LEVESON UNDER FIRE FROM MPs.

For some reason known only to themselves, a group of 80 or so MPs and Peers have taken up the cudgel against Lord leveson's report on press freedom even before it's been published. They object to any real restrictions on the freedom of the media despite the appalling disclosures of recent years.

 

I'm not one to believe in state interference in our lives but I also don't believe in allowing the press to have a free pass to break the law in their supposed pursuit of justice and in the supposed 'public interest'. In recent times, some media outlets have shown a shocking and callous disregard for peoples' privacy and have pursued the most outrageous lines of so-called enquiry. The self-regulation carried out by the Press Council has proved to be worthless and it must now be time for a properly independent body to oversee the activities of the media in general.

 

This is not to suggest that legitimate reporting should be curbed but there must be real sanctions for those bodies that publish irresponsible and poorly reasearched stories, or that intrude into the private lives of individuals for purely salacious reasons and to make profits. The Press Council has proven itself to be incapable of carrying out this role; it must be replaced by a body with real teeth.

 

Those MPs and others who have taken up the pen in opposition to what Leveson is believed to be going to report are presumably those who also make a tidy living from their own connections with the media; what is most frightening is that there are so many of them.

IS MARK CARNEY REALLY SUPERMAN ?

Speaking of the appointment of Mark Carney as the next Governor of the Bank of England, George Osborne described the man as being the "outstanding central banker of his generation". Even allowing for the usual hyperbole that issues from the mouths of politicians at such times, this was extreme and will undoubtedly open Osborne up to potential career meltdown in a few years time if his words prove inaccurate.

Carney has previously been the top man in the Canadian central bank and has gained a serious reputation; he's credited with guiding Canada through the last few years of economic turmoil in a relatively successful way although there also seem to be some who claim that his policies have laid the ground for much more turmoil ahead. Having made it very clear that he had no ambitions to take on the job at the Bank of England, his arrival there next year might suggest that he knows full well that there are choppy waters ahead in his home country and he's getting out now before things begin to turn bad. Who knows ?

Canada's economy is about ¾ the size of the UK's and its population is a little more than ½; it is heavily dependent on its trading links with the USA. It's a huge nation covering a vast area much of which is sea and ice, and is a very different country overall from the UK; its wide open spaces yield some of the world's greatest volumes of oil, natural gas, timber and agricultural products, while mining of important metals and minerals is another major part of the economy. None of this is replicated in the UK.

Carney's credentials as a brilliant central banker may or may not be justified but what is clear is that his record has been earned in a very different world from that he will find in the UK. In Canada he has maintained very low interest rates while pumping large amounts of credit into the financial system, similar to the approach adopted in the UK but with, apparently, far better results. Whether this was a consequence of banking skill or of the different financial and banking regulatory framework in Canada is open to question.Nonetheless, Carney has been fêted around the world and comes to the UK with huge kudos attaching.

 

If he succeeds, he will leave the UK in 5 years time with his reputation enhanced and George osborne will emerge as the man of genius who appointed him. If he fails, he will still leave with a lot of money and will undoubtedly find another well paid job, while Osborne will have watched his career and ambitions to be Prime Minister run away down the drain. The rest of us just have to sit and hope.

ROTHERHAM : DISCRIMINATION BEFORE RACISM ?

The utterly disgraceful action of Rotherham council in deciding to remove three foster children from the care of a couple purely because they are members of UKIP must be one of the most prejudiced and outrageous acts of discrimination ever perpetrated in this country.

 

The Labour controlled council is clearly full of extreme left-wingers whose next step will presumably be to start removing children from foster carers who vote conservative, support an 'inappropriate' football team or like the 'wrong' type of music. If this action had been taken by a conservative council against, say, carers with extreme left-wing views, the outcry would have been heard all the way to Vladivostok but, of course, conservative councils don't behave in such a way.

 

Why is it that it's only left-wingers who seem to know what's best for everyone and have the special ability to decide who is, or is not, 'politically' suitable to take on certain roles ? Might it be that they are simply prejudiced beyond belief ? The couple in this case have been effectively accused of being racists on no evidence of any sort; this is, by anyone's definition, slander and discrimination and the full force of the relevant legislation should be brought to bear on those responsible for this appalling action. They should be roundly condemned and, if sufficient evidence can be found, arrested, tried and made to make appropriate recompense. They are a disgrace to our nation.

 

 

LORDS A'PLENTY AT THE BBC.

What a surprise !

 

Typical of an inward looking organisation, the BBC Trust has appointed a former Director of the Corporation to be its new Director General. Apparently unconcerned by the abysmal failure of their last appointee the Trust, led by Chris Patten, a man whose credentials for being in charge of the Corporation have to be under extreme scrutiny, has stuck to its tried and tested approach. That that approach has not proved terribly successful seems to be irrelevant.

 

On Radio 4 this evening, Patten defended the Trust's actions in robust, even arrogant, style. Whether its new DG, Lord Tony Hall, is able to justify Lord Patten's stance will be revealed over the coming months and, maybe, years.

NOW THE CHURCH WANTS TO BANISH DEMOCRACY.

As our egregious government continues its campaign to tell everyone what to do while taking no notice of those who elected it and whom it supposedly represents, every day brings more woes.

 

To my simple mind, the members of the Church of England have every right to tell their bishops and clergy what they will and will not accept in terms of the running of their organisation; after all, without those who attend for services, there would be no need for the church. That the worshippers, the so-called 'laity', voted against the appointment of women as bishops has caused so much furore is, therefore, quite ridiculous; the very notion that the chrch is now in danger because of a failure to abide by anti-discrimiantion and equalities legislation is utterly laughable. Nonetheless, it is said that a number of Members of Parliament, including the idiot child himself (Cameron, that is) have expressed varying degrees of unhappiness at the outcome of the vote; some ahve apparently suggested that the C of E may now well find itself stripped of various legal immunities and made subject to the assorted laws relating to equality and so on.

 

How dare they ! The 'laity' have expressed a democratic view in a vote conducted within an essentially private organisation. The ways in which a religion is conducted cannot possibly be considered to be in the same province as, say, the ways in which the NHS or BBC operates. Whether or not women should be eligible for bishoprics is not a matter for the law but for the Church and its members.

 

Of course, those with vested interest voted to allow the creation of women bishops and are now all mortified that they haven't got their way, but these people are as much politicians as they are churchmen. They see various political benefits accruing to them as a result of cow-towing to the current craze for 'equality' so were all in favour. Knowing that Rowan Williams, the disastrous and thankfully outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury was wholeheartedly in favour of the appointment of women bishops and that the next incumbent, Justin Welby has reportedly said that the motion will nonetheless be enacted, tells us that this is not a matter that those in power have any intention of allowing the ordinary people to stymie.

 

This has been very much a case of "Democracy is fine, as long as it produces the result that we want"; if it doesn't then we'll just ignore it or find a way round it. So much for Democracy.

CHURCH OF ENGLAND HAS IT ALL WRONG OVER BISHOPS.

The Church of England has its knickers in a twist over the question of whether or not to allow women to become Bishops. Personally, I always thought that Pawns could become Queens but have never given much consideration to this less significant issue.

 

Not being a churchgoer, in fact I'm an atheist, á la Dawkins, I have no idea what all the fuss is about. From a simplistic and uninformed point of view, surely the matter should be capable of resolution by reference to whatever it says in the Bible about the roles of men and women; but then, perhaps the Bible is ambivalent or even silent on the issue.

 

Whatever the rights, wrongs or otherwise, it occurs to me that this is a subject that has only arisen in recent times and since the attendance at church services began to decline. Now that most churches are pretty well deserted on most Sundays and many are even locked and bolted for much of the time, those in authority have become a bit panicky. How can we 'become more relevant ?' and 'How can we attract more devotees ?' are the rather ridiculous cries. If people believe, then they believe; if they don't they don't and that's all there is to it. Trying to attract bigger audiences or be more relevant is simply not relevant to any serious religion; religion is not about relevance, it is about faith and belief.

 

The fact is that the Christian religion is a dying cult, at least in this part of the western world. Most people have grown up and become wise enough to understand that belief in a mystical figure is not very sensible. It is inevitable that church attendances will fall whatever the Church of England does; it could ordain a donkey and few would either notice or care.

 

Advanced, civilized societies, the USA always excepted, do not need religion as a crutch, they have education and knowledge instead. Christianity in its traditional form in the UK is, therefore, a dead duck. The problem for us all is that we have increasing numbers of immigrants from backgrounds in which other religious beliefs have held sway; many of these immigrants are largely uneducated and hold firmly to the tripe with which they have been indoctrinated over many years. As our Christian churches fall into disuse and eventual disrepair, they are being replaced by an assortment of places in which these newcomers worship their gods.

 

The newcomers have their own thoughts as to what place women should have in their societies and we should, perhaps, pay more attention to this than whether or not women can be made Bishops. Forced marriages, honour killings, female circumcision and the like are anathma to any civilized person and these are the things we should be dealing with, not the irrelevant squabbles within a dying church.

MP's STILL ON THE SCAM.

Today's "Daily Telegraph" has returned to the subject of MP's expenses with a vengeance. It seems that even though their opportunities for screwing money out of the system have been reduced, some are still using every last twist and con to profit at our expense.

 

Their are a new range of scams with numerous Members now renting out their own properties to their mates while renting other properties at tax payers' expense; this is all within the rules but is clearly dodgy. More than 50 Members have refused to have their accommodation details released and the Speaker has, apparently, been very active on their behalf in trying to prevent the release of as much information as humanly possible. There can be no doubt that our representatives are every bit as busy in trying to screw as much money as possible out of the system as they have ever been.

 

Why do we, the people who elect these crooks, put up with any of them ?

 

 

CAMERON CONTINUES ATTACK ON DEMOCRACY.

A few days ago I wrote about the death of Democracy and today David Cameron will prove my point.

 

Speaking at the CBI's annual conference, he will apparently be telling the nation that the peoples' right to challenge government policies and decisions is to be severely curtailed. He will, reportedly, say that we need 'wartime thinking', when "rules were circumvented"

 

Now, what occurs to me is that this is the same David Cameron who calls circumventing tax rules immoral; this is the same David Cameron who obeys every dictat of the EU and wouldn't dream of circumventing its rules. This is, in fact, a man who picks and chooses which rules to adhere to and which to break according to his own fancies at the time. This is the beginnings of totalitarian dictatorship.

 

Ed Miliband, another in the Cameron mould, will supposedly tell the CBI that Britain is sleepwalking into leaving the EU. He would do better to point out that its people are sleepwalking into dictatorship, though this would not suit his political purposes as he may well turn out to be the Dictator.

 

Whichever, Cameron, Miliband or some other, emerges as top dog, "heil mein Führer !" "Viva Il Duce !"  "Da zdravstvuet Stalin !"

TIME FOR THE WORLD TO STAMP ON ISRAEL.

The horrors being perpetarted in the middle east can only be imagined by most of us who live in peaceful lassitude in the UK; to be able to remember bombs and rockets exploding around us we must be in our 70s at least.

 

Shockingly, such is not the case in Israel and the Gaza strip. The desperate Palestinian militants in Gaza are firing rockets into Israel and Israel, one of the most powerful military nations in the world, are responding. The measure of the mismatch between the 2 forces is that, so far, 3 Israelis have died while 94 Palestinians in Gaza have perished, including whole families and many children.

 

This is a conflict which will never end. Israel is a nation which has no right to exist, having been created out of panic and guilt after the end of WW2. Ever since its creation, its leaders, many of whom were acknowledged terrorists themselves, have cold-bloodedly driven the native Palestinians out of the centres and best areas so that now many hundreds of thousands are crammed into the inhospitable Gaza strip and living in squalid conditions. Is it any wonder that militant Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, have arisen and are attempting to fight back ?

 

The villains in this piece are the Israelis and those who first created the country and subsequently support their every act of aggression against the indigenous peoples of the region.  The Israeli government needs to be stamped on and forced to come to a decent agreement with the Palestinians, one in which the Palestinians have equal status; when a similar situation occurred in South Africa, the world did not support the white invaders, it supported the underdogs. Why is the position over Israel so different ?

 

DEMOCRACY IS DEAD : RIP

Now that the elections nobody wanted are over everyone is picking over the bones. The general consensus is that the whole process was a shocking waste of time and money, as well as being vastly undemocratic, though a few of the political eliet are still trying to insist that the outcome was inevitable given that these were a new set of elections. Their view is that it will all get better in time as the electorate gets used to the idea of electing Police Commissioners.

 

The truth must be that the general consensus is correct. The electorate stayed away from the polls in their millions and produced the lowest turnout ever recorded in any UK-wide elections since the introduction of universal suffrage. The overall turnout was around 14.7% and the winners were, on average, elected by less than 6% of the electorate's first preference votes; no one other than the interested parties can possibly claim that this amounts to an electoral mandate. It is quite clear that the absence of information and canvassing as well as the general lack of enthusiasm for elected "Police and Crime Commissionsers" led to the vast bulk of the population delivering the ultimate raspberry to the whole idea.

 

In my county the election was won by the Conservative candidate, a retired RAF officer. However, while numerous other party candidates also won, a dozen of the polls were won by independent canidates, a sure sign of the electorate's disillusionment, both with the main parties and this process. The most satisfying news was that at least 3 former Members of Parliament were defeated - John Prescott in Humberside, James Plaskitt in Warwickshire and Michael Mates in Hampshire. These 3 obviously saw the new roles as an opportunity to entrench themselves in positions of power without having the restrictions of Parliament but it's clear that the electorates saw through them.

 

This was a disastrous mess and a total wste of money. There was virtually no publicity and I was aware of no real efforts at canvassing; to my knowledge none of the local candidates made any effort to gain my vote or the votes of anyone else in my town. It's almost as though the intention was to keep the process low-profile in order to avoid too much public recognition of what was really happening - an attempt to bring police forces under much closer political control. In the event, electors in almost a third of the country chose independent candidates and thwarted such ambitions, although 29 police forces will now be under the direct political control which 85% of their populations did not vote for.

 

In quoting percentages, it occurs to me that these may not quite convey the true extent of the apathy shown by the electorate. Put more starkly, across England and Wales there was an electorate of around 36.25 million of whom 5.33 million bothered to vote; the winning candidates were favoured by some 2.11 million. That is, the new Commissioners have been elected by just over 2 million out of an electorate of over 36 million, ignoring the shenanigans of second preferences.

 

Is this any kind of democracy ? For democracy to exist, the population must believe in it; it's plain that in the UK they no longer do and, if we ever truly had democracy, we have it no more. Democracy died on 15th November 2012; its ashes can be collected from the back door of 10 Downing Street if anyone wants them.

AFGHANISTAN IS A DISASTER, SAYS ASHDOWN !

Lord "Paddy Pantsdown" Ashdown has finally come to the same conclusion as the rest of the intelligent population of the western world - Afghanistan is a lost cause and we should stop killing our soldiers there.

 

In an article in todsay's "Times" Ashdown has written that it is now crystal clear that, after 11 years, NATO has lost the war and that all western troops should be withdrawn as soon as possible. Why it has taken this supposed expert on foreign affairs and military matters so long to come to make this assessment is anyones' guess.

 

Afghanistan has always been a graveyard for foreign troops, at least since the British first ventured there centuries ago; for some reason best known to themselves, western political leaders, and the Russians, have repeatedly chosen to ignore the lessons of history and the consequence has been a succession of total foreign policy disasters.  It seems that the possibility of gaining some sort of advantage over one's main political opponents has outweighed common sense and the effects have been seen in the count of body bags and coffins.

 

In the western world we are told that we have democracy and that this is the best form of government. It is, of course, the case that our democracy is largely an illusion but we do, at least, get the occasional chance to vote for our dictatators. Contries such as Afghanistan have very different histories and traditions; their cultures are wholly alien to those in the western world and for any other nation, or group of nations, to attempt to impose a democratic form of government on them will always end in failure. If they are to achieve democracy, it will be in their own time and we should leave them to it; if they prefer some other form of government, that is their choice and we should respect it.

 

If the western world has real worries about Afghanistan or any other such country, why don't we just isolate them ? It is far from impossible for us to refuse them diplomatic recognition, refuse to accept their nationals as visitors or immigrants, and refuse to trade with them. It amazes me that vast amounts of money have been spent on a war while the flow of heroin seems to be unaffected; if the same money had been spent in different ways, perhaps much more would have been achieved, although the USA, UK and others would have needed to look elsewhere to conduct their military training exercises.

 

In the end, it's all just politics, and we all know just how dishonest, corrupt and manipulative politics and politicians are.

 

 

DICTATORSHIP IS BUT A VOTE AWAY.

Today is election day, not for a President or Government but for Police and Crime Commissioners. It is set to be a watershed for supposed democracy in the UK.

 

No one wants these people and it seems that the candidates themselves aren't particularly enthusiastic either. Even though the process has been hijacked by the main political parties, publicity and campaigning has been minimal and I've seen nothing whatsoever about 2 of the 3 candidates I'm expected to choose between. All that I've received is a tabloid-sized news sheet about the Conservative candidate, a retired senior RAF officer; how such a background has prepared him to oversee a police force has not been explained.

 

The other 2 candidates remain almost entirely unknown. One assumes that campaigning has been concentrated in the city at the centre of my police area, a city around 50% of whose population is of recent immigrant origin; one might also assume that the successful candidate will quite probably be the Asian standing as an independent.

 

That my police service may well be handed over to the control of someone who hasn't bothered to canvas for my vote and whose support comes from an almost entirely alien part of the population is frightening; that this choice may well be made by the votes of as few as 15 or 20% of the total population of the police area, even more so. There is nothing at all 'democratic' about this process which has been foisted upon the people as a purely political mechanism and with almost no attempt to improve its legitimacy.

 

Politicization of the police is a major step along the road to dictatorship. The monsters of recent history - Hitler, Stalin, Mao and the rulers of communist Eastern Europe amongst others - all used state controlled police forces to impose their tyrranical regimes. While I may not like the idea of my police force being under the thumb of someone with whom I have nothing in common, at least he would be answerable to at least a part of the population. Once the political parties in this country have full control of our police services allied to the vast range of electronic surveillance available today, GOD HELP US.

WHY IS ABU QATADA STILL HERE ?

The utter lunacy which has allowed a man known to be hostile to our country to be released on bail rather than being deported defies belief.

 

So called 'Muslim Cleric' Abu Qatada is a Jordanian citizen, wanted by the Jordanian government on allegations of terrorism. However, he has spent the last 19 years in the UK, having entered the country on a forged passport but been granted asylum on the grounds of religious persecution. He has been repeatedly linked with Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, and was also said to have had an involvement in the "9/11" attacks in the USA. For most of the last 10 years he has been in prison in the UK, fighting every inch of the way to avoid extradition to Jordan.

 

This man has already been tried and convicted, in absentia, in Jordan and should now be serving a life sentence, having been found guilty of various terrorism offences. Despite this, an assortment of courts, both British and European, have ruled that he cannot be deported for fear of mistreatment. Consequently, he and his family have existed on state support for most of their time in this country, running up a bill variously estimated at somewhere between £500,000 and £3m.

 

Abu Qatada has no affinity for the UK and is here only because it is not Jordan. He does not, and has not, contributed anything to British society and may well have been involved in terrorist activities both here and abroad; the Jordanians certainly believe this. Why is he still here, being kept at the taxpayers' expense ?

 

 

ENTWISTLE : £450,000 FOR FAILURE.

Troubles at the BBC simply go from bad to worse, if that's actually possible.

 

Following the resignation of the DG, George Entwistle, 2 more senior managers, Helen Boden and Stephen Mitchell, have 'stepped aside' whatever that may mean. Hot on the heels of this news comes the revelation that Entwistle, after 54 days in his post, will leave with a golden handshake of a year's full salary, the small matter of £450,000. Presumably this is the result of an agreement approved of by the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord (Chris) Patten. His contractual entitlement has been said to have been for 6 months salary, so why he should now be given a full year's is a mystery.

 

How anyone can be entitled to 6 month's salary, let alone a year's, after such a short time in post has yet to be explained. Given that the man's resignation was, effectively, a consequence of his total incompetence, I can think of no explanation that would justify the decision. If he does, indeed, take this licence payers' money with him, it will be nothing less than a scandal.

 

Having overseen this appalling mess and having contributed to it with his approval of Entwistle's pay-off, Lord patten's position must now be in serious doubt if not wholly untenable. The word seems to be that there will be further resignations from the BBC's senior management in the coming weeks and months; Lord Patten should undoubtedly be one of them.

ENTWISTLE GOES AS BBC IMPLODES.

I've awoken this morning to discover that the BBC's Director General, George Entwistle, has finally fallen on his sword.

 

Entwistle had only been in post for a few weeks but his period in charge had been dominated by scandals directly affecting his organisation. While he may not have had any personal responsibility for much of what has been revealed, his handling of the aftermaths was utterly incompetent; the revelations and ramifications of the Savile case have brought the Corporation into such disrepute that its future must be in doubt and Entwistle's response was pathetic. His appearance before the Commons CMS Select Committee was hopeless and his interview performance at the hands of John Humphries a couple of days ago was excrutiating; resignation had become the only option.

 

Listening to Jonathan Dimbleby, Max Hastings and Lord Patten on the 'Andrew Marr' show, it's clear that Entwistle's erstwhile chums are pulling out all the stops in an attempt to excuse his failings; this simply doesn't wash. Entwistle may be an honest and decent man but he was no use whatsoever as Director General. His expressed belief that he shouldn't get involved in anything unless someone specifically asked him to shows a shocking lack of leadership skill; it's also an indictment of those, such as the chairman of the BBC Trust Lord Patten, who appointed him.

 

For the BBC itself, it is now a rudderless and leaderless organisation which is suffering the greatest crisis since its founding in January 1927. The only serious advantages that it has over its commercial rivals are its funding from the licence fee and the absence of advertisements on its channels; much of its content is every bit as rubbishy as that of its competitors and one has to wonder why it should continue as it is. The notion that the BBC is somehow superior, with better staff and programmes, holds less water as the years go by and this may well be the moment when the scales are tipped against it.

 

We shall have to wait to see what develops.

OBAMA WINS, BBC GETS RASPBERRY.

With Barack Obama now safely re-elected for a second term as US President we can look forward to much of the same. Although the Democrat has won the Whitehouse race and the Democrats also have control of the Senate, the Republicans have maintained control of the House of Representatives; this means that for Obama to achieve anything of real note, he will have to convince his opponents in the House to vote for it. The chances must be that little of real note will be achieved in the next 4 years, the US economy will fail to ignite, and could even collapse, and we can look forward to an increasingly 'lame-duck' administration with every reasonably prominent politician beginning to position themselves for the next election in 2016.

 

While the political developments, or lack of them, in the US are all very interesting, my own attention has been caught by the extent of the BBC's coverage of events. For a corporation with huge financial issues to address, one has to question the way in which it seems to have sent everyone, and their dogs, on holiday.

 

Some programmes have done the right thing and relied on reports from accredited US correspondents such as Mark Mardell and Laura Trevelyan; others have thought it necessary to despatch their own presenters. As far as I can tell, Jeremy Paxman, David Dimbleby, Emily Maitlis, Huw Edwards, Jeremy Vine, Martha Kearney, James Naughtie, Bridget Kendall, Jane Hill, and some goon from the 'Breakfast' programme have all been spending time in the US at taxpayers' expense, with, no doubt, their associated personal armies of technical and other support. I also have no doubt that this list is nowhere near being exhaustive.

 

I don't deny that a US Presidential election is an important event but, in common with much that the USA does, it's an overblown event. That the BBC, with all of its difficulties, finds it necesssary to waste a significant amount of money on transporting so many of its 'big names' across the pond demonstrates just how far from reality its management are. With the technical abilities that we possess today, did they really need to base all of their election coverage in the USA ? Surely, transatlantic links by telephone, internet and satellite would have sufficed.

 

The USA now faces 4 more years of troubles while the BBC faces questions on many fronts. Obama will obviously survive his 4 years; whether or not the BBC will still be alive and kicking in 2016 is another matter entirely.

EU BUDGET MUST BE CUT.

Last week's EU budget debate and vote in the House of Commons has caused a few ripples but is unlikely to do achieve much more. When it comes down to the wire, Cameron, and the UK, have limited choices.

 

While the socialist mafia at the the centre of the EU want a massive increase to their budgt, Cameron has said tht he is determined to achieve a 'freeze' or, at worst, an inflationary increase only. That this is little more than political rhetoric and an almost impossible ambition has been glossed over. The Parliamentary vote which made it clear that there is no stomach in the House of Commons for anything less than a real-terms cut in the budget certainly stirred things up but power still resides with the EU and its assorted mechanisms.

 

Cameron can veto whatever the rest agree, but that will result in an inflationary increase allied with huge annoyance from the 17 nations which are net recipients of the EU's largesse. These countries want an increase and nothing less will do; a reduction simply isn't on the cards. There seems to be no doubt that the very best Cameron can achieve is the inflationary increase and this will create in great animosity towards the UK. Whtever the UK wants thereafter will be scrutinised minutely and very probably subject to vetos played by the annoyed members.

 

The EU is a disaster for the UK and we should get out. Trading is one thing, political and economic subservience is another. That the people at the centre of this obscene socialist entity continue to believe in bigger budgets and more spending at a time when individual states are suffering huge budget cuts and spending reductions shows just how out of touch they are. Their adherence to the Euro, at all cost, shows that it is politics and not economics or common sense that are driving them and we must distance ourselves from this.

 

The real test will come when Cameron brings whatever budget proposal he gets from Brussels back to the House of Commons. If they then reject the proposal it will be a crisis of sorts; the question is 'Will they actually do it ?"

MacSHANE SHOULD BE IN PRISON.

What is it that makes politicians almost universally corrupt ?

 

In 'tin-pot' third world dictatorships, national leaders habitually steal everything they can get their hands on and yet the developed world continues to pour in vast sums in so-called 'overseas aid'. Much of the money given by these countries simply disappears into the pockets of vicious tyrants such as Mugabe and, in the past, the likes of Bokassa. However, what we don't expect is for this same greed and corruption to occur in our own nation.

 

How wrong we are. The recent revelations of the activities of Labour MP, Denis MacShane, demonstrate that our own politicians are every bit as corrupt as those in other countries. MacShane has been suspended by his party and will almost certainly be suspended by the House of Commons within a few days for submitting entirely false and fraudulent expenses claims; a Parliamentary conmmittee has said that these were "plainly intended to deceive". He is, of course, not the first member of one or other of the Houses of Parliament to be caught out and he's unlikely to be the last, but his is a particularly corrupt case.

 

If MacShane were an ordinary member of the public, he would now be under arrest and would certainly be facing a lengthy prison sentence but, as a Member of Parliament, it seems that there are rules which prevent his prosecution. In this supposedly law-abiding country of ours, not only do our politicians routinely defraud the taxpayer, they have also provided themselves with a degree of immunity from the normal consequences of such behaviour. Is this really any different from the behaviour of dictators in the third world ?

 

MacShane is a crook and should be in prison. Unfortunately, the worst that is likely to happen to him is removal from his Parliamentary seat; this will simply free him to accept a variety of corporate posts which will bring him many more opportunities to enrich himself. Some punishment. Is it not time that we, the people, did something about the corrupt and self-serving political class which has failed so miserably to represent us and our interests for so many years ?

PPI SCANDAL RUMBLES ON.

Payment Protection Insurance, or 'PPI' as we all now know it, is one of the great scandals of our time. For years, our banks conned millions of people out of money they could ill-afford by selling them, sometimes surreptitiously, insurance which they didn't ask for, didn't need and didn't want.

 

Today, Lloyds bank has announced its latest results within which they've made a further provision of £1bn against the claims being made by people whom they conned in the past, bringing their total provision so far to £5.25bn. Lloyds seem to be the worst offender in this respect with other banks having made provisions, in total, of about the same amount, with the total cost of reimbursing victims now standing at something over £11bn. It's been said that the eventual total may be around £15bn.

 

That our banks can have been so criminal as to have robbed their customers of so much is surely a shocking thing. That they continue to find ways of relieving us of our money for useless or pointless services shows just how little they've learnt from the current scandal and also, rather sadly, how little many of their customers have learnt.

 

How long will it be before we can truly have any trust in our banks ? 

 

 

 

'RACIST' REFEREE WASTES POLICE TIME.

I find it astonishing that not only the Football Association but now the Metropolitan Police are engaged in investigating allegations of racism against a referee.

 

I'm not a football fanatic but I'm well aware that referees habitually face a barrage of shouted abuse from the players whom they are supposed to be controlling.The players cheat and foul their ways through match after match while the referees exercise almost no real control; every decision of any note that they make is disputed, often vehemently, by the penalised side. Referees are viciously criticised by players, managers and the media; in-depth post-match examination of slow motion replays is used to seek out every possible mistake. Now we have a referee not only being accused of using 'inappropriate language' but also being subject to a criminal investigation into what were his precise words. From a manager's perspective, this is, of course, all great news, with yet another means of intimidating referees into virtual impotence having been discovered.

 

I would have thought that the police had far better things to do than to waste time and precious resources on such a trivial and pointless investigation. Football is not a sport played by well brought up gentlemen who never use foul language; it's a high profile business in which grossly overpaid yobs kick lumps out of each other and habitually curse and swear at each other and at the referee. In such an environment, discovering whether 'a' abused 'b' is of little, if any, significance, regardless of what actual words are supposed to have been said. Any significance the issue does have should be for the FA to worry about, not the police.

 

If my house was burgled, I'd be lucky to get a visit from the police within several days. If I call, or am claimed to have called, a coloured person by some words that they consider to be 'racist' and they make a complaint, I'd be pretty sure to be arrested and dragged off to the local nick within a couple of hours. Why is this ? Who is the greater criminal - the burglar who invaded my house, wrecked it and made off with an assortment of my belongings, or the person who calls another a nasty word ?

 

In this country we have got our priorities horribly wrong; as a result, real crimes have been relegated in importance in favour of imagined 'social crimes'. What a farce.