Flying the flag

Flying a foreign flag at a town hall can sometimes be a mark of respect but when it comes to the moronic left it's often a gesture of defiance. Back in the 70's and 80's Liverpool council and a few others decided to fly the red flag of the socialist revolution to show how committed they were to that set of ideals. Naturally these days they much prefer to fly the EU flag if they think they can get away with it, socialism having gotten somewhat of a bad name after the fall of their beloved Soviet Union. Still, we've now got another set of loons willing to court controversy by flying a flag which denotes another divisive subject.
Telegraph.

Tower Hamlets's Muslim mayor Lutfur Rahman has prompted angry protests after raising the Palestinian flag over the town hall "in solidarity with Gaza".
Just 24 hours after it emerged Mr Rahman is to face trial over claims he committed widespread voting fraud, he ordered the flag to fly "in support of a ceasefire and peace".
Jewish leaders condemned the move as "destructive" for community relations as local residents said the council should concentrate on 'potholes and bins' and not international conflicts.
Mr Rahman was a member of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party and was its candidate to be the first directly elected mayor of the borough in 2010.
He was expelled from the Labour party after allegations surfaced about his close links with an Islamic extremist group called the Islamic Forum of Europe.

Odd that if he flew the flag in support of ceasefire and peace he didn't fly the Israeli flag too, after all, they were the ones willing to abide by a ceasefire, not hamas.
I suppose next we can expect to see the islamic republic of Tower Hamlets flying the black flag of jihad given Rahman's extremist tendencies.
There are unfortunately few things more divisive in peoples minds in this country than what's going on in a small corner of the Mediterranean which is odd as it's got bugger all to do with us, having washed our hands of the place back in 1948. Granted some of it is to do with civilisation vs barbarism, even pro-America vs anti-America. Today it's the frontline against islamic extremism, yet still in essence it's not our business and it certainly isn't the business of the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, particularly as although he has a lot of muslims living around the area, some people do not care for Palestinians or their cause at all, even the muslim countries surrounding Israel treat Palestinians like something scraped off their shoes and only give lip service to their cause as a way of keeping their own people occupied away from their own corruption.
No, I expect this is simply Rahman's way of cocking a snook at the establishment and trying to garner a bit of support from the extremists in the area. Bit like the lunatic socialists did in the 70's and 80's with predictably the same results.

Death and taxes

The saying goes nothing is certain but death and taxes though it appears the Labour party in the UK intends to make (another) attempt to screw your family over once you've gone...
Telegraph.

Labour has resurrected plans for a 15 per cent “death tax” to pay for people’s care in old age.
Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, said he wants Labour to “embrace” a system where social care is funded by imposing a tax on estates when people die.
Labour abandoned plans for a 10 per cent levy on estates to pay for social care before the 2010 general election following a wave of criticism.
However, at the Fabians Summer Conference in June, Mr Burnham said he was personally in favour of a new tax on estates.

Labour as ever thinking that the solution for anything is a tax grab. The never think cost savings, they never think ridding themselves of inessential services though to be honest their idea of inessential is not the same as anyone else's, they see cuts in bin collections and streetlighting as positives, rather than translation services and aid to minorities/gender/sexual preference groups.
But if Labour are bad, what the Tories are up too is even worse...
Mail.

HMRC was accused yesterday of taking ‘a smash and grab’ approach with its demand for new powers to seize money directly from people’s bank accounts.
Britain’s leading tax experts warned the taxman risks being ‘unconstitutional’ with the controversial plans, which could come into force within months.
The proposed new powers - which were published in the Budget and subject to a public consultation which closed yesterday - have triggered an outcry among tax experts.
If HMRC believes anyone owes money to them, they will be able to take the cash directly from current accounts, joint accounts or tax-free Isas to settle an unpaid tax bill.
Around 17,000 people a year will have money seized under the proposed new powers, known as the ‘direct recovery of debts’. Each will typically owe £5,800.

Note the key word 'believe' you may well be innocent, there may be a mistake, but if HMRC 'believe' you owe them over £1,000 then they have the option to raid your account, possibly impoverish you, perhaps get you crucified by bank charges and walk away in their mask and striped jersey laughing at your misfortune and knowing that the person who authorised it will not pay the consequences if there is a mistake.
Welcome to modern Britain...

Bit of a waste of time and effort

Apparently the Bible has at long last been translated into Cornish a language so dead that it makes Welsh look positively vibrant and useful. As far as I'm aware the number of people who can speak or read Cornish is about at maximum 1.3% of the population and that's just a small area at the tip, huge swathes of the county cannot speak it at all and don't bother, bit like Wales, but without the silliness of having it foisted upon them by the government. In total there are an estimated 500 fluent Cornish speakers and between 3,000 and 4,000 people who can hold a conversation in the language.
Telegraph.

It has already been translated into 1,800 languages around the world, including some of mankind’s most obscure tongues, making it easily the best selling book in history.
But next year, after an epic linguistic project lasting more than 20 years, a team of translators is expected to complete what they say will be the first full and authentic version of the Bible in Cornish.
It comes more than 400 years after the completion of the King James Bible, the best known English version, and represents a landmark for Cornish identity just months after it was officially recognised as a minority on a par with Irish, Scottish and Welsh communities.
The translators, whose work was overseen by the Bible Society, say it will also finally right a historical wrong dating back 465 years.

There are lots of historical wrongs out there, doesn't mean we have to go around correcting them, although try telling the morons in Whitehall that apologising for slavery is unnecessary or the state of Africa  (currently) is now our problem. Still, if you like that sort of thing translating the Bible into a nearly dead language is a challenge and no doubt kept the scholars of the Bible Society busy and employed.
Still, no doubt this will keep the Cornish Nationalists happy until they achieve the dream of an independent Cornwall and EU status as a country.
It's certainly more than England will ever get...

Hate and spite

I rarely comment on things abroad, if I do it's usually that we mind our own business and not get involved. In particular I usually avoid comment about the situation in Israel because I have my views and other people theirs and it's not worth the effort to try and deal with them. Yet as ever the trouble over there has a tendency to translate itself over here if only because the left and islamists have forged an unholy alliance over Israel and their desire to see it wiped from the face of the Earth. Hence unlike islamophobia which appears to be cases of muslims feeling victimised, there has been a rise in anti-semitism which in this case means attacks on the Jewish people living here.
Mail.

Jewish people in Britain are enduring a backlash of attacks, bomb threats and anti-semitic insults fuelled by the bloodshed in Gaza.
More than 100 hate crimes have been recorded by police and community groups this month, more than double the usual number.
Community safety groups fear the total could be the second highest ever recorded, after an explosion of violence during the 2009 Gaza war.
In several disturbing cases attackers have invoked the Holocaust and even shouted: ‘Heil Hitler’ at victims.
A rabbi was attacked by four Muslim teenagers outside a Jewish boarding school in Gateshead in one of the most serious incidents.
In Belfast, bricks were thrown at the city’s only synagogue, smashing windows on two consecutive nights.
Groups of Asian men chanted 'Heil Hitler’ as they drove through a Jewish area of Manchester, throwing missiles at passers-by.
In north London, one pro-Israel organisation received a telephone bomb threat and a Jewish boy riding a bicycle had a stone thrown at his head by a woman in a niqab.

Makes you wonder why we fought WW2

 Wonderful is it not? Just a few reasons why we should never have allowed islam to take root in this country nor allow its pernicious influence any headway in a supposedly civilised country. Essentially these people are in group form a bunch of savages aided and abetted by the moronic left and various groups who call themselves right wing, but are basically nothing of the sort simply authoritarian racists. Sure the left have tried to define the language to the extent that they claim it's anti-zionism not anti-semitism hatred of Isael not Jews, but I'm pretty sure the article above isn't to do with Israel, not really, it's always been about the Jews, language sophistication or not. With the left it's down to Israel's support by America, they still haven't got over the death of the Soviet Union. With muslims it's because they hate everyone who isn't a muslim but espescially Jews who were given a country they felt was theirs and had the temerity to hold it despite 5 invasions by Arab forces and the utter humiliation the Israelis piled upon their pride.
Yes I have my views and my take is the enemy of my enemy etc. But, they should not be bringing these troubles over here and behaving like barbarians. If they want to peacefully protest fine, but both my grandfathers fought Hitler's armies one was at the liberation of Belsen. That muslims believe Hitler was right or didn't go far enough is just another reason in my eyes why they cannot remain here.

The biter bit...

It made me smile to an extent the Labour Party candidate for Tower Hamlets complaining about electoral fraud in the recent mayoral vote for that islamic republic London Borough. After all, Labour basically gerrymander the entire Parliamentary process to the extent that you need far less votes to be a successful Labour MP than any other MP of any other party.
The other part is of course the hypocrisy in Labour complaining about the result when the winner in a sense was invited along with his Bangladeshi cohorts in to shore up the Labour vote by rubbing the 'Right's nose' in Multiculturalism and diversity.
Telegraph.

The extremist-linked mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, benefited from “industrial-scale” postal ballot fraud and may also have been helped by “organised fraud in the counting of the votes”, according to his Labour Party rival.
John Biggs, who was narrowly defeated in May’s highly controversial election, said he and party colleagues had seen a number of ballot papers at the count where a vote for him, or candidates supporting him, had been crossed out and a different vote written in.
He accused Mr Rahman’s supporters of a “considerable amount of election fraud, principally centred around the manipulation of postal votes” and said there were “very significant doubts about the integrity of the ballot”.
The accusations form part of a damaging dossier of evidence, some of which will be submitted to the High Court tomorrow as part of an attempt to overturn the election result.
In a separate article for a local newspaper Mr Biggs said: “I remain a good loser, provided it was a good competition. But I am becoming clearer by the day that, remarkably in this mother of democracies, it could ultimately be declared that the election was bent.”

Thing is, Labour, Parliament, the Electoral Commission et al, were warned of this likelihood years ago, by the Bangladeshi government of all people who consider our voting system lax and susceptible to fraud. The bringing in of easily accessible postal voting by Tony Blair's government was simply the cherry on top of the icing on top of the cake in which the supposed votes accruing to Labour went to parties supporting islamic beliefs and faith systems after Labour cast Rahman out of the Party because of alleged corruption and extremist views.
When you invite uncontrolled immigration in from areas which have no respect for the indigenous population, have a history of electoral corruption, who are encouraged not to integrate and have supremacist tendencies owing to a perverted form of religion, you're asking for trouble and indeed it appears we have it.
It's hypocrisy writ large for Labour to complain about what happened, they invited it in despite warnings and even today try to cover up their involvement in this type of dirty politics.
Yet people still vote for them believing that they support the working class, a class whom they've betrayed almost at every turn.

The Tesco tax

In ever desperate attempts to avoid cutting Council Tax in order to keep their executives and non essential services high on the hog (whilst being perfectly prepared to get rid of weekly bin collections, street lights, sports fields etc.) Derby council and others in England have proposed a Tesco tax to fill their coffers using the excuse that they'll filter the proceeds back into the local community.
BBC.

A group of local councils in England is formally asking the government for new powers to tax large supermarkets.
BBC News has learned that Derby City Council has called for the right to bring in a levy as a "modest" effort to ensure supermarket spending "re-circulates" in local communities.
Some 19 other local authorities back a so-called "Tesco tax" on big retailers, which could raise up to £400m a year.
The government said additional taxes on supermarkets would push up food prices.
A similar tax already operates in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Derby City Council is of course a Labour run council and probably haven't run across a tax they didn't like.
Others hinting that they'd like the tax are Oxford (minority Labour run), Brighton and Hove (Watermelon  Green run), Preston (Labour run), Southwark (Labour run)and Sefton (Labour run) councils. Basically it's all socialist driven and sounds good till you realise just who will suffer and trust me it won't be the likes of Tesco, it will be those who shop there. As with other taxes proposed by socialists, expect the money as ever to go into a bottomless pit to pay for things that they think the public want such as translation services, diversity officers, out of pocket expenses, community support (so long as you aren't white and working) and of course attempts to prevent anyone enjoying themselves in an unapproved manner.
Expect calls for such taxes to grow, particularly as the government are looking at just what it is Councils actually are spending money on (and telling them to stop it)
Labour Councils are notorious spendthrifts on unessential services such as translation and equality services, they'd rather keep them going rather than collect the rubbish on the streets.
Let's hope the government has more sense than to give way on this.

Prodnoses

The campaign to outlaw alcohol appears to be gathering pace, rather than deal with irresponsible drinkers using existing laws, successive governments have taken to increasing the duty on alcohol (leading to smuggling and fake products) and talking about minimum pricing. They've used various fake charities and medical groups to support their methodology until we've reached the situation today where anything unusual involving alcohol immediately draws a response from so called do-gooders.
Express.

A LANCASHIRE school has been slammed for commissioning and selling a beer for two extra-curricular events as part of its centenary celebrations.
The Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School (BRGS) commissioned the special scholastic-themed brew to sell at a fireworks celebration and alumni reunion marking 100 years of the institute's history.
But a concerned resident lodged a complaint to the Portman Group, Britain's independent body in charge of promoting responsible drinking regulations.

No, they weren't selling it to pupils, but had aimed it at real ale enthusiasts who it was hoped would buy the bottles during school events. Instead some bigoted prodnose decided to complain that the school crest which was on the bottle was sending out 'the wrong message' they didn't complain or take it up with the school but complained to the Portman Group who then attacked the school for doing so...
Fortunately the school headmaster has taken the correct attitude...

"One unnecessary complaint - under a code which is not legally enforceable - will not be allowed to undermine the success of the year."

In other words he's telling the busybodies of the Portman Group where to get off, which is a good thing, though I suspect the Portman Group is just another fake charity using public funding from the government to tell the government what it wants to hear so they won't go quietly into the night. Expect more of these sort of stories as social engineering goes on apace with more and more attempts to get us to be good little drones.

Thrown to the wolves?

The baby P case was indicative of just how badly a bureaucracy of the state at local level can get things wrong. Peter Connelly - known as Baby P - was 17 months old and had been on the “at risk” register for months when he died at the hands of his mother, her boyfriend, and their lodger, after suffering more than 50 injuries back in August 2007, it emerged at the trial that Baby P had been seen by a string of social workers, police and health professionals who failed to take him into care.
Naturally heads had to roll and naturally this is where the state at local level bodged things up... again.
Telegraph.

Sharon Shoesmith, who was director of children's services at Haringey Council when Baby P was killed, has been awarded almost £680,000 for her unfair dismissal claim.
The north London council’s accounts reveal that Ms Shoesmith, who earned £133,000 a year, was awarded £679,452 in compensation following an agreement between their legal teams.
The council has previously revealed it had spent £196,000 trying to fight Ms Shoesmith's case for unfair dismissal, which culminated in the Appeal Court ruling in 2011 that she had been unfairly sacked and “scapegoated” over the death of Peter Connelly.

Now it may well have been that Haringey didn't follow the rules when sacking her, but this sort of obscene payment is an utter abomination when you consider that it was with Shoesmith that the buck should have stopped. A more honourable person would of course have fallen on their sword so to speak, but in local government lala-land honour is an alien concept. Others of course should have followed her into oblivion, every single one of the string of social workers and police save perhaps the first ones (unless they visited more than once) should have been sacked or rigorously retrained.
Naturally of course lawyers got involved and Shoesmith ended up with an obscene amount of public money for her failure because she fought it on the grounds of wrongful dismissal. The judge agreed with her, but this is where the minimum of 1p could have and should have been awarded with costs not given. The Council however negotiated a secret deal and Shoesmilth got a small fortune.
There was no justice for Baby P, in the end even his memory has had its metaphorical face rubbed into a pile of poo by the likes of the legal system and Sharon Shoesmith, may god damn their souls to an eternity of suffering.

Madness

Only in the UK could we have a situation where we are linked to the EU and an open door policy where anyone in the EU can come here and immediately start claiming benefits. We even put up with claimants lying to get houses and then once the truth is known still allow them to stay even though they are demanding a bigger house.
Express.

THE scandal of “soft touch” Britain has been exposed by a migrant family of 17 living in a three-bedroom house.
The super-sized Toma family from Romania were so desperate for a new life they lied so their brood could live together in one of the worst cases of overcrowding ever seen.
They claim they stand to pocket £55,200 a year in benefits while dreaming of a bigger, taxpayer-funded home. But in a move that will be welcomed by millions of hard-working families, council chiefs have told them: “You’re not being housed by us.”
The Tomas, devout Christians, arrived here from Prahova in Romania in 2012, lured by the prospect of a better life for their children. Hard-working father Mihai, 47, says he earns £1,800-a-month as an electrician.
But turned away by two letting agencies because of the size of their family, they told a private landlord they were a family of six to secure the property in September 2013.

The Council at least have told them where to get off, but I doubt the private landlord is any too pleased. Any sane country wouldn't let them in unless they had a job first, nor would they allow a migrant access to benefits unless they qualified for citizenship say after being in continuous employment for 5 years. Why should the taxpayers and ratepayers of the UK pay for someone who wasn't born here? Oh yes, bit of a rhetorical question that, it's the EU, if you offer something to your own, you have to offer it to everyone else, though few other countries seem too...
Just another reason I'm glad I'm getting out as I'm sick and bloody tired of paying for this.

Apologies not needed

I had a little bit of a grin on my face when Owen Paterson the former environment secretary laid into the enviroloonies last week saying stuff that I basically knew to be true in that groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth do very well for themselves by constant claims of trying to help when more often than not they are an utter hindrance to looking after the environment.
Telegraph.

Owen Paterson is facing calls to apologise after claiming that he was “burnt in effigy” by green protesters when he was temporarily blinded from an illness.
The former Environment secretary said Greenpeace had set an image of him on fire in protest as his controversial plans to control TB in cattle by culling badgers.
Mr Paterson made the claim as part of an attack on professional environmental campaigners who repeatedly lobbied him when he was in office.
These were “the highly paid globe-trotters of the Green Blob who besieged me with their self-serving demands, many of which would have harmed the natural environment”, he said.
“I soon realised that the greens and their industrial and bureaucratic allies are used to getting things their own way.

Odd, they only want him to apologise about the effigy which may (or may not) have been burned, not the other claims he made which were far more serious. Still, I suppose if you can force someone to apologise for one part of a claim they can make it look like he's apologising for all.
The problem for the enviroloonies is that Paterson's tale is credible, it has the ring of truth about it as we've all seen the tales of the swampies breaking the law to try and prevent any kind of progress. We also saw the results of their efforts in the Environment Dept in Somerset with the flooding when EU directives influenced by the Green movement in Brussels caused rivers to silt up and the flood plains become water traps again.
So my first thoughts on what to do if I were Paterson would simply be to ignore Greenpeace, but after a few more minutes thought, I reckon a good 'f*#k you!' wouldn't go amiss either.
The Green movement like all leftard movements are not about saving the planet, they are about taking over and forcing us to comply to their will. They are dangerous because they hide their intent behind what appears to be good intentions.
Like all leftard groups through, they simply cannot be trusted.

Jobsworths again

There are those out there who will hold to a rule no matter what, they cannot see outside it nor can they ever even contemplate that as with many rules there are exceptions. For some reason or other, they tend to be attracted to working for the state... Then again perhaps that's not such a surprise, private industry and businesses (unless working for the state) have to be flexible, it's good public relations after all.
Telegraph.

The mother of a terminally-ill boy is fighting against being fined for taking him out of school for what could be his last holiday.
Maxine Ingrouille-Kidd has been threatened with a fine of up to £120 and possible prosecution if she takes her son Curtis out of school during term time.
Doctors have given Curtis, 13, who is a blind quadriplegic and has cerebral palsy, just a few years to live and warned he may only survive until his late teens.
“My son is 14 in October and this may well be his last holiday,” the mother-of-three said.
“He is never going to have a career, he is going to spend the rest of his life with us looking after him.

The family have my deepest sympathy, it must be heartbreaking for them, yet there will be a lot of moments to treasure too.
In this instance though I simply cannot see a reason for the school to object, Curtis is after all in a terminal condition and unless someone comes up with a miracle cure (unlikely) then he won't even make it to take exams, never mind find a useful niche in society. Whilst I can in part see some reasons for keeping kids in school during term times, mostly I wonder against the mentality that believes that going away for a couple of weeks in term time will make a difference to their education. It's probably more to do with it being inconvenient to the school or teacher.
To be honest I believe that Curtis' mother simply ought to take him and then ignore the fine and if summoned to a magistrate opt for a trial by jury as I do not believe that there is a jury in the UK who would convict. Not in this instance anyway.

Oh this should be good.

Following on yesterdays post it appears that the leftard conspiracy of silence over the attempt by hardline islamists to turn schools into education centres for the brainwashing of muslim kids whilst alienating any others who came along and treating them like scum. Now those teachers who were forced out are being encouraged to sue the Council and its education Dept...
Express.

TEACHERS forced out of schools at the centre of the “Trojan horse” allegations in Birmingham could sue the council for failing in its “duty of care” towards them, an MP claims.
At least 12 senior staff, mostly heads, were banned from speaking out as part of their six-figure payoffs. Some say they were bullied, intimidated and threatened over extremists’ attempts to target state schools in the city.
Now Labour MP Khalid Mahmood claims the teachers deserve compens­ation after a report criticised Birmingham City Council’s poor protection for whistleblowers.
The report by independent adviser Ian Kershaw, published on Friday, was commissioned by the council following concerns raised in a letter of 2013, known as the “Trojan horse” letter. It suggested a number of schools had been “taken over” to ensure they were run on Islamic principles.
According to the report, the council “disastrously” failed to act when a group of Muslim men began to promote, sometimes illegally, a fundamentalist version of Islam in some schools, because officials were afraid of being accused of racism or Islamophobia.
Mr Mahmood told the Sunday Express: “There was a significant failure in the rights of individuals who needed the protection of their employer and wanted support with the very ­difficult issues they were facing.

Well I bet the council tax payers in Birmingham are going to love that and no doubt if the payouts are huge the UK taxpayer will have to step in and bail them out all because of 'community cohesion' and the lunatic thinking behind it. The political left has given the entire country a poisonous legacy of imbecilic laws and authorities who are either enablers of islam through fear of it because in their blinkered outlook criticism of it automatically equals racism (despite islam not being a race) or because they genuinely believe that muslims cannot do any wrong besides they also hate Israel as all proper thinking leftards do and the enemy of my enemy etc...
The Council's Education Dept has of course not helped with its Orwellian gagging orders on dismissed staff who were hounded out of their jobs. Indeed the originally Trojan letter probably came from one of these staff and was at first dismissed by leftards in the BBC and Grauniad as a forgery and a hoax, practically right up to the last moment when the report came out and demonstrated that the letter was quite likely a forgery, but not a hoax and the meddling of hard line islamics in schools was very, very real.
This I think is going to run and run...

This is why our society will fall one day

Islam, the biggest problem facing the civilised world today and a protected species in the UK as successive governments and the legions of libtards and leftards moved to place it beyond criticism and investigation, even to the extent as West Midlands Police did to prosecute a documentary maker (Channel 4) when they filmed Undercover Mosque rather than deal with the real problems the program unearthed. Then their were the grooming scandals where Social services departments went out of their way to blame the girls for having the misfortune to come into contact with predatory muslim males and their misogynistic all non-muslim women are whores for our use attitude and who covered up the scandal with police connivance for years. We have the burning of poppies which gets you a £150 fine for the perpetrator coupled with 12 months imprisonment for putting bacon on a mosque door handle for a Scottish man, dual standards if ever there were.. There are other scandals, Lee Rigby, Kris Donald and Charlene Downes, to name but a few and now of course we have the Trojan Horse scandal in our schools...
Telegraph.

Children were taught that all Christians are liars and attempts were made to introduce Sharia law in classrooms as part of an alleged 'Trojan Horse' takeover plot of Birmingham schools, an inquiry has found.
The inquiry commissioned by Birmingham City Council found evidence of religious extremism in 13 schools as school governors and teachers tried to promote and enforce radical Islamic values.
Schools put up posters warning children that if they didn't pray they would "go to hell", Christmas was cancelled and girls were taught that women who refused to have sex with their husbands would be "punished" by angels "from dusk to dawn".
The report found that the extremism went unchecked because the council "disastrously" prioritised community cohesion over "doing what is right".
It concluded that there was a "determined effort" by "manipulative" governors to introduce "unacceptable" practices, "undermine" head teachers and deny students a broad and balanced education.

Ah yes, community cohesion a term loved by leftards and libtards as it enables them to ignore the excesses of islam and concentrate on the racism of 'ol whitey' if he even looks at them funny. yet even now there are those out there who tried to deny that the report was in some way compromised. Yet teachers were persecuted, hounded and bullied because they were not Muslim and many in the media (yes Guardian and Independent we're looking at you) tried to convince people that this was racially motivated islamophobia and that nothing really worthy of inspection was going on. Even yesterday BBC radio chose to frame the reports by running this as the headline: Birmingham City Council's report found no evidence of a "conspiracy" to promote "violent extremism or radicalisation" values. They've strangely changed their tune today.
The British people have been betrayed by successive governments and the sycophantic followers of left wing dogma to the stage where I doubt society can be fixed any more, they're simply too well dug in. Couple this with the EU and uncontrolled immigration then you can probably guess where the country will be in about twenty years time.
I'd be amazed if we don't have a full blown civil war on our hands.

Four years?

We all know politicians and political parties have sticky fingers. We also know that when it comes to admitting they made a mistake is a nigh on impossible task as they'll attempt to change the subject or do as politicians do not answer the question at all...
Telegraph.

The Liberal Democrats are under pressure to repay a £2.4million donation from a convicted fraudster after the electoral register failed to force the party to check properly where the money came from.
A four year inquiry by the Parliamentary Ombudsman found that the Electoral Commission had failed to vet properly the donation from Michael Brown in the months after the party received it in 2005.
Brown gave the LibDems the £2.4million in four tranches between February and May 2005 through his company 5th Avenue Partners. The total sum is one of the biggest ever single donation to a political party.
The Commission has a legal duty to check that donations are legal under a law passed in 2000. In the case of donations from companies, it has to be satisfied that the companies are trading in the UK.

Now the Lib Dem excuse such as it is, is that they accepted the cash in 'good faith' which unfortunately for them doesn't explain why they've attacked other parties dodgy donations (in their eyes) which they did with Ukip back in 2007 and an Alan Brown donation. Their other problem is of course that basically they are broke and in grave danger of falling off the electoral wagon due to the fact that their policies are stupid and they are seen as a millstone by many to good government (for given values of good)
Hence they can't give the cash back as I suspect they've already spent it, some on their disastrous EU electoral campaign. I also suspect that they need what's left if any to fight the coming general election.
So, expect some deal to be cut, and an awful lot of whinging, at least until after the election.
Couldn't happen to a nicer party in my eyes...

Fire hazard

Bird mincers (aka wind turbines) are a favourite hobby horse of mine as it's a target rich environment. They're touted by enviroloons and moneygrabbing politicians as the answer to carbon free power generation and will help save the planet from global warming man made climate change. This is despite the fact that they're inneficient, expensive to run and intermittent in their generation as they don't work when there's no wind... or indeed too much.
Telegraph.

Wind turbines may catch on fire ten times more often than is publicly reported, putting nearby properties at risk and casting doubt on their green credentials, researchers have warned.
The renewable energy industry keeps no record of the number of turbine fires, meaning the true extent of the problem is unknown, a study backed by Imperial College London finds on Thursday.
An average of 11.7 such fires are reported globally each year, by media, campaign groups and other publicly-available sources, but this is likely to represent just the “tip of the iceberg”.
There could in fact be 117 turbine fires each year, it argues, based on analysis showing just 10pc of all wind farm accidents are typically reported.
Fires tend to be “catastrophic”, leading to turbines worth more than £2 million each being written off, because the blazes occur so high up that they are almost impossible to put out, it warns.

So not only eyesores and a danger to flying mammals, they're a bit of a liability when it comes to catching fire. That plus the ones at sea are discovering the joys of a salt laden environment and have corrosion/erosion problems. All in all it's pretty much a case of money down the drain along with the fact that it's also taxpayers cash subsidising the damned things.
Any engineer will tell you that objects with moving parts will require maintenance, in a normal power station there are people around to do this, but at least the turbines are at ground level (usually) In the case of a wind turbine, they're unmanned only visited on a regular maintenance schedule and as with regular maintenance, sometimes things go wrong that aren't picked up. Place a unit with plastics, hydraulics and generating heat via its power generation and you have a bit of a fire trap stuck off the ground where the fire brigade can't get at it, nor can be reached to do running repairs.
Still they're going to save the planet, along with the backup diesel generators sneakily brought in to supplement their dormant periods as the government closed down the efficient power stations to build these monstrosities.
If it wasn't so serious, it would be funny.

Nothing will come of this, but it's fun to watch

The BBC are like a lot of left wing organisations racist to the core, they don't recognise their own racism of course as they are blinkered to the effect that you can't be racist to white people nor that promoting one group (so long as they aren't white) is wrong and in the end counter-productive as it only breeds more resentment when the colour of your skin (and occasionally gender/sexual orientation) Not that this stops them with tokenism of course, after all, everyone who complains must be a racist...
Telegraph.

The BBC’s plan to promote ethnic minority staff is racist, a Tory MP has claimed as he challenged executives to give their own jobs to black candidates if they are so passionate about diversity.
Philip Davies said the BBC’s “politically correct targets” discriminated against the white working class, who are also under-represented at the corporation but are not the subject of diversity quotas.
He confronted Lord Hall, the director-general, and a panel of other BBC executives – all of whom are white – appearing before the House of Commons culture select committee.
After Lord Hall said the BBC must employ “as many people as possible from as many different backgrounds as possible”, Mr Davies rounded on the panel.
“I’m looking at you four – which of you four are prepared to fall on your swords and let a black person have that job?” he asked.
Lord Hall and his colleagues – director of strategy James Purnell, BBC television controller Danny Cohen and non-executive director Dame Fiona Reynolds – declined to take up the offer.
Mr Davies said: “You are going down what I personally consider to be a racist approach.
“To me, the true racists are people who see everything in terms of race when what we should surely be is colour blind. Just as it is racist to prevent someone from having a job when they are black, it is equally racist to give someone a job just because they are black.

They of course do not see it as racism, they have buzzwords and phrases like equality of opportunity, but Philip Davies nailed it, it's racism by any other name as the equality does not include the majority nor parts of the majority and therefore it's as discriminatory as a sign reading 'no blacks or Asians'.
Yet if you are going to go down this path, the best way to look at it is role reversal, if you decide that you need more ethnic minorities then reverse it to read that you need more whites and that will tell you the intent of the decree.Not that I expect a common sense approach to employment, common sense amongst leftards ain't that common. No, they simply cannot see how racist they are, it's perfectly all right for them to discriminate against white working class males (and females) because we don't count in their diversity quotas.
The BBC will ignore this of course as will the left, yet it was good to see Philip Davies pull them on it, I can't imagine they ever thought they would, it simply wouldn't have registered. Still they can of course ignore him, the man's clearly a racist and a Tory to boot...

Parish Notice

My New Zealand work to residence visa has been approved and I'm joining the white flight from the UK.
As a consequence this blog will close some time around about the week of the 15th of August as I'll have no time to write and once in New Zealand few things to be angry about.

My disgust in what was done to a once great country and people was summed up by Batsby as he so aptly calls it 'I name her NHS Great Britain'

I'll miss my England, but it's not the country I wish it was, hasn't been for years, I'm just relieved to be getting Lady QM out while I had the chance as I doubt we'd like growing old here.

This is another reason we hold the system in contempt

Legal aid, it's supposed to assist those who can't afford it access to the legal system for redress if they think they have been cheated or to provide a defence for them if they have been accused of a crime. All in all a pretty good idea, though like most things involving lawyers expensive and used for things the original writers of it never envisaged.
Mail.

An Ethiopian farmer has won permission to use taxpayers’ money to sue the British Government ... for sending aid to his homeland.
The case, branded ridiculous by MPs, will be funded entirely by the public even though the farmer has never set foot in this country.
The 33-year-old Ethiopian – granted anonymity to protect his family – says ministers are funding a one-party state in his country that has breached his human rights. He says foreign aid helped the regime inflict ‘brutal treatment’ on thousands of farmers driven from their land, against the International Development Act 2002.
Taxpayers will pay for both the farmer’s lawyers and a defence team from the Department for International Development, in a case that could cost tens of thousands of pounds. This is in addition to the £1.3billion Britain has sent to Ethiopia since 2010.

In fairness to the government the guy got his case in before they changed the rules, yet even so you have to wonder other than greed what the hell the legal profession were thinking even allowing such a case.
It does throw up two issues though, the legal profession throwing away our cash on frivolous cases and the government throwing away our cash on foreign kleptocracies who basically use it to line their own pockets as very little seems to manage to get down to helping ordinary people.
Essentially we don't need to be spending taxpayers cash on things that are of no benefit to taxpayers. If people want to assist the downtrodden of the Earth that's their choice and should be done via real charities, not the government deciding which foreign potentates pension fund they are lining. Nor should legal aid be for anyone other than UK citizens, not EU citizens and definitely not foreigners who have never set foot here. Granted a barrister or solicitor should be available as court appointed should you need a defence, but only if you're here in person other than that, no. Nor was the no win, no fee idea such a great one either, it's just hiked up insurance premiums across the UK and made organisations risk averse.
As to what we should do? I don't know, but there's a reason a lot of revolutions begin with a massive cull of lawyers...

We need to teach them this?

The Parliamentary Committee on Standards in Public Life has come out with a list of seven items that new MP's need to take lessons in to bring them up to what they believe are the acceptable standards of public life. Selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership apparently need to be drilled into them in an effort to improve what we think of them.Telegraph.

Newly elected MPs should be put on an induction course to learn “the seven commandments” of standards in public life, a powerful parliamentary committee has said.
Before entering the House of Commons, MPs should be taught about the need to be honest and have integrity when serving the public, the Committee on Standards in Public Life has said in a report.
The committee’s intervention comes in the wake of a series of scandals involving MPs’ expenses and conduct.
Maria Miller, the former Culture Secretary, resigned earlier this year following a series of allegations about her use of the Commons expenses system.
And in June, Mike Hancock, who had the Liberal Democrat whip suspended in January over the sexual misconduct claims, made a public apology for an "inappropriate and unprofessional" relationship with a vulnerable female constituent.

The thing is, these standards should be the norm for pretty much anyone in public life, indeed most are the norm for the vast majority of ordinary people in the UK. It's not like we should have to teach honesty or integrity to anyone, yet headlines over the years have demonstrated that somehow or other Parliamentary life seems to appeal greatly to a bunch of rogues and chancers. Yet I have the feeling that such lessons if they were introduced would do no good at all, the damage having been done before the candidates get there. A further problem is of course the Party system which tries its damnedest to protect its own and will close ranks to try and weather out any storm. Even then if they have to take action the perpetrator is often enough welcomed back after a year or so to the ranks and position they lost.
The very fact that the committee has announced that new MP's need lessons in these things tells us pretty much all we need to know about the quality of some of those applying and the system in place to select them.
God! No wonder some days I think we should just hang them all!

Delusions of grandeur

There are some out there who simply do not get Britain's place in the world, they have this weird idea of Empire and Commonwealth that fits an ideal but bears no resemblance to the present. History is cyclable, nations rise and fall and new smarter or more aggressive nations take their place as powers. One hundred years is but the blink of an eye in history, yet Britain has moved from a world spanning empire to where we are now...
Mail.

Britain’s role as a world power could end if Scotland becomes independent, the man leading the fight to save the UK has warned.
Former Chancellor Alistair Darling, head of the campaign to stop Scotland breaking away, says other nations would seize the chance to punish what was left of a depleted Britain. And Britain would face the triple humiliation of being stripped of its status as a global, economic and European power.
In an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, Mr Darling said he was confident Scots will vote ‘No’ in September’s independence referendum.
He claims ‘tawdry’ Scottish Nationalist Party leader Alex Salmond is using ‘bullying’ tactics to silence opponents because he knows he faces defeat.

Britain is not a world power, we have some influence to be true, but our days as a real power ended in 1956 during the Suez crisis though the clues were there more or less from WW1. Now it may just be that Alistair Darling an utter failure as a Chancellor of the Exchequer is simply trying scare stories to get the Scots to remain as part of the United Kingdom but he really shouldn't play fast and loose with facts. The loss of Scotland will not be a major issue in the place of the rest of the UK's position in the world, they're only a nation of around five million and occupy a part of the UK that's by and large mostly useless. Their economy relies in part of civil servants in various departments and the naval base at Faslane. They have oil to be sure, but I rather suspect that they won't be able to do what they want with it in a similar manner to what Norway does owing to having to rebuild much of their economy from the ground up when the civil service jobs and the naval base move south because the UK government is not going to farm jobs out to foreign countries...
The UK itself is now tied to the corrupt and useless EU another pseudo alliance with delusions of grandeur, so the national powers we have are constantly undermined by EU diktats over-riding UK laws and powers. So no, we aren't a world power, we aren't a power at all as we've handed over sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and so Darling's claim is mere grandstanding. Scotland's leaving will neither strengthen us nor make us weaker, though it may save the UK that's left a bit of money.
One day perhaps the British will ally to form a country and an empire to be a power in the world, but don't get your hopes up, just remember Rome, Persia, Austro-Hungary, Spain, to mention but a few, all empires and all now with zero power and influence.

Oh just f*#k off!

Some people simply do not get the concept of what we do with our money is our business. They get on their little pedestals to the MSN and tell us what we ought to do for reasons that mean nothing to the ones they are pontificating too. They simply do not grasp that our money is ours to spend as we want and their cause celebre is generally not something we believe in...
Telegraph.

Middle-class families should stop buying large fridges in order to save energy and tackle climate change, a government-commissioned report has suggested.
Families could save up to £36 a year on their electricity bills by replacing large fridge-freezers or televisions with smaller appliances, according to a study published by the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
The report found that the average family fridge had grown in volume by two fifths since 1985, amid a fashion for large American-style appliances, while the average television had grown by more than seven inches since 2004. It warned that the trend undermined attempts to cut carbon emissions.
The study, by researchers at Loughborough University and Cambridge Architectural Research, found that energy-efficient technology was not enough to offset the increase in the size of appliances. For example, a 52in television with an A+ energy rating still uses more electricity than a 42in model with an A rating.
Nicola Terry, a co-author of the study, said: “Why do we need a bigger TV, and why do we need a bigger fridge? I don’t understand the case, but when people go to the shop they think, that’s bigger it must be better.”

I've got news for you Mz Terry, bigger might not be better in the terms you're thinking of, but to a family a bigger tv is better, a bigger fridge freezer is better and they don't give a damn as to saving £36 a year when they know the governments green taxes are stealing £120+ from them via the energy companies.You see most people aren't interested in the energy rating per-se, they'll go by them when comparing like for like, but the energy rating is not what decides someone from 42" to 52" its the picture quality and whether it will fit through the front door and hang on the wall. In the case of the fridge its whether they can easily get the family shop in plus have room for treats rather than like my own fridge be stuffed full of beer for the weekend that I can't get my packed sandwiches easily in for Friday's shift.
Nor do people give a damn about carbon capture, they know its a scam, they know that the government via the environmental lobby are lying through their teeth anf they know that the Department for Energy and Climate Change are run by enviroloons who do not have their best interests at heart.
Finally why do people buy the biggest fridge or telly that they can afford?
The answers simple, because we can!

Paying for their mistakes

To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, socialism only works till someone else's money runs out. In our case it was the previous Labour government spending like there was no tomorrow as in a politicians eyes, no tomorrow means after the next election. What they did was borrow and kept on borrowing past the bounds of sanity to bloat the public sector and give jobs for the boys by allowing senior executive posts at hugely inflated wages to spring up all over the country.
Telegraph.

Future generations will have to work longer to pay off Britain's debts because of the pressure that Britain's ageing population is putting on public finances, the independent financial watchdog has warned.
The Office for Budget Responsibility said that Coalition policies such as raising the state pension age and further cuts will reduce Britain's debt as a proportion of national income by two thirds.
It found that without the measures, Britain's debt would be £1.14 trillion higher in the next 50 years as the economy struggles to cope with an huge rise in the number of pensioners and the decline in the number of people working.

Yes we have an ageing population, but we aren't helping by being in the EU and having mass uncontrolled immigration either taking jobs from locals and adding to the states spending on benefits. Unfortunately Labour with the idiocy known as quantitative easing pumped masses of cash into the economy by printing money, sold off the family silver (literally in Gordon Brown's case) and mortgaged us to the hilt before we could get rid of the incompetent rats. This all naturally has to be paid back and the result is a probable rise in retirement age and the current unrest in the public sector as pay restraint and reality comes home to roost in the way that their gold plated pensions are now under serious threat.
The thing that gets me though is that despite all this there are some people who will still vote for Labour despite them bolixxing up the economy every time they gain power. Not that I'm a great fan of the Tories either and generally have nothing but contempt for the Lib Dems. Still with the Tories at least they kept the economy working if only to cream a bit off for themselves later on via directorships, they usually didn't take the damned country down with them.
Future generations will be paying off Labours 'mistakes' long after we're all gone, they'll work longer and probably not enjoy their retirement at all.
That is socialism for you in a nutshell.

The result of the dead hand of the state

Governments never seem to learn, they repeat the mistakes of the past almost without fail and woe betide the end result of government meddling with price fixing and attempts to social engineer via market forces. If you use taxation to artificially raise the price on a product the public want, or even outright ban it then the results are inevitable, criminal organisations move in to give the public what they want...
Mail.

Buy a bottle of Smirnoff and you will expect to get a high-quality vodka. But what’s in the bottle could cost you your life.
Britain’s shops are awash with counterfeit spirits made from lethal chemicals including chloroform and methylated spirits, an investigation has found.
The concoction is putting thousands of drinkers at risk of blindness, organ failure and even death.
And the trade is the tip of a counterfeit iceberg that includes rip-off designer handbags and clothing, and counterfeit cigarettes.

This is the consequence of government meddling and high prices in the retail world, they've more por less made it easy for criminals to set up with a license to print money for themselves and believe me the gangs don't give a damn about quality control or health and safety, just profits. yet even today MP's are still giving voice to price fixing alcohol with a minimum figure. What the reporter found was what the USA found when it imposed prohibition, if a price is too high or (like drugs) it's banned then if the public want it, some enterprising soul will find a way to provide it, invariably criminal gangs move in and you have market forces in action. The state loses revenue through duty and taxation and the public get shoddy products (occasionally).
Unfortunately politicians never learn to mind their own business, one of the hardest things to do is to actually do nothing and leave things alone and let the people sort themselves out. They meddle, initiate tax grabs and listen to minority pressure groups and this is the end result, utter failure on their part and driving ordinary folk into the hands of criminals.
They never learn.

Judging the past by modern standards

Loving history as I do I'm always pretty careful not to allow my modern day sentiments to interfere with my opinions of what was said and done in the past. People were different, they thought differently, they even acted differently to situations where the modern response would be something else entirely. Yet as ever there are those who want to make mountains out of molehills...
Telegraph.

A letter written by the future Edward VIII that exposes him as racist and sexist has come to light.
The Prince of Wales, who later abdicated to marry an American divorcee, wrote to his then mistress, Freda Dudley Ward, while he was on a Caribbean cruise.
He visited Barbados in 1920, aged 25, but wrote that he found the “coloured population” to be “revolting”.
He also wrote of dancing with women, all of whem his insisted were young and vetted by his friend, Louis Mountbatten, and described one lady as an “American bit”.
The Prince, whose name before he was King was David, included the diatribe in a love letter to his then mistress, Freda Dudley Ward, in which he complained about how much he was missing her.

Granted history has already judged him a weak character, but the letter actually proves that he was typical of his class at the time. I doubt he was overtly racist nor that he wanted a return to slavery. What he was exhibiting was the paternalistic attitude of the rulers of the Empire to those they ruled. They saw primitives in most cases and judged them accordingly. As for his attitude towards women, again typical of a lot of men, it was very much a male dominated society and women in a lot of cases were mere decoration.
Someone once described the past as a foreign country and that's how we should treat it, different mores, customs and attitudes to life and society. Things sometimes awful things happened for a reason, massacres, chauvinism even outward racism (by our standards) were often commonplace because people thought differently and viewed the world differently.
So Edward VIII was probably an unpleasant man, but, he was not so different from a lot of men at that time and we should judge accordingly, not try to make headlines out of it.

Twenty that we know about

We live in interesting times, the desperation in which the powers that be went too via the celebrity perverts in an effort so I believe to shift the public's gaze away from the mass grooming trials taking place all over the country has now blown up in their faces in the Westminster historic paedophile claims. The BBC now claims that there is evidence on 20 figures in the establishment, I reckon there's probably more and that there's an effort under way to divert attention or at least blame it on the dead...
BBC.

There is evidence at least 20 prominent paedophiles - including former MPs and government ministers - abused children for "decades", a former child protection manager has claimed.
Peter McKelvie, whose allegations led initially to a 2012 police inquiry, said a "powerful elite" of paedophiles carried out "the worst form" of abuse.
He said the network extended into both the House of Lords and the Commons.
The government has already announced two reviews into claims of abuse.
Home Secretary Theresa May told the House of Commons the first review would be a wide-ranging inquiry - similar to the inquiry into the Hillsborough disaster - led by an independent panel of experts on law and child protection.
The second review - which is to be led by head of the NSPCC Peter Wanless - would cover how police and prosecutors handled information given to them, she told MPs.

The second investigation is probably the one which will do the most damage as I rather expect that if they had any sense the police and prosecutors involved will have kept details as to who, where, when and how the cover up originated with. It may even be that they kept tabs or copies of the evidence they were told to ignore or bury.
One laughable meme going around instigated by leftards is that this is a Tory thing as it happened under their arch-nemesis Thatcher, unfortunately for them the main file lost under Brittan 's watch had been compiled mostly during the previous years of Labour government, though there are rumours of one prominent Tory being involved.
Again though I suspect like the celeb trials the sacrificial lambs will be either dead or no longer in power and thrown to the wolves as a sop to keep the real villains safe. I still suspect there's a child abuse ring operating in the shadows in Westminster and they'll do everything in their power to prevent their exposure to the cold light of day.

Internet doesn't kill people, people kill people

The internet is a wonderful tool and playground offering information (both true and false) games, chat, opinion and other entertainment including of course porn. As with a lot of things it has its dark side with information and stuff that a lot of people wish weren't there, bit like the playground bully. Yet everytime someone dies due to what they saw or agreed too due to internet influence there's always the same call for control or banning...
Mail.

The parents of a teenager murdered by a friend who was obsessed with violent internet porn told yesterday of their anger at how easy it is to find extreme content online.
Georgia Williams, 17, agreed to pose for Jamie Reynolds with a rope around her neck for a ‘fantasy photoshoot’, but he left her hanging and took photographs of her as she died.
Yesterday, her parents Lynette, 52, and Stephen, 58, a detective constable, spoke for the first time about the role extreme pornography played in their daughter’s murder.
They said Reynolds, now 23, had been viewing depraved acts online even as their daughter, who attended college with him, walked to his home 90 minutes before she died.
The heartbroken couple, who have another daughter, Scarlett, 23, want measures against the kind of material that fuelled Reynolds’s fantasies.

A terrible tragedy to be sure, but oddly enough things like this did happen before the internet was around and there have always been sicko's in society some of whom have charmed their way into a life only to destroy it. It's all very well calling for measures to deal with things like this, but they fall flat against the sure and certain knowledge that people if so inclined will find a way around it. One instance I can think of is the UK's attempt to block the 'Pirate Bay' a torrent site where you could download software and other items. The day that UK providers blocked it a whole host of proxy sites sprang up, no one has any problems finding one if that's what they want.
With porn or snuff it's even worse (so I'm informed) the sheer number of sites is immense and that just the image and video ones and if people want to view them, people will find a way. The most you can do is try to track down those from the UK who use such sites and good luck with that one, unless a credit card is used you'll struggle to do anything of the sort.
Yes it's all very easy to call for something to be banned on the internet, it's a damned sight harder to actually do it. Much easier to try and educate your kids to avoid such sites and people, much, much easier.

How about good at it?

The moronic religion of political correctness is often good for the odd chuckle with well meaning dullards often tying themselves in knots over trying to appear totally fair when it comes to dealing with race/creed/gender/sexual orientation. It does become a bad joke indeed though when measures to be fair are actually exercises in tokenism. The joke totally sours when politicians promote it within their ranks and believe that the public will be impressed rather than their own little political bubble coterie. What most people would like is competence, they won't be bothered who is doing what, the criteria should always be are they the best, not are they the right gender/colour/religion/sexual orientation.
Telegraph.

David Cameron is to reshape his top team to fight the next election by promoting a number of female colleagues to the Cabinet and sacking some long-serving ministers.
A large scale Cabinet reshuffle is being planned – most likely to take place the week after next - with several Tory women ministers being given permanent Cabinet berths.
The shake-up will also allow Mr Cameron to answer critics who say his Cabinet is too male dominated. Mr Cameron has previously said that he wants one third of his ministers are women.
He admitted last year he has not appointed enough women to the Cabinet and said his wife Samantha urges him to promote female talent.

Great, Cameron is going to turf out some senior ministers and replace them with inexperienced ones a year before the election on his wife's say so. OK, there may be some like Ken Clark who won't be missed by the likes of me, but frankly this is no way to run a government or a country.
I can only imagine his critics are in the Westminster bubble or are the Comment Is Free commentators of the feminista tendency to whom it doesn't matter if a woman is actually good or bad at something, she has to get the job because she's a woman...
I have a feeling that most people don't actually give a damn who Cameron has in his cabinet, male or female. All we want, assuming we take note, is people who know what they are doing. We may not like them, we may not agree with what they are doing, but as long as they are implementing that policy fairly and competently then we don't give a damn as to gender. It may be that some of the women Cameron chooses to promote will be brilliant at their posts, however there may just be a man who is actually better at it and a good way to breed resentment and division is to promote someone due not to their competence and ability, but due to a weird rule that they and you have no control over. I will be willing to bet though that many promoted will be completely out of their depth and will be given the run-around by the civil servants in their departments and in the current furore over a paedophile ring and Leon Brittan's claim that the documents he was given went missing once civil servants got a hold of them this cannot be a good thing.
No, what the political bubble once again fail to recognise is that people don't want their weird idea of fairness, they want (in so far as it registers on their views) competence. Fairness to the majority of us means an equal chance to try, it does not mean tokenism where someone of possibly lesser ability gets in because of who they are, not if they can actually do it.

The missing link

There are a lot of people out there getting on their high horse about Google and a ruling by the European Court of Justice. Seems Google are removing links to certain 'activities' by certain people owing to a privacy ruling. Seems the objectors out there believe that the past is about to be whitewashed by the depraved and evil amongst us.
You do have to wonder just what these people are smoking, or what they hope to get from this storm in a teacup...
Mail.

The name Mario Costeja Gonzales probably will not ring an instant bell in your mind. You might well guess that he was one of the kids who went out in the first round of Wimbledon.
In reality, however, he is an obscure Spaniard who has prompted a global storm, appalling everyone who cares about censorship.
Some years ago, Senor Gonzales got into financial bother. He was obliged to sell his house to pay a gambling debt.
Today, like many of us with such little embarrassments in our past, he would prefer that people did not know about this bad episode.
He decided to bring a lawsuit, demanding that all references should be deleted from the internet. The case wound its way through a succession of law courts.
Then, in May, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg passed judgment.
Senor Gonzales won a right such as few fairy stories have ever dared confer: to airbrush his life-story on his own terms.
A precedent — a crazy precedent — was set. The court decreed that every citizen in Europe has a ‘right to be forgotten’.
The ruling required Google to remove irrelevant or excessive personal information about European individuals from European search results upon request.
Whoever you may be, high or low, you are, therefore, granted Groundhog Day privileges by courtesy of Europe: to rewind the movie of your life, omitting the nasty bits.

The real clue is of course Google, do people really think that Google is the only search engine out there? Granted it's the most popular, but it isn't the only one and the ones based in the USA (and outside of the EU) will simply stick two fingers up at this ruling and allow their search spiders to correlate data  in pretty much the same way Google does. You can even use composite search engines like Dogpile or DuckDuckGo (which unlike Google doesn't track or spam you) which links to a lot of search engines in one and will often dredge up some obscure information the powers that be wish were forgotten forever. Hell just Google search engines if you so desire as Google hasn't hidden them away.
The information about these miscreants or people wanting privacy has not been removed, all Google has done is remove the links to them, Google does not have permission to destroy data so it's still out there. If you are lazy enough to just use Google then you deserve anything you get (or in this case don't get) the truth is still out there... for given values of truth plus numerous lies.
In essence this is still a ruling that I do not agree with from the ECJ, but, for those who are not in the public eye I do believe a moratorium after a certain length of time is warranted on the mistakes of the past. For those in the public eye, however I believe living by the sword means dying by it occasionally and politicians of a certainty ought not to be able to hide their past sins/mistakes.
But as for censorship? Well it's just Google, there are other search engines out there and the information is still there, it's just not linked to by one search engine amongst hundreds...

They just can't help themselves

The urge by powers that be to show off their 'powers' on a world stage by meddling in things which don't concern them amazes me at times. The UK public have already made it pretty clear that another countries problems are not our concern the further away said country is; In the case of Syria we don't want our troops there doing another 'Iraq' so when thwarted in their intentions to do that, the idiots supposedly governing us and advising said government chose another tack...
BBC.

The UK drew up plans to train and equip a 100,000-strong Syrian rebel army to defeat President Bashar al-Assad, BBC Newsnight can reveal.
The secret initiative, put forward two years ago, was the brainchild of the then most senior UK military officer, General Sir David Richards.
It was considered by the PM and the National Security Council, as well as US officials, but was deemed too risky.
The UK government did not respond to a request for comment.

Ye gods! don't we have enough problems with muslims without training a bloody army of them how to do a proper job? Yes the civilian deaths are a tragedy, but they aren't our tragedy and Syria's problem is a civil war which they need to resolve themselves though the temptation to meddle and allow it to draw juhadis in to the conflict in order to wipe them out is tempting... just so long as we do not allow any of our homegrown ones back here.
Fortunately the government seems to have deemed it too risky, although I rather suspect the cost of it, rather than the fact that we'd be arming and training a bunch of jihadis in many instances will have been the deciding factor, after all, look how well that worked in Afghanistan.
No, Syria is not our problem, other than the islamoloons from here that go over to fight there of which my favoured solution is cancelling the passport of any who do go over there to fight and deporting them instantly if we catch them sneaking back in.
Had we gone down General Richards path we would have been storing up no end of problems for that part of the world, as if they don't have enough of their own without us arming and training them. I doubt Israel would be any too happy either.
Still, thank god in this case that the government lost its nerve...

FGM

Mp's are complaining that the practice of female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a national scandal and they are right, though their finger pointing is also an attempt to shift the blame for their own failure to tackle the introduction of alien cultures to the UK in the name of 'rubbing the right's face' in diversity.
BBC.

The failure to tackle female genital mutilation (FGM) is a "national scandal" with as many as 170,000 victims in the UK, MPs have said.
Failures by ministers, police and other agencies have led to the "preventable mutilation of thousands of girls", the Home Affairs Committee said.
It blamed a "misplaced concern for cultural sensitivities" for inaction, and called for a national action plan.
The government said it was working to end "this terrible form of abuse".
The report called for greater anonymity for victims and protection orders to prevent girls from being taken abroad.

Funny how the BBC are only highlighting this now, guess it must be down to the fact that it's a Tory government that they can blame, they tend to ignore Labour governments wrecking the country.
It's also amusing to see the excuse of concern over 'cultural sensitivities' which essentially meant that certain cultures were above the law because they were seen as 'better' than the indigenous one. A classic case of one law for them another for us.
No, the state, via law enforcement, doctors and social services  failed these girls by making it very plain that if a young girl was found to be mutilated in such a way then the investigation would be thorough and those who aided and abetted the practice were either going to jail or being deported, though personally I would have opted for castration and deportation for any male involved and sterilisation and deportation for a woman. The practice is utterly vile and serves no medical purpose other than to prevent a mature woman's enjoyment of sex so she (in theory) won't stray. A certain religion of (not) peace likes this idea and it also has adherents in certain African tribes too who don't like the idea of a woman enjoying sex in case she finds that her husband is not terribly good at it and goes elsewhere. That sort of thinking is also at the root of stoning a woman for adultery but letting the male adulterer off with a warning.
And successive governments and their minions in the state allowed them to get away with it.
Now we have a problem where certain communities have been allowed to clump together to keep their own practices and have their own doctors covering for them.
Yes, it's a scandal, but there's a lot of blame to go around and it's not just the parents...

Why do I think this one will never see the light of day?

Apparently back in the 1980's Leon Brittan the then home secretary was tasked to investigate a possible paedophile gang operating in the corridors of power in Westminster. The file never saw the light of day during a time when Cyril Smith was at large and the likes of Harriet Harman was supporting the activities of the Paedophile Information Exchange. Now there are calls for Brittan to reveal what he found out...
Telegraph.

Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, who spent two years as home secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, has been challenged to reveal what happened to a dossier that it is claimed was handed to him in the 1980s detailing an alleged paedophile conspiracy in Westminster.
A Labour MP who has investigated allegations of child sexual abuse against Cyril Smith, the late MP, said a file was presented to Lord Brittan - then Leon Brittan - at the Home Office but no action appeared to have been taken.
Simon Danczuk, MP for Smith’s Rochdale constituency, claimed that Parliament was the “last refuge of child sex abuse deniers”.
Giving evidence to the House of Commons’ home affairs select committee Mr Danczuk said the mystery dossier had been compiled by another politician, Geoffrey Dickens, the Conservative MP for Littleborough and Saddleworth until his death in 1995.
It contained allegations about the activities of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) which campaigned to abolish the age of consent and was granted affliate status by the National Council for Civil Liberties when Harriet Harman, the current Labour party deputy leader, worked for the rights group in the 1970s.

Burned or shredded would be my guess, certainly not locked down under a 100 year rule because politicians are worse than doctors for covering the backs of their own. It may of course be that the file contained nothing provable merely scurrilous tittle-tattle yet with what's going on in the rest of the country over allegations made against celebs back in the sixties and seventies it would be interesting to see what was being alleged against the powers that were...
There have of course been rumours about a highly placed paedophile gang operating in and out of Westminster for as long as I can remember (and probably longer as my interest in politics goes back a mere thirty years) It does appear that power and sex do go together to an extent and that some politicians being (in my eyes) a bunch of deviants then their predilections are no real surprise.
Still I'll be willing to bet this file never sees the light of day and that Lord Brittan suffers an extremely embarrassing memory loss and several still extant politicians as well as a number of retired ones heave a sigh of relief...

♪ I am a one in ten ♫

As the UB40 song goes I am a one in ten according to the Daily Mail in that self service checkouts don't usually hinder me or get me annoyed. Yes I've had the occasional problem with one due to its weight sensor idiocy, but by and large the only problems I've ever had with them tend to be other people, not the machines themselves.
Mail.

Self-service machines can be found in most shops on the high street but a survey has revealed nine out of ten shoppers find the technology a hindrance rather than a help.
Research by banking experts shows 93 per cent of customers are frustrated by self-service machines.
However, despite feeling irritated by the machines, shoppers are still open to the idea of using them rather than waiting in queues with 79 per cent of adults using them at least some of the time.

Frustrations I have observed are people failing to scan the bar code, not placing the item on the checkout weigher, the inability to read and understand what it says on the screen and the biggest problem of all appears to be those who don't understand the fifteen items or less sign above the scanners and attempt to take a full shop through one delaying everyone else.
Yes the technology is a little limited and some people won't use it due to the fact that they think its taking away jobs, though I rather suspect that they wouldn't or didn't have four (at least) extra checkout workers previously. Yes going through a proper till can be quicker or less bothersome for some, but as I said above, the biggest problem with the self service tills is other people, not the technology.
Now if only I could get one to recognise my age and not call an assistant every time I scan a bottle of beer...