LEE RIGBY KILLERS SHOULD HANG.

Now that the 2 animals who murdered Lee Rigby have been found guilty, all that remains is the sentence.

 

In order to serve real justice, they should be hanged. Sadly, we're no longer allowed to deliver proper justice because of a whole load of left wing, namby-pamby policies that are pursued by governments of all hues in the so-called 'civilised world, which means that the only answer is for them to be locked away for the rest of their miserable lives. No possibility of release, ever; no possibility of parole or a comfortable open prison. This is a case where 'life' really must mean 'life'.

 

 Creatures like them have no place on this earth, let alone living in our society.

PORTILLO BRINGS SANITY TO MANDELA EXTRAVAGANZA.

A few days ago, on the BBC's "This Week", Michael Portillo said a few things which few would have dared to voice. He pointed out the appallingly one-sided nature of the coverage of the death of Nelson Mandela, singling out the BBC for particular criticism. He also criticized the way in which the BBC had despatched a vast army of reporters and others to South Africa, all effectively at public expense, in order to join in on the global media extravaganza.

 

Portillo did not decry Mandela but what he did do was to draw attention to the adulatory nature of virtually all of the media coverage, which ignored his life before his release from prison in 1990; that he was not a man devoid of faults was never mentioned.

 

Mandela was a communist terrorist and was imprisoned for the consequences of those beliefs and consequent actions. The way in which the global media has fallen over itself in its attempts to outdo its competitors in its adulation of Mandela is sickening. The way in which the likes of Obama and Cameron competed for attention at the memorial service, equally so.

 

When I was at school with Portillo, we were never close even though we were in the same class. When he began to climb the Tory ranks, I found him increasingly unlikeable. However, since he quit the political scene, he has become an increasingly sane voice in an increasingly mad world and I now look forward to his televisual appearances. On this occasion, he astonished me with his comments and views, which mirror my own precisely.

 

A world which thinks only of media celebrity needs an occasional voice of sanity, and Portillo provides that. More power to his elbow.

CAMERON, NIGELLA AND A JUDGE.

A few days ago, David Cameron was reported to have said that he was a great supporter of Nigella Lawson, a 'massive fan' and was on 'team Nigella'. Today, a judge made it clear that Cameron's comments were, to say the least, ill-advised, given that Ms Lawson is currently involved in a trial in which 2 former employees are accused of defrauding Lawson and her former husband, Charles Saatchi.

 

That Cameron was, to put it bluntly, an idiot for making the highly supportive remarks that he did while the subject of them is involved in a serious criminal trial is obvious; that the judge was right to criticise him for it, equally so. However, what is most concerning is that a Prime Minister could be so blinded by a desire to be associated with a 'celebrity' that he failed to apply any element of intelligence to his remarks.

 

If Cameron can be so easily caught out on something so obvious, how on earth can we trust the running of the country to him ? 

EDUCATION - WHAT EDUCATION ?

The OECD has sparked off a furious political row in the UK with its latest 'Pisa' educational test results. As if we didn't already know it, the UK is falling behind almost every other developed or developing country in its ability to educate our children; apparently, we are no longer ranked in the top 20 of international performers in mathematics, reading or science; within the UK, England performed worse than Scotland in mathematics and reading, while Wales was the poorest performer in all 3 subjects.

 

Labour and the Conservatives are now busy accusing each other of failing our children, failing to implement necessary educational reforms and so on an so forth. Neither has admitted to any failings of their own and both have simply proved how abysmal have been their activities on the education front over a period of many decades.

 

Anyone who has any experience of children and their education knows, without doubt, that the current system is a mess. Teachers are more concerned about making out health and safety reports for every bump and scrape than they are about educating their charges; they spend time and effort on fund raising in every possible way and in promoting a vast range of 'cultural' activities, rather than in teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Is it any wonder that great swathes of children leave primary school still unable to read, write or add up ?

 

Once they become teenagers, things become even worse. Science classes no loner have much in the way of 'hands-on' science, due to costs, the availability of suitably qualified teachers and that hoary old chestnut, health and safety; the wonder of science is, consequently, destroyed. The pupils are subject to no effective discipline and can happily ignore lessons whenever they like; many, it seems, spend lesson time on their mobile 'phones, texting others in the class or friends outside. The teachers seem powerless to act.

 

Examinations have been rendered almost useless by the huge amount of 'continuous assessment' that has been included in final grades; with the emphasis on league tables, schools have been sorely tempted to be overly-generous in the marking of their children, so as to appear to be doing better than the lot down the road. Again, the result has been children with 'AS' and 'A' level grades which simply do not reflect their true level of attainment; the better universities have been complaining for many years about the effect this has on them, but to no avail.

 

The nonsensical ideology of university as being a right rather than a privilege has been a further problem. Large numbers of former technical colleges, polytechnics art colleges and so on have been granted university status and award degrees, far too often in pointless subjects and to students who simply shouldn't be at university. This approach is, of course, beloved by the educational fraternity as it provides them with jobs and status - imagine being a Professor, even if it is of Park Management at the University of West Wittering !

 

Sadly, the 'university for all' approach has also been favoured by successive governments who've seen it as a way to reduce the unemployment figures. By keeping children at school until they're 18 and then sending most of them to university until they're 21 or 22, millions have been removed from the 'dole' and from claiming other benefits; if this was to be reversed, the revelation of the true parlous state of our nation might just terrify us all.

 

What is needed is a return to a few 'old fashioned' values. Reintroduce Grammar Schools and discipline in the classroom; stop the namby-pamby nonsense of health and safety at every turn and get back to some proper teaching. Do away with 'children's rights' and the nonsense of university being a 'right'; it is a privilege for those for whom it may be beneficial, for the rest it is a distraction and even an impediment to getting a job.

 

Until some government really takes a grip on all of this, our children will continue to stagnate and our country will continue to slide down the international league tables, while China, Korea, Singapore and the rest will become more and more dominant.

SALMOND HEADS FOR HIS OWN CULLODEN.

A couple of days ago, Alex Salmond's lot in the chilly wastes of Scotland published their plans for an independent nation. That these plans are peppered with so many assumptions and holes that are worthless has been missed by very few.

 

Salmond wants his 'country' to be independent and yet he also wants to keep almost everything it currently has - the Queen as Head of State, the pound sterling as its currency, membership of the European Union etc., etc. He seems to have a notion that Scotland is the most successful and productive part of the United Kingdom, based on a variety of past issues and the belief that North Sea oil will last forever. What he really seems to want is to turn the clock back some 300 years, to the days when Scotland was little more than a collection of fiefdoms, nominally under the overlordship of a king or queen.

 

Salmond is attempting to con the Scots into voting for independence by promising them that the only significant change they would see would be the cessation of control from Westminster. This is, of course, nonsense. His assertion that a newly independent Scotland would still be a member of the EU has been refuted by a raft of EU officials; they are united in saying that Scotland would have to make a fresh application for membership and take its place in the queue.

 

Whether or not the Queen would wish to remain as Head of State is another question; would she wish to be Head of State of a foreign country which had rejected the old Union ? Would, indeed, the people and government of England, Wales and Northern Ireland wish to share their monarch with a foreign country which had shown such antipathy to the Union ?

 

Regarding Salmond's stated intention of retaining sterling as the new nation's currency, he has again made a claim which ignores European rules. Any new nation wishing to join the EU is required to adopt the Euro as its currency; Scotland would be no different, whatever Salmond might want. Even if this were not the case, would the Government of the reduced United Kingdom wish to share its currency ? What would be the effects on both Scotland and the nation it had left ? Tying itself to a foreign currency would certainly have a significant impact on the ability of a Scottish government to manage its own monetary affairs independently and might well make many of Salmond's other plans for a future economy impossible to achieve. One has only to look at the mess of the Eurozone to see this.

 

Salmond is a fanatic and all fanatics are dangerous. In his case, he is dangerous to the stability and future of a country, the United Kingdom, which has endured since the Act of Union in 1707. Salmond is also dangerous to his homeland, Scotland which, by the way, has not really been a country in an international sense since that same Act; it is part of the United Kingdom in the same way that New South Wales is part of Australia and California is part of the USA.

 

If the Scots want to go their own way, so be it, but let it be for genuine and supportable reasons, not the hyperbole of a mad modern-day Jacobite.  The one good thing about this whole process is that it will all be over by the end of next year, at least for a generation or two.

ANTI-SMOKING FASCISTS AT IT AGAIN.

Now that the anti-smoking lobby has become all-powerful, one of the multitude of Government QUANGOs, "The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence", has decided that it's time to push the boundaries even further. They want to ban smoking in all hospital grounds in England, whether the 'offender' be patient, visitor or staff.

 

No one can deny that smoking is bad for you. It causes a raft of illnesses and it's smokey and smelly; its odours stick to your clothes in an unpleasant fashion. However, the constant barrage of criticism of smokers, regular excessive price rises, gory packaging and bans galore have surely gone far enough unless the Government intends a total ban on the sale and use of tobacco products. If this is what it wants to do, it should get on with it, otherwise, it should back off.

 

None of the measures introduced to date appear to have done much to prevent children from sampling and becoming addicted to the 'forbidden fruit' of cigarettes any more than has a plethora of sex education stopped them from becoming sexually active at ever-younger ages. The sad truth is that banning smokers from smoking is of little use; it is stopping the addiction from being developed that matters and no one is doing anything about this.

 

The imbeciles sitting in their comfortable offices at the Institute seem not to have thought about their latest pronouncement very carefully. People in hospital, whether patients, staff or visitors, are nearly all adults; their lifestyles have been developed and changing them is far from easy. Banning all smoking on hospital property would have a number of unwelcome consequences.

 

Firstly, the availability of staff would be reduced as many of them no doubt smoke; regardless of the known dangers, a habit caught in childhood proves very difficult to break and some may be unable, or not even want, to break it - are they to be sacked ?

 

Secondly, most patients are elderly with habits formed over lifetimes of many decades; for some, one of their few remaining pleasures may be a cigarette now and again - are these people to be denied a little pleasure at a time when they are already sick and, perhaps, dying ? My own grandfather gave up smoking on medical advice when it was already too late, and 'enjoyed' 5 years of increasing incapacity, which turned into a living hell, rather than 2 years of relative happiness. After smoking for 50, 60 or 70 years, can there be any justification for depriving such people of an occasional drag ?

 

Thirdly, if there is to be nowhere that people can smoke, some may decide that going to hospital is not for them; they'd rather put on a brave face and hope for the best, while sitting at home and getting out a packet of their favourite brand. The result of such a move would be, inevitably, that such people would not be admitted to hospital until they are very ill and require much more intensive care than would otherwise have been the case.  

 

Fourthly, have the Institute's experts given any thought to the calming effects that a little nicotine can have on an otherwise stressed smoker ? Do they actually have any understanding of the ways in which smoking acts, not scientifically but in real, everyday life ? While many smokers smoke because they enjoy it, for many it is an essential part of their lives; it is, after all, a narcotic addiction. To tell a prospective patient that they need hospitalisation for a week or two and, by the way, you won't be able to smoke, may be impossible to accept or, even if it is accepted, impossible to stick to. The result could be dangerously aggressive patients with nowhere to go.

 

Finally, there is universal acceptance that visitors can play an important role in the recovery of patients. However, knowing that there will be nowhere close by where they can nip off to have a quick smoke might easily deter many from bothering to visit. Smoking is not something that can be turned on and off like a tap; when the urge strikes, it has to be satisfied. Fewer visitors (and car park revenues) and longer recoveries could easily result.

 

I'm not a smoker and never have been. I don't particularly like others smoking, but this constant banging on about bans annoys me intensely. If the Government thinks it's wrong, BAN IT ALTOGETHER; stop picking away at it and do the deed. Stop the supply of cigarettes at source and make them prescription only for existing registered smokers. Yes, such a move would cause a few problems but it would be a clean and simple break with past behaviour, unlike the entirely ridiculous mess we currently have and that some want to make even more difficult, confused and unmanageable. 

PHILLIPINES STORM DWARFS BRITAIN'S LITTLE BLOW.

A couple of weeks ago, Britain experienced a storm; from the media coverage, anyone would have thought that it was a major event of cataclysmic effect which, of course, it was not. It was actually a pretty minor affair bringing a bit of wind and rain but little else.

 

Over the last couple of days a storm of an altogether different nature has ripped through the Phillipines, bringing death and destruction to thousands. Winds of extraordinary force, torrential rain and massive tides have virtually wiped out one city and brought chaos across the country. At least 10,000 people are believed to have been killed and many, many more have been made homeless; the devastation is enormous.

 

One can only wonder how the people who have lost friends and family, in addition to everything they owned, will manage. One can also wonder how the people of Britain would cope should such a real storm strike these islands. It hardly bears thinking about. 

EU MADNESS CARRIES ON UNABATED - VOTE UKIP !

Today it's being reported that the CBI, the organisation that represents the views of many of the bigger companies in the UK, is in favour of continued membership of the European Union. This is hardly surprising as the CBI membership includes many multi-national companies which want the least possible obstruction to their trading arrangements; many of these companies are also in favour of the UK joining the catastrophe that is the 'Euro', indicating just how 'European' their managements are.

 

While this stance of the CBI is merely a reiteration of their longstanding position, their report comes on the same day that it's also reported that EU lunatics want to standardize the power of vacuum cleaners and a few days after it was announced that they want to standardize the water volume of toilet flushes.

 

This may all sound completely mad, but these measures have been reported on the jolly old pro-EU BBC, so it seems highly likely that they're true. What will we have next ? An EU standard for the amount of water we can use to shower or bathe ? Perhaps a standard for the cutting power of lawn mowers ?

 

When will this idiocy end ? We can start the process in next May's European elections - VOTE UKIP !

LIVING WAGE MEANS CUTS IN BENEFITS.

Miliband minor, reputed leader of something called "The Labour Party", has come up with another vote-winning wheeze; he's promising to introduce the "living wage" should his mob be elected to power in 2015.

 

Notwithstanding the nonsense of the "living wage", what Miliband has not exactly dwelt upon is that every penny extra which an employee would receive in their wage packets would be taken away by the benefits' system. The total paid to families in tax credits, housing and council tax benefits would be reduced to compensate for the extra employment income and, overall, the vast majority of recipients would be no better off. The one lasting effect of Miliband's proposal would be a significant additional burden on businesses, not to mention public services such as health, education and local government.

 

The additional wages, without additional productivity, mean rising costs, higher prices and inflation; people will not be better off. Miliband's policy in this direction is nothing but a cynical attempt to con voters into voting for his misbegotten bunch of hypocrites. Don't be fooled. 

US ADMITS SPYING ON ALL OF US, ALL OF THE TIME.

Listening to the self-righteous self-justification of US spymasters really does make one want to throw up. One of these egregious individuals actually had the temerity to claim that the activities of his agency had been entirely legal and that no laws had been broken - presumably, he meant that no US laws had been transgressed.

 

The astonishing arrogance of these paranoid maniacs has to be seen to be believed. It appears that ANYTHING goes when it comes to serving the interests of the USA and the laws of foreign nations, as well as all concepts of decency and friendship are ignored. Simply put, the US will ride rough-shod over anyone and everyone in order to achieve its own ends.

 

In the UK, we continue to mutter about our 'Special Relationship' with this nation of madmen, while the rest of the world becomes increasingly anxious about their activities. Our political masters might do well to heed the words of Longfellow's 'Prometheus': "Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad" 

USA BUGS MERKEL AND WHO ELSE ?

SHOCK ! HORROR !!

 

Mrs Merkel, the dumpy German Chancellor, seems to have discovered that those friendly Americans from across the 'pond' aren't so friendly after all. In fact, it appears that they've been systematically bugging her telephone.

 

Unsurprisingly, Mrs Merkel is not happy about this and has been making some very pointed remarks about the supposed loss of trust that the revelations have caused. The extent of the American surveillance of foreign leaders is now a major question on the news wires and people are asking who else is being bugged.

 

The answer, of course, is EVERYONE. Mrs Merkel and her colleagues in the club reserved for heads of state and government are all being bugged by the Americans and are most probably all responsible for the bugging of most of their 'friends' too. 'Friendship' in the murky world of international politics is not what ordinary people understand the word to mean. From a government perspective, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' is about as close as any of them ever get to true 'friendship'.

 

We all know that the Americans are the most paranoid nation on earth and that they have the biggest and most sophisticated surveillance network; they habitually spy on anyone whom their paranoia sees as a potential threat to them, and that means they spy on almost everyone. America has one aim and one aim only - the protection of itself by any means deemed necessary and at any cost. Their is no room for international friendships in such a nation. 

 

However, this is not to say that other countries don't do the same, though most simply don't have the resources or technical ability to carry out their espionage activities on the same scale as does the USA. The simple fact is that they're all at it, all of the time and they all know it; why we have a sudden upsurge of indignation from the Germans now is an open question.

ENERGY PRICES SOAR AGAIN.

The near 10% price rise announced today by British Gas will come as a nasty shock to their millions of customers. How it can be justified is a question that will be much-debated in the coming weeks and months, as the other major suppliers of gas and electricity also increase their prices.

 

With wages rising at little more than 1% and general inflation at around 2.7%, a 10% increase in energy bills is unwelcome. British Gas, and no doubt all of the other major companies, will claim that much of the rise is out of their control as it's a consequence of the wholesale cost of gas, increased transport costs for both gas and electricity and the effective surcharges demanded by Government for the introduction of 'smart meters', better insulation and 'green' energy schemes.

 

Whatever the truth, many people will be looking for ways to make savings. 'Shopping around' is one avenue, but it's always best to wait until all of the companies have announced their latest price rises before acting; otherwise, one may easily go from bad to worse. Secondly, ensuring your property is well insulated can be a huge saver as can the installation of a modern boiler; double glazing and loft insulation added to changing boiler can easily cut hundreds of pounds from an average bill. Don't leave electrical appliances on standby or even plugged in; if your washing machine is programmable, run it overnight on a lower tariff plan and do the same for any tumble drying. Switch lights off when they're not needed and be prepared to wear thicker clothing rather than sit in shirtsleeves in a sweltering house.

 

There must be many more ways of keeping costs down and we all need to use them because, whatever Miliband minor says, prices are going only way and that's up, not down.

 

 

DIANE ABBOTT : WOMAN OF THE PEOPLE.

Ed Miliband's shuffle (I refuse to say reshuffle for obvious reasons of English usage) of his shadow cabinet have included the sacking of Diane Abbott, formerly his shadow Minister for Public Health. I have rather mixed feelings about this.

Ms Abbott is a committed socialist and I'm not; indeed, I am fairly opposed to most of her views as to how our society should be organised, managed and run. However, I do respect her opinions. She comes across as an honest politician, one of the few, and does not appear to be a glory-seeker. As such, I do have to wonder why she has been sacked; it seems that she committed a cardinal sin and spoke against Party Policy on the subject of bombing Syria, Libya or some such place.

Diane's appearances on the superb "This Week" on BBC 1, were a joy; sat beside Michael Portillo she said what she believed, as does "Polly", and it was impossible not to like both her and the wonderful relationship between the two of them. That they have known each other since their school days was, perhaps, not a surprise given their obvious camaraderie.

Abbott's departure from the Labour frontline may well signal her return to "This Week" and a few injudicious revelations about what goes on in the Miliband inner circle.

Whoopee Doo !

PS I was at the same all boys' school and in the same class as Portillo, while Diane was down the road at the local girls' school; both state, but both a little bit 'elitist', too !

TRISTRAM HUNT : MAN OF THE PEOPLE ?

I may well be incredibly stupid, but how can the likes of Tristram Hunt, a privileged boy of of the Blairite school, be any sort of socialist representative for the parents of todays' schoolchildren ?

As the newly appointed shadow Secretary of State for Education, Hunt is the man to whom parents unhappy with the current state of our education system are expected to look. Given that he is the son of a Labour Peer who went to Westminster School and himself went to an independent (= private) school, how can he be expected to have a clue about ordinary people and their educational needs ? Today, he's been making statements about various things to do with education but it's all smoke and mirrors to say the least; at worst it's a load of total bollocks.

Why is it that so many of the Labour hierarchy, who claim to be so connected with "the people" are from such privileged backgrounds ? Could it be that there is a load of money to be made from being a politician, whether it is local or national ? Socialism is a wonderful thing as long as you only profess
it for others; God forfend that you don't practice it for yourself.

BOAT PEOPLE HAVE ONLY THEMSELVES TO BLAME.

Various political figures and organisations are getting their rather nanny-like knickers in a right old twist about people drowning in the Mediterranean. Recent events in which numerous boat passengers have perished while attempting to cross from North Africa to Italy have caused such a stir that demands for 'something to be done' are issuing from every quarter.

 

If I chose to walk across Dartmoor without a compass and in inadequate clothing, it would be no one's fault but my own if I got lost, fell down a hole and died; certainly, no one would start shouting that 'something must be done' in order to prevent such 'tragedies' in the future. However, when hordes of assorted asylum seekers make a similar choice by embarking in large numbers on barely serviceable boats, and end up sinking to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, the world gets all weepy.

 

It may well be that the people in question have endured difficult, even horrible, times but taking ship was their idea; the consequences are on their own heads. There can be no justification for the vast amount of hand-wringing that's going on and certainly no justification for governments and international organisations to be expected to provide hugely enhanced search and rescue services. If anything needs to be done, it's in the countries from which the escapees are fleeing, not by the ones to which they are travelling.

 

Oh what a crazy world we live in.

YELLEN APPOINTMENT MEANS MORE OF THE SAME.

While the appointment of Janet Yellen as head of the US Federal Reserve appears to be a foregone conclusion and stock markets have welcomed the news, the long term outcome for the real world may well be more pain.

 

Yellen comes from a coterie of 'born again Keynesians' who all believe that the answer to our recent woes is to borrow and spend still more. They are believers in state intervention in every aspect of our financial lives and believe that simply making the money revolve around the system ever-faster is the way to ever-greater prosperity. More recently, they've discovered a new wheeze which is the creation of large amounts of money for injection into the economy via the mechanism of 'Quantitative Easing'; what the ultimate effects of this will be are wholly unknown.

 

I don't claim to be an economist of any sort, and I know a lot less than the likes of Yellen and her Keynesian colleagues (2 of whom are Nobel Prize winners) but I still think they're wrong. When the major western economies, not least the USA, are labouring under vast mountains of debt, the way to salvation cannot be to borrow more. If I, as a private citizen, get into debt, I may try to borrow my way out of trouble but I'll eventually go bankrupt; so it is with countries. The current crisis over the existing 'Debt Ceiling' in the US tells us that there are many who are already very unhappy with the state of play and Yellen is unlikely to tighten any belts for a long time yet. It's even reported that her stance may be even more lax than that of her predecessor, Ben Bernanke.

 

There is one difference between a private bankruptcy and a state one; the state bankruptcy takes longer to arrive but is ultimately much worse. Keynesians of the world should all take note - when you're in a hole, stop digging.

USA INVADES LIBYA AND SOMALIA : WHERE IS THE UN ?

So here we go again. The peace loving Yanks have invaded more countries and claim that it's all perfectly legal.

 

Today, American forces have carried out two operations which involved landing troops in Libya and Somalia for the purposes of capturing supposed terrorist suspects. While I have no problem with catching terrorists, I have to wonder what right the Americans have to do it in foreign countries from which they've received no agreement to act.

 

The Libyan government has apparently asked for an explanation of the US action while there's been no published comment from Somalia as yet which, given the state of that country's government, is hardly surprising. Nonetheless, what US troops were doing in Somalia, uninvited, is a question that needs answering.

 

In Libya, the invaders captured a claimed Al Qaeda 'leader' whom they now say is 'lawfully detained outside of Libya'; whose law they are applying would be nice to know, though I doubt that anyone actually has the balls to ask. That this arrogant and overbearing action by the USA is wrong is self-evident but, given the current western paranoia about Islamic terrorists it's unlikely that anyone in the West will complain - it may be a bit different in more eastern parts.

 

The USA has set itself up as the self-appointed arbiter of what is right and wrong in the world. As such, it makes arbitrary decisions, entirely based on what is perceived to be good or bad for the USA, and acts on these; some will recall that it actually invaded the British territory of Grenada in the 1980s on some spurious grounds of defending itself. For no known reason, the rest of the world, as represented by the United Nations, simply stands by and accepts this utterly Imperialistic attitude and, apart from occasional comments from Russia, China and one or two others of rather inconsequential standing, does nothing.

 

The problems in the world today are many but the USA is one of them. It is a nation run by fanatics; they still believe in the law of the 'wild west' and many are fundamentalist Christians who are just as insane as the fundamentalist Muslims whom they despise; the only difference is that the US has much more powerful weapons and surveillance systems. Once the other lot catch up, all hell will be let loose, and that's why the Americans loonies don't want the Islamic loonies to have access to an atomic bomb.

 

Why doesn't the United Nations do anything about it ? Answer - because the UN is run  by the US and is nothing but a useless waste of money, time and space. We, the majority of the people of the world, are on our own.

MILIBAND v THE 'MAIL' : A LOVE - HATE RELATIONSHIP !

The spat between the Milibands and the 'Daily Mail' and 'Sunday Mail' newspapers really is a bit of a storm in a teacup as well as being a politically inspired piece of largely irrelevant bilge. The real issue is one of perceived right-wing newspapers being pilloried by wealthy, yet supposedly committed, socialists.

 

Journalists have frequently dug up dirt on public figures and splashed it across their front pages. When the subjects of such abuse have been figures from the right wing, little has been said; one needs only to recall the abuse heaped on Margaret Thatcher throughout her time as Prime Minister, during her retirement and even at the time of her death, to see this. The left wing of political thought was cruel and inhuman in much of its coverage of Thatcher's life, notwithstanding that she did more to save this country from disaster than any Labour politician ever has. As far as the socialist left is concerned, anyone espousing right wing views is fair game and can be abused in the most grotesque fashion.

 

When it comes to making comments about left wing figures, matters are somewhat different. The left flies into high dudgeon at any suggestion that their heroes may have had feet of clay. That Ralph Miliband was a Marxist is a simple fact, and that Marxists are the enemies of freedom and democracy follows from any minor consideration of the modern histories of the Soviet Union, China and numerous other totalitarian states. Whatever is claimed by his devotees, Karl Marx was no supporter of traditional British values or society. If Ralph Miliband was a supporter of Marx, then his support for British values and society must also be open to question.

 

The left scream that this is all wrong and that Adolphe Miliband, who later changed his name to the more politically acceptable Ralph, was a man who truly loved 'his country'; the fact that he was actually a Belgian, of Polish extraction, who only came to England in order to escape the NAZIs in 1940 is generally glossed over. Another piece of manipulation by the left is the claim that Miliband must have loved this country because he fought for it in World War 2; yes, he joined the Royal Navy but he served in what was then a 'Belgian section', raising possible questions about which country he actually believed he was fighting for. Additionally, for a committed communist to be fighting against the NAZIs was hardly something unusual or deserving of particular praise in either case.

 

In later years, Miliband maintained a steadfast Marxist approach to politics, finding the Labour Party of Harold Wilson far too moderate; he supported a revolutionary socialist philosophy which he maintained to the end of his life and which was surely something unfriendly to traditional British ways. Along the way, he followed the traditional approach of high-profile left wingers by becoming rather wealthy.

 

The 'Daily Mail' has written that Ralph Miliband did not love Britain and this has caused an uproar from the left and from Ed Miliband in particular. Does anyone really care and does it matter in any context other than a purely political one ? I think not. 'Miliband Minor' is simply using this as a tool in his campaign to become our next Prime Minister and the sooner the manufactured row is consigned to the dustbin of history, the better.

ED MILIBAND : "LET'S ALL GO BACK TO THE '70s !"

Ed Miliband appears determined to turn the clock back and to make the country relive the disasters of the past.

 

Immediately after the Second World War, the Labour government of Clement Attlee introduced a range of measures, some of which laid the foundations for the mess in which we find ourselves today. Nationalisation of a variety of industries led to the eventual destruction of some and to the weak markets which exist today in energy supply and rail transport. The great institution that was the NHS was poorly understood; naively, it was believed that costs would fall as the health of the nation improved, and there was no understanding of the increased demand that would arise from an increasingly aging population, or from medical advances. Far from costs falling over the years, they have risen almost exponentially, and another great socialist ideal has proved to be unsustainable in the long term.

 

In the 1960s and 1970s, the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan took us further down the road of industrial collapse and public sector profligacy and inefficiency. We had state control of prices and incomes, vast government borrowing and regular strikes by workers of all types. The vast swathe of nationalised industries was in a state of constant agitation and their outputs were shambolic in every respect. Inflation was rampant, interest rates high and everyone ended the 1970s much poorer than they'd been a few years earlier. 

 

By 1979, the country was in a state of turmoil with rubbish piled high on the streets and industries such as car making, ship building and aircraft manufacture in terminal decline. It took the strong will of the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, plus a certain amount of luck, to turn things around and recreate a strong economy. When Labour came back into power under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 1997, the economy was growing strongly and the 'public finances' were in robust good health.

 

Blair and Brown then set about destroying things. With typical left wing abandon, they threw money around and showered it on anyone they considered to be 'poor', at the cost of major industry and those they considered to be 'rich'. They introduced measures such as a 'minimum wage' which is, itself, a ludicrous concept; it does not make anyone better off, it actually makes more people worse off. They invented the shockingly expensive and counter-productive system of 'tax credits' with which we are now saddled, a system which actively encourages people not to work, or to work only limited hours.

Nonetheless, their followers simply saw extra money in their pay packets or benefit cheques, and thought it was wonderful. They tinkered with the education system and ruined it; they poured billions of pounds into the NHS, money which appears to have disappeared without trace, and they played around with the railways to such extent that they, too, are now a mess. They also interfered in many other areas, introducing state controls which have proved anything but beneficial. While doing all of this in the name of 'the people' and 'the poor', Blair became a multi-millionaire, demonstrating beyond any doubt that his overriding interest was in enriching himself rather than in improving the lot of the people he purported to represent.

 

In 2010, the people finally decided that they'd had enough of the Labour government, helped in this decision by the appalling events of the banking crisis and credit crunch. Labour, of course, claimed that this was all the fault of the banks though there is no doubt that much of what affected the UK was a consequence of government action over the preceding 13 years. Since 2010, the coalition government of Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties has striven to bring some sanity back into our lives and the signs are that they may now be beginning to succeed. Inevitably, Labour doesn't agree.

 

Instead of welcoming the signs of improvement in our economy, Miliband seems to be hell-bent on taking us back to the grim old days of state intervention in everything. He proposes to introduce a mandatory 'living wage' in place of the 'minimum wage' something which would increase costs for all companies and, therefore, prices; he wants to introduce state controls over the prices of gas and electricity, further remove children from their parents by bringing about even more state-sponsored childcare. He wants to restore the inequality that existed between private and public sector tenants. In short, he wants to go back to the disastrous days of the 1970s, when Britain suffered the ignominy of being shored up by the International Monetary Fund.

 

The epithet of 'Red Ed' to described Miliband is well deserved. A vote for him and his party in 2015 will be a vote for a return to old-style socialist state control and the associated mess that always develops from such government. Don't be conned, don't do it.

ISLAMIC INSANITY MUST BE TACKLED.

The appalling events in Nairobi show just how irreligious are the Muslim fanatics who now infest our world.

 

Islam does not condone murder and mayhem any more than does Christianity, but these lunatics are so un-Islamic that they should be roundly condemned by every Muslim everywhere in the same way that unholy Christian ministers have been condemned by their colleagues, flocks and media. It is time that the world took real action against these madmen.

 

In this country, we have tolerated an ever increasing degree of sectarianism in our society and we now have well established 'Muslim quarters' in many of our biggest towns and cities. The extreme elements in these communities continually press for more and more 'rights', attempting to gain more and more freedom to exercise Islamic controls over their populations; we see this in the wearing of supposedly cultural clothing, the occurrence of 'honour killings', the building of an ever-increasing number of mosques and Islamic schools and so on. How long will it be before we are confronted with demands for arranged marriages and polygamy to be legalised ? The people who are demanding these things hate us, the white British, and will eventually overwhelm us unless we take urgent action to bring some sanity back to our nation. 

 

The only part of his prophecy that Enoch Powell got wrong was the timing.

MILIBAND : AN EMPTY MAN IN AN EMPTY SUIT.

Listening to Ed Miliband on television this morning laves one wondering how anyone could possibly vote for this man. To borrow from Winston Churchill "An empty programme came on and Ed Miliband was it's star"

 

While insisting on his rather silly re-branding of the old "New Labour" to his bright and sparkly "One Nation Labour", Miliband failed to answer any of Andrew Marr's questions though Marr, as a bit of a BBC leftie himself, also failed miserably to press home his own points. Miliband simply made a whole load of incredibly vague comments, which some will undoubtedly pick up as actual policies, and basically said that he'd make sure we were all better off, except those "very rich" people who'd pay for all his largesse.

 

Miliband is a typical, but rather poor, politician. He wipes away the past with a sweep of the hand as if he was in no way associated with it. He tells us that he would do everything very differently from his predecessors, notwithstanding that his real freedom to do so would be heavily restricted. He promises the earth with loads of sugary nonsense and, in common with all of his predecessors, would deliver nothing but misery for us all. In common with his recent predecessors of all parties, his overriding aim is to gain power and he'll promise whatever he needs to in order to achieve it, regardless of whether it's good for the country and its people or not or whether he could actually Implement it or not.

 

Shockingly, today's "Andrew Marr Show" also presented us with the maniacally left wing Polly Toynbee and the even more bonkers Caroline Lucas, with only the very middle of the road Matthew Parris as a counterweight. It was, in effect, a perfect example of the BBC's version of balance and political impartiality. I can't wait to see how they approach the Conservative Party conference nest week.

WILL MILIBAND AND HIS ILK NEVER LEARN ?

You can always rely on Labour to promise to spend money that isn't there.

 

With their annual conference about to get underway, Ed Miliband has finally come out with a few scraps in an effort to keep his followers happy. Unfortunately, the latest round of promises are nothing but political cant and attached to the usual rhetoric about 'taxing the rich'.

 

The only possible reason that Miliband and his clan should promise to reverse the current government's changes to housing benefit is vote-catching. That tenants in council-owned property have historically been able to claim a higher level of housing benefit than those in privately owned homes was a nonsense and needed to be stopped. The claims Labour has made about the change being a 'bedroom tax' are ridiculous and to reverse the change would be a shocking and unwarranted act. It will also cost money which the government does not have.

Something that would cost us all is his additional commitment to increase the minimum wage. Rather than extolling people to live within their means, or reducing taxes, it's always been Labour philosophy to hand out cash, someone else's that is, in a pointless effort to make the lower paid better off. All it actually achieves is a general uplift of all wages which can only be paid for by increasing prices, taxes and borrowing; the supposed 'poor' don't benefit in any way and everyone suffers, as we all know only too well from the efforts of the previous Labour government.
 

Next, Rachel Reeves, a horribly nasal and earnest shadow treasury person, has separately said that people earning up to £60,000 are not rich and will not be taxed more under a Labour government. That the first part of her statement is blatantly true can't be denied, but the second will deserve serious scrutiny. We already know that Labour, under the Blair / Brown axis, made similar promises about income tax and promptly increased national insurance. There is nothing to say that a future Labour government would be any less weasel-worded and anyone with anything will be well advised to think very carefully before accepting Ms Reeves words at face value. Anyone with an income of more than £150,000 pa, the 'rich' according to Labour, can expect to be absolutely hammered, of course.

 

Thirdly, another of  the old guard, Yvette Cooper aka Mrs Balls, has said that Labour would guarantee what she refers to as "wraparound" childcare for the parents of all primary care children, meaning that they would not have to bother about little Johnny or young Tilly at all between the hours of 8am and 6pm. Why this is considered to be a good thing escapes me. Far too many parents already give far too little attention to their children and pass them over to others at every opportunity, some of the consequences being the appalling behaviour of hordes of our teenagers, their addiction to their 'phones and the internet, their lack of meaningful educational achievement and their total lack of any moral compass and sense of decency or self respect. What we need is a reduction in the outsourcing of our childcare and much more input from parents, not even more state intervention and support.

 

How they would pay for all these promises hasn't been explained but I think we can all be pretty certain that anyone who has anything will find that they become poorer. Buying and owning a house will become even more expensive, indirect taxes will rise dramatically and inflation will soar. While you can take the boy out of Labour, there's no known way of taking Labour out of the boy, and Miliband and his friends still have a basic belief in a big state funded by excessive taxation, despite the shocking consequences of the Blair / Brown years from which we are only just beginning to recover.

 

We can only hope and pray that enough of the population has enough sense to ensure that Labour never again gets the chance to destroy our nation as it so nearly did between 1997 and 2010.

 

BAN THE BURKA !

Yesterday a government minister, the Liberal Democrat Jeremy Browne, suggested that it was time we had a debate about the wearing of Islamic clothing such as the burka and niqab, particularly in places such as schools.

 

He is, of course, right though I would go much further. These outlandish forms of dress are utterly alien to British culture and tradition and should be banned - full stop.

 

When westerners visit Islamic countries, they are expected to  abide by the laws and customs of the particular state they are in. This means that women, whether Islamic or not, are expected to at least cover their limbs and hair; failure to do so will almost certainly result in arrest and some uncomfortable time spent in a filthy prison cell. At worst, a lengthy prison sentence will be passed down.

 

When these same Islamic people come to Britain and other non-Islamic countries, many seem to expect us to allow them to carry on as if they were still 'at home'; any suggestion that they should embrace our ways, as we are expected to do in their countries, is rebuffed as racist and anti-Islamic. Successive governments in the UK have allowed this ridiculous situation to persist and develop to a point at which it now threatens the very basis of our society.

 

School children in class with their entire bodies covered and women in court in similar fashion. Is this right ? Can it possibly be justified ? Of course it can't. This is Britain, not Iran; it is England, not Afghanistan. It is not just time for a debate, it is time for serious action to stop this continued take over of our nation by alien forces.

DANIEL PELKA : A CHILD OF OUR TIMES ?

While the Americans get their kicks from shooting people, it seems that the British get theirs from the abuse and murder of children.

 

Despite the repeated promises of the past, another small child has been killed and now an inquiry has determined that everyone failed and yet no one was specifically to blame; it says that "critical lessons" must be "translated into action", whatever such gobbledygook might mean in practice.

 

The child, Daniel Pelka, aged 4, suffered what is described as terrifying and dreadful abuse by his mother and her partner and yet no one appears to have either noticed or done anything about it. He was starved and beaten for months until he finally died at his Coventry home in March 2012.

 

The family apparently had contact with an assortment of state bodies including the police, social services and education services and yet no one noticed what was going on. The child is reported to have been seen scavenging for food in dustbins, and yet no one did anything about it.

 

Year after year, we hear of similar instances and, every time, we are told that lessons must be, and will be, learned and that such things must never be allowed to happen again; year after year they do. The utter incompetence of the services that are supposed to safeguard children is mind-blowing; they react to every instance by trying to impose ever greater security while actually doing nothing. They lock school gates and doors, impose meaningless and time wasting 'CRB' checks and impose photography bans on parents.

 

In the meantime, children like Daniel Pelka continued to be abused and murdered.

WASHINGTON SHOOTINGS : WILL THEY NEVER LEARN ?

Will the Americans never learn ?

 

Yet again, there is national angst in the USA after another lunatic with a gun has gone on the rampage. This time, a man with a history of using a gun in anger has managed to murder 12 people in a navy yard in Washington DC. Where he got the gun from and how he got into the yard will no doubt be questions that are mulled over in the coming days.

 

In the meantime, 12 people are dead and their families will be mourning. There will, as usual, be much gnashing of teeth and soul searching, accompanied by little if any action. The outdated and childish American obsession with guns will continue, unabated.

PLASTIC BAG TAX ON THE WAY.

So now we're to have a "Plastic Bag Tax".

 

On the excuse that the use of plastic bags is bad for the environment, Nick Clegg is going to announce that there will be a new levy of 5p for every plastic bag used by the customers of supermarkets and other large store, to be introduced after the next general election in 2015. That this is simply another tax on an already overtaxed populace is obvious.

 

All stores already charge for plastic bags: the cost of their acquisition is included in their overall costs and their selling prices reflect these total costs, including the bags. The cost per bag is tiny and the effect on prices equally so, meaning that everyone is happy except, of course, the Environment Police, led by the Greens, Liberal Democrats and other left-leaning loonies of assorted labels.

 

Quite possibly in common with many other people, I use a mixture of my own bags and shop bags. Any shop bags that I need are recycled as bin liners, thus I avoid buying the much more substantial and environmentally unfriendly bags that  are offered for this purpose. This seems to me to be a perfectly sensible approach, but I would stop it if this charge is brought in.

 

The proposal for a 5p per bag charge is outrageous, the indication that the proceeds will go to charities simply a smokescreen. Part of the charge will actually be allocated to the stores as compensation for the administration costs that they will incur, which really means they'll make a further profit as they're unlikely to incur any real additional costs. As for the rest of the proceeds going to charity, what this really means is that government will be able to reduce what it currently allocates to charities through various channels, exactly as they did when the National Lottery was introduced.

 

While claims that the "Spare room subsidy" is really a "Bedroom tax" are simply unfounded and untrue, this proposed plastic bag charge is nothing but a tax. At 5p per bag and assuming that 2 billion of the current 7 billion bags continue to be used, the government will steal another £100 million pounds from us. This is just politicians seeing an opportunity and taking it.

 

The real problem is not plastic bags, however many we use, it is the vast amount of plastic packaging with which we are confronted. Our milk and much of our fruit, vegetables and meat is presented in plastic coverings. Sauces, cheeses, salads, shampoo and other bath products, bleach and a huge range of cleaning products, are all packaged in plastic. Compared with the weight of the claimed 7 billion plastic bags, I wonder what is the tonnage of all of these other elements of packaging.

 

I've already heard someone from the taxpayers' alliance speaking out against this new tax and I can only hope that many more people of influence and common sense make sufficient noise to prevent this ridiculous impost from being implemented.  

 

 

HOUSE PRICES : Rics SAYS "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH !"

"Experts" from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has today told the Bank of England that it should take action to restrict the annual rise in house prices to no more than an average of 5%; this would be achieved not by controlling house prices directly but by introducing strict limits on the amounts that purchasers could borrow. Other "experts" have already suggested that such an idea would be unworkable.

 

In my simple mind, the fact that such a scheme wouldn't work is so blindingly obvious that one has to wonder who are these "experts" from the Rics and why should any of us ever again take the advice of a surveyor seriously. They seem to have ignored the enormous diversity in the housing market across the country and come up with a piece of nonsense.

 

It is a fact that house prices in some parts, notably London and the south east of England, are very much higher than in other parts, notably Wales; it's also a fact that prices are increasing fairly rapidly in the south east while they're falling in Wales. How can a policy such as that proposed by the Rics cater for both of these scenarios ?

 

We are told constantly that there's an inadequate supply of houses and that this is the principal reason for the rise in prices - so why are prices still falling, or at least not rising, in many parts ? There can, of course, be no doubt that prices in the south east have risen much more than in the rest of the country over a period of many years, but it costs no more to build a house in London than it does in Lancashire, Durham or south Wales, so why is there the huge disparity in the ultimate price charged for new homes in these areas ? Partly the answer is demand, partly it's the price of land and partly it's profiteering by the builders; the biggest element in all of this is the price of land.

 

Today, those who already own property in London and the south east are asset rich compared with their counterparts elsewhere in the country. They can afford to sell and move almost anywhere that they choose, quite probably buying a better property for less money and putting a tidy profit in the bank; those who live outside of this privileged area can rarely, if ever, afford to move into it without being prepared to take a massive cut in their living standards. The concept of a "2-nation country" can rarely have been more plainly apparent.

 

Bringing my simplistic mind to this issue, I see a simple solution which will at least limit any further increase in the nationwide disparities that exist. Firstly, introduce controls on land prices, either making the land on which houses stand a 'free good' or introduce a standard price for land across the country; there would have to be transitional arrangements for all existing properties but I'm sure that the "experts" at the Rics could work something out. Secondly, extend capital gains tax to include any profit resulting from a house sale that exceeds the increase in CPI over the period from when the property was purchased; all such excessive surpluses would be subject to tax at 100%.

 

These measures would ensure that the artificial and highly damaging house price bubbles of recent years don't recur, though there might be some short-term pain. Individuals who'd hoped to spend the profit from their nice London house on buying a villa in Spain or a Lamborghini or 2 might be upset; meanwhile, the government would be able to use the forfeited surplus to build more houses and/or invest in other parts of the country.

 

I am no economist and these ideas might be every bit as unworkable as those put forward by the Rics, but then I don't claim to be an "expert". Then again, they, or some part of them, might just work.

WEST SHOULD STAY AWAY FROM SYRIAN CONFLICT.

Despite the lessons of recent history, national leaders such as Barack Obama, David Cameron and Francois Hollande seem desperate to sign up for yet another foreign war. As if Iraq, twice, and Afghanistan were not enough, they now want to declare war on Syria.

 

In the UK, the House of Commons had the sense to tell Cameron to get lost; he's now hamstrung in his attempts to have more of our troops killed in a pointless foreign conflict which has nothing to do with us. In the US, Obama has possibly put himself in a difficult position by asking Congress to approve the deployment of US forces though he'll probably get the necessary backing in the end. In France, President Hollande appears to have no such issues and is itching for war.

 

While the claimed actions of the Assad regime are horrible, it is a civil war; the opposition forces are probably guilty of much the same atrocities as are the government side. What it all has to do with the USA, UK, France or any other country has yet to be adequately explained. If any international body should be taking action, it is the United Nations, for they, alone, have the authority to act if their members so decide. At present, the principal members of this august assembly cannot agree, so the UN does very little.

 

This situation is not dissimilar to those which existed in Iraq and Afghanistan and it is, essentially, insoluble by any western power. Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are Islamic nations which operate under different social arrangements than does the West; while we may not like these arrangements, it is not for us to interfere. Sadly, we have and we've encouraged dissident groups to attack their legally constituted governments which have then responded with massive force; this does not justify the use of means that are banned by international agreements such as chemical weapons, but it is for the sanctioning bodies to act in such cases and not for individual war-mongering countries.

 

Following the nonsense of the western inspired 'Arab Spring', Iraq is still a mess, Egypt is in chaos  and Syria is in bloody civil war. God, or Allah, save us from yet more interference from arrogant and self-serving western nations.

BBC AT WAR WITH ITSELF.

The disaster that is the BBC continues to make the news rather than fulfilling its role as a reporter of the same.

 

The saga of unwarranted termination payments is rumbling on with ever-increasing intensity as members of the governing body, the 'BBC Trust', throw mud at officers of the corporation and the officers, notably former Director General Mark Thompson, hurl it back with interest.

 

When being questioned by a House of Common's committee, Patten stated that he and his Trust colleagues knew nothing of an assortment of excessive payments; Thompson's response to these remarks effectively calls Patten a liar. Surely, Thompson would not have done this if his version of events was not true; he would have been better advised to keep quiet. Patten, on the other hand, has his reputation and position to think of and may well be more than happy to pass the blame for the mess on to others.   

 

Who's telling the truth ? Who will ultimately carry the can once the mud-slinging stops ? I can hardly wait for the next instalment !

A JOURNALIST, HIS BOYFRIEND AND THE LAW.

Whatever has been going on, one has to wonder if the 9 hour detention of a Brazilian national, David Miranda, would have made a news story, let alone major and continuing headlines, if he was not the boyfriend of a left wing journalist.

 

The media, notably led by the Guardian and the BBC, has had this non-event as their leading story for 2 days now and it shows no sign of going away. In fact, it appears that Mr Miranda was detained quite legally and that he has, indeed, been complicit in certain activities which may be deemed dubious or, even, illegal.

 

I don't normally side with the state in such matters but on this occasion what did it do that was wrong ? If Mr Miranda had been a bearded or handless sheet-wearing Muslim, would there have been any fuss made ? I doubt it. This is a simple case of the left wing objecting to a largely right wing government; it's nonsense and it's time the story was consigned to the dustbin where it belongs.

 

 

FRACKING PROTESTERS SHOULD BE SHOT.

The relatively new method of extracting gas from the ground - 'fracking' - has been introduced in the United States with very little noise and is proving to be hugely successful. In this country, a horde of professional protesters are threatening to disrupt its introduction, to the enormous disbenefit of the nation. The current activities of such people near the village of Balcombe in Sussex almost defy belief.

 

Whether or not 'fracking' is safe I have no idea; I suspect it is no more dangerous than many other industrial processes and is unlikely to result in major catastrophes such as the 'Torrey Canyon' disaster, the Exxon Valdez oil spill or the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It is also unlikely that it will result in as many deaths as did coal mining during its hundreds of years of operation. However, none of this seems to deter organised gangs of protesters who seem to emerge from nowhere whenever there is something about which they can complain.

 

What really gets me is that these protesters appear all over the country at the drop of a hat - young and old, families with children, single mothers, louts with long hair and tattoos, girls with coloured hair and an assortment of body piercings. Where do they come from ? Where do they live ? What do they live on ? Do they have jobs ? Do they pay income tax, council tax, road tax and so on ?

 

I suspect the answers to these questions are generally ones which would cause the hackles to rise and the blood to boil in any hard working household where their taxes are paid and the laws obeyed. One suspects that many, if not most, of these unkempt protesters have rarely, if ever, worked, have no fixed abode and live on a mixture of state benefits and the products of thievery; their children probably have no settled life or schooling. In short, they are the dregs of society but attempt to excuse their behaviour by hiding behind an environmentalist badge of honour.

 

Why are these people allowed to exist in the way that they do ? Why are these non-contributors to our society allowed to disrupt it so much ? Why are our police and politicians so lily-livered when it comes to dealing with them when they're so quick to pounce on others for exceeding speed limits or dropping litter ?

 

Does anyone have any answers ?

TAILGATERS AND LANE HOGGERS TARGETED BY NEW LAW.

From today, motorists face yet more laws designed to penalise them. Already they are subject to all manner of nonsense and now there is to be more.

 

Anyone caught, and caught is the operative word, using a mobile telephone or not wearing a seatbelt, will face higher 'on-the-spot' fines; should they dare to argue and refuse the instant penalty, they will no doubt face even harsher penalties in court, where there will be no mercy. Additionally, so-called 'tailgaters' or 'lane hoggers' will also face new 'on-the-spot' penalties, with fines of £100 and 3 penalty points being issued by police; again, should drivers wish to argue their case, the courts will no doubt take the word of the police rather than listen to the accused drivers and penalties are likely to be even more harsh.

 

In my view, 'on-the-spot' penalties are almost always wrong. The supposed offender is effectively accused, tried and sentenced without any opportunity to mount a defence, with every stage of their prosecution being managed by the same people; this cannot be justice, however it's defined. When it comes to the new offences of 'tailgating' and 'middle lane hogging', how will these be enforced ? As a rule, there are very few police vehicles on our roads and the roads themselves are often so busy that both offences will be almost impossible to either determine or take action on. How close will a driver have to be to the car in front, for how long and at what speed, to be accused of tailgating ? How long and under what specific conditions will a driver have to be in the middle lane in order to be accused of 'hogging' it ? These laws are little more than propaganda from a government desperate to be seen to be doing something, or anything, rather than nothing. They are, of course, also likely to be money-spinners as well, effectively just another tax on the already hard-pressed motorist.

 

Nonsense such as this is the mark of a government in terminal decline. May it soon be put out of its misery.

ILLEGALS GO HOME !

The Home Office has sent a number of vans around London with slogans telling illegal immigrants to either go home or face arrest. Various people have complained that this is racist or, at least, will 'stir up racial hatred' and now the Advertising Standards' Authority (ASA) is investigating.

 

Exactly what this can possibly have to do with the ASA is a mystery to me. Why telling law-breakers to either desist from their law breaking or face being arrested should be unacceptable is also a mystery. Burglars, muggers and even motorists are regularly targeted by campaigns aimed at either preventing their behaviour or catching them; what is so different about illegal immigrants ?

 

As far as I'm concerned, the sooner the hordes of illegal immigrants in this country leave, whether voluntarily or by compulsion, the better. If this campaign encourages some of them to bugger off of their own accord, all well and good, and they can take the wishy-washy liberal whingers with them, too.

IMMIGRATION FIGURES ARE A 'BEST GUESS'.

UK migration figures are "little better than a best guess", says the House of Commons Public Administration Committee. "Oh no they're not" says the Government, with one minister, the little known Mark Harper, claiming that the statistics on offer are 'accurate' and 'robust'.

 

Given that our immigration service rarely checks outgoing passengers' passports and that the official figures for migration are based on a limited sample of a few thousand travellers, Mr Harper's stance seems to be a little wobbly; indeed, one would suspect that he's likely to find the ground sinking beneath him rather rapidly. His problem is that the Government has made a great play of controlling, and reducing, net immigration and any suggestion that the figures being published and the methodology used in their compilation are debatable is most unwelcome, no matter how true any such suggestions may be.

 

The old adage about 'lies, damned lies and statistics' still holds true and is particularly valid when politics is involved. Politicians can prove anything they like by the careful manipulation of statistics and will then lie their socks off supporting whatever they want to have 'proved'. The Public Administration Committee may be full of politicians but they are not in thrall to the Government as much as are their ministerial colleagues in Parliament; the Committee is composed of intelligent people whose job it is to scrutinise government actions and the Government will ignore their conclusions at its peril.

ROYAL BABY MANIA MAKES IT A GOOD DAY TO BURY BAD NEWS !

Oh Hell ! The media circus is in action again, making an absolute meal out of something that has yet to happen, which seems to be their favourite pastime these days, and the expected 'Royal Baby' is no exception.

 

The BBC has reporters reporting, en masse, and experts of all sorts being dragged in to give their opinions, views and comments, most of which are trivial, banal and utterly pointless to say the least, on every aspect of the anticipated birth. That arch photo-opportunist, Cameroon, has even been seen telling us how excited the whole nation is - well, here's one member of the population who is certainly not excited, so Cameroon is telling fibs yet again. Vague interest, yes; excitement, no.

 

Why-oh-why does the media insist on such over-the-top reporting ? The expected child, male or female, may eventually succeed to the throne, but not until after the current Queen and 2 Kings have had their turns; given the ways of science and the longevity of the Royal Family, this could mean a wait of 70 or 80 years, or even more. By then, who knows what the state of the country will be; we may even have dispensed with the Royals and become a republic.

 

In Cameroon's case, things are a little different. He will grab at anything to divert attention from his government's, and his party's, failings and peccadilloes. Today, for instance, he's announcing plans to censor the internet, while his chief strategist, Lynton Crosby, has managed to drag him into yet another murky mess, this time over Crosby's possible involvement in matters to do with the NHS. Then there's also a lovely little story about the unbelievable pay-outs being made to former employees of the 'Olympic Delivery Authority', a body which existed for a handful of years and yet has managed to make 'exit payments' totalling almost £3m, of public money, to a load of people who were given permanent contracts; why on earth were they not given time-limited agreements ?

 

Years ago, a fairly senior civil servant was sacked, or forced to resign, I forget which, for making a comment about it being 'a good day to bury bad news'. Today, and probably the next 2 or 3, will be great days for Cameroon and his cronies to bury a whole tanker-full of bad news; the stories above will be brushed under the carpet in the wake of Royal Baby mania and so will a load of other, far more important, things. Watch out for the stories that only make it to the 'round-up' columns on the inside pages over the next few days, 'cos they'll be the ones we should be reading, rather than the trivial tripe that will make up almost all of the headlines.

CAMERON DISSEMBLES AGAIN OVER CROSBY.

David Cameron is, without doubt, a typical dissembling politician.

 

For a week or two now, he's been asked whether or not he's ever had a conversation with his party's election strategist, Lynton Crosby, about the issue of plain packaging for cigarettes. Over and over again, he's refused to answer this very simple question, preferring to ramble on about his party's approach to health, cigarettes, fairies or anything else; his only comments about Mr Crosby have been that he, Crosby, has no input to policy matters and has not influenced any policy matters in any way, that he hasn't lobbied or otherwise intervened in the development of party policy.

 

The question and answer are only relevant because Mr Crosby has close links to the tobacco industry. Given this, and given that Mr Crosby must surely know how potentially damaging to the party's electoral aspirations would be yet another attack on smokers, he must have voiced concerns about this subject to his boss; it is inconceivable that he has not as this would be an obvious failure on his part.

 

By refusing to give a clear answer to the question, Cameron makes it equally clear that he has had conversations about cigarette packaging with Mr Crosby, but is frightened to admit it. He has avoided actually lying by refusing to answer the question; he has simply been a typical politician, deceitful, evasive and utterly unwilling to tell the truth under any circumstances.

 

Anyone who votes for this oily little man is an idiot.

COURTS MAKE NONSENSICAL DECISIONS : GEORGE, BAMBER et al.

I've always thought that as one gets older, the world should become more understandable. It seems I have been wrong.

 

Today, the Appeal Court has upheld a previous ruling and denied Barry George compensation for his wrongful conviction on the charge of murdering the broadcaster, Jill Dando, in 1999. Mr George was convicted on the flimsiest of evidence and subsequently spent 8 years in prison before the conviction was quashed. How any court can rule that the clear destruction of his life as a result of this wrongful verdict is not worthy of compensation defeats me.

 

Separately, the European Court of Human Rights has also been at it again. This time, they've decided that imprisoning anyone for a life sentence without the prospect of release is a breach of their human rights. Three convicted murderers had taken their cases to this ludicrous court and the ruling is that there must be a possibility of release and review of the sentences handed down. Why they came to this decision and what it actually has to do with 'human rights' I have no idea.

 

The killers concerned did not consider the human rights of their victims when they murdered them, 5 of them in the case of one of the appellants, Jeremy Bamber; Bamber actually claims that he's innocent, but that's a different matter. In killing their prey, these killers deprived them of life without any prospect of an appeal or a return to life; in days gone by, the death penalty was rightly employed as a mechanism for delivering true justice to such evil people and, in abandoning this ultimate sanction, its replacement was supposed to be a mandatory whole-life sentence. Gradually, this approach has been whittled down so that many murderers now serve little more than 10 years, while their victims corpses rot away and their families and friends mourn for decades.

 

Today's decision by the ECHR flies in the face of all logic and humanity. It places the rights of vicious and cold-hearted killers above those of their victims, families and friends. The sooner this country separates itself from the insane nonsense that emanates from this unbelievably ridiculous body, the better.

KNIGHTHOOD FOR MURRAY WILL DEVALUE HONOURS.

There can be no doubt that today's politicians will use any opportunity to try to achieve political advantage. The latest example is the appalling way in which Andy Murray's Wimbledon triumph has been hijacked by these egregious creatures.

 

Throughout Sunday's final match, Alex Salmond could be seen clapping, seal-like, behind the equally excited figure of David Cameroon, though his clapping was more normal. At the very moment of Murray's triumph, the fanatical Salmond unfurled a Scottish saltire almost over Cameroon's head, despite such exhibitions having been specifically forbidden by the Wimbledon authorities. However, this was only the prelude to yesterday's lunacy.

 

Murray was invited to a reception at 10 Downing Street at which an assortment of political figures were present, although Salmond was inexplicably unable to be there due to 'diary commitments'. It's difficult to believe that this was anything other than a political manoeuvre by this maniacal Scot as he must have known when the Wimbledon final was, that it was quite likely that Murray would be involved and that he could well win; surely he would have ensured that he was available in the event of a triumphal political party being held. No doubt, he will have issued his own invitation for Murray to attend some form of gathering in Scotland, an invitation that Murray would be well advised to avoid at all cost, or else become little more than a pawn in the political shenanigans being perpetrated by Salmond and his pals.

 

However, the party was far from being the most ridiculous element of yesterday's proceedings. In recent years, it's become the norm for any sporting success to be leapt upon by political leaders as an opportunity to gain public kudos, to demonstrate to the plebs how like us they are and to show solidarity with us by applauding and rewarding our heroes. Consequently, we now have the lunacy of an ever increasing horde of sporting knights and dames; people who have been utterly self-obsessed and single-minded in the pursuit of gold medals and glory for themselves have been rewarded as if they had done their great deeds with only the good of the nation in mind. This madness reached new heights yesterday when Cameroon announced that, although it was not up to him, no one deserved a knighthood more than Murray; Cameroon, of course, knows very well that his views on such matters carry enormous weight.

 

No one can deny that Murray has worked tirelessly to scale the heights in his chosen sport of tennis. He has been totally single-minded in his determination to be the best player he could possibly be and, if possible, to win the Wimbledon title. In doing so, he has become very wealthy and will now become enormously rich, none of this success having anything to do with any desire to help the nation or his fellow citizens; in fact, he probably spends most of his time outside of Britain and I doubt that he gives his home country much thought other than when Wimbledon is on the Horizon. Indeed, what is his home country ? A few years ago, he was quoted as saying that he was not British or English, he was Scottish, and that he would support anyone who was playing against England in a sporting contest; his about-face on Sunday when he referred to a 'British' winner of Wimbledon was quite clearly a result of the hostile reaction to his earlier remarks.

 

Murray won Wimbledon for himself. He did not win it for the people or for any country. He did not win it as part of a fight against famine, poverty or global warming. For Cameroon to claim that he is deserving of a knighthood for this utterly selfish act is ludicrous and only provides more evidence for those who see the idiot Prime Minister as nothing more than a political opportunist who will do anything in the hope that it will gain him a few votes. How sad, how pathetic, and how this devalues the honours awarded in bygone times to people who genuinely deserved them.

QATADA OUT, MAY IN ?

Abu Qatada has finally been sent packing.

 

This man, who had no right to be in the UK and is fanatically opposed the British way of life, was arrested in 2001 over alleged terrorist connections. Our government first began deportation proceedings 8 years ago but was repeatedly stymied by the horrors of 'human rights' legislation and the European Court of Human Rights. Why all this fire power was brought to the assistance of a man who appears to have no belief in the human rights of others is a question worthy of debate though the answers will reveal nothing other than the idiocy of namby-pamby liberal-minded socialist policy.

 

Qatada has now been despatched to his home country of Jordan where he can expect to stand trial on a number of terror-related charges. While it has been agreed that he will be well treated while in custody there, and that no evidence obtained by torture will be employed against him, one has to suspect that he is unlikely to be set free anytime soon; in fact, he may well spend the rest of his life in prison and, once convicted, his captors may feel themselves freed from their current obligation to treat him with kid gloves.

 

The winners out of this sorry saga are the people of the UK and Home Secretary Theresa May. May has succeeded where several predecessors failed and has brought to a conclusion a drain on resources that has cost UK taxpayers a sum approaching £2m.; by achieving this, she has also raised her own standing within her party and improved her chances of replacing the egregious Cameroon when he is finally kicked out.

 

Now there's a thought. Perhaps May could get the Jordanians to take Cameroon off of our hands too; achieve that and she'd be a shoo-in as next Tory leader !

EGYPTIAN COUP : THE SAME OLD STORY.

A while ago, the Western World applauded as President Mubarak and his army junta was removed from power in Egypt, to be replaced by a democratically elected president. Unfortunately for the West, the new man was an ardent Muslim who took little notice of the almost 50% of the population who didn't vote for him.

 

Today we hear that President Morsi has been removed from office by the army in order to quell the rising tide of protest and violence in the country. The Western nations appeal for calm and a return to democracy in their usual whining tones.

 

One has to hope that, one day, the Western World will come to realise that the "one size fits all" approach to the world does not work, even when it's democracy that we're talking about. Countries like Egypt, and the other largely Muslim nations of the Middle East, have yet to reach a level of development at which democracy can even begin to work; their people are generally very poor, uneducated and highly factious; there is little cohesiveness in their societies and the best form of government for most of them is a benign dictatorship. Forget democracy.

 

Sadly, such an approach doesn't seem to be on the cards. Instead, we press on blindly, trying to impose a style of government on Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan and the rest, which simply will not work. All that will happen is another round of upheaval, followed by another and another, ad infinitum. However, it occurs to me that this may be what the Western nations, or some of them, want; it gives them the opportunity to train their armed forces in proxy wars against Russia and China. Unfortunately, those of the afflicted nations who want something else are not clever enough to understand that it's all just a game, and they see the US, the UK and others as enemies to be defeated, hence we have the potential for 'terrorist' attacks on our streets.

 

They do say that "what goes around, comes around". Ho-hum.

USA KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES IN HUNT FOR SNOWDEN.

The refusal by a number of European countries for a Bolivian aeroplane to fly over their airspace signalled an alarming development in international relations. That the aeroplane carried the Bolivian President and was, in effect, Bolivian territory opens up a whole new chapter in world affairs.

 

There can be little doubt that the European nations were acting at the behest of that arch advocate of democracy and fair play, the United States; it's reported that one country stated that it would allow the plane to cross its territory but only if it also landed and a search of it was allowed. The intention of such a search would have been to determine if Edward Snowden, a man desperately sought by the paranoid US authorities, was on board, but the Bolivian government has said that no search was conducted. They have also pointed out that any such search would have been a violation of any number of international laws regarding sovereignty and that the whole episode was a shocking disgrace; they will be taking the matter up at the United Nations, for all the good that will do.

 

Mr Snowden's crime is that he 'leaked' information which the US authorities would rather have kept secret. Many countries would probably consider at least some of similar information to be fully accessible to their citizens but not the USA; the paranoia and secretiveness of their government knows no such bounds. Should poor Mr Snowden fall into their hands, he can expect no mercy and will almost certainly spend the rest of his life, which could be many decades, in some grim penal institution.

 

No one can be certain that the US was involved in this affair but "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck", it almost certainly is a duck. As with the Wikileaks founder, Julain Assange, Snowden has made the mistake of upsetting the US government and is now paying the price. In the UK, whistleblowers, for that is what Assange and Snowden really are, are offered protection and generally applauded for bringing government misdeeds to public notice; in the US, they are vilified as traitors, hounded and condemned. The US thinks nothing of riding roughshod over international laws and violating diplomatic treaties whenever it suits their own internal purposes and yet no one says a word.

 

One has to wonder what is the point of the United Nations when one of its members is so powerful and cannot be sanctioned.