HATE CRIME : AN INDEFINABLE CONCEPT.

The leaders of the Greater Manchester Police Force have decided to widen the scope of what are moronically called 'hate crimes'. In future, they will designate crimes against an assortment of sub-groups, such as 'goths' and 'emos' (whatever they may be), as 'hate crimes' and will dedicate additional resources towards the capture and prosecution of the associated offenders.

 

To designate offences against particular people in our society as being automatically more serious than those against other people is, itself, fraught with danger; it is also ludicrous. To now propose that crimes against a range of weird and largely indefinable sub-groups should also be added to the list of those requirning special attention  is imbecilic. The very idea that anyone who may be perceived as being a member of such a group can only be targeted as a result of some hatred of their group is idiotic.

 

When a nasty little yob beats someone up in order to steal their purse, wallet or mobile phone he does not worry about which group they belong to; ridiculously, however, if he beats up an elderly Asian he will almost certainly receive a much harsher sentence than if he beats up a middle aged white man, regardless of his real motivation. In future, will the fact that I belong to a 'sub-class' of older middle aged white men who speak reasonable English, wear unfashionable clothes and sometimes a 'funny' hat, provide me with the comfort of knowing that anyone who assaults me, vandalises my car or burgles my home, will be treated as having perpetrated a 'hate crime' ? Of course not. My skin colour, religion and gender, as well as the fact that I am not disabled, render me immune from any such consideration.

 

The very notion of 'hate crime' is an invention of the lunatic left and it is a shocking condemnation of our entire politcial elite that they have all embraced it. It is quite frightening that our police services are now trying to extend this ridiculous notion still further. I hate it. In fact, I hate it so much that if I was to kick a police officer, would I be 'done' for a 'hate crime' as well as for assaulting an officer ?

KOREAN TENSIONS MOUNT AS US DEPLOYS ITS DEFENCES.

As the USA begins to 'square-up' to North Korea, one wonders when, if ever, the world will be free of conflict.

 

The Korean peninsula has been the home of conflict since the 1940s, a place where China could flex its muscles against the Americans. That said, the Korean War ended over 60 years ago even if no official peace treaty was ever signed and the bellicose utterings of the leaders of the northern side have continued to drift over the airways. However, today seems to be a little different.

 

Following in the footsteps of his mad father and grandfather, the latest North Korean dictator, a fat little man called Kim Jong Un, seems determined to make a name for himself. In response to what has to be seen as a certain amount of provocation form the South, he's now threatening potential nuclear war; the Americans have promptly announced that they'll be deploying certain 'defensive measures' in the western Pacific.

 

North Korea is not and can never be a threat to the USA. The ridiculous noises emanating from their leadership would be better ignored but, of course, the paranoid Yanks don't work like that. They take every supposed threat, however laughable, seriously and go into full militrary deployment mode. Surprisingly, the only voice of sanity in this situation comes from China.

 

Previous escalations in the tension between North and South Korea have eventually died down without any serious consequences but some experts believe this occasion may be a little different. With new leaderships in both North Korea and China allied to the usual over-reaction of the US, could we actually be headed towards real war ?

BENEFIT 'CUTS' ARE NOT UNJUST.

The spokesmen of various churches have today claimed that the supposed 'cuts' to welfare being enacted by the Government are 'unjust'; apparently they target society's 'most vulnerable'.

 

As well as being the expected ramblings of a mish-mash of wholly unrepresentative and ill-informed socialist-minded individuals, one has to wonder what these befrocked people know about what has been, and is, going on in our society. It's only too easy to criticize others from a position of total ignorance and much harder to develop a coherent plan for tackling major economic difficulties.

 

Most churches are rich in that they own land; they also enjoy charitable status and so avoid paying certain taxes, notably VAT on their purchases, and also enjoy the benefits of 'Gift Aid' whenever any benefactor decides to leave them any asset of value, be it cash or anything else; this measn that they can claim additional amounts from HMRC that are related to the value of the donation and the tax status of the donor. Given this preferential status one has to wonder why these socially minded bodies don't offer the proceeds of these benefits to the least fortunate of their flocks. The answer, of course, is that it's much easier to spend other peoples' money and to try to claim the 'high moral ground' when the other people don't want to play ball.

 

Our country is all-but bankrupt. For decades, we have spent much more than we have earned and we've led lifestyles that simply aren't supported by the real wealth that we have; far tto much has been based on credit of one sort or another. The chickens are now coming home too roost. All debts have to be repaid eventually, be they credit cards, mortgages or government borrowing; what we are now seeing is start of the repayment of what the Governments of this country have borrowed over many years in order to finance an utterly unsustainable standard of living for most people in our country. This process will go on for many years, perhaps even decades, given the extent of the debts that have been built up.

 

The beneficiaries of most of the largesse of Governments have been the supposed 'poor'. Compared with the real poor of Victorian times and even with the poor of the the 1930s, these people are, in fact, rich; they have homes of their own, modern appliances of every sort, cars, mobile telephones, computers and regular, often foreign, holidays. These are things of which the real poor of the 20th century couldn't even dream; their predecessors in bygone days would have no understanding whatsoever of any of this.

 

It is the case that the definition of 'poor' has been subverted to mean anything that its speakers want it to mean. For the most part, 'poor' in 21st century Britain means less well-off than others; it does not mean destitute or on the streets; it does not mean unclothed. More often than not, those who claim poverty can still afford to drink and smoke; their 'poverty' is as much a life choice as anything else.

 

To return to the theseis proposed by the churches that the Government's approach has been 'unjust', I would have to say that this view is rubbish. Everyone except the very rich, and by this I mean people with wealth of many millions of pounds, has been affected by the current economic crisis. The bulk of the population are those whose assets are massively below this level but many are also the people who have been the recipients of vast government support over many years; the only way for the Government to even to begin to redress its huge financial imbalance is to start to reduce the level of support which it has hitherto offered. This may be painful for those who are most exposed but it's also entirely just; how can it be right that millions live on benefits paid for by those who are frequently not much better off ?

 

I have said before and I will no doubt say again that churchmen should keep out of politics. They are usually ill-informed and usually speak from a blinkered standpoint. It's bad enough that they profess belief in a deity which cannot be seen, heard, touched or experienced in any other way; that they should also profess belief in an economic system which can support everyone, all of the time, really is a step too far.

MILIBAND DIVORCE IS FINAL !

So now we know for sure - David Miliband and his little brother Ed, really have fallen out in a big way.

 

A couple of years ago, everyone happily assumed that it would be David who who emerged as the new leader of the Labour party following Gordon Brown's departure. Instead, it was little brother Ed who got the job, courtesy of an electoral system which gave the ultimate power of selection to the Trade Unions. David promptly took umbrage and departed to the back benches with his bat and ball. Today, despite reported overtures from his brother for him to return to a high profile role, he's taken the final step and announced his resignation form his Parliamentary seat; as if this wasn't enough, he's even decided to leave the country and will be taking up a job as a bigwig in some charity in the USA.

 

Those of an age can well remember the 'great sulk' of Ted Heath after his ousting from the leadership of the Conservative party by Margaret Thatcher in 1975. Unlike Miliband, Heath remained in Parliament and was a constant thorn in the side of his successors; Heath never forgave his party for sacking him and spent decades as an embittered man on the back benches. Miliband has, at least, decided against such childish behaviour though the overall nature of his departure seems somewhat excessive and probably calls into question his true commitment to the political life of the United Kingdom.

 

From a Tory viewpoint, one Miliband down, one to go. Oh that Cameroon and Osborne would choose to follow the same path.

BUDGET IS A DAMP SQUIB.

Well, that's it for another year unless 'Boy George' decides to continue with the recent pattern by having a second Budget in November.

 

Given the economic state in which our country finds itself, it was hardly going to be a Budget that would appeal to many people. In the event, it was pretty much a non-event, and all we can expect is more of the same; the important figures really involve Government borrowing and the accumulated deficit, which is forecast to rise to an eye-watering 85% of GDP within the next few years. That this is a totally unsustainable level of debt is something that no politician ever mentions; it's equivalent to a houseowner having debts of £425,000 to set against a house valued at £500,000. Unless the real value of the property increases, in the case of the Government it's national GDP, the debt can never be resolved.

 

George did talk about cutting back on Government expenditure and very kindly promised that huge sums of money would be ear-marked to try to boost housebuilding and home ownership, but this is all a bit peripheral; if these measures have any effect, the effects are likely to be limited and a long way in the future. There was very little that would help the economy today. Things that he could have done, such as making real cuts in Government expenditure by abolishing whole departments and QUANGOs, are far too sensitive to  even consider and yet that is one of the places where real savings exist. Why do we need a Department of International Development or a Department of Culture, Media and Sport ? Why do we need a bloated 'Cabinet Office' which was only invented in recent years ? How many QUANGOs do we have ? There are bodies of which most of us have never heard that monitor and report on anything and everything - WHY ?

 

The social security budget, inflated out of all control by the Blair-Brown coalition, hands out vast sums of money to all and sundry, often in such a away that there is no point for recipients of this largesse to bother going to work. While the Government has some plans to change this system, it's been effectively hamstrung by the horrible complexity introduced by Gordon Brown and the expectations that he allowed individuals to have. Any Government that now tries to make real cuts to welfare spending will be most unlikely to win any subsequent election, making trying to deal with the situation virtually impossible and politically catastrophic.

ARCHBISHOP WELBY; OUR MONEY PAYS FOR HIS GUILT.

At a time when our nation is under enormous economic pressure, it is to be expected that everyone who knows nothing about the issues will pontificate. 'Pontificate' is exactly the right word to use when such interventions come from an Archbishop.

 

Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, but a man who has only been a bishop for a year or so, has joined in with a left-wing diatribe from an assortment of other bishops, attacking the government's plan to restrict the increase in benefits form April to 1%. That he's done so, shows a shocking lack of understanding of economics as well as of his role as Archbishop.

 

From an economic standpoint, how can anyone justify increasing State payments by anything at all given the dire condition of the nation's economy ? With most people suffering restrictions in their pay, some experiencing reductions, how can it be right that benefits continue to be increased ? We already have a situation in which it is pointless for many people to work at all or certainly to work more than part-time, given the way in which the system of tax credits and housing benefits works; this system, invented by Gordon Brown, is something that will be seen, in the future, as THE major cause of the ultimate decline of the British economy. That state benefits have to be reduced in real terms, and ultimately abolished, is the only realistic option; for the highly privileged Archbishop Welby and his chums to argue with this is anathma. It is not the business of the church.

 

Welby is a man who came late to religious life and, perhaps, feels guilt about his previous life as a highly paid executive from a highly wealthy and privileged family; he did, after all go to Eton and has various knights and peers in his heritage. If he wishes to assuage his feelings of guilt, let him do so from his own purse, not from ours; don't make us share his guilt by forcing us to offer endless support to the indigent.

The church is responsible for the spiritual well-being of its advotees, not for the economic lives of the nation; we should tell Archbishop Welby and his episcopal pals to shut their mouths.

NIGERIAN HOSTAGE REPORTED MURDERED.

Once again, a British hostage has reportedly been murdered in foreign parts, this time in Nigeria. If the report is true, it's another example of both the brutality and barbarism practised in that country and of the naivety and idiocy of workers who happily move to such places in pursuit of high wages.

 

Those who try to tell us that the people of the 'third world' are really no different to 'us' are such morons. In the UK we do not kidnap workers, nor do we murder those whom we've kidnapped. In entirely uncivilized and uneducated parts of the world such as Nigeria such behaviour is commonplace. This is not to say that Nigerians, or any others, are all uncivilized or barbaric, but many in the third world, perhaps most, are. Their understanding of the world and their approach to life are simply less developed than is common in the more developed parts of the world.

 

In a similar vein, the workers who see employment in various foreign countries as nothing more than a means to make large amounts of untaxed money are also idiots. They fail to understand that they are exposing themselves to dangers of a sort which do not exist in the world from which they come. They have an exaggerated view of their own importance and ability to survive; they are frequently uwilling, or unable, to reconcile themselves to the realities of a new life in a very different place. The consequence is, sometimes, painful and even fatal.

 

Over the coming days we may well be assailed by stories of the shocking murder of this 'entirely innocent' Briton. While this will be nothing more than the media making money from the unfortunate man's misfortune, it will overlook all of the background to the affair. It will simply refer to terrorists behaving unspeakably and poor workers in foreign parts being targeted in a horrible way. This will do no justice to either side in the equation - it will just cloud the truth in an appalling fog of political correctness and left-wing obfuscation.

 

If a man has been murdered, it is tragic for both him and his family, but we must not ignore the circumstances, all of the circumstances, that have brought him to this point. If we do, then we will do no service to those involved to date or those who may become so involved in the future.

HUHNE & PRYCE : CONTINUING A LONG TRADITION !

A couple of weeks ago, Chris Huhne, disgraced Liberal Democrat MP, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and will undoubtedly go to prison before very long. His political career is over.

 

Following Huhne's acceptance of his guilt, a jury found it impossible to arrive at a verdict in the case of his former wife, Vicky Pryce, who pleaded not guilty to the same offence on the grounds that Huhne had coerced her into complicity with his wrong doings. She employed a rarely used defence of marital coersion (they were married at the time of the offences) and it seems that this confused the jury. A second trial was convened and the new jury has now delivered a guilty verdict on Ms Pryce, rejecting her claims to have been coerced; she may well also go to prison within the next week or 2.

 

Pryce had become a frequent figure on BBC television programmes. She is, apparently, a respected, though left wing, economist of some standing and those of like mind at the Beeb, of whom there seem to be many, obviously saw her as a fellow traveller. The fact that she was actually a vindictive woman hell-bent on destroying the husband who'd left her for another woman seems not have bothered them, as she continued to appear even after Huhne was initially arrested.

 

While this whole saga is a very public and extreme example of what can happen when relationships break down, it's also yet another scandal to affect the political establishment and the Liberal Democrats in particular. From the days of Lloyd George, who was an acknowledged womaniser, through the scandals around Jeremy Thorpe and Paddy Ashdown, the Liberals have had trouble keeping out of trouble. More recently, Simon Oaten and Charles Kennedy have caused them serious embarrassment and now it's Huhne going to prison along with his ex-wife. Will it never end ?

UKIP TAKES ALL THE HONOURS IN EASTLEIGH.

So Eastleigh did stay with the Liberal Democrats, but with a much reduced share of the vote. Undoubtedly, they had UKIP to thank for this happy turn of events as the 'new kids on the block' sent the Conservatives tumbling down to third place in a seat that they themselves held as recently as 20 years ago. Seeing and hearing the candidates, it wasn't hard to see why UKIP's Diane James gained more favour than the Conservative's Maria Hutchings and she could easily do even better in a couple of years time.

 

Although the Liberals retained the seat it is UKIP who are the real winners. Not only did they achieve their best result ever in a UK parliamentary election, they convinced nearly 28% of the electorate to vote for them. This is far more than a simple protest vote and, with the Conservatives unable to fight them off, it is also a serious message to David Cameron and his chums that they need to get a grip of things.

 

Cameron is, by upbringing and inclination, much more of a social democrat than a true Conservative and he's also scared of not being in what they all like to call 'the centre ground'. Consequently, he's fundamentally incapable of taking the strong and decisive action that's necessary to bring real long-term stability back to the British economy. Additionally, he's incapable of responding to the concerns of his more right wing colleagues on issues such as the EU and immigration, leaving a gaping hole through which UKIP have now stormed.

 

This election result may, of course, be nothing more than a blip, though that seems very unlikely. UKIP are, at the very least, destined to be a very significant presence at future elections, taking votes from all three of the main parties though, perhaps, mainly from the Conservatives. However, they may turn out to be much more than this and could easily become a real force in British politics, one which will move us to a 4-party system and perpetual coaltion government. Alternatively, disaffected Conservative voters may turn to them for salvation and Eastleigh might signal the start of a terminal decline for a party which has stood the test of time for more than 200 years; UKIP could be the 'New Conservatives'.

 

In May, many people will go to the polls again in local government elections for 35 non-Metropolitan county councils and unitary authorities. The Conservatives currently hold power in 29 of these authorities and Labour in just 1. If UKIP decide to get involved, the picture after the elections might be very, very different.

EU TARGETS OUR WAGES.

European Union leaders, meaning an amalgam of MEPs and unelected commissioners and ambassadors, have reportedly voted to restrict bankers' bonuses. "Good" you might say but, actually, what have the pay arrangements of private companies got to do with politicians and civil servants ? What, indeed, have the pay arrangements of companies based in the UK got to do with the European Union at all ?

 

Today it's 'bankers' bonuses', what will it be tomorrow ? While restrictions on bonuses may be seen as a good thing by many, even though the disbenefits for the UK are potentially substantial, will they think the same when the EU introduces restrictions on the pay of everyone else ? What if they decide that £100,000 a year is enough for anyone ? Or £50,000 ? What if they decide to introduce rules about minimum tax rates ?

 

Bankers' bonuses are the thin end of a very large and intrusive wedge which we should all be kicking against. It is for individual companies and their shareholders to determine rates of pay and bonuses, not for politicians and certainly not for foreign politicians. How much more of this foreign interference in our internal affairs are we going to stand for ? VOTE UKIP !

UKIP MAY HOLD THE KEY TO EASTLEIGH BY-ELECTION.

Today, the good people of Eastleigh in Hampshire are trotting off to the polls to elect a new Member of Parliament, someone who will replace the disgraced Chris Huhne. They seem to have a huge choice to pick from, there being 14 candidates though one suspects that most will earn no more than a handful of votes, a bit of local publicity and a lost deposit.

 

Up at the sharp end of the poll are the Liberal Democrats, Conservatives, Labour and UKIP. Although Eastleigh is an old railway town that should really be meat and drink to Labour, it's been a Liberal Democrat seat in recent years and before that was staunch Tory; Labour's chances of victory today, which are not helped by their choice of candidate, are vanishingly slim. From the outset, it was said that the real fight would be between the Tories and Liberal Democrats though it seems that events may be turning against both.

 

Added to the Liberal's embarrassment over Huhne, we now have a sexual scandal involving a former chief executive of the party and which has spread to embrace other senior party members who appear to have failed to act appropriately when they became aware of allegations some time ago. Tension between the Liberals and their Tory coalition partners allied to the ongoing financial mess in which the country is mired is hardly helping either side though Labour have been unable to exploit any of this.

 

The real 'fly in the ointment' has been UKIP. Given our financial mess, something as much to do with 13 years of Labour government as with any 'greedy bankers', the general dislike of the European Union and disillusionment with all 3 main political parties, it's perhaps no surprise that voters have been looking elsewhere. The beneficiaries have, without doubt, been UKIP, which has polled very strongly in recent days and they are now reported to have the support of more than a fifth of the electorate.

 

UKIP will certainly take a chunk of their votes from the Conservatives and may well stop that party from winning a seat that they should. The Liberals, who appeared to be on the way to a narrow victory a few days ago, may yet find that the current scandal stops them from winning it, too. If that happens, perhaps the Tories might just sneak home or, astonishingly, could UKIP pull off one of the biggest shocks in British electoral history ?

 

By this time tomorrow, all will be revealed. I haven't been this interested in a by-election for decades !

MILIBAND TO RAISE TAXES IN TRUE LABOUR STYLE.

Ed Miliband, the alleged leader of the labour Party, has told us his solution to our economic woes - increase taxes on what he terms the rich and give the money to all those 'hard working families' who he thinks are more likley to vote for him come the next general election.

 

No doubt, there will be many people who fall for this nonsense despite the fact that Labour always tries the same thing and always creates major problems for us. The high tax and high spend policies of the Wilson governments of the 1960s and 1970s resulted in us going cap-in-hand to the IMF; the result of the Blair-Brown years was the worst financial mess since the 1930s, when we'd also had far too much socialist intervention in our economy.

 

Miliband has indicated that if Labour is elected in 2015, he would hope to be able to reintroduce the 10% starting rate for income tax, though only for basic rate taxpayers, and that he would pay for this handout by introducing a new tax on high value property. Thus, he plans to bring back one policy that the previous Labour government abandoned and introduce another which he's stolen from the Liberal Democrats. So much for forward thinking radicalism.

 

Fiddling with tax rates is nothing other than window dressing; the financial benefit would be minimal and could be achieved far more effectively by simply raising the personal allowance, the policy being followed by the current government. Bringing in a new so-called 'mansion tax' which would be levied on any home valued at more than £2m would be another assault on those very many people who have accumulated a relatively small amount of wealth, added to all the other raids on their income and capital that already exist. Miliband has very deliberatel and disingenuously used the term 'mansion', knowing that many of his audience will automatically think of large country estates while having no idea that many relatively modest homes in London and the south-east would be caught even though their owners may be of relatively limited means; exactly how the tax would be structured and assessed has not been explained.

 

Miliband's approach will, of course, find favour with those who see anyone who has anything as being undeserving. Anyone with any intelligence will see it as nothing more than a piece of electioneering. It would be nice to think that the second group will outweigh the first, but I have my doubts.

STAFFORD : SYMPTOM OF FAILED NHS.

Anyone's who's ever worked in the NHS knows that its status as the 'sacred cow' which cannot be criticised is wholly unjustified. The regular claims that it's the envy of the world are such balderdash that I hear myself groan loudly every time some imbecile trots out this favourite mantra of the left.

 

The truth is that the NHS is very little different to any other monolithic organisation; the central control exerted by successive governments has made it all but unmanageable. The huge and exponentially increasing demands placed upon it simply cannot be met and disasters such as has happened in Staffordshire are endemic, if largely hidden in mountains of paperwork and statistics.

 

NHS managers, of whom there are undoubtedly far too many although their numbers are dictated by the ridiculous expectations of central government, work their socks off trying to cope with a system near collapse. Doctors, who come in all varieties from excellent to extremely poor, frequently are nowhere to be seen. Nurses, who we are told are wonderful, caring angels, are really no different to the rest of the workforce; they work for the money they get at the end of the month. Admittedly many hospital wards are short staffed and the doctors and nurses are hard pressed, but the appalling lack of care and attention that I've witnessed on several occasions and at different hospitals has little to do with this; the staff actually don't care very much at all.

 

Our NHS is not the envy of the world, it's not even close; our adherence to this ludicrous notion makes us a laughing stock. The NHS is an outdated institution which consumes vast resources while delivering 'care' which is often wholly unacceptable. It is a mess and that mess has been created by the meddling of politicians over the last 50 years. Astonishingly, the Government is currently in a tizz over the question of horsemeat in our food and has set up crisis meetings and 'summits' in order to reslove this insignificant matter while doing nothing at all about the much greater crisis affecting the NHS. This is, of course, what politicians do, making a huge fuss about insignificant things while ignoring the much more important issues for which they have no solutions or for which the solution is considered unpalletable.

 

The NHS is well passed its 'sell by date';  our whole healthcare system needs a complete overhaul but, sadly, there isn't a politican in the land who has the guts to either say so or to make it happen.

HYPOCRITICAL TORIES TO INCREASE INHERITANCE TAX.

Before the last General Election, the Conservative Party made a lot of noise about raising the threshold for the payment of inheritance tax to £1m, a change which would bring some fairness to the system given how far the current threshold of £325,000 has fallen behind inflation. Sadly, not only have they now reneged on this plan but they are also about to announce that the existing threshold is to be frozen until at least April 2018.

 

We pay tax on everything. Our income is subject to tax and national insurance, most of the things we buy are subject to VAT and there's a huge range of other taxes and duties which hit us at every turn. For those who manage to save something or to buy a house, there is then the spectre of inheritance tax at the last, an iniquitous tax that tries to steal what little is left.

 

The Government is apparently going to claim that its action in freezing the threshold at its current level is necessary to fund its new give-a-way scheme about paying for social care; anyone wo falls for that one needs their brain looking at. This is just another tax increase imposed by a hypocritical government run by people who have the private wealth and means to avoid the tax themselves; once again, the only people who will pay are those in what has been termed 'the squeezed middle'.

 

As a member of this hard pressed group, I am close to despair. Year after year governments of every hue headline tax cuts and benefit increases while actually doing exactly the opposite - increasing taxes and reducing benefits. Our state spends, or rather wastes, such a huge proportion of the nation's resources that it's no wonder we are stuck in a financial crisis from which I see no escape. We are heading down a very narrow road to penury; there's no room to turn around and nowhere to turn off. This latest tax increase is just another pothole along the way.

HORSEMEAT SAGA GALLOPS ON.

Initially, the 'Horsemeat' story seemed to be little more than a bit of nonsense that would quickly vanish from our minds, but now it's assuming much greater proportions.

 

The revelation that some offerings of frozen lasagne, marketed as being based on beef, were almost entirely made of horsemeat is a very different finding to the previous discoveries of minute traces of horse DNA as a contaminant in an assortment of products. We now seem to have a full-scale scandal on our hands, quite possibly involving major criminal activity.

 

In recent years our supermarkets have taken over from small local shops partly through convenience and partly through pricing. More and more they've introduced 'own brands' and 'value ranges', both being euphemisms for 'cheap and cheerful'. Very often such products are of poor quality, meat concoctions being 'bulked-up' with water and an assortment of other fillers in order to keep costs as low as possible. To some extent, the discovery that horsemeat has been used as a cheaper filler, and even as an alternative, to other meats is not that much of a surprise. It's also a direct consequence of the supermarkets' policies of keeping costs as low as possible to the exclusion of all other considerations.

 

I've never tried eating horsemeat but would have no particular objection to giving it a go. I would be a little annoyed, actually rather incandescent, if I bought a packet of beefburgers and subsequently found that they contained no beef; on a very simple level, that would be fraud. On a higher level, there may be people who would have serious objections to ever eating horse just as others would object to eating cat or dog; the issue then becomes one of labelling.

 

One hopes that the perpetrators of the probable fraud will be tracked down and imprisoned, though I'm not holding my breath. That we will then find a huge increase in the costs associated with food testing and labelling is something that will affect all of us as supermarkets spread the increase across their entire ranges. The one thing they won't do, though they should, is to reduce the amount of extraneous muck that is routinely added to their cheapest lines of sausages, burgers, meatballs and prepared items.

 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose !