amaze me how Marxists genuinely believe propaganda can change people’s views if you ram it far enough down their throats for long enough.
Right… I’m off for a Buckfast and Vimto followed by a Cillit Bang chaser; I simply can’t stomach any more Balls.
Are there any drinks left over? I think we may all need one .. .. ..
ReplyDeleteI've just clicked on that link and *shudders* sixty million quid?
Unbelievable
The man is a joke with a suitable name.
ReplyDeleteThere are at least two of us now who have clicked on that stupid site, so I expect they will think it is a wonderful success.:(
ReplyDeletePerhaps you shouldn't have put a link.
You're right, I shouldn't have posted a link. I've fallen into a Balls king-size elephant trap. However, let us not forget that Ed Balls is considered to be the best man to follow in Gordon Brown's footsteps... by Gordon Brown, no less. I think this tells us all we need to know about the Prime Minister.
ReplyDeleteNo dount a silly website, but any website can't possibly cost 60 million? What's your source?
ReplyDeleteHe website is the shop window to a £60 million project on grandparenting. Like all these things, the big chunk of the cost will be the army of consultants, civil servants and other worthies needed to deliver the project over a number of years. Setting up the website in terms of design will not have cost £60 million but the ongoing editorial costs will. The story was reported by the Daily Express and the cost probably came from a FOI request.
ReplyDeleteThe 60mil will be spent on an estimated 1,500 schools for 200,000 children from broken homes to have access to counselling. But that would just have been a boring story wouldn't it? It's much easier to just pinch a crap story from the daily express.
ReplyDeleteOh Lucas... if that be your real name, are you by chance employed by the government to trawl the blogosphere righting wrongs on behalf of your masters? The story wasn't 'pinched' from the Daily Express as it's not a 'newspaper' to which I subscribe.
ReplyDeleteYou claim that the £60 million is in fact 'for the children'. It will be spent on 1,500 schools for 200,000 children? That's a bargain £4 million per school, including staffing costs. Now that's what I call value for money. Or do you mean it's being spent 'in' 1,500 schools to bring counselling to 200,000 children, who may or may not need a counsellor? That's a nice round number. Let's assume that 10% decide to see the nice counsellor, that's £300 per child.
Now let me tell you where I think the money is really going: I think that the majority of the cash will go on inflated public sector salaries and National Insurance contributions as well as hefty consultancy fees for the website. Having worked in publishing for many years, I can assure you that the editorial costs and the army of bureaucrats needed to run and monitor the website will soak that lot up pretty quickly. It's not so much about helping children from broken homes as it is about buying some more votes by creating another round of non-jobs.
Now, if you don;t like my blog and you feel my standards are so low, why don't you try something else instead? May I suggest you visit www.direct.gov.uk That's always good for a laugh and the government spins far better than I can.
Thank you for listening.
No I am not employed by the government and there's no need to get all huffy really. You have misled your readers by claiming that the website costs 60mil (go ahead and read your blogpost again) and I was merely correcting your error.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lucas. I'm sure were all grateful. Did you actually have any figures on how much the website cost? I'd love to know.
ReplyDeleteBalls by name, Balls by nature.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on not being fooled by the Great Moron and his flunkies.
Hope your health is still improving, thanks for reminding us about your harrowing experience.