GOLD MEDAL FOR FARCE GOES TO "LOCOG".

As the Olympics finally get underway, the expected raft of 'cock-ups' has started to surface.

How all the so-careful and competent organisation managed to mix up the flags of the 2 Koreas has to be a mystery as does the announcement of a footballer as being English when he is actually Welsh. These types of errors are ones which no self-respecting offical should ever have allowed and their occurence raises serious concerns about the overall management of the Games.

The other issue which has now come to the fore is a fairly obvious one to anyone who's watched any of the events so far; arenas have been half-empty. Watching some of the tennis yesterday, it was clear that the Wimbledon courts were less than half full and the absence of atmosphere was tangible. Considering the vast amount of effort that went into 'ticketing' and the vast number of people who seem to have been disappointed, this is a total mess.

Sebastian Coe and his pals on the organising committee have been busily blaming the sponsors who were allocated large numbers of tickets that appear to be unused; the sponsors are busily at work denying they have any culpability. Whatever the problem and whoever is to blame, the reuslt is a farcical situation for which LOCOG have to carry the can, as they do for every other 'cock-up'.

CAMERON'S POOR JUDGEMENT MIGHT OPEN DOOR FOR BORIS.

On Tuesday eveing I caught a minute or two of a speech being given by Boris Johnson. It was something to do with the Olympics but, in true Boris style, was also a mixture of the serious and the humorous.

Boris has, on occasion, been mooted as a future leader of the Conservative and I, no doubt along with many others, tend to laugh out load at such a suggestion. How could this buffoon ever be put in a position in which he could become Prime Minister ?

However, the question that occurs is 'Is he any more of a buffoon than any of his challengers for the role ?' David Cameron's standing has been seriously damaged by this week's announcement that not only his close friend, Rebekah Brooks, but also his hand-picked choice as his Head of Comminications at Downing Street, Andy Coulson, are among those to be charged with further offences in connection with the 'phone-hacking' scandal. This develeopment raises further questions over Cameron's judgement and must bring his long-term future into question also.

The potential challengers for the Tory leadership have, one by one, also managed to shoot themselves down in flames; Liam Fox and Jeremy Hunt have done themselves no favours in recent times and the lacklustre, if not downright hopeless performance of George Osborne has surely ruled him out of contention. Other senior Tories such as Theresa May, Andrew Lansley and Philip Hammond have also got themselves into a variety of pickles, as has Eric of that ilk.

All this leaves Boris as a shining beacon, seemingly untouched by the farcical events surrouding the Olympics and simply being 'Boris'. Is it really so impossible that he might emerge as the principal contender for Cameron's job, perhaps sooner rather than later ? In the great series 'Yes Minister' Jim Hacker, a likeable though distinctly second rate minister became Prime Minister in almost identical circumstances, with those around him being initially horrified by the thought, then dismissive of it; finally, they realised that it was a possibility and, Lo !, Jim became PM.

The more one thinks about it, the more one comes to the conclusion that perhaps, just perhaps, Prime Minister Boris might not be such a bad choice. If nothing else, he'd be different and would brighten up our lives !

LICENCES AT 21 TO REDUCE ROAD DEATHS.

It's been reported today that the Transport Select Committee of the House of Commons has been criticising the government for a supposed lack of leadership on road safety issues. This criticism comes after it's also been reported that the number of road fatalities has shown its first increase in almost a decade. It seems that road accidents are also the main cause of death amongst people aged 16 to 24 and the Committee has demanded 'more help to keep young drivers and cyclists safe and to improve the design of roads'.

While the Committee's aims may seem very laudable, it also appears to be yet another example of the 'Nanny State' interfering unreasonably in the lives of the population. Leaving cyclists aside, for their seem to be very few of them these days, to my mind, if someone is old enough to be driving on our roads, they are also old enough to look after their own safety; if they cannot keep themselves safe, they should not be on the roads, and it should not be for the Government to impose special road designs or motoring restrictions in order to 'keep them safe'.

What may also have been ignored by the Committee is the ever-increasing population and the increasing congestion on our roads. With 3.7 million extra people in the country since 2001, it is surely inevitable that there will be more cars, more congestion and more accidents; the appalling state of our public transport system also leads to more people being driven to use the roads for journies that have become far too long winded by other means. All of this increase in road traffic must inevitably lead to more fatalities.

When we consider younger motorists, how many of their fatalities are a result of anything other than their own recklessness ? We all know about the indiscipline and arrogance of modern youth and we've all seen the way in which some young drivers behave, racing around the streets at breakneck speeds and with total disdain for for other road users. It can be no coincidence that insurance costs for this group of motorists are so much higher than for older age ranges.

If the Government is to reduce road deaths among the 16-24 age group, it has an easy and obvious option. At present children can legally drive a car on our roads at the age of 17; while, 50 years ago, this was an age at which these young people had experienced a disciplined upbringing and the majority had left school and were engaged in the adult world of work, today they have been fed nothing but drivel about their rights, with no discipline and no thought of responsibility. Many have never even contemplated the idea of work and are still wedded to an infantile life of childish pursuits. To allow these mentally immature individuals to get behind the wheels of potentially lethal weapons is a recipe for disaster.

If they really want to reduce road accidents, the Government should increase the age for obtaining a driving licence to 21. This wouldn't be popular but it is not Government's job to be popular; it is to do what is right in given circumstances.

THEY SHOULD HAVE LISTENED TO ENOCH.

There was a most interesting juxtaposition of items on Radio 4 yesterday lunchtime when a talk by Jim Naughtie about the life of Enoch Powell was followed by a news story concerning the 2011 census.

As many will be aware, Enoch Powell was a man of strong convictions and unpopular views, at least amongst his political brethren. In 1968 he made a speech about immigration which caused huge anger and effectively ended his political career, not because what he said was wrong but because it was not in line with the liberal thinking of that time. Powell expressed serious concerns about the impact of mass immigration on our society and spoke against 'anti-discrimination' legislation which was then before Parliament. He warned that a continuation of the immigration being experienced at that time, which was much less than we have seen in more recent years, allied to the continuing growth of communities derived from these immigrants, would lead to serious imbalances in our society and implied that civil unrest might follow. At the time, he was roundly condemned by the intelligensia and, even today, his 'Rivers of Blood' speech is frequently misquoted and misinterpreted by those with a left-wing bias.

Immediately after Naughtie's biographical piece on Powell's life, came the 1 o'clock news, which included an item on the initial results of the 2011 census. Apparently, the population of England and Wales showed a greater increase between 2001 and 2011 than had ever been experienced before, somewhere in the region of 7% in the 10 year period. This increase was partly attributable to greater longevity but seems to have been largely due to the effects of immigration and general increases in the numbers of immigrant-derived communities. The enormous strain that this change is placing on our society is all too evident from the increasing emphasis places on all matters racial.

When Powell spoke in 1968, the number of recent immigrants in our society was small. In my own family's area, a coloured face was rarely seen and I recall the surprise when a boy of West Indian origin turned up at my secondary school, not that he was treated as being particularly different, neither was he discriminated against in any way. Since that time, the same area has become largely dominated by immigrant families; to revisit the area today is to trek through an alien world, one that has nothing in common with the place of my youth and is unrecognizable to me. Such change has been replicated across large swathes of our country with the major cities particularly affected; many now have areas where the local population is predominantly immigrant in origin and where the common language and customs are anything but English.

Whether or not Powell was right in his predictions of possible civil unrest, he was certainly right about the potential for growth in the immigrant population, a potential which successive governments have tried to ignore and even to hide from the native population. Powell was vilified for suggesting that the level of immigration should be reduced and even reversed; today, at least some of our politicians are saying these same things. Sadly, they are 40 years too late for their words to be of any use. 

G4S CHIEF FOR THE CHOP ?

Listening to the Chief Executive of G4S, the security company that's failed miserably to abide by its contract over the Olympic Games, one can only wonder how this organisation has grown to be the second biggest private sector employer in the world.

Nick Buckles may well be most appropriately named, for he certainly did 'buckle' when questioned on the 'Today' programme yesterday. Indeed, he demonstrated no real knowledge or understanding of the contract to supply thousands of security staff at the Games; he didn't know when problems had first been identified and didn't even know whether security staff would be required to speak fluent English.

Given the high profile nature of this contract, one can only assume that Mr Buckle will not long be in his job. Whoever is directly responsible for this debacle, the buck ultimately stops with him. 

TERRY'S RUDE WORDS NOT ILLEGAL.

After 5 days in court and heaven only knows how much wasted effort and money, one footballer, John Terry, has been found 'not guilty' of using rude words against another footballer, Anton Ferdinand.

That this nonsense ever got as far as a court says more than I ever could about the insanity of English law in these days of political correctness. Had both Terry and Ferdinand been white, the case would never have been brought; indeed, had Ferdinand been a white welshman whom Terry had been accused of calling a 'taffy sheep-shagger', it would not have come to court. Had Ferdinand been Scottish and Terry had called him a 'tight, haggis-eating jock' it would not have come to court.

So-called racist offences only occur when one of the parties, almost always the supposedly offended against, is coloured; this itself is clearly nonsensical and throws our law into disrepute. Making reference to 'garlic eating frogs' or 'sausage eating krauts' brings down little if any rebuke, while individual words such as 'paki', 'nigger' or even 'black' bring down the most draconian retribution.

No one should condone genuinely offensive behaviour but the extra emphasis placed on supposed offences committed by whites upon blacks is unnecessary, unfair and divisive. In short, it is wrong and should stop.

OLYMPICS : TROOPS GEAR UP IN THOUSANDS.

When I wrote about Olympic security issues earlier, I was unaware of quite how great the deployment of service personnel is going to be.

Apparently, we will have 17,500 assorted servicemen and women undertaking security duties. Pardon me for wondering, but are we putting on a sporting event or countering a foreign invasion ? If the Olympics really need this level of military involvement in order to maintain security and order, is it not time the whole shenanigans was dumped ?

OLYMPIC SECURITY : A RECIPE FOR DISRUPTION

Hearing of the debacle over security for the forthcoming Olympic Games raises a number of issues.

Firstly, is it not shocking that an inherently peaceful sporting event demands a vast amount of security staff ? Worse still, it seems that much of the security will be provided by thousands of troops, rendering us more of a military dictatorship than a free nation.

Secondly, if the Games are actually so fraught with danger, why are we holding them ? Years ago, Olympic Games were surrounded by none of the modern-day 'hype' and were held in an atmosphere of calm and peace, with the notable exception of the Berlin Games of 1936. In those days, the individual sportsmen were the centrepiece of the Games, now it is all about national kudos. Consequently, the Games have become a target for fringe groups of all complexions and we have to accept huge security operations and restrictions on our normal movements in order to cater for the now grossly overblown nonsense that is the modern Olympic Games.

Thirdly, the costs associated with these Games are an appalling burden on an already stretched economy. Any thought that the Games would actually prove a financial benefit has surely disappeared as London hotels and theatres have experienced huge falls in bookings and Londoners, faced with traffic chaos and security restrictions for weeks, abandon the capital in droves for the duration of the Games.

These Games are a jamboree for the vast number of dignitaries who have free tickets and a huge imposition on the people of London and the other parts of the country where they're taking place. They will cost us a huge amount of money that we do not have and will cause enormous disruption to the everyday lives of millions of people. Please God they never come her again.

WE SHOULD ALL PAY FOR OUR OWN CARE.

The recent discussion about the funding of social care for the elderly provides a great example of politicians attempting to be 'all things to all men'. Even though they have no money to play with, our leaders still want to pretend they can provide us with everything we desire, in this case largely free care when we are old and unable to look after ourselves.

That universal free care is a nonsense is abundantly clear to those of us with a brain who are not politicians. From a political perspective, however, such a standpoint is unacceptable and some effort has to be made to at least dress up the system so as to appear to be providing the usual political nonsense of 'something for nothing'.

Ignoring all of the current chat, there is one basic issue that no politician seems willing to tackle. It is the notion that we should all be allowed to pass on whatever wealth we accumulate during our lifetimes to our children and should not have to spend our savings on care homes and the like. Why this has become such an accepted norm is a mystery to me.

During our working lives, we save if we can. Some of these savings should be directed towards a pension for our old age; if anything is left, that should be available to pay for the social care services we need in our old age. There is no reason at all why we should expect the state to pay for our care while we pass on our savings - house and all - to the next generation. Any such arrangement is a ludicrous nonsense. For the state to pay for those who cannot pay for themselves is one thing; for it to be expected to pay for those who are well able to pay for themselves is ridiculous.

Such logic, of course, does not find favour with politicians as it implies telling voters that they will not get something they want are, these days, see as a right. With any luck, one day there'll be a political leader with the balls to do what's right rather than what's expedient, but don't expect any of today's bunch of liberal socialist do-gooders to take the lead.

TERRY, FERDINAND & A FEW RUDE WORDS.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), John Terry, a footballer, called Anton Ferdinand, another footballer, a few rude words. In any sane world, such an incident would have passed virtually unnoticed and probably have been resolved by a quiet apology and a handshake. Sadly, the world we all now live in is anything but sane.

In today's world of ultra-political correctness and socialist claptrap, Terry finds himself in the dock, charged with some sort of racially motivated 'crime'. When I was a child, one mantra we were taught was 'Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me'; today, words seem to have gained a far greater level of importance, particularly when used in a manner that the 'thought police' consider to be 'anti-social'.

Worse still, instead of the real police spending time catching real criminals for the courts to try, they waste their efforts investigating social misdeameanours which have been dressed up as crimes by a succession of namby-pamby governments. After months of investiagtion, they then bring the offenders, such as Terry, to court in order to waste even more public money and resources. Apparently, Terry's trial is expected to last 5 days - FIVE DAYS to decide whether or not one footballer called another footballer a few rude words.

Is it any wonder that our nation is bankrupt and our society crumbling ?

DOES 'THE SHARD' HAVE A POINT ?

Today's news includes bits and pieces about a new building in London which has been nicknamed 'The Shard'.Not having seen the building, I have no idea why it's acquired this moniker, however, the only thing that seems to be of interest to most of the media is its height, which is something around a thousand feet.

No one has yet explained why we need such a monstrosity in central London, apparently built on top of a railway station and slap bang next door to a major hospital, or what its purpose is. All that I've heard is that it has a mere 48 parking spaces, mostly for the disabled according to Ken Livingstone, getting to the top for a bit of sightseeing will cost a family of 4 £90, and iit has an assortment of multi-million pound luxury penthouse apartments atop its structure.

In a city which, by all accounts is desperately short of affordable housing and parking space, one has to wonder which pillock gave this idiotic scheme the go-ahead. Reportedly, most of the finance has come from Arab investors and the design is by some Italian with a silly name; KL's involvement in an item this morning makes me think that he probably had his fingers in the pie somewhere too.

To answer my initial question, of course it has a point, the point being to bring kudos to the city of London; that, at least, is what the politicians and others who've been involved will say. In truth, it's a colossal waste of money designed to promote the designer and architect and the politicians who backed the scheme, and to provide ludicrously wasteful and expensive accommodation for a few super-rich bankers or oil tycoons. The vast bulk of the people will gain nothing from it.

And so to answer my initial question again, of course it has no real purpose. It is about self-aggrandisement and nothing more. It is yet another pointless blot on our landscape.

DIAMOND JUST THE FIRST OF MANY ?

Bob Diamond's departure from Barclays, announced yetserday, was no more than had to happen. He had clearly failed miserably in his management of the bank and, before that, in his management of the investment division which was intimately involved in the LIBOR fixing scandal.

What we now need to to hear is that this man's termination package is minimal in size, and not the tens of millions such things so often are. Then we need to hear that any other bankers who had a hand in this financial manipulation are sent packing as well. Finally, it would be quite nice to hear that a few of these greedy and corrupt people, wherever and whoever they are, were going to face criminal charges.

Not much hope there.

ALL BANKERS ARE GREEDY & INCOMPETENT; DISCUSS.

As the scandal in our banking sector receives huge media coverage, I wonder how it is that the grotesquely overvalued chief executives of these organisations have obtained, and retained, their jobs.

Banks across the world have 'suffered' in the last few years as a result of the modestly named 'banking crisis'. This crisis was, of course, a result of bankers playing fast-and-loose with investors' money, inventing assets and trades that no one understood and yet were apparently approved by senior managers. It is also the case that Governments connived in this behaviour as it seemed to be creating a world in which everlasting economic growth could be achieved, to their own benefit. That a crash was inevitable passed them by, as it did the 'experts' employed to run the banks, as well as those employed to oversee their activities.

In the UK, we have seen banks destroyed while their Chief Officers, together with other senior managers and traders, have enjoyed vast bonus payments which they laughably term as part of their 'compensation'. The 'compensation', what the rest of us call pay, of these people has been set at levels per annum that most of us won't even earn in a whole career, the justification being that such amounts are essential if the banks are to attract the 'best people'.

I don't recall the name of the Chief Executives of Northern Rock, Bradford and Bingley and Halifax, but whoever they were they oversaw the destruction of their companies, no doubt while taking home vast 'compensation'. How can these have been considered to be the 'best people' ?

Eric Daniels, then Chief Executive of LloydsTSB, miserably failed to ensure adequate examination of the books of Halifax before he agreed to the merger of the two. Consequently, Lloyds found itself almost ruined and its shareholders lost most of their money; Daniels still took home bonuses, though with some withheld or returned, and then left the bank. He may also have engaged in a bit of tax avoidance during his time at Lloyds. Was he one of the 'best people' ?

Fred Goodwin oversaw the collapse of another major banking conglomerate, Royal Bank of Scotland, which suffered even more savagely than Lloyds. Goodwin initially went off with all his own cash, not to mention his knighthood, while his shareholders saw their investment, of which he was a major custodian, decline to almost nothing. If I recall correctly, 'Fred the Shred' did suffer some eventual penalties, though nothing as dramatic as was suffered by those whose assets he was supposed to be protecting.

Now, we have more in the firing line. Bob Diamond, Chief Executive of Barclays has overseen the 'LIBOR' fixing scandal, while receiving huge payments for his expert leadership of this bank. It seems likely that a few more big names will eventually fall into the gaping maw of this new banking crisis, but Diamond is the man in everyone sights for the moment. This arrogant yank has apparently already stated that he will not resign, even though he has overseen one of the worst banking scandals in history; this refusal to go may, of course, be more about ensuring that he retains financial rights under his contract rather than anything else.

In recent years we have also seen the PPI scandal, another example of the 'best people' working out schemes to fleece the public while ratcheting up large profits and, hence, bonuses, for themselves. Caught out, the banks have had to make huge financial reparation.

How can any of these people have been considered to be the 'best people' for their jobs ? They have jointly overseen the ruination of several UK banks, not to mention a huge blow to the prestige of the City Of London's financial pre-eminence. Other major banks in other parts of the world have also suffered similarly, revealing their own grossly overvalued executives to be nothing but greedy and incompetent.

The word appears to be that very little can be done about this clearly immoral and unethical behaviour; in this country, at least, it is being said that the perpetrators have not actually done anything that comes within the purview of the criminal law and are likely to escape any real penalties. If this is the case, then I would have to revert to the words of Mr Bumble in 'Oliver Twist' : "If the law supposes that, the law is a ass -- a idiot".

It is time for a complete change of culture but whether anything will change will depend on the actions of the Government in the next few weeks. Don't hold your breath.