When Real Life Happens!

This was the moment earlier this evening when the terribly thoughtless people of England intruded into the lives of Prince Charles and Camilla.

The moment when Charles and Camilla's car was attacked

What an darned inconvenience for them.

Thankfully however, the two were not held up for long and managed to make it to the Royal Variety Performace on time. What a relief.

While they may be of far less importance, sadly many of the little people in London were faced with more havoc caused by both genuine protesters and thugs who turned the city into a warzone.

I spoke to Andrew Hart, who works in Kensington but made his way down to Westminster at around 6pm to watch the protests unfold from a safe distance. He likened the scenes to the Notting Hill Carnival: "From where I was standing you could see the students trying to push the police across the bridge. A lot of drunk kids and just kids being little dicks were throwing cans or whatever.

"I never saw the worst of it yet it was crazy busy. It was not what I would call a protest - more of a street festival. A lot of people were just pushed along like cattle".

The BBC's Business Secretary Vince Cable said today that the policy which is the cause of this trouble has been passed by a democratic Parliament and that the details must now be explained to the public.

While this may be true and the system of government in this country is something to protect at all costs, it has been let down by the politicians who failed to keep their promises.

It is unlikely that the Liberal Democrats will come back from this for many years, and Nick Clegg has certainly already seen his best days - but what has been damaged by the whole affair is more worrying.

When a party publishes its manifesto, detailing what it stands for and what it hopes to do, this forms the basis on how the people of the country vote. When politicians fail to keep to these promises there is little we can do - except protest.

And although putting people in danger is inexcuseable, be it the ordinary minions or the future King himself, it is certainly heartening to know that there are still people in this country who will go out and show how angry they are when they've been let down by the people they voted for.

and now... a different kind of weather warning.

Many in England are worried about the weather.



The blanket has finally hit Portsmouth too



Images of cars and houses blanketed by snow surround us, and the old "they deal with it fine in Europe" conversation is getting thoroughly explored once again.

But while most are concerned about the extent of disruption caused by the rather thoughtless weather, it is likely that many in government will be grabbing at this opportunity as fast as their smooth hands will allow them to.



Linda Norgrove, killed by the US



What better time for William Hague to announce the outcome of an investigation which found that aid worker Linda Norgrove was indeed killed by a grenade thrown by a US special forces soldier sent to rescue her. With most people tuned into travel reports, hoping their children can get back from school safely - or indeed out in the snow playing with their kids - it is unlikely that most would have heard the news.



Students are angered by Nick Clegg's lies





So too would they have missed the announcement that December 9 will be the date of the all-important MP vote to decide whether or not University tutition fees will increase - a point which continues to anger students into staging protests around the country. 



And if that wasn't enough, it seems that today was the right time - as half the country battles it's way through the snow and slush - for IPSA to annouce details of MPs expenses for the first time since the general election.



David Cameron will no doubt be concealing more
inconvenient truths under the blanket of snow.



The reason for doing so becomes clear when you see the response it gained during a debate in the house of commons. Click HERE.

It was heavily criticised for costing too much, taking MPs time away from their constituents, favouring wealthy MPs and doing very little, if anything, to improve transparency.

Considering the anger that MPs expenses have caused in recent years, it is not hard to see why this would have been discussed today - when most of the country isn't listening and have other things to worry about.



Parliament itself partially concealed by the convenient arrival of snow -



While we are very lucky to enjoy the freedom that we do here in the UK, it is always worth remembering that 'distractions' are not illegal - and a convenient helping of weather chaos can certainly have its advantages there.

Next time you are listening to the radio for updates on the road, make sure to listen to the rest of the news too...

"Breaking News" - China style

News: "as it happens"

There is nothing more wonderful than watching BBC news broadcasting round-the-clock coverage of unfolding news stories, such as they did last week for the student protests in London.

They had a helicopter circling over Whitehall, and numerous cameramen actually in the streets, filming the protesters as they marched together.

You could tune in and watch every surge of the crowd, every slogan shouted and every explosive thrown onto the fire. The aerial shots allowed you to watch the mounted police group up, trot their way through the streets and then minutes later at ground level, you could see them appear - pushing the protesters back into contained areas.

To have such freedom in the media to report what is happening, openly broadcasting the people of this country in their outspoken attempts to change the things they disagree with - the whole scene was just beautiful.

 

China also employs this technique in their media. 

Officially though, protests don't happen in China, and therefore are never shown on TV.

So, baring in mind that Tiananmen '89 was never even acknowledged, what type of news story could possibly be of such urgent national interest to the Chinese people for it to be covered continuously, as it happens?

Well, the riveting news which occupied the majority of broadcasters airtime in China today was the live rescue of a young boy from a washing machine.

I kid you not.

Click HERE to watch the footage.

It was even jazzed up somewhat by the addition of several firefighters helping to free the three year old, by using a grotesquely large circular saw.

It makes one wonder what else might have been happening in the world today that was so embarassing the Chinese government may have wanted their people to remain ignorant of it...

"Ahem!! Wikileaks, China's U-turn on their North Korean 'brothers' Ahem!!"

I'm not saying anything...
;)