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.