Matthew Steeples celebrates getting blocked by Paul Nuttall on Twitter
When someone blocks you on Twitter, you know you’ve won. In the past, I’ve been cut off by an array of ‘delights’ ranging from the sofa loving sad sack Sir Christopher Meyer to the foaming-at-the-mouth firebrand George Galloway. Others joining that list include the blubbing blogger Jack Monroe and the pugnacious poet Pam Ayres, but the ultimate honour was bestowed yesterday when UKIP’s leader Paul Nuttall stopped me seeing his tweets.
In spite of offering much criticism of Nuttall’s predecessor during his tenure in the same position, Nigel Farage never blocked me and in carrying out such action Britain’s ‘King of Fake News’ – a man whose own website carried an invented stories about his involvement in the Hillsborough disaster – only confirms that he and his Kippers can’t take criticism and they can’t deal with debate. No wonder they’re about to face the chop.
Lord Prescott is entirely right to suggest Jeremy Corbyn unfit to be Labour’s leader just as he was spot on about Sir Christopher “did nothing” Meyer over phone hacking
According to The Mail on Sunday, last Wednesday, at a meeting of the Labour party, the former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, told Jeremy Corbyn: “You’re not a leader and you never will be while you have a hole in your arse”.
‘Two Jags’ speaks for the nation if he did indeed utter such sentiments. He previously, entirely correctly, referenced Britain’s most pointless ever Ambassador to Washington and former head of the (equally irrelevant and rightly now defunct) Press Complaints Commission, Sir Christopher Meyer, as the man who “did nothing” over phone hacking.
In a separate incident, the Welsh born railway signalman’s son supposedly termed the Labour leader: “Useless” and his team: “Just not up to the f***ing job”. If he did say that too, he again got it right on both scores and should be saluted and celebrated.
We say: Please, Lord Prescott, keep going – You are entirely on message and our nation needs you. Britain requires a decent opposition right now and as Jeremy Corbyn won’t provide it, please, get your arse back to Parliament.
As San Francisco socialite and clothes horse Joy Venturini Bianchi is highlighted to be an American version of her fellow former ‘charitycat’ Lady Meyer, it’s time that charities worldwide were better regulated
In Britain, in 2011, the “Chanel-clad” wife of the former British ambassador to Washington, Lady Meyer, faced criticism after The Telegraph revealed the majority of the income of the charity she was then running was spent on her very own pay. She subsequently ceased to be involved in that organisation in 2016 but now, in San Francisco, a similar scandal has come to light in the form of Helpers Community Inc. (formerly rather crudely known as ‘Helpers of the Mentally Retarded’) and its executive director, a wannabe lookalike of Iris Apfel named Joy Venturini Bianchi.
The so-called charity that “natty” Ms. Venturini Bianchi, a self-proclaimed “divorced philanthropist” runs, it was reported last Friday, must “repay the public tens of thousands of dollars after misleading city officials” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The same paper had previously highlighted that Helpers had paid 78-year old Venturini Bianchi a base salary of £159,149 ($193,828), roughly £82,109 ($100,000) more annually than directors of similarly sized San Francisco non-profits and that supporters had been “disgusted with the way they were using this cause to raise money”.
Ms. Venturini Bianchi stands accused of raising “millions of dollars but failed to adequately distribute [them]” and that she is also attacked for not doing “much to fulfill [her non-profit’s] promise to donors” is, if correct, truly shocking. Just as with Meyer in England, the board of Helpers was composed from “longtime friends” and as state senator Mark Leno pointed out: “It would appear that the board is in need of a serious governance makeover”.
It is time the era of the ‘charitycat’ came to its natural conclusion. In Britain, America and elsewhere, for far too long, wealthy and connected individuals with little-to-no experience have been able to benefit from tax breaks, benefits, salaries and bonuses naïvely given by the public simply by taking over “a cause”. These amateurs should now be banished and running charities should instead become the domain of professionals.
Joy Venturini Bianchi with Iris ApfelJoy Venturini Bianchi with Sir Elton John
Sir Christopher Meyer pompously sticks his oar in (yet again)
Sir Christopher Meyer, a pompous man who rather enjoys the sound of his own dulcet tones a little too much, penned a column for this week’s Mail on Sunday in which he endorsed Hillary Clinton’s campaign to become President of the United States of America.
Naturally, Meyer mentioned his “Chanel-clad” wife and bragged that the pair of them had declined Donald Trump’s hospitality. A man happy to jump on any bandwagon and one half of a beady eyed duo who rather like freebies from Ralph Lauren and elsewhere, Meyer remarked:
“We never met Trump. But we had a narrow escape. We once attended a charity dinner in Florida, where he was one of the sponsors. A number of other ambassadors were also there. At Trump’s invitation, they had hitched a ride from Washington on his private jet. We, thank goodness, were travelling under our own steam”.
“On the journey back, Trump suddenly changed course and flew to a tiny airport in New Jersey, where the ambassadors were unceremoniously dumped. That tells you a lot about Trump the man and Trump the politician, none of it complimentary”.
Sir Christopher and Lady Meyer put their Chelsea townhouse up for sale for £2.3 million more than was asked when they bought it in 2013 – The catch? It’s next door to a kebab shop(more…)
Lady Meyer takes a pay cheque from the City Bridge Trust
Featured in The Telegraph in 2011 due to the curious way it allocated its income, the charity founded by the “Chanel-clad” wife of the former British ambassador to Washington, Lady Meyer, is back in the news after receiving a grant of £60,000 from the City Bridge Trust. Naturally, she, herself, is set to receive 10% of this personally. (more…)
Record price set for a mansion in San Francisco by Yahoo! chief
San Francisco’s Pacific Heights is best known for its extremely expensive properties and as home to the likes of novelist Danielle Steele, SKYY vodka tycoon Maurice Kanbar and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. With the sale of 2950 Broadway for the record breaking price of $35 million (£22.5 million) to Marissa Mayer, president of Yahoo!, however, a new benchmark has been set. (more…)
Black and white analysis of the “special relationship” misses the point: it’s just turned grey
On Saturday, The Sun proclaimed that the “special relationship” between Britain and America was dead. This morning, our sofa-loving former man in Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, took the opposing view in The Mail on Sunday and suggested that it is “as strong as ever”. The truth, we’d argue, is far more complex and probably lies somewhere in the middle. (more…)
