Matt Buck’s Hack Cartoons Diary

Highly quality real-time satire from Chris Dowdeswell who was at the G20 protests and was unable to identify an unmarked police officer despite asking nicely.

Hybrid electrical power generation © Matt Buck Hack Cartoons drawn for The Independent

The announced national incentives to purchase electric cars don’t conceal uncomfortable facts. There is no mass-market product to buy yet (not even the G-Wiz) and there is certainly no national infrastructure to support the use of millions of electric cars. The pressure group Friends of the Earth believes electric power is only as ‘green’ as the way it is generated (you can download their position paper as a pdf). So let’s hope the French owned nuclear company EDF are very efficient at supplying our national grid from the new nuclear plants they will be building under a Brown or a Cameron led government.

Red Rag and Hillsborough stadium tragedy cartoon © Matt Buck Hack cartoons drawn for The Independent

In the newspaper today covering for their regular chap, Mr Dave Brown.

UPDATED: 9pm. A link on the Hillsborough story (it’s the 20th anniversary). Link via.

Gordon Brown cartoon for Tribune © Matt Buck Hack cartoons

Who’s in charge here? The Times has a great line on the planned Red Rag website and who owns it. Matt Wardman wonders whether the small bill for it will turn up on someone’s expenses.

UPDATED: Noon. This is a great guide to the ways the blog world has responded to McBride and Draper’s attempts to ape them.

UPDATE: 16th April 2009. Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes writes in The Spectator magazine about events from his point of view.

And at 4pm. From Tim Ireland a very funny and very foulmouthed video.

And at 6pm. Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes interviewed by BBC Newsnight.

FINAL UPDATE: 17th April 5pm. Slugger O’Toole examines the longer term implications of what Guido and Mr Draper have helped to achieve.

Please Mrs Butler
This boy Derek Draper
Keeps being filthy, Miss
And he writes on electronic paper

The LabourList and Red Rag bloggers - Damian McBride, Paul Staines (aka Guido Fawkes) and Derek Draper

Do try and ignore his screen dear
Try to not smell the stink
Lose your disgust at the pub, my lamb
Do whatever you think

Please Mrs Butler
This boy Guido Fawkes
Does just the same as Derek, Miss
He writes and plays and stalks

Keep it out of your head, dear
Pray for another arrest
Swallow it, if you like, my love
Do whatever you think best

Please Mrs Butler
This boy Damien McBride
Keeps telling dirty tales, Miss
But he keep his friends onside

Put wax in your ears, dear
Choose not to see
Do whatever you can, my flower
But please don’t ask me!

(With apologies to Allan Ahlberg)

Suggestions for amendements and improvements welcome in the comments…

When considering the latest row over who said what about whom in the world of UK politics, one should try* and maintain a sense of wonder at the obsession of those who continue to fight in it. After all, what are they all fighting for? Right now, it’s the legal status to run a UK government which will be dealing with an economic collapse, mass unemployment, falling tax receipts and large scale debt. The perks of the life political really must be good.

But, on the issue-of-the-moment, Sunny Hundal at Liberal Conspiracy has a thoughtful piece (after the less-interesting conspiracy theory at the top) about the new age of digital publishing we are all entering. It also offers another way of doing things for digital politics which is far from the methods of McBride and Draper. In fact it echoes much of what Tim Montgomerie has done with ConservativeHome. Mick Fealty more or less agrees.

UPDATED. 13th April at 10am. Ian Dale has a comment piece in The Telegraph about the circumstances surrounding Derek Draper and the establishment of Labour List. Tom Miller at Newer Labour has an analysis too.

* This may not be successful.

Damian McBride resigns © Matt Buck Hack Cartoons

One of the PM’s closest advisors, Damian McBride, has chosen to resign before publication of evidence about his attempts to smear the reputations of leading Conservative politicians. It’s a scoop and a scalp for Paul Staines aka Guido Fawkes.

UPDATED: 11am on 12th April. You can read the full story on The News of the World site here, The Sunday Times have more detail here. Channel 4 offers some context on other players in the drama including Derek Draper of LabourList.org

UPDATE: 1pm. Labour MP Tom Harris has some considered comments available which catch the general feeling of disgust about what has been done by McBride and Draper.

UPDATE: 3pm. Derek Draper issues public apology.

Tax and taxation cartoon © Matt Buck Hack cartoons

A drawing about wealthy folk hiding their tax liabilities offshore.  There’s an interesting list of global tax havens here (I like the joke about the Isle of Wight) but, there is a long history of British dependencies or, leftovers from the British Empire, which do make a living in this way. How many corporate pirates will see justice, compared say, to those Somali pirates who have kidnapped a ship’s captain and are now being pursued by the US navy.

“It’s the same the whole world over,
It’s the poor what gets the blame,
It’s the rich what gets the gravy,
Ain’t it all a bleedin’ shame.”

Apologies to the late Bob Weston and Bert Lee, workers in the music halls of yesteryear and writers of She was poor but she was honest.

A picture of a senior policeman carrying paper is sufficient to necessitate his resignation and a picture of another officer of the law hitting someone to the floor is…

UPDATED: 9am 10th April.
Jonathan Calder has some interesting anecdotal evidence on what happens if you do accidentally take a picture of a Policeman or a Community Support Officer nowadays. DNotice continues his pictures of buildings and passing police persons here too.