The Anger of a Quiet Man

Parish Notice

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000Z

I'm off to see my Dad over the next couple of days as he's been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He's on chemo and hopefully this will extend his lifespan by a couple of years. We're also off to see Lady QM's step brother who also has terminal cancer though his outlook is not so good.

Back Saturday but will probably not blog till Sunday

A slip of the tongue?

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000Z

Sometimes it's the slip of a tongue which gives away the greatest details. Now I think the BBC is biased in being left leaning and all the political upholstery that goes with that sort of thinking and no I don't accept the argument that because the far left complain just as much as the right do that somehow this means that the BBC are somehow treading the middle ground. Impartial after all does not mean running down the middle, it means showing lack of favouritism or being free from undue bias or preconceived opinions and sadly the BBC fails in spades with either of those definitions.
However what director general Mark Thompson admitted to the Leveson inquiry appears to show an arrogance that goes beyond all I've suspected from the BBC over the years.
Express.

THE BBC has spent £310,000 of taxpayers’ money on private detectives – including a convicted investigator – director general Mark Thompson revealed for the first time yesterday.
He told the Leveson inquiry into press standards the corporation used Steve Whittamore, who in 2005 was convicted of illegally accessing data. In total, BBC staff used investigators 232 times between 2005 and 2011, Mr Thompson said.
The inquiry heard the BBC was mentioned in documents seized during the investigation into Whittamore’s activities known as Operation Motorman. A current affairs journalist asked Whittamore to supply details about whether a paedophile was on a flight to Heathrow in 2001. The programme, never broadcast, was about whether people with convictions for child sex offences in the UK could get jobs giving them access to children in other countries.
Mr Thompson maintained the case was in the public interest. In July last year, Mr Thompson commissioned a wide-ranging review of the BBC’s editorial practices but it found no evidence phone hacking or improper payments to police officers.
He said the probity, integrity and conviction of BBC journalists was “not to be questioned”.

So we are not to question the probity, integrity and conviction of BBC journalists?
To paraphrase Inigo from the Princess Bride, "You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means."
I'm fairly sure he meant beyond reproach, though even that might be pushing it a bit on the BBC's political bias and certainly doesn't come anywhere near the truth in their reporting of the Middle East, but it does give an insight to the type of thinking that goes on in the BBC and like you I suspect I don't think any journalists BBC or no, are beyond reproach or should ever be in a position where their probity, integrity and conviction cannot be questioned. Yes sources need to be safeguarded, but if you are tapping phones illegally or even using private detectives to source information, you'd better make damned sure you are operating within the law. After all despite the public's supposed need to know, the end does not always justify the means.

None of our business

2012-01-24T19:01:00.001Z

Why is it that under the most stringent cut backs in military spending that politicians keep coming up with pledges to send in the troops if necessary to places we have no business being?

Telegraph.

Britain could send military reinforcements to the Gulf if the dispute with Iran escalates, according to Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary.
He said the decision to send HMS Argyll as part of an international flotilla of warships through the sensitive Strait of Hormuz on Sunday sent a "clear signal" to Tehran.
The deployment defied explicit Iranian threats to close the waterway. It coincided with an escalation in the West's confrontation with Iran over the country's nuclear ambitions.
Iran has threatened to close the strait – through which 35 per cent of the world's tanker-borne oil exports pass – in retaliation for sanctions against its oil exports.
The EU agreed an oil embargo on Monday against Iran as part of sanctions over its nuclear programme.
The measures include an immediate embargo on new contracts for crude oil and petroleum products while existing ones are allowed to run until July.

Yes I know Iran has nuclear ambitions, yes I know they could make a real nuisance of themselves in the Straits of Hormuz if they wanted too, but frankly the amount of ships we could send compared to the Americans is minuscule and would be much better deployed elsewhere say like the Falklands or off the coast of Somalia hanging pirates from the yardarm.
Our armed forces have been gutted by the politicians in Westminster in both this government and the last and quite frankly it's time we brought them home and had a major rethink in just what it is we want to do with them vis home defence and force projection. Should we have them out in Afghanistan keeping the peace or should we simply leave that place to go back to barbarism again with occasional flattening of terrorist camps as and when we find them by cruise missiles, after all, it would be far more easier simply to declare the place a no go zone and allow India to deal with the Pakistani problem.
Our troops and navy should only be where they are wanted keeping an eye on aggressors to us, yes Iran is a problem, but it's a problem easily solved by simply funding its enemies right on its door, not by sending warships into restricted waters. Same with Afghanistan, simply play the tribes off against each other and fund them to attack Pakistan and Iran.
We could and still will need a professional and reasonably large set of armed forces, but we need them closer to home or in areas where we have obligations, the Middle East and Afghanistan don't count for either of those criteria.

Must?

2012-01-23T14:21:00.001Z

The boy Clegg does come out with some corkers, the latest one being that we "must" give more to the IMF to save Europe.
Express.

NICK CLEGG has sparked fury after insisting Britain must contribute more to the International Monetary Fund to aid the ailing world economy.
The UK is expected to be asked to put in more funds as the IMF seeks to raise an additional £320billion.
Britain is liable for 4.5 per cent of the IMF’s £256billion lending capacity. The rise means we could be in for donating another £17billion.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the Government must respond positively, claiming: “We always must be strong supporters of the IMF. It is a linchpin in creating stability.”

You sort of come to expect this from the Cleggmeister, after all his EU pension does depend on there actually being an EU around to pay it, which is probably why he's so free with the "we must" utterances as he's under an obligation to defend the EU at all costs. His pro European stance is echoed by his family ties too as he's married to a Miriam González Durántez, from Valladolid, Spain and they have three sons: Antonio, Alberto and Miguel so you can see where his sympathies lie and it isn't in or for the UK.
Thing is though that the £17 billion will have to come from government borrowing and we (the taxpayers) will have to stump up the payments for it as for the life of me I cannot see the EU recovering to the stage where they'll ever pay it back, it's a bit like throwing good money after bad. Doesn't matter how much we throw in, it's still going down the tubes. If anything it's far more likely that we'll get dragged down with them as our debts and means of repayment go spiralling out of control as well.
The time has come to simply say no, sort yourself out. Yes it will be painful for Europe, it might even be catastrophic for some Eurozone states, but supporting them by giving more money is simply staving off the inevitable and might end up making it worse.
If anything the case for leaving now before it all goes under is even stronger.

Punishing success

2012-01-22T07:50:00.000Z

Vince cable marched back to his socialist roots (again) yesterday by calling for a "Mansion Tax" on any homes valued at more than £2 million. Lot of people will no doubt fall for it as the rich are an easy target in the socialist politics of envy doctrine. Problem is of course is what happens if or when they do this, I doubt Vince has given much thought to this, but as a socialist he wouldn't so he'd probably be gobsmacked at the amount of people with money who will simply up and leave. It's the same with the Tobin tax that socialist politicians desire, they see it as a way to grab some easy money and they think (or don't care) that either the tax wont be passed on to the customer or the companies involved will simply move somewhere that doesn't tax them so much quicker than you could say Laffer curve.
Telegraph.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, is pushing for a mansion tax to be introduced on properties worth more than £2million in this year’s Budget.
While the policy is likely to be opposed by George Osborne, the Chancellor, Mr Cable said that he had spoken to Conservative MPs who backed the plan.
“A mansion tax is still very much on the agenda – it is a very good idea,” Mr Cable told The Sunday Telegraph.
“It is good for two reasons,’’ he said. ''It would constitute a tax on wealth rather than income, which we believe to be right, and also in economic terms it creates the right sort of incentives for the property market.”
Mr Cable added that it was “perverse” that rich “foreigners” could buy expensive properties in Britain and contribute just £1,000 a year in council tax towards the public finances.

Usual stuff from the man féted as an economic expert but only really famous for a one liner about Gordon Brown and Mr Bean. The thing about foreigners is that they'll simply go elsewhere, you know that and I know that, they'll simply stop paying UK tax rates sell their properties and an undervalued amount and sack all the people maintaining it plus putting out of work all the small businesses like plumbers, electricians and landscape gardeners they pay to do the jobs they can't. The point Cable doesn't get (and never will) is that for all these people pay low taxes to live here, they spend their money here too, probably a lot more than they'd pay in taxation as oddly enough the rich have a tendency to be quite generous to those who work for them.
I often run across this tax the rich thing, even from people who really ought to know better, if we tax them too much, well they are rich enough to simply pack up and leave, guess who will have to make up the difference in taxation then? Because I can assure you, the government wont cut back on its spending.
The more millionaires we can attract to live here and spend their money here the better off we'll be and people like Cable will simply drive them off to spend their money elsewhere.

Bribery and corruption

2012-01-21T08:03:00.000Z

I frequently criticise the foreign aid budget ass I'm a great believer of charity beginning at home, don't get me wrong, I assume some good does come of the various projects undertaken, however it's the cash paid to countries like India (a nuclear power and has its own space program) Pakistan (a nuclear power) and the various kleptocratic states of Africa that really gets my ire, we have enough problems here without lining the pockets of various countries who really ought to be doing something for their own people and not getting handouts from us. If the cause is deserving enough, we'll dig into our pockets to help, as it is though, times are hard. However this one was a new one on me, apparently the foreign ~~bribe~~ aid program keeps us safe.
Telegraph.

Spending on projects such as getting more girls into school in Somalia “contributes directly to our security” and should be a source of national pride like the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee, he said in an interview while on a visit to Nepal.
Even as most Government departments’ budgets are being cut, aid spending is rising by more than a third to almost £11billion in 2014-15 as the Coalition aims for a United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of GDP. The aid pledge is controversial among some Conservatives, who say the money would be better spent at home.
Mr Mitchell accepted that a smaller aid budget might have meant fewer cuts elsewhere, but insisted that development projects also helped protect Britain.
“Our security is not just provided by soldiers and tanks and fighter jets, it is also provided by training the police in Afghanistan, by building up governance structures in the Middle East and by getting girls into school in the Horn of Africa,” he said. “Those things are all part of what makes us safer.”
Mr Mitchell conceded that the “difficult” outlook made the aid budget harder to sell to voters, but said Britons should take pride in helping those people living in poverty.

Yes, he really does appear to think that Danegeld works, that rather than simply say banning Somali's and Afghans from entering the UK and sending the navy to blow the Somali pirates out of the water that helping them train their police (some of whom have killed our soldiers) and teaching Somali schoolgirls (wonder what Rhea Page thinks about trained Somali schoolgirls) actually stops them from coming over here as asylum seekers and causing no end of bother.
This man though a Tory MP, is clearly another Chris Huhne, utterly bereft of common sense as it's applied to the real world. What the leaders of those countries respect, is strength and what they respond too is fear as far as they are concerned training their police and running their schools just gives them more cash for Mercedes and gold plated AK 47's Or in the case of India, helping running their space program.
Bribes don't keep us safe, the fear of a devastating response if they step out of line will, it's time we stopped lining the pockets of 3rd world dictators, we could simply spend the money arming their rivals and playing them off against each other.
Charity begins at home, we have too many problems here without giving away taxpayers cash to foreign tinpot states and countries who simply do not need it.

Gender neutral

2012-01-20T18:20:00.000Z

'All I want to do is make people think a bit.' The words of Beck Laxton who decided that for 5 years they would bring their child up gender neutral alternating between girls and boys clothing and keeping a lot of people guessing.
Mail.

A couple who concealed the sex of their child and raised it as ‘gender neutral’ for five years have finally revealed - it’s a boy.
Beck Laxton, 46, and partner Kieran Cooper, 44, decided not to reveal Sasha’s gender in the hope it would let his ‘real’ personality shine through.
They referred to him as 'the infant' and allowed him to play only with ‘gender-neutral toys’ in their television-free home.
For the past five years Sasha has alternated between girls’ and boys’ clothes, leaving friends, playmates and relatives guessing.
However Beck and Kieran, from Sawston, Cambridgeshire, decided to reveal Sasha's masculinity to the world after it became harder to conceal when he started primary school.
Yesterday Beck, a web editor, said: 'I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping.
'Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?
'It’s like horoscopes. What could be stupider than thinking there are 12 types of personality that depend on when you were born? It’s so idiotic.
'Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person they become.

I suspect "the infant" might just have quite a few serious issues in the years ahead relating to one sex or another if only because gender rolls are a source of tension for kids.
Kids as a group tend to be merciless little savages when dealing with anyone different amongst their peers and no amount of supervision is ever going to change that. All most teachers can do is try to keep a lid on things in the classroom, outside of the classroom though, it's a bit of a jungle and I suspect this kid will struggle to cope with the differences as he'll have no idea of just how real life works.
Beck and Kieran strike me as being either amongst the most selfish people on the planet or the biggest idiots and what they've done is tantamount to child cruelty as they've imposed an artificial awareness on their child that bears no relation to real life. Sure we all like to protect our kids and keep them safe, but this hasn't kept him safe, it's kept him in ignorance. Still we can all hope that as kids do that he'll be able to soak in the necessary gender cues to at least help him survive without becoming a neurotic basket case.
No, this isn't about him becoming gay (if that's what happens) it's about dealing with an important part of society and being able to relate to it. If he can't and he has had no opportunity to do so, then he's in for several shocks and quite possibly a world of pain as he gets older.
I might be wrong, but I cannot for the life of me see this going well for the poor little chap.

Good riddance, though still not enough

2012-01-19T17:42:00.002Z

I expect there were screams of anguish from the Green Luddites who seem to infest the corridors of power via various lobbying groups when Huhne the buffoon finally came out with a written statement about the solar tariffs being cut from April for all new installations fitted after march 30th. This is because the tariff subsidy has been proven to have been far too generous to those who chose to install them.
Telegraph.

Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, said in a written statement that the tariff paid to customers who generate their own electricity will be cut from April 1 for all installations completed on or after March 3.
If the Government wins its appeal, however, the current December 12 cut-off date will stand. "We continue to stand by our original proposal," Mr Huhne said. "However, I know that the uncertainty while we await the court's decision is difficult for the industry.
"If the court finds in favour of the Government's appeal, we intend to stand by all our consultation proposals, including an earlier reference date, subject to the Parliamentary procedure and consideration of consultation responses."
Friends of the Earth and two solar panel installers, Solarcentury and HomeSun, took the Government to court over its decision to halve the amount home owners with newly installed panels will receive for every kilowatt hour generated. The total per unit will fall from 43.3p to 21p per kilowatt hour, but the 'export' tariff of 3.1p for energy sold on to the National Grid will not change.
However, the environmental charity and the industry protested that the Government had not given enough notice for the change, which was implemented before the consultation period even ended. Thousands of customers who had already signed contracts missed the deadline, meaning that they will receive less for the electricity that they generate.

Whilst I do feel a smidgen of sympathy for those who rushed to cash in on this ludicrous scheme, anyone trusting the government to keep its word deserves everything they get. The only way the panels could pay for themselves in their lifetime was only if they were massively subsidised by the taxpayer, this is assuming (and it's a big assumption) that they maintain their power output for their 25 year life, as any engineer or even a weatherman could tell you this is highly unlikely. Frost, Sahara dust, snow, bird poo, traffic pollution will all take their toll over the years and reduce the original output by up to 25% at least possibly more depending on their location, after all if they are on your roof, you can't wipe them clean. This was also on top of their poor output in English conditions, so that the only way they could pay was if everyone else via taxation made them economically viable. Which is why in these hard times, the government has reluctantly stepped in to cut the tariff in half, which is a shame really as I'd have just gotten rid of it entirely, same for the bird mincers. Most of the energy budget as far as I can see should go to conventional power generation (as in reliable) and if you wanted to go carbon free then you go nuclear, as it is I'd have put all the money into shale gas extraction which is cheaper and would leave us with a good century or two to come up with something better.
As it is, the government in its pathetic attempts to be green has ripped off the taxpayer (again) and even now refuses to accept that green power generation is nothing more than a massive con designed to wreck the West's economy and turn us into an economic basket case and back to a middle ages economy with a technocratic elite in charge.
Btw, when is someone actually going to charge Huhne over his driving offence?

Money money money

2012-01-18T17:49:00.001Z

I always suspected that when Osborne paid out all our cash to the IMF that sooner or later they'd be back for more. The problem is that far too many countries out there who have gotten themselves into financial problems have simply taken the IMF money and not cut back on their spending by any sort of sane amount to get their finances into the black. Hence various EU countries credit status being downgraded last week.
Express.

BRITAIN is facing an extra £17.5billion bill to help prop up the eurozone as the International Monetary Fund looks to boost its debt fund to $1trillion. As unemployment figures in the UK hit a 17-year-high, the IMF announced that it was set to raise its debt fund to $1trillion in a bid to rescue the eurozone.
International Monetary Fund manager Christine Lagarde said yesterday that she was looking at ways to 'increase its financial firepower to deal with Europe's debt crisis.
In a speech at the Washington State Department, she said that if Europe's debt crisis wasn't resolved, the world economy could face rising protectionism and isolationism.
The rise in the amount given by Britain will force Chancellor George Osborne to ask parliament for permission for the extra £7.5billion.
Britain has already set aside £30billion to the fund with an extra £10billion contingency.

Thing that always gets me is that this is money we could be using to stimulate our own economy, particularly at the expense of our overspending EU partners. The problem is, that Europes debt crisis will not be resolved by giving them money, but by them stopping spending the money that they don't have. It's a bit like alcoholics and drink, you don't get an alcoholic to stop by buying in another round, you stop them by removing access to booze.
Yes the end of the Euro and the collapse of the Eurozone will be a terrible thing, but the entire situation has now gone far too far for anyone to stop it, it has the inevitability of a steamroller running over a snail. The time to have sorted out the flaws in the Eurozone system was before it came into being. Not during it's Götterdämmerung stage.
What the IMF are proposing to do is throw good money after bad, perhaps it's time to let the financial institutions which caused the damage pay the penalty. Crops will still be grown and goods made, other means of finance will come into being. Perhaps even a few politicians, lawyers and banker will be hung for good measure.
But it will happen, there's no way to stop it now and grabbing more of our cash will not help save to make the inevitable even worse.

You what?

2012-01-17T20:28:00.001Z

Why is it that certain people have what amounts to a get out of jail free card? If I were in a pub and glassed some woman who I suspect was eyeing me up (I know, I know, I should be so bloody lucky, but bear with me here) I'd expect to go to prison and I'd expect no mercy from the judicial system. I very much doubt a case of claimed sexual harassment at work would help me much either.
However, reverse the genders and hey presto I would get a get out of jail card for the same excuse...
Mail. (usual caveats, but the basic facts are correct)

Judge refuses to jail woman plumber who glassed nightclubber who smiled at her 'because she had been sexually harassed during training'
Attacker walks free after judge says harassment was to blame for her behaviour
Judge describes her harassment as 'intolerable' and says she is 'impeccable character'
Victim was described as being in the 'wrong place at the wrong time'
A woman who glassed a male clubber that smiled at her - and then blamed the attack on the fact she was sexually harassed at work - was spared jail by a judge.
Sheona Keith threw her glass at a man in a nightclub who she thought was 'eyeing her up', in an unprovoked attack which resulted in him needing hospital treatment.
However, a judge refused to give her a custodial sentence after accepting that earlier sexual harassment she suffered at work was the reason behind her behaviour.
Instead, 22-year-old Keith - who admitted a charge of actual bodily harm against James Kirkham - was given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay £400 compensation by Judge Philip Wassall when she was sentenced at Exeter Crown Court.
Describing Keith's case as 'unique', Judge Wassall said she had an 'impeccable character' and that the sexual harassment she had suffered was 'intolerable'.At one point he said that she threw the glass 'without knowing' it was in her hand and described the victim as being 'in the wrong place at the wrong time'.

I'm sorry, but seriously is there any excuse for this sort of action other than they started it and you were in fear of your life? You throw a glass into someone's face causing them to need hospital treatment and blame it on the fact that you'd lost your job and were drowning your sorrows due to sexual harassment???? The guy was just looking at you!!!! God alone knows what might have happened if he'd wandered over to say hi.
Can anyone imagine a guy getting similar treatment off a judge?
Fair enough, sexual harassment is a terrible thing for some people, but there are proper channels for dealing with it, glassing a human being for looking at you is not one of them, doubly so if they are a complete stranger.
The judge in this case seems to be some sort of gullible idiot and easily swayed by a feminine sob story, yet justice is supposed to be blind.
Sheona Keith should have been starting a prison sentence today, pretty much any male who did what she did would certainly be.
In this case the law (well the judge) is an ass.

Tom Harris’s downfall

2012-01-16T15:47:00.000Z

I don't like socialists, I don't like the left and I don't like the Labour Party, but that's a group thing, as individuals they tend to be fine save for those on the more extreme fringe. When it comes to scandals involving humour or Nazi party regalia though I'm more or less indifferent in the same way I was completely indifferent to Aidan Burley who was simply at a party where someone wore it.
One of the internet memes of recent years has been to mock your opponents via the "Downfall" scene in the Fuhrerbunker, some are funny, some are tasteless, but mostly it's a case of sticks and stones etc. Save when it comes to politicians as Tom Harris found out.
BBC.

A Labour MP has stepped down from his internet adviser role after he posted a joke video portraying First Minister and SNP leader Alex Salmond as Hitler.
Tom Harris, who ran in the Scottish Labour Party leadership race last year, apologised for his actions.
He had been given the post of the party's new media guru after Johann Lamont was elected leader.
The SNP called the video "tasteless" and said it was "hugely embarrassing" for the Labour Party.
The controversial video takes footage from 2004 movie, Downfall, featuring Hitler's German voice with subtitled words from Mr Salmond.
The clip has been used to mock a number of well-known names, including former prime minister Gordon Brown.
Mr Harris published his version of the video, titled "Joan's Downfall", following a row involving SNP MSP Joan McAlpine who claimed that Labour and the Lib Dems were being "anti-Scottish" in their attitude to the planned independence referendum.
The Labour MP for Glasgow South said: "Having spoken to Johann, I have decided to step down from leading the party's social media review.
"The video I posted has been a well worn joke used to parody a range of public figures.
"However, context is everything and in the context of Johann's and my desire to improve the level of political debate on social media and the context of Joan McAlpine's much more serious statements about all political opponents of the SNP being anti-Scottish, my actions have been an unhelpful distraction for which I apologise."

Personally I think the SNP should grow a pair, after all they like to throw insulting rhetoric around too as do all politicians and after all, Joan McAlpine's assertion that Unionists are anti-Scottish started the whole affair. I doubt anyone cares to be called a traitor in a country they love. Though Scot's themselves have a bit of a problem in some areas with Anglophobia which is apparently not as big a problem as Islamophobia and it's this strain of bigotry which drives some nationalists into the name calling business as they see the UK government as somehow being an English government, though God alone knows why considering how Westminster actually treats the English. Still I guess it's a useful tag to hang your prejudices on.
Was it a bad taste video? Possibly, should Tom Harris have had to apologise and resign?
Judge for yourself...

Personally I think some Scots should get a sense of humour or a thicker skin.

And naturally, here's the riposte

H/T Guido.

The magic money tree creed

2012-01-15T14:38:00.001Z

Ed Millipede is in trouble, not his usual trouble of being totally out of touch with what actually needs to be done to put the economy back on track. Nor is it the usual problem of having abandoned your core group of voters in order to suck up to immigrant groups. No, the Millipede is in trouble because the left have sussed that he no longer believes in the magic money tree.
Mail.

Embattled Ed Miliband was told by Labour MPs last night to stop copying David Cameron and start showing some leadership of his own.
The Labour leader sparked a furious backlash after the party abandoned opposition to the Coalition’s public-sector pay freeze and refused to reverse cuts.
The U-turn was unveiled by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, who insisted the party had to set a ‘credible’ alternative to the Coalition and be ‘honest with the British people’.
But Labour MPs accused the two Eds of caving into the Tory agenda.
Labour veteran Austin Mitchell attacked ‘barmy’ Mr Balls’s cuts somersaults and also lambasted ‘weak’ Mr Miliband.
He told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This is a desperate attempt to get respectability but it’s barmy. Miliband is acting out of weakness. We are not the Government and we will get nowhere by going around wearing a hair shirt like this.’
And Blyth Valley MP Ronnie Campbell said: ‘The activists are livid. We are dancing to the Tory tune. We’ve been opposing their cuts, now we’re saying we agree with them. We don’t know whether we’re coming or going.’

This sadly has always been the problem of the left, they actually don't know (or in a lot of cases don't care) exactly where the money to pay for things comes from. As far as they are concerned money comes from a magic tree that pays for everything, not from hard pressed taxpayers who are sick to death of paying for things like public sector pensions, people who wont (not can't) work, translation services, diversity co-ordinators, racial awareness committees and all the various things that socialist policies have left us in their poisonous legacy of the Blair/Brown years. Not that I think the Millipede actually grasps this, but he will have been told that such policies as cutting back the public sector is popular with voters, so lets go for it. This of course puts him into conflict with the dinosaurs of the left who as far as they are concerned think that the rich should pay for everything, rich being anyone in a job as far as I can see. Nor do they see the problems the UK faces as anything other than someone else's fault, that the massive levels of public spending have made recovery very difficult as they aren't contributory to wealth creation, in many cases they are entirely the opposite.
They never learn, the magic money tree is their religion and like a lot of false religions it blinds its followers to the obvious. Thatcher had them sussed though with her comment that "Socialism only works till someone else's money runs out." Well the money has run out, but not the mindset of the left who want us to carry on spending what we don't have.

Well they would wouldn't they

2012-01-14T07:28:00.000Z

Seems our EU overlords aren't particularly happy about credit ratings particularly after France, Italy, Spain, Portugal along with Cyprus. Austria, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia all had their credit ratings dropped a notch or two. This has to be particularly galling for the French (or should that be Gauling) who believed that the UK should have had its credit rating dropped before them, though I don't think they quite grasp how the UK economy works with a pound able to be devalued or revalued to deal with market fluctuations unlike the Euro which is locked into the strongest economy (Germany) and does not allow individual nations to devalue or default.
BBC.

The EU's top economic official has criticised a decision by Standard and Poor's to downgrade the credit ratings of nine eurozone countries.
Economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said the move was "inconsistent" as the eurozone was taking "decisive action" to end the debt crisis.
Other senior European officials have also hit out the move.
The downgrade - which included stripping France of its top AAA rating - was announced on Friday.
Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Portugal were cut two notches, with the latter two given "junk" ratings. Germany kept its AAA rating.

The thing that EU officials are forgetting is that you cannot buck the market and for every action there will be a reaction. As certain Eurozone countries took on more debt during boom years than they could pay back once their economies slowed. Those concerns led investors to demand astronomically high yields or interest rates to lend money to countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal, eventually forcing those three to seek bailout loans, rather than rely on market financing. This situation has come home to roost as the markets realise that some of the Eurozone countries cannot be trusted to pay back a loan because they're a poor credit risk due to overspending on their account. What Standard and Poor have done is looked at the economies of the affected countries and decided that there's a possibility that any bonds issued or loans taken might not be repaid at their full value, hence any monies loaned to that group will now have higher interest charges as they are a greater risk. This affects their ability to run their countries with the ruinous overspend on various things such as pensions, infrastructure etc. In a sense it's a way of saying you aren't doing enough, you can't be trusted.
As for the UK, well we're well enough off outside the Eurozone, though there's a possibility we'll be dragged under if it goes under, if only because our politicians don't quite grasp economic realities either. But at the moment our credit rating is safe enough, we may even get a boost as investors seek the security of British bonds.
What it does mean is that the Euro as such is doomed, it may survive as a Northern European currency, but sooner or later the Southern European states along with France and Ireland might just have to be cut loose to default on their debts. That's why they got downgraded, the market is rarely wrong about these things and is self correcting.
John Ward at The Slog explains exactly why it's happening.

Reinforcing a culture of failure

2012-01-13T06:46:00.000Z

I was always under the impression that if there were a bonus scheme available, that it is a reward for success. I'm also pretty jaundiced towards any bonus schemes in the public sector as they seem to measure success by an entirely different criteria than the private sector, plus they pay out their bonuses from taxpayers money.
So this made my blood boil...
Express.

STAFF bonuses at the Met Office rocketed by a third to £3.3million last year – despite failing to predict the coldest winter in memory.
Workers at the Government-owned organisation were handed the perks despite a series of forecasting failures.
The big freeze of December 2010, the coldest in over 100 years, saw Britain grind to a halt, costing billions of pounds and jeopardising the recovery.
But staff still pocketed £3,368,000 in bonuses during 2010-11, up 30 per cent from the £2,593,000 handed out the year before. In the past five years, Met Office staff have been awarded £13.9million in bonuses – with last year’s payments averaging around £1,800 between 1,900 people.
Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson, who obtained the information, said: “It’s a bit ironic that, in the week the Prime Minister has talked about ending the bonus culture and bonuses for failure, a Government body has awarded staff a 30 per cent hike in bonuses.’’ Business Minister Ed Davey, whose department oversees the Met Office, said payouts were “in line with reward principles”.

This strikes me as paying out a bonus simply for doing your job and doesn't seem dependent on any results, after all the Met Office are still convinced that ~~Global Warming~~ ~~Climate Change~~ Global Climate Disruption is actually happening and is something humanity can do something about. Which is why their long term models are no longer published owing to the fact that they'd become a laughing stock over the sheer inaccuracy of them. In a sense here, what is happening is the reinforcing of a culture of failure after all, next day temperature predictions are only 87 per cent right and its daily forecasts are only right six days out of seven.Which essentially means that there's only a one in seven chance of the forecast being right on the actual day they pronounce it! With all the equipment they have you'd expect a somewhat higher percentage than that. As for the long term forecasts, well unsurprisingly enough they don't count in the bonus scheme as they are for research purposes only which rather suggest that the weather does not still co-operate with their climate models. Not that this or last years weather was particularly easy to predict, certainly the seasons seem slightly out of kilter with an unusual mildness over the last 3 months though it was pretty cold this morning with the first frost of the year in Kent.
A bonus scheme is only really suitable in a company that makes money not in the public sector, the criteria for success is not judged in the same way nor are the business models even slightly similar. If Cameron et al want to go after the private sector and their bonuses, they really ought to clean up their own acts first.

A pub of character(s)

2012-01-12T18:28:00.000Z

Today was my bi-annual trip into London to get my arm checked over since I had a cancerous tumour removed. The visit to the hospital was routine with a chest x-ray and a visit to the radiotherapy clinic who check me over mostly by asking how I felt and checking my lymph glands and poking at the scar. What makes it a good day though is a visit to my favourite London pub, The Anglesea Arms on Selwood Terrace SW7 close to the Royal Marsden Hospital where I go to be poked and prodded.

As pubs go it has a very friendly atmosphere and a clientèle which can only be described as eccentric after all how many pubs do you know where a customer turns up riding one of these?

Yep, that's right, as we just sitting there enjoying a pint of Doombar this guy pulls up on a penny farthing and greets another customer with "You're looking smart today." And gets the reply, "Another bloody funeral."
It's one of those pubs where you could sit all day with a pint or seven and just people watch. Bare floorboards and scrubbed tables, but wood panelling, old photos, prints and some impressive oil paintings, coupled with the absence of any music or fruit machines, almost heaven really.
The selection of beers and wines is huge, you can even get mulled wine there if you are so inclined. Pub meals can only be described as "gourmet" class and although they aren't as cheap as a "Brewsters" or "Weatherspoon's" they aren't as generic either and all prepared on the spot from fresh ingredients.
If it weren't for the Anglesea Arms, my trips into London would be so much more boring and lengthy seeming, it's almost a shame that after next July I'll only be going in once a year. It's almost tempting to just go in and visit the museums for a chance to go back more often.
Lady QM loves the place too, so I'll probably suggest a visit just for a chance to people watch again.

Research funding

2012-01-11T10:54:00.000Z

Some of the greatest pieces of scientific research have developed from individuals who have strayed off the beaten track and observed something a bit odd and followed it through. It's the initial observation itself that often provides the impetus, Fleming might have discovered penicillin, but it was a massive development afterwards by other scientists who produced the results. Yet it's only because the state didn't interfere (then) with research of all kinds that some of the greater discoveries were made.
Telegraph.

The future of British science is under serious threat because its funding body is making “disastrous errors”, more than 70 senior academics have warned.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, they claim changes introduced by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council are “damaging scientific discovery in Britain” because civil servants have taken on new powers to dictate what type of science is given money.
The letter says a pledge by David Willetts, the universities and science minister, to make Britain “the best place in the world to do science” would be difficult to achieve because the council had “exceeded its remit so spectacularly”.
The group calls on Mr Willetts to make sure the research council is either overhauled or replaced.
Prof David O’Hagan from the University of St Andrews, one of the signatories, said: “We’re being asked to identify where our programme may go in 10 to 50 years’ time. This is anti-intellectual. Nobody involved in research would pretend to know where embryonic ideas may lead.”

In a sense they are quite right, no-one knows where the next greatest discovery will come from and you can probably rest assured that it wont come from anything that Whitehall wishes to be researched.

Attila Emecz, director of strategy at the research council, said the accusations were “a major and gross misrepresentation”, adding: “We believe the new policies will protect and improve UK research.”

Yet this is the mindset that funds the current craze in climate research, not because it will make any major discoveries (probably) but because it is intended to justify increased taxation. The government isn't interested in disproving ~~global warming~~ climate disruption, because if it did it wont be able to justify what they've done to promote useless alternative energy schemes, whilst also not funding research into shale gas extraction.
Unfortunately for a lot of universities funding is a major issue and they tend to follow the money to a certain extent. So if the government want to fund research into climate change that's what the universities will research, often as in the case of the Climate research Unit in East Anglia making stuff up to keep the funding coming in.
In an ideal state, universities would simply be told to research anything they felt was worth looking into, the governments obsession with getting value for money along with making sure their own pet prejudices are promoted means that nothing of the sort happens.
research will still get done, there's no doubt about that, but unless it's freed from the constraints of government (Whitehall) guidelines then chance discoveries will be made elsewhere.
We have a tradition of making great discoveries in this country, if this carries on though, that's now at an end.

It's all kill, kill, kill with the religion of peace.

2012-01-10T18:28:00.001Z

For something that is alluded too as the "Religion of peace" it doesn't half throw up some intolerant, racist, murderous bigots on a very regular basis.
BBC.

A group of men handed out a leaflet calling for homosexuals to be given the death sentence, a court has heard.
The five men from Derby are said to have distributed notices titled The Death Penalty? outside a mosque and put them through people's letterboxes.
The men deny stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.
The prosecution at Derby Crown Court called the literature, given out in the lead up to a gay pride event in 2010, as "frightening".
Ihjaz Ali, 42, Mehboob Hussain, 45, Umar Javed, 38, Razwan Javed, 27, and Kabir Ahmen, 28, have said the leaflets were designed to "raise awareness".

I'm pretty sure most people are aware of Islam's total intolerance towards civilised values, so I rather suspect the men were just bigots with a religious base for their bigotry.

The court heard the leaflet was one of three distributed by the group as it tried to organise a protest against Derby's Gay Pride event in July 2010.
It showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and said gay people were destined to go to hell
Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema said a copy was handed to a police officer near Jamia Mosque, on Rosehill Street in Derby, on 2 July 2010.
In the weeks before that, the group had distributed two other leaflets, called Turn Or Burn and God Abhors You.
One of them showed a lake of fire and said homosexuality was the root of all problems.
A fourth leaflet, called Dead Derby, which compared homosexuals to paedophiles was found, but not distributed.

Lovely bunch of people aren't they? All five men are accused of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation in the first prosecution of its kind since legislation came into force in March 2010. Something I rather expect was designed specifically to target religion in general as most religions seem to believe that God hates gays, though admittedly most don't call for them to be hung. Nor do most interpret their holy books in such a literal sense as Islam seems to.

Homosexual acts are condemned as unnatural. (Will ye commit abomination such as no creature ever did before you?) 7:80-81
Male homosexual activities are condemned as unnatural. 26:165-6
Male homosexuals commit abominations and act senselessly. 27:54-55
Male homosexuals acts are condemned as unnatural. 29:28-29

I'm sure you can scour the Bible both New and Old Testament for other relevant quotes of intolerance too, however, our society as a whole for all its Christeo/Judaic roots is mostly a secular one which promotes tolerance generally (if a bit too generally in Islam's case) in other words what people get up to and say so long as it does not harm others is generally allowed, though recent government rulings tightening up what can be said and done are infringing severely on civil liberties.
Still it will be interesting to see just what the sentencing for this crime assuming they are found guilty goes. Will a Muslim card trump (as usual) a gay one in the fascinating rules of victimhood poker.

Getting your history wrong

2012-01-09T13:46:00.001Z

People (well men) are randy by nature, whilst a woman will try to find a reason to have sex because of the consequences, men usually need only to find a place. In the past, the more money and power you had, the easier it was to have a mistress and one of the forms of birth control such as it was for the nobility was to marry your mistress off to one of your fellow courtiers/men at arms who in order to increase their influence, were quite happy (for a given degree of happy) to tolerate this. it meant that any children were not born bastards and if or when the relationship ended the woman involved had a settled secure place.
No it wasn't perfect and yes there were problems with it, but it's something that was common enough with male monarchs throughout the centuries, power (wealth) and sex often going hand in hand.
Which is why this story in the Mail made me sigh in exasperation, I don't know if it's just the Mail being ignorant or the historian putting modern thinking on a historical situation. Either way they're wrong.
Mail.

King Henry VIII had a secret daughter who should have taken the throne before Elizabeth I, new research has revealed.
Elizabeth Tailboys was the Tudor monarch's illegitimate lovechild who would have changed the course of English history had the King acknowledged her as his at the time.
By rights she should have taken the throne on the death of Queen Mary in 1558, making her the true Elizabeth I and not Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn.

Leaving aside the laws of primogeniture and the occasional royal meddling in which the King was given the power to designate his successor legitimacy tended to be the key to which the royal line was maintained. Henry might have acknowledged his son Henry Fitzroy and possibly even planned to marry him off to his daughter Ann (Catherine of Aragon's daughter) but, acknowledged is not the same as legitimate and would have caused major problems (schism) had he not died young probably from the same affliction as his legitimate brothers Arthur and Edward. Male succession aside though, female offspring did not get the same treatment, Ann and Elizabeth, Henry's daughters only maintained power whilst there were no men in their lives. Ann's marriage to the King of Spain was not popular and it's likely she would have been overthrown had the King ever tried to land on English shores to take charge, the later defeat of the Spanish Armada stems from this marriage when Philip of Spain tried to assert his right as King of England by way of his previous marriage to Mary.
There was never any possibility of another Queen Elizabeth ascending to the throne, acknowledgement or not, the very fact Henry did not acknowledge her probably saved her life, look at what happened to Lady Jane Grey after Edward died.
First law of a disputed succession, kill all your rivals, save an immediate heir, Had Mary had a son, (both) Elizabeth's days would have been numbered, an illegitimate Elizabeth's for certain.
I'm pretty much certain a historian would know all this, so I suspect it's just the Mail playing fast and loose with facts again.

Legal or not?

2012-01-08T16:17:00.000Z

(Scottish blood runs in my veins) Cameron has stepped into the Scottish independence debate by saying it's up to Westminster as to whether or not a referendum would be legal.
Telegraph.

David Cameron went on the offensive over Scottish independence today - pledging to publish legal advice reported to show Westminster must give permission for a referendum.
The Prime Minister said it would give "clarity" to the people of Scotland as he renewed his determination to see a vote held "sooner rather than later".
And he accused First Minister Alex Salmond of seeking to delay a vote because he knew Scottish voters did not "at heart" want a full separation.
Mr Salmond wants the poll in the second half of his current term - which ends in 2016.
Mr Cameron told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show that the uncertainty over when a referendum would be held and what the question would be was damaging the Scottish economy.
"We owe the Scottish people something that is fair, legal and decisive so in the coming days we will be setting out clearly what the legal situation is," he said.

Technically I suppose he's right, though the way he's going about it will no doubt get right up the nose of Scottish Nationalists as he seeks to goad Salmond into falling in with his timetable rather than the Scottish First Ministers timetable. In fact I cannot see anything more likely to boost the nationalist cause more than a Tory UK Prime Minister telling them what they can and cannot do.
That aside though, it doesn't matter what Cameron thinks about referenda, he's hardly got a great track record on them himself, but if the Scottish government decide to hold one it doesn't matter about the legality or not, what will matter is the result. If a majority of the Scottish people decide that going it alone is what they want to do, what exactly is Cameron going to do about it? Send in the troops?
My own personal opinion on the matter is that if the Scots want to go their own way, that's a matter entirely up to them, my only (slight) peeve is that the English and other don't get their own referenda to decide as to whether or not the Union is worth keeping. I suspect a federal UK could work, but if others want to go it alone, then that's up to them, not the Prime Minister and Cameron stepping in to say that we'll tell you what the rules are is not helping at all, it just gets peoples backs up.
As it is, for all Cameron is currently the Prime Minister for the entire UK, Scotland has it's own parliament and runs most of its own affairs, his interference I suspect is nether wanted nor welcome.
I could only wish that England could do the same.

Flying the flag

2012-01-07T14:56:00.000Z

There are rules for flying a flag, the only ones you can freely fly are the national ones such as the Union flag and the Cross of St George and only then if they are unmarked by other symbols. So, the government in the shape of Eric Pickles wants to cut red tape and let anyone fly the flag they want too. Which in essence is a good thing, though oddly enough I can foresee problems ahead.
Express.

FLYING a flag in England is to be made easier under new Government plans.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles wants to cut red tape to let sports teams, pubs and societies hoist flags without paying a £335 fee.
Current strict rules ban flying all but county or national flags without permission from the council.
Under the new plans flags, including regimental standards and the gay rainbow flag could be raised without planning permission. Mr Pickles said: “If people want to celebrate something that is important to them by flying a flag they should be able to do so without having to fill in forms or paying town hall officials for the privilege.”

Nobody I know other than a few frothing at the mouth leftists and Islamists could or would have a problem with any non political association flying their flag, but we all know that at least those 2 groups have a major problem with freedom of expression with regard to anyone who is not like them and have in the past sought to use by any means possible to shut down any form of expression from groups they oppose. Just look at the Islamist "Shariah gay free zone" attempts in Tower Hamlets, still I suppose anyone flying the black flag of jihad will at least be easy to find when inevitably the Islamists go too far. Same with the patriot hating left, they already have a problem with people flying the national flag anyway (we're racist apparently) and so will see this as a swing to the right by the government.
Still the law of unintended consequences is bound to rear it's ugly head on this one, after all if you give people the freedom to do something, sooner or later they'll end up doing something with it you didn't expect.
I expect this will get very interesting very soon if it goes ahead with people trying to wind up those they oppose so expect a lot headlines about punch ups in the cities very soon.

(Another) compare and contrast

2012-01-06T06:41:00.000Z

What price on a human life? Well if you followed the Lawrence trial it's in the region of 14 years, although apparently this is only if you are a juvenile at the time and apparently the Attorney General is going to have a look at that as being unduly lenient. So what would you say should have been the result of a gang attacking an innocent bystander...
Mirfield Reporter.

A MAN has been jailed for killing a man in a street attack.
Mohammed Nazakat Alam was today sent to prison for 21 months for the manslaughter of Jack Carter in August 2011.
Co-accused, Nisar Shah, formerly of Victoria Road, was given a six month jail term suspended for two years and 120 hours unpaid work for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Leeds Crown Court heard how the attack took place shortly after Mr Carter, 39, and his girlfriend, Melanie Boocock, left a friend’s house in Victoria Road, Thornhill Lees, on Sunday August 28.
Prosecutor Christopher Tehrani said Ms Boocock hurled racist abuse at local resident Junaid Azad as they left the house.
Another man, Basharat Hussain, told her to shut up and she threw a punch at him.
Mr Azad stepped in, followed by a group of Asian men who were stood nearby.
One of the group, Alam, then punched Mr Carter who had been watching.
Shah then came out of his house and stood on Mr Carter’s head, but he stayed with Mr Carter until paramedics arrived.
Mr Carter, of Bretton Street, Savile Town, was taken to Dewsbury and District Hospital with serious head injuries and died three days later.
Alam, 25, of Beckett Lane, Dewsbury Moor, was originally charged with murder but that was dropped when he admitted manslaughter last month.

Yep, that's right, 21 months for attacking a man who whilst he has a gobby (racist alledgedly) girlfriend was not involved or being provocative in any way, at least according to this report. But because Azad was full of remorse and admitted manslaughter plus stayed with Jack carter after he stood on his head he only got 21 months.

Passing sentence, The Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC, said Mr Carter’s family had been ‘devastated’ by his death.
He said he accepted that Alam was ‘full of sorrow and remorse’ because of the effect his actions.
He told Shah: “Immediately after your assault, you tried to assist and attend to the man who lay clearly injured on the floor.”

Yes, I'm sure that makes it ok, after all he'd been subjected to racist abuse before the violence...
Hang on, no he wasn't he just launched an attack on Carter who hadn't actually done anything and it was Junaid Azad who was being verbally abused and Basharat Hussain who was physically attacked by the woman.
Makes you wonder what else would get you 21 months...
Herts and Essex Observer.

A RACIST from Great Hallingbury who attacked a supermarket security officer will spend Christmas behind bars after being jailed for 21 months.
Serial offender Ben Horton, 22, of Copthall, had gone to Sainsbury’s in Harlow on August 16 to try to steal some wine before the fracas began.
Horton, who pleaded guilty to attempted theft, racially aggravated assault, assaulting police and breaching bail, was spotted by security officer Mohammed Raza, who was then racially abused, punched and spat at.
During a struggle on the ground as Mr Raza tried to calm him down, he then bit him, leaving an inch-long wound on his arm.
After police arrived and tried to get him out of the store, Horton spat blood at them and dug his nails into one officer. When he was later interviewed he denied being a racist.
Ben Hargreaves, mitigating, said Horton was a long-term drug user who had left home aged 15 and had since lived “from place to place without the support of his family”. He added that he also had an alcohol problem.

So, attacking a security guard and some police but not actually killing anyone will also get you 21 months, of course he's a serial offender so I guess that makes up for it, couldn't possibly be any other reason now could there?
You know like someone being treat differently due to religion or race, but no, that's just being silly, we're all supposed to be dealt with impartially and had Horton shown remorse and attempted to apologise he'd now be up for a knighthood..
Still, I'm sure it's all down to circumstances, I can't believe for one second that it might just be anything else.

You won't read this in the MSM

2012-01-05T09:00:00.000Z

Taken from the Casuals blog.

Inside info that 47 Muslim groomers, alleged paedophiles mainly from Rochdale and Manchester appeared at Liverpool crown court this week under massive police security. All are males aged between 20 and 50. Newspapers have been told not to report on this. Why?
Its good that the police are acting on this massive problem, but why the secrecy? They obviously are concerned about “community cohesion”. Even while dealing with it, they STILL want to keep the scale of the problem from the British public.
All suspects are bailed to Liverpool Crown court on February 6th for trial.

Suzy

The original story appeared in the Rochdale Observer. June 08, 2011

Eight men were due in court this morning following a police probe into the alleged grooming of young girls.
All of the suspects, from Rochdale, were charged late last night with conspiracy to commit penetrative sexual activity with a female under 16 years.
The men are Abdul Rauf, 42, of Darley Road; Liaqat Shah, 40, of Kensington Road; Adil Khan, 41, of Oswald Street; Qamar Shahzad, 29, of Conisborough; Mohammed Sajid, 34, of Jepheys Street; Mohammed Ikhlaq, 31, of Clover Hall Crescent; Mohammed Amin, 44, of Failinge Road and Abdul Aziz, 40, of Armstrong Hurst Close.
The men were due before magistrates in Rochdale today.

Now I can't confirm this information as it appears to be under a news blackout from the MSM, it may be that it's just one of those urban myth rumours, however...

This was from the Liverpool Crown court hearings for the 3rd Jan 2012, these are the Rochdale lot.

03-01-2012	Liverpool Crown Court	4-1	T20117520 T20117522 T20117536 T20117537 T20117538 T20117539 T20117540 T20117542 T20117543 T20117589	abdul aziz abdul qayyum abdul rauf adil khan hamid safi liaqat hussain shah mohammad amin mohammad sajid qamar shahzad shabir ahmed	For Pre-Trial Review – Hearing finished for MOHAMMAD SAJID – 16:13
03-01-2012	Liverpool Crown Court	4-1	T20117520 T20117521 T20117522 T20117536 T20117537 T20117538 T20117539 T20117540 T20117542 T20117543 T20117589	abdul aziz abdul qayyum abdul rauf adil khan hamid safi kabeer hassan liaqat hussain shah mohammad amin mohammad sajid qamar shahzad shabir ahmed	For Pre-Trial Review – Resume – 14:28

H/T EDL forum.
Now it might just be a coincidence that a group representing the religion of peace with the same names of the Rochdale groomers appear in Liverpool Crown Court, I'll let you judge that for yourself.
If there is a news blackout, one can only wonder why? What is it (particularly after the Lawrence trial) that the authorities want to hide or avoid? A fair trial due to trial by media? Can't say how that would possibly bother them after all they don't appear to by shy on publicity when it suits them.
As it is, it might just appear in the MSM today, it certainly didn't yesterday though and you'd suspect a case involving the grooming of under age girls for sex on this scale (a possibility of over 60 young girls) would certainly make the headlines.
Then again, who am I kidding, it's the wrong colour thing again isn't it?

Justice?

2012-01-04T13:16:00.003Z

I don't know whether the 2 guys who stand convicted of the murder of Stephen Lawrence are guilty, I suspect they may be, however the lengths that the authorities had to go to to get a conviction strikes me as being very unsafe. First the law on double jeopardy had to be removed as the accused had already been tried once and found not guilty. Excuses had to be found for the poor storage of evidence meaning that cross contamination may have (not necessarily did) occur. The accused had already been named as "guilty" by the MSM in the shape of the Daily Mail. Plus there is now an ongoing campaign to try and get to the other 3 involved. A massive and costly undercover operation was set up by the police that looks from an outsiders point of view as entrapment yet the accused were finally only convicted on 16 fibres and a speck of blood.
I don't know if they were guilty, I do know that the appeals court and the lawyers are going to have a field day over this and when or if it goes up to the European Court of Justice which will sift the evidence and the trial procedures then I suspect the case might just be overturned and hefty compensation paid out.
What was done here to try and get a conviction had far more to do with political correctness and a desire not to appear racist. The murders of Charlene Downes and Gavin Hopley have already proven that you need to be the right skin colour to get this sort of response from the police, the government and various other political groupings.
So from my strictly jaundiced viewpoint, if this was justice, God help us all.

Seems I'm not alone...

http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/2012/01/justice-maybe-but-at-what-cost.html
http://timworstall.com/2012/01/04/stephen-lawrence-verdict-no-not-happy-about-it/
http://www.annaraccoon.com/politics/is-this-justice-for-stephen-lawrence/
http://englandcalling.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/the-deaths-of-richard-everitt-and-stephen-lawrence-compare-and-contrast/
http://4liberty.org.uk/2012/01/03/disposable-double-jeopardy/

Biased BBC?

2012-01-03T09:42:00.001Z

In a breathtaking display of hypocrisy the Labour party accused the BBC of pro coalition coverage, though I suspect it's more down to the fact that Ed Millipede has less of a personality than Gordon Brown. I hated Brown with a passion for his anti-English attitude, his spite, his reckless financial management and his selling out our interests to the EU in the form of the Lisbon Treaty, whereas Millipede E usually just produces a "meh" reaction in a similar way to the mother of Gru in Despicable Me.
Guardian.

The Labour party has made a "serious complaint" to the BBC about a lack of political balance in its news coverage as it attempts to reinvigorate Ed Miliband's leadership and counter what it sees as widespread media bias in favour of the David Cameron-led coalition.
The Observer has learned that Labour chiefs have written to the corporation raising concerns that its party spokesmen are not receiving their fair share of airtime at a time when they are neck and neck with the Tories in opinion polls.
It is understood that party officials have monitored invitations, and time given, to senior Tory and Liberal Democrat figures on the BBC's main news outlets against that allotted to Labour counterparts. Their analysis has shown that Labour has been represented less than half as often as the coalition.
While acknowledging that the Tories and Lib Dems are in government and should therefore take precedence, they believe the imbalance has left Labour struggling to get its messages across. They have made their point to top BBC executives in forceful terms.
One source familiar with the dispute said Labour had made a "very serious complaint" to the relevant authories.
Labour insiders insisted on Saturday that the party was not "declaring war" on the BBC or "whingeing", but merely holding the corporation to its obligation to show impartiality.

Now I'm well aware of the BBC's position in that if both sides are complaining, they think they are being impartial, though the evidence over the years rather suggests that the dividing line on complaints is hardly central as Biased BBC has frequently pointed out with the BBC assuming that far left complaints and right wing complaints somehow put Labour in the middle, despite the fairly obvious bussing in of left wing activists to Question Time and the outright pandering to Labour spokesmen without an answering opinion in the Today Program amongst others.
I don't know why Labour even think that somehow the dying dead tree press is behind their recent popularity nosedive, I rather suspect that their unpopularity is more down to the blogging world who constantly remind people just exactly who is to blame for the mess we're in, something the BBC has never done (nor the Guardian oddly enough) Fact is, the BBC literally fell over themselves to trumpet the left wing cause of the Labour party during its time in power, their frequent use of right wing to describe the Tories along with the unsavoury BNP was an attempt to associate the right always with racism and extremism in a way that left wing never did for the excesses and folly of socialism, which in many countries combined racism and brutality beyond belief at times.
All I can assume is that the BBC itself feels under threat from the continuing exposing of its bias by various sites and feels the need to justify its credibility by a ridiculous accusation from the left.

Not a Sheep, sums it up a bit more succinctly though.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse

2012-01-02T13:37:00.001Z

The human rights lawyers and their tame judges have allowed various criminals and other scum to remain in the UK for various reasons including the right to a family life, when common sense tells most people that the correct judgement should have been bye bye, see you in hell. However a recent judgement has just opened a new floodgate.
Mail.

A Bangladeshi student has won the right to remain in the UK - after he declared that his love of cricket proved that he was committed to British life.
And there are now concerns that the controversial ruling could open the floodgates for thousands of foreign students to remain in the UK after completing their college courses.
Abdullah Munawar, 23, who has been studying in London, applied to have his three-year student visa renewed in 2010, but was turned down by the Home Office.
However, the accountancy student appealed that ruling, telling the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber that he deserved to remain in the UK because he played cricket at weekends and had also formed friendships with students and work colleagues.

That's right, a love of cricket and a couple of friendships made is enough to turn over a visa refusal and to rub salt in the wound, the judge ruled that the initial refusal of a visa renewal 'amounted to a disproportionate interference with private life that deserved respect'.
In other words someone who has outstayed their welcome can just claim that they have a few mates, like cricket and they have to be allowed to remain and we're supposed to accept this as a just solution?

Mr Munawar now hopes to get a job with an accountancy firm and has plans to take part in an arranged marriage after his imam lined up a potential bride.

No doubt the bride, her family, possibly village and tribe all living in Bangladesh and now with a potential entry visa into the UK as they'll all have a few mates and love cricket.
The comments in the Mail are as ever quite illuminating.

Predictions

2012-01-01T14:12:00.001Z

Despite the amazing accuracy of my last set of New Year predictions where I predicted some fairly obvious happenstances (I mean a Tory scandal, come on, when isn't there a Tory scandal) it's a case of here we go again.
The Lib Dem problems of heart and mind will reach a crisis when the social democrat wing of the party will split from the Orange bookers (the real Liberals) and more or less support Labour in the current Parliament. The coagulation will however limp on at least until the €uro collapses.
It will finally reach what passes for the thinking apparatus of political parties that support for leaving the EU is a vote winner, strangely enough it will be impossible to find any MP save only a few who are on record of defending the EU who will admit to have supported any EU policies, now or ever.
The UK will however remain in the EU, but outside the €uro.
The €uro will not collapse in 2012, but throughout the year every effort to attempt to rescue the €urozone will end in ignominious failure and end up making the situation worse. The southern €uro states will be forced to withdraw from the €uro and devalue their currency, though this will only delay the inevitable in the Northern €uro states.
The French economy will go tits up towards the end of 2012 and will trigger the final collapse in 2013.
West Ham will be promoted, Sunderland relegated.
With all the economic crisis going on the UK government will continue to ignore the Islamic problem in the UK and continue mass immigration, anti-white discrimination will continue and the population will become more and more angry about this, though the continuing lack of a charismatic nationalist (and non racist) political party will keep the focus dispersed and the main political parties untroubled.
The Olympics will go without a hitch, the UK medal haul will be average.
The USA will have a new president, it wont be Obama.

Right, hopefully that will have seriously bolloxed up the hopes and ambitions of the EUphiles.

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

Happy New Year, may it be better than 2011

Utterly mental

2011-12-31T16:14:00.000Z

I often watch the antics of the pc brigade with a slightly amused if jaundiced eye as they frequently tie themselves in knots over certain phrases, blackboard, chairman etc, though it's not so amusing when it is applied in our legal system to discriminate against native whites. Still every so so often they break cover with something so stupid you just have to assume that the people behind it are utterly mental.
Express.

HE has been helping pedestrians cross busy main roads for more than 40 years.
But now the “green man” on pelican crossings seems to have fallen victim to the politically-correct brigade.
The light indicating when it is safe to cross the road has been renamed the “green figure” by road chiefs at Lincolnshire County Council.
Although some crossings retain the original labelling, the highways department has replaced many with the new gender-neutral version.
Yesterday, Lincolnshire’s decision to change the signs was described as “political correctness gone mad”.
Ossy Snell, a councillor in Boston, Lincs, said: “It seems a little bit like it’s seen as sexist.
“Women might think men are controlling if a green man helps them to cross the road.”

Tbh, I don't know of any woman save the more rabid feminists in political parties and who haunt the pages and columns of the Guardian who might think such a thing. Most people will take a look at what you have just said Ossy and think you're having a laugh, at least until they realise that you aren't and then the view will sway to my God! The man's an utter moron. The thing is Ossy and I know you won't be reading this, but bear with me, the thing is, the green man isn't a real person, it's just a stylised image in a certain colour to tell people that it's safe to cross the road, there's no control factor at all, he doesn't leap from his flashing sign to actually prevent ladies crossing the road, that's a personal decision on their part, the sign itself just tells people that the lights for road traffic are at red and it may be safe to cross, not is safe to cross, only maybe, so stay alert and look both ways.
You have to wonder just what Ossy and his band of political lunatics have been smoking to come up with the following statement.

“There’s so many of these silly things that people are bringing up, which nobody has ever thought about being offensive to anybody when they were brought in.”

I wonder which people they are and how they've managed to get the ear of a lowly councillor in Lincolnshire. He's a Liberal Democrat according to Google, which I suppose makes him a pseudo socialist with delusions of bandwagon jumping (vote Lib Dem, a different policy for every household, at least until we get into power then we become mendacious little overspending Hitler's)
To my mind Ossy, most women have the sense not to be bothered over political correctness, most will think you're an idiot for even having the nerve to defend this.
About the only good thing about this is of course, if the likes of Ossy are doing this sort of thing, at least they're being kept away from the levers of real power...

Well we can hope.

Damn, I should have had some money on this.

2011-12-31T06:00:00.000Z

Last year I made some new year predictions, giving out the usual caveat of how crap I am at making predictions.

Here.

Politics will be riven by scandal (as ever) and at least one big name in the Tories will be forced to resign and the Lib Dem popularity in the polls will continue to nose dive though the coagulation will survive the year.

Liam Fox... Check

The EU referendum petition will get the required number of signatures and the government will be forced to debate the issue. The difference in opinion between what the government think and what the people want will become clearly apparent and Cameron will use the Tory whips to crush any motion for a referendum causing a massive party row and weakening his leadership though not fatally (unfortunately)

Check... Though the number of rebels was encouraging.

The EDL numbers will continue to grow as will the number of cases of Muslim Grievance Syndrome. Society tensions will also continue to grow as multiculturalism, diversity and equality prove to be hollow shells for keeping society happy.

Well, the EDL has not grown as well as I'd hoped they would, but the Islamic cat in the bag is well and truly out and the failure of multiculturalism was shown up by the flagrant abuses of the law when it came to justice for Rhea Page and Emma West and the current ongoing media trial for the Stephen Lawrence murder.

Sport, haven't got a clue who will win the premiership, but West Ham will be relegated.

Check.

Global Warming and the mean Green environmental machine will finally be exposed for the charade it is, expect politicians to move onto the next biggest cash cow/tax raiser aka biodiversity, still green and still a charade.

Well, they are still hanging in there with global warming, but I suspect they know the games up.

So, not bad at all, though they were all very, very predictable.

Multicultural, but not multi faith

2011-12-30T14:41:00.001Z

Interesting event up in Scotland where a college head and his wife have been sacked for ostensibly being white Christians in a college which is supposed to have at the centre of its ethos a multicultural agenda.
Telegraph.

A college which aims to promote multiculturalism has been thrust into a race row amid allegations that its principal and his wife were sacked for being white Christians.
Professor Malory Nye, 47, claims he was dismissed from his job at the Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education in Dundee, Scotland, because its hierarchy viewed his race and religion as a threat to its Muslim values.
His wife Isabel Campbell-Nye, 42, alleges she was also forced out of her position as head of the college’s English language centre because she brought in too many students who were not Muslims or Arabs.
The independent college, sponsored by the Dubai royal family, advertises itself as a research-led institution “that promotes a greater understanding of different religions and cultures in a multicultural context, for the benefit of the wider community”.
However, the couple allege that its claims of multiculturalism were a charade and that Prof Nye was dismissed to make way for a Muslim replacement.
They are taking the college to an employment tribunal claiming racial and religious discrimination, and unfair dismissal.
Mrs Campbell-Nye is also claiming sex discrimination on the grounds that she was allegedly suspended and later dismissed because she is married to Prof Nye.
“Multiculturalism and respect for cultural and religious differences are, I had thought, core values of the college.
“However, I believe that such inclusive multiculturalism no longer fits the particular type of multicultural vision of certain managers and the chairman, that is accepting of different cultures, so long as the majority of students are Muslims and/or Arabs and the ethos is distinctly Islamic.
“My face and lack of Muslim faith no longer fit.”
Mrs Campbell-Nye claims Mr Abubaker also sought to remove her because she had attracted too many non-Muslim, European and Asian students to study English at the college.
Despite a waiting list to get on its English language courses, the college abruptly closed the department last month, leaving its two remaining tutors redundant at Christmas.

It's noticeable as usual there is yet again a Labour link with the Labour peer Lord Elder, Chancellor of the college and a close friend of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown having decided the couples fate, no doubt approaching it from the only whites can be racist and all other faiths are superior to Christianity. Islam itself is however multicultural, Muslim is not a race, however as far as Islam goes multiculturalism only goes as far as anyone within Islam, all others need not apply. Even then there's a hierarchy within the Islamic community, with Arabs, particularly Saudi Arabs dominating the top of the tree, after all, they have the major Islamic holy sites on their territory.
Islam may be one of the fastest growing religions, but that's mostly down to Muslims treating their women as brood mares, it does not cope well with criticism (often becoming violent) and the brighter the students the more enquiring the mind, the more likely the student will move away from Islam if they come across other religions or cultures. This is why Muslims often ghettoize areas and try to create separate communities as contact with other cultures is often corrosive to its beliefs. When it comes to winning converts, the Islamic record is far poorer often attracting the hard of thinking rather than intelligent smart people. I often think that's why the powers that be protect Islam, it's unlikely to ever be an intellectual threat to them after all. The fact that Islamists will behead or enforce conversion upon them matters not, so long as they remain in control.
So this will be a one to keep an eye on, I don't think the full story is out there by a long shot.

Compare and contrast

2011-12-29T07:49:00.000Z

Admittedly its a target rich environment though in this instance it's our idiot governments determination to give away our cash to foreign governments which again has piqued my ire.
Mail. (usual caveats)

Taxpayers are funding aid to Brazil even though it has become richer than Britain, Whitehall officials admitted yesterday.
Millions has been handed over in development aid in recent years despite the rapid rise of Brazil to the top rank of world economies.
And money is still going to the Latin American powerhouse in the week it was revealed to have overtaken Britain in the world’s economic league table.

This is the same Brazil who wont allow Falkland flagged vessels entry to their ports anymore too. Yet it remains an enigma as to why we give money away to a country who is richer than we are, other examples are India (space program) and Pakistan (nuclear power) if they can do those, they don't need help!
Yet we have this going on at home.
Mail.

Cuts to social care services mean that Britain’s elderly are facing an ‘absolute crisis’, according to the head of a leading charity.
Age UK’s director Michelle Mitchell said increasing numbers of older people with considerable care needs were ‘getting absolutely no support at all, or poor quality and limited support’ as a result of cuts to local authority provision.
She said research by the King’s Fund health charity showed that the number of older people who need significant care support but receive no assistance will reach almost 900,000 in 2012, rising to one million by 2015.

I think it's about time UK cash was spent on UK people, then (and only then) if there's any left over we can throw it at countries with real problems and Brazil does not seem to have a real problem.
How we treat the elderly in this country is an absolute disgrace, we let them freeze to death, starve, pile them into out of sight out of mind care homes and generally treat them with contempt or as an afterthought. They're generally people who have spent their whole lives paying into a system only to be slighted and shorted when they actually need it, many of them would actually be better off in prison.
Yet the overseas aid budget continues to rise above the rate of inflation and is ringfenced to protect it from cuts. Money that could well be spent on our people giving our pensioners a deserved happy retirement in comfort if that's what they desire.
Too many politicians are obsessed with the wrong things, perhaps an obsession to protect the weak vulnerable and elderly in this country would be no bad thing, rather than foreign aid and subsidising bird mincers by additional tariffs on fuel.
The priorities of our political classes are inhuman, selfish and an abomination in a supposed civilised society, yet there are fools out there who would still vote for them.

It's illegal and it won't work, but just watch them try

2011-12-28T06:40:00.000Z

It comes to something when the head of the UK region of the EU (Aka David Cameron) steps into the realms of fantasy by asking his apparatchiks to come up with proposals that are counter to EU regulations and since they border on prohibition will probably have the opposite effect to the one they are looking for.
Telegraph.

The Prime Minister has ordered officials to develop a scheme in England to stop the sale of alcohol at below 40p to 50p a unit in shops and supermarkets.
Ministers could copy Scottish proposals, which would ban the sale of alcohol below 45p a unit, or bring in a more sophisticated system of taxes based on the number of alcohol units contained in the drink.
Both options would cost drinkers an estimated extra £700 million a year, with any extra tax revenue potentially going to the NHS. The Daily Telegraph understands that the Prime Minister personally ordered the radical “big bang” approach, which will be included in the Government’s forthcoming alcohol strategy. It was due for release next month, but has now been delayed until February.
A recent official study found that setting a minimum price of 30p per unit would prevent 300 deaths a year, 40p about 1,000 deaths, and 50p more than 2,000 premature deaths.
The Downing Street diktat has led to intense Whitehall discussions and disagreements over how the minimum price, which has widespread support among the medical profession, can be introduced. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is said to favour taxing drink on the basis of alcoholic units. The Business Department has warned that forcing firms to charge a minimum price could be illegal under European law.

The kicker really is in the last sentence, minimum pricing is not allowed under EU law, something that has also escaped the Scottish government and I suspect the first legal challenge will bring it tumbling down.
However lets assume they get their way, what do they think is going to happen when they try to block access by price fixing a product that the public want? Booze cruises will suddenly become very, very popular and very, very lucrative for some again. At the moment it's not as cheap as it used to be to get your drinks and cigarettes from the continent, but it's still cheaper than getting them here if you are within easy driving distance and buy in bulk to offset your fuel costs. Make the price of booze higher in this country and the only people rubbing their hands will be the ferries and the good Burghers of Calais (and other continental retail outlets) That's assuming of course that those whose vice of choice is booze just don't simply move onto something else that's probably worse and more addictive. Still you just know they are going to try as the government will try and persuade the hard of thinking out there that it's for their own good, whilst most of us will see it for what it really is, a cash grab. After all, it's well known that the figures for a supposed safe daily intake per unit of alcohol were just plucked out of thin air as the Pub Curmudgeon points out here back in 2008.
Nor will the proposed levy help out pubs, the damage there was done by another piece of invidious legislation in the smoking indoors ban, smokers simply stopped going top pubs and their non smoking mates stopped going with them, preferring to buy cheap supermarket specials and drink around someone's house rather than go somewhere a third of their mates (at least) are pretty much banned from.
It is not the job of the government to legislate away our pleasures, they can (try to) advise but that is all but using legislation as a form of social engineering is doomed to failure as it simply plays into the hands of the criminal elements. People like a drink, the government makes the price of drinks too high, people will find other outlets, it really is as simple as that, yet the ptb cannot grasp it, or simply don't care.

We already give too much.

2011-12-27T18:18:00.002Z

I am sick and tired of politicians of all parties deciding that they can just dip into taxpayers pockets and taxpayers goodwill to help fund problems abroad that likely don't concern us or can be resolved by other means.
Sky.

Rich countries are failing to contribute to an international emergency fund leaving the world "dangerously unprepared" for future disasters, the International Development Secretary has warned.
Andrew Mitchell said the United Nations' disaster response funding system is expected to be left severely underfunded.
Mr Mitchell's warning comes after a wave of large-scale disasters over the last year, including famine in the Horn of Africa, the Japan tsunami, the New Zealand earthquake and floods in Pakistan and the Philippines.
Growing numbers of people living in vulnerable areas means the number of those affected by major tragedies is expected to increase in future, he added.
The Government is giving £20m to the Central Emergency Response Fund (Cerf) next year, in addition to £40m already pledged, and has called on the international community to "wake up" to the challenge ahead.
It said many rich countries wait until a disaster strikes before responding, which means critical emergency first response work could be put at risk.
The fund - set up following the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami to provide a coordinated international response - is expected to have a shortfall of £45m next year.

It rather looks like the main contributor at the moment is the UK government with £20 million this year on top of £40 million already pledged, yet there is a £45 million shortfall. Which rather suggests someone (that being the UK taxpayer) are being taken for mugs again by a government determined to keep spending our income on something that could easily be covered by charitable giving at home and not involuntarily filched from our pockets by politicians who clearly don't have a clue as to how the money might be spent by the bureaucrats running it. No I don't accept the premise that somehow or other a co-ordinated response will be better than a patchquilt response either, I've seen far too many cases of government aid going to the wrong areas, terrorist groups and various other ne'er-do-wells to trust a co-ordinated response group who are far too likely to be doing far too well for themselves at doing well.
Charity begins at home when it comes to government spending (or it should) any spending on international aid should be done by direct appeal to the public and we'll see just which causes actually appeal, if any.

Prezzies

2011-12-26T17:10:00.001Z

Well I've had a most wonderful Christmas, family and friends have been around, copious food and drink has been consumed and there have been no fights, spats or general unpleasantness that sometimes seems to follow in the wake of some family get together's I've heard of, though fortunately never witnessed.
One thing though that I did enjoy was my main present. Unlike a lot of guys I'm amazingly easy to buy for, books or technology will do (socks and undies at a pinch) and this year my good lady came up trumps with one of the new generation of Kindle's. To say I was delighted would be an understatement as I'm an avid reader of books in one form or another including online novels, articles. blogs and various other sundry written words. It's not as if I even have to shell out and buy stuff from Amazon, there are masses of DRM (Digital Rights Management) free novels out there in a format that the Kindle can read and it's not as if I'm going to stop buying books either as for as good as the Kindle is, I still love the feel of a real novel in my hands too and many novels aren't available as Kindle books (including for some reason all the Harry Potter stuff) and possibly never will be. So it's a bit of a trade off, though my quieter moments at work will no longer be free from reading material, or rather I won't have to carry my own weight in books around with me any more.
As for my good Lady, well she thinks she's doing well with a gold necklace with pink sapphire and diamond gems, I think I came out the better of the exchange.
Serious blogging will return probably on the 28th,not sure what I'll do for tomorrow, but I still have a lot of family stuff to be getting on with.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T06:00:00.000Z

I'm not a religious person, though I did used to be, nevertheless, I prefer to see the Christ in Christmas even though I no longer live by the way Christians do. Too many in our so called society have done their level best to try and denigrate, remove or deride the values he stood for and his people believe. Christianity however is preferable to many other religions for the values it espouses, particularly hating the sin but not the sinner, as a belief system it makes Islam look like the barbarous, totalitarian, misogynistic, thought control, fascistic political system masquerading as a religion that it truly is. Not that Christians are perfect by any means, just better in a lot of cases than most Muslims.
So enjoy the day, but spare a thought for its founder, who deserves so much better than the world gives him.

QM.

The righteous days of Christmas

2011-12-24T06:00:00.000Z

On the 12th day of the Eurocentrically imposed midwinter festival,
my potential-acquaintance-rape-survivor gave to me:

TWELVE males reclaiming their inner warrior through ritual drumming.

ELEVEN pipers piping (plus the 18-member pit orchestra made up of members in good standing of the Musicians Union as called for in their union contract even though they will not be asked to play a note...)

TEN melanin-deprived testosterone-poisoned scions of the patriarchal ruling class system leaping,

NINE persons engaged in rhythmic self-expression,

EIGHT economically disadvantaged female persons stealing milk-products from enslaved Bovine-Citizens,

SEVEN endangered swans swimming on National Park protected wetlands,

SIX enslaved fowls producing stolen nonhuman animal products,

FIVE golden symbols of culturally sanctioned enforced domestic incarceration,
(NOTE: after member of the Animal Liberation Front threatened to throw red paint at my computer, the calling birds, French hens and partridge have been reintroduced to their native habitat.
To avoid further animal-enslavement, the remaining gift package has been revised.)

FOUR hours of recorded whale songs,

THREE deconstructionist poets,

TWO Greenpeace calendars printed on recycled processed tree carcasses

and Swampy the activist chained to an old-growth pear tree.

H/T http://www.purplelion.com/christmas/parodies/12deconstructed.shtml for the original

What about this surcharge then

2011-12-23T19:42:00.001Z

You'd think MP's would have something better to do (like running the country) rather than trying to claim credit for repealing excessive credit surcharges, which is more to do with an EU directive rather than anything they've actually done. They also seem to forget that these credit companies are adept at finding loopholes in the system so will (easily?) find a way around this.
BBC.

"Excessive" fees for using a debit or credit card to buy items such as travel or cinema tickets will be banned by the end of 2012, under government plans.
The move comes amid complaints that airlines, booking agencies and even councils were imposing excessive charges for using a card.
However, firms will be allowed to levy a "small charge" to cover payment processing costs.
The regulator has been investigating some airlines over surcharge clarity.

Of course not one of the buggers at Westminster have mentioned the £80 surcharge being brought in by the EU as a carbon tax on air travel, after all it's for the green religion
Express.

HOLIDAY costs are set to soar following a controversial EU green tax being levied on airlines. A family of four now face an extra £80 to fly to the US following a Brussels ruling on carbon emissions, set to come into force on January 1. Yesterday the European Court of Justice imposed a new carbon-trading rule on airlines using any airport within the European Union.
This comes on top of Government plans to increase Air Passenger Duty departure levy - known as "the poll tax of the skies" - from April by an inflation-busting 10 per cent.

So it's perfectly ok to go after private companies, yet ignore the excessive taxation and levies imposed by government, either Westminster or Brussels. Of course their claims are that they are saving the planet or paying off the deficit, but anyone else making a profit can go to hell. No, I don't like paying extra for cinema tickets etc. if I order online and use a credit/debit card I doubt I'd like paying a few extra quid for air flights either, but I'm assuming that they have to pay some sort of administration charge to the credit company for the use of the facility, I know big stores write it off, but I see no reason for others to do so if they don't want too. Lot of small shops wont allow you that facility unless you spend over a certain amount anyway.
Yet the government and the EU see no problem with applying ludicrous charges for their own pet projects themselves.
Then they wonder why we call them crooks and hypocrites.

A real Balls up

2011-12-22T15:38:00.000Z

You can always rely on Ed Ball's to, well, balls things up. It's pretty typical of the guy as he really does seem to have the reverse Midas touch to everything he says or does.
Telegraph.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has expressed distaste at politicians doing photoshoots with their children - the day after Ed Miliband was pictured at home with his family.
In an interview, Mr Balls said he would ''never ever'' allow such images to be used, no matter how ''short term, tactical and tempting'' it might be.
The Labour leader was seen on the front page of the Daily Mirror yesterday cuddling younger son Samuel, while wife Justine held two-year-old Daniel.
Further pictures inside showed the parents playing with their children in front of a Christmas tree.
The highly personal portraits emerged with Mr Miliband under pressure over poor opinion polls and badly-received showings in the Commons.

Way to go Ed (Balls)

Yep,Mr Popular strikes again, I'm only surprised that he didn't mention the possibility of it being an attraction to paedophiles.

Oddly enough Balls was not sacked for this

I can imagine that the Tories see Balls as a major advantage in their attempts to be re-elected, because for the life of me I cannot see why Labour think he's any advantage to them.

One of the biters bit

2011-12-21T06:44:00.000Z

I cannot help but sympathise with the parents of Darren Deslandes who wish to know if the ~~man~~ scum sucking excuse for a human being serving 37 years for the murder of their son is actually an illegal immigrant. They've been told (of course) that they don't have a right to know as his details are protected by the odious Human Rights Act and its data protection addendum, which for ordinary folk is fine, though I doubt that most people would think it ought to apply to prisoners save only in the abstract of not revealing personal details about their families. But a wry smile was raised at the antics of their MP, Croydon North MP Malcolm Wicks, a former Labour business minister, who was outraged at the Home Office and UKBA's decision not to tell the family whether the man was a foreign national illegally resident or not.
Mail.

A murder victim’s family who want to know if the man who shot their son is in Britain legally have been refused the information – to protect the killer’s privacy.
Wintworth and Lurline Deslandes are desperate to confirm suspicions that Saturday Hassan is a foreign national so they can ensure he is deported if he is released from jail.
But they have been told the killer – who shot their public schoolboy son Darren in the head after being thrown out of the family’s pub – must agree to details of his immigration status being handed over to their MP.
Last night Croydon North MP Malcolm Wicks said: ‘The logic of that answer is that I should write a nice letter saying, “Dear murderer, would you give me permission to find out if you are a foreign national, so I can make sure in the future you are deported”.’
The former Labour business minister added: ‘It’s ridiculous. The family of the murdered man had a suspicion for some reason he might have been a foreign national and it didn’t come out in court.
‘My experience as an MP is that if you find out some criminal is a foreign national, I do my best to pressure the Home Office to check the person out. That’s one reason an MP should be able to find out.’

David Wicks, seems to be rather forgetting just exactly which government and which party actually foisted that odious bit of legislation upon us in order to give their leaders wife a nice little earner.He's also forgetting an old maxim that "common sense has nothing to do with the law or how rules are implemented." You give a bureaucracy a set of rules to work from and you can be pretty much sure that there will be unintended consequences, the more complex the rules, the more likely it becomes. Common sense tells us that someone serving 3 life sentences for murder does not need his immigration status shielded, but common sense and simple decency have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the way rules are applied. There's a lot of Hoo Hah in the Mail about the fact that Immigration Minister Damian Green wont give out the details, but Green's hands are tied as well, if he told the family, He would be likely to be sued by Hassan and frankly giving scum like that any money from the public purse goes completely against the grain too.
As for David Wicks, well, this is the result of your party when in government deciding that an overriding HRA was necessary to supersede the rights of freeborn Englishmen and women. Had your party not meddled with our vague constitution we would have known Hassan's status and we could have thrown him and others out without recourse to their right to privacy and a family life.
That you cannot find out Hassan's details is entirely the fault of your miserable excuse for a political party.

History a forgotten subject

2011-12-20T06:00:00.000Z

I love history, I love reading up on various aspects of both world, English and local history I find it endlessly fascinating and will occasionally indulge in what ifs as in what might have happened if things had gone differently. But history is also important if we are to remember who we are and how we got here which is why the latest figures on the number of schools who failed to enter a single pupil in GCSE history are so disturbing.
Telegraph.

More than 150 comprehensives failed to enter a single pupil in GCSE history exams last year amid fears the subject is becoming limited to private and grammar schools.
In Knowsley, a Merseyside local authority, just 11 out of 2,000 pupils took A-levels in the subject, with only four passing their exams.
The figures in a report published today suggest that pupils in areas like Knowsley are 46 times less likely to gain A-level history than more affluent places like Cambridge, where 665 out of 6,038 candidates sat the exam, 557 of whom passed.
Ministers are increasingly concerned about the pupils' level of historical knowledge when they leave school, with a recent study showing half of English 18 to 24 year olds do not know Nelson masterminded the British victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.
The report was produced by Chris Skidmore, a Conservative MP on the Commons All-Party Group on History.
It shows that fewer than 30 per cent of 16 year old state school pupils took GCSE History exams last year, while the figures in grammar and private schools were 55 and 48 per cent respectively.
In more than half of all state secondary schools, fewer than a quarter of eligible pupils take the exam, the report said.

I had the feeling that the socialist stranglehold in the teaching sector along with the previous governments wholesale dumbing down of education standards was quite deliberate when coupled with its multicultural and diversity driven agenda in order to destroy the English as a people. After all if we didn't know where we came from or why, then we could be moulded (in theory) to believe what they wanted. Not that the current government with its pseudo socialist Lib Dem minority has done much to reverse the trend until now and it may actually be too late to repair the damage for a generation or two at least and there's always the chance that people might be foolish enough to re-elect Labour again at some stage, after all the bribes to certain sectors of the populace were big enough. That coupled with simple spite and a calculating manipulation of the media always seems to put the Tories on the back foot and the liberal/socialist agenda over the last decade is still being slavishly followed by the current government, rather than by hacking away root and branch at the malaise caused by socialisms poisonous doctrines and removing its placemen from positions of power.
We forget who we are at our peril, it may be too late for the current generation, but it might not be too late to stop it for the next one.
We can but hope.

Trusting technology

2011-12-19T13:27:00.000Z

As an engineer I have a healthy respect for technology coupled with a great deal of cynicism with regard to what it can do and where it can go wrong. Take satnavs for instance, great if they work, but there are a worrying number of cases where people have been killed or injured by following the instructions given to the letter and ended up driving down the wrong way on a dual carriageway. Use of common (or what seems to be not so common) sense is a requirement. If anything they just increase the probability of someone getting it wrong, though a lot of people don't really need technology to help with that when out driving.
Express.

MOTORISTS are turning back to traditional maps because satnavs are so unreliable.
A third say they have become lost while using a satnav and no longer trust them to help get them to their destination.
And 81 per cent in a survey said they preferred to find their own way, if necessary using traditional maps, rather than rely on the hi-tech navigation gadgets.
They also said they became frustrated over the complexity of satnavs and preferred to listen to music or the radio rather than to their satnav’s voice instructions.
Many also complained they do not always find the most direct route.
Research by Kia Motors found that around four in 10 drivers will clock up an additional four hours of driving to visit relatives over the festive season.
But only 21 per cent said they would not need help with directions to get them to their destination.

Speaking as someone who drove all over the South-East in a previous job without the aid of a satnav and just a series of A to Z's roadmaps I can see their point, though reading one whilst on the move is not recommended. Any technology is only as good as its programming and many peoples idea of what's best or what works doesn't seem to quite fit in with what the satnav programmer's ideas are, that's of course assuming they have the right data programmed in the device in the first place, I passed a turn off up near the Scottish Border which has a hand made sign stating that they live on a private no-through road no matter what your satnav says. Nor will the same program be suitable for cars and lorries as many a trucker stuck under a low bridge will tell you.
Guess I'm just old fashioned, I like to plan my route out in advance using a map book and/or an online aid, I still don't trust technology to run my life, for all I use and fix it when at work. I doubt I'll ever get a satnav, I don't enjoy prattle when driving, the exception being my good Lady and I doubt she'd care for me calling her conversations prattle either. It comes down to trust in the end, I don't trust satnavs as useful as they might be, simply because the roads and conditions change and I'm damned if I'll let a machine tell me what to do, hence also my disdain for auto exchanges when dialing a company, I prefer to deal with people.
A lot of engineers are like me, perhaps it's because they deal with machines and technology day in day out.

Jollies and junkets

2011-12-18T11:47:00.000Z

Politicians and their party members have never shied away from milking the system often enough cadging a free holiday by way of a study visit, lasting a fortnight with a quick visit to some sort of edifice with photo shoot to show that they didn't spend all their time on the beach or partying. Pretty much the same went on at local government level with town twinning. So it's not too surprising that this goes on at EU level too and in the classical EU way there are few checks and balances within the system as according to the it would be “complex and time-consuming”, though in reality it's more down to them not giving a damn about our money as to the average politico it's actually their money.
Well now they are extending their largess to their political supporters...
Telegraph.

Even as it grapples with the financial crisis, the European Union is paying almost £25 million this year to subsidise the trips, arranged through MEPs.
The BNP, which has two Euro-MPs, has made heavy use of the scheme to thank some of its most prominent members at taxpayers’ expense. One BNP official boasted that it was “a good way of rewarding our activists” that “didn’t cost the party a penny”.
The trips are ostensibly “study visits” to the European Parliament buildings in Brussels or Strasbourg, but the holidaymakers need spend only a fraction of their time at the parliament to claim the full subsidy, which can be collected in cash without the need for receipts.

One subsidised trip to Strasbourg last week, promoted by the Labour MEP Peter Skinner, lasted six days, with only a few hours spent at the parliament.
The rest of the visit, according to a programme seen by The Sunday Telegraph, included a river cruise, a tour of the cathedral, a visit to the city’s Christmas market, champagne tasting, a battlefield tour in Ypres and sightseeing in Reims. Like most MEPs, Mr Skinner did not join the party, but hosted a free dinner for the participants.
Politicians of all parties help to arrange the trips. Hornchurch and Upminster Conservative Association advertised a break to Brussels, including return travel by Eurostar and a night in a city centre hotel, for £80.
“We have almost a whole day to sight-see, wander around the Christmas market and pick up inspiration for gifts,” said the association’s website.
Bill Newton-Dunn, the Liberal Democrat MEP, promoted a three-day weekend break in Brussels this month for £205, advertising it on his website as a “Christmas shopping” trip.

The article is mostly an attack on the BNP, though it's fairly obvious that all the political parties are rewarding their loyalists at taxpayers expense, these being the same political parties who are looking at taxpayer funding rather than individual funding for themselves as well. Problem is, they don't see what they are doing as wrong, that those who pay for subsidising their little junkets are struggling to make ends meet too.

Mr Butler defended the visits, saying: “Everyone had fun and it didn’t cost the party a penny. The trips are a good way of rewarding our activists for their hard work and dedication. Should we feel guilty for the Euro taxpayer? Certainly not.”

Conveniently forgetting that UK taxpayers are also EU taxpayers by various means as well, £9.2 billion at the last count.
We really do need to get out of the EU to stop this sort of thing, however as Richard North at EUreferendum points out, leaving will not work without a proper plan. But getting out of the EU will just be the start, we need to root out this sort of peculation and profligacy root and branch. I don't have a problem with politicians being paid a decent wage and recompense for genuine expenses, but I do have a great anger at them digging into the public purse for frivolity and junkets for their hangers on and political supporters. No-one should be getting any sort of subsidised holiday courtesy of the state as a reward for being attached to a political party.
The fact that they don't see anything wrong with it tells you all you need to know about the scum elected to represent us.

Questionable costs

2011-12-17T18:02:00.000Z

Translation services, that which are used by public services (and charged to us) are coming under increasing scrutiny as the real cost of them comes to light. After all no other country is insane enough to translate anything from its native languages without charging those who want it or requiring them to do their own translation. Try getting the French local or national government to translate anything for you into English and you'll see what I mean, they simply don't do that, you're in France, learn French.
Express.

COUNCILS are spending more than £1.1million a month helping residents who do not speak English, new figures reveal.
Taxpayers in England have had to foot a bill of £27million for translation and interpreting over the last two years – a staggering £37,000 a day
The total covers face-to-face interpreters, document translation and telephone assistance and comes as councils across the country are being forced to lay off tens of thousands of staff and cut back vital local services.
Some areas are seeing their bills soaring despite official guidance calling on local authorities to find ways of helping people learn English.
Figures provided by 354 local authorities in England show that over two years the bill for interpreting and translating was £26.5million.
Kent is the highest spending single authority in the country with a two-year bill of £1.9million.
However, the combined cost for the multi-cultural London boroughs is at least £10.3million.

These are totally unnecessary costs, if people want or need an interpreter, the cost should come out of their own pocket. The only areas I can see such services not doing so would be for emergency medical treatment and law enforcement where the police need to interview someone. Other than that, it's an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer and ought to be removed from any public service budget, if people come to England/UK then they should learn the language or if they wont learn the language then they pick up the tab for a translator. Personally I wouldn't dream of emigrating somewhere and not making a hell of an effort to fit in with local customs, this would include becoming fluent in the local tongue. The only alternative translations should be Welsh and Gaelic in the UK and then only in areas where they are spoken, I see no reason for Kent to provide a Welsh or Gaelic translation on any documents for anyone, though I would not charge a Welsh or Scots Gael for a translation service if required, being a native UK tongue, it would have to be asked for, but that's ok.
All in all I'm with Nick de Bois, Conservative MP for Enfield North,

I would argue that even if we were not living in tough economic times, the use of taxpayers’ money in this way is very questionable indeed.

This is an area where taxpayers should not be paying the bill and should never be picking up the bill save in exceptional circumstances. It's not our problem and local government and public services were very wrong to make it theirs.

Credo quia absurdum

2011-12-16T18:10:00.001Z

It strikes me as totally absurd that the small band of thieves* prosecuted over the expense scandal in Westminster should not face the full cost of their thievery as well as the full legal cost of their ridiculous attempt to use parliamentary privilege to exempt them from prosecution.
Yet that is what appears to be happening...
Express.

A RULING that expenses-cheat MPs will only have to pay just over a third of their £345,000 trial costs met with fury yesterday.
The decision means taxpayers will have spent more than £200,000 both to prosecute and defend former Labour MPs David Chaytor, Elliot Morley, Eric Illsley and Jim Devine.
The first three have asked to pay back £125,000 between them in legal fees while Devine, who cost £108,000 in legal aid and prosecution costs, was spared because he has been declared bankrupt.
Legal aid paid to the four totalled just over £245,000 while prosecution costs were estimated at nearly £100,000. The Commission which administers legal aid had applied for all its money back.
But judge Mr Justice Saunders said at Southwark Crown Court it would not be reasonable to demand repayment of costs incurred by Morley, Chaytor and Devine when they went to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court to argue that Parliamentary privilege exempted them from prosecution.

I somehow doubt, though I may be wrong, that anyone else would be treated so leniently (Well save if they weren't white angle Saxon, where different standards and rules apparently apply) Fact is, these people were crooks who took advantage of a lax expenses system to systematically loot the public purse, their only bad luck seems to be the fact that they were the only ones prosecuted. Their good luck (and all the other porcine purloiner's) is the fact that it wasn't me handing out a sentence of death pour encourager les autres. I'm not saying that those who run the country should not get adequately recompensed for doing their job, what I am saying is that those who run the country should also face some fairly extreme penalties for robbing the public and abusing their position. Though it became fairly obvious in the Blair years that the dishonourable members were looking after themselves first, middle and last, hence the removal of the death penalty for treason.
It's now long past time that our parliament needs to be reformed root and branch along with the civil service and various other public services, though unfortunately until we take to the streets and force them to reform at the point of a gun we have to rely on them doing it themselves, which essentially means never.

*Out of the rather larger band of thieves who got away with it.

Justice? For whom?

2011-12-15T16:55:00.000Z

Sometimes I wonder if the powers that be are deliberately trying to cause massive civil unrest in this country so they can step in with a brutal authoritarian regime, remove what few bits of democracy we have left and leave themselves as (very rich) kings of the hill lording it over an impoverished underclass who are grateful that the trains run on time and naughty people vanish without trace*. Other days like today I'm certain of it.
Mail.

An asylum seeker who raped a woman and dumped her on a rubbish tip when he was 'finished' has been freed despite Home Office attempts to deport him.
Alphonse Semo, 54, was jailed for eight years for the rape and at the end of his term was due to be sent back to the Congo.
However two hours before his flight he was given permission to marry his girlfriend and stay in the country.
Now a judge has allowed the father-of-five to be released from an immigration detention centre.
He has been fitted with an electronic tag and is required to check in regularly with the authorities.
The Home Office is still fighting to have Semo removed but he has applied for judicial review and the case could take the courts years to resolve.
Semo was told three years ago that he would be deported after serving the prison sentence he was handed in 2002.However, a Home Office blunder meant he was granted permission to wed his girlfriend, another refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo who became a German national, hours before he was to be sent back to Africa.

In any sort of civilised system, the question and various appeals wouldn't even arise, he committed a violent sex crime, was found guilty, he should go. Married or not, his Mrs could go with him if she wanted too (at her own expense) But no, this is the UK today where views which appear to be common sense to me are regarded by the liberal leftist ~~elite~~ morons pervading the various institutions of the state as being somewhat akin to those of Attila the Hun, save only that Attila being a foreigner would have more rights than you or I would. Most of this boils down to Labours introduction of the most divisive and subversive legislation aka the Human Rights Act, which is all about protecting the rights of criminals rather than honest folk. Yes I know the same rights (supposedly) apply to all, yet when the law is used to uphold an injustice and an affront to decency (the rights of the criminal as opposed to the rights of the victim) then there is something seriously wrong with the law. What rights you hold should be equated to what responsibilities you have, in that a law abiding immigrant need have no fear of being victimised or thrown out of the country whereas a criminal immigrant should fear such an outcome as it would be inevitable.
Alphonse Semo should not be here, end of. In any just society he wouldn't, which says a lot about the society Labour created for us.

* Unless they really are idiots

Here we go

2011-12-14T13:40:00.002Z

One of the more interesting aspects of Cameron's non-veto of the non-treaty is the reaction of the EUphiles pervading the evil empire. Instead of persuasion they immediately go to threats. The main one being the UK rebate, though the insults flying were mostly generic and empty threats.
Express.

EUROCRATS sparked fury last night by calling for Britain’s annual European Union rebate to be scrapped in revenge for David Cameron’s defiance of Brussels.

In an angry European Parliament backlash, foreign Euro MPs called for massive financial penalties for the UK in response to the Prime Minister’s refusal to back EU treaty revisions.

One even claimed ending the rebate was a suitable alternative to “a declaration of war” involving tanks and Kalashnikov rifles.

In a further salvo, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso accused Britain of risking the “integrity” of the EU’s single market.

The people who actually risked the integrity of the EU's single market were those in the various EU government and bureaucracy who allowed the poorer members of the EU to borrow against German economic stability. Though I suspect any attempt to remove the UK rebate would put Cameron in a position of being forced into a referendum on the EU, so goodness knows what the EUrocrats are thinking.

Yesterday cracks in the anti-British alliance began to show when Sweden’s government signalled it may not back the new eurozone “fiscal compact”. Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said: “It is very clear that we do not have all the facts and unless we have that, it’s tough to make a final verdict.”

Very predictable, the moment Cameron said no (to whatever he said no too) nobody else had too, making us the scapegoats for the whole farrago. Though again events today suggest that whatever agreement they came too would never be enough as the markets have already moved on and don't like the idea of a "fiscal compact" probably because it's unworkable.
I suspect though at the moment these are just words, people just taking the opportunity to do a little political bigotry under the pretence that somehow or other a political decision from one country is a personal affront to the rest of them. Still, if they keep it up, sooner or later the pressure on Cameron will force him to act, so I guess it's a case of "bring it on!"

Finally someone in the MSM gets it?

2011-12-13T06:52:00.000Z

Anti-white racism reared its ugly head recently, with the cases of Rhea Page and Emma West, both victims in differing circumstances (you might not agree with what Emma said, but to lock her up on remand and remove her kids would not happen to anyone who wasn't white or English) Yet apart from the storm of protest about the ~~non existent~~ lenient sentencing over Rhea Page, the MSM have ignored the real issue that's getting people in the majority ethnic group in the UK so enraged, the blatant double standards in justice for whites and anyone else.
Well, until now,
Express.

By Leo McKinstry

THE dogma of political correctness is dangerously weakening Britain’s traditional concept of justice.
Our ruling elite are so deluded by the ideology of cultural diversity that they have lost the ability to protect the innocent and punish the guilty.
That is the only conclusion to be drawn from the outrageous leniency shown by a court this week towards a gang of Somalian Muslim women who savagely beat up a white woman in Leicster city centre. In a brutal, unprovoked assault, the thugs knocked Rhea Page to the ground, then repeatedly kicked in the head while calling her a “white bitch” and “white slag”.
Ms Page, who was so traumatised by the incident that she has lost her job as a carer for people with learning disabilities, later said: “I thought they were going to kill me.”
Incredibly, despite the ferocity of the attack, the judge gave the girls only suspended sentences, even though he could have jailed them for up to five years.
His bizarre decision came after the defence told him that the Muslim assailants had been drinking and were “not used to being drunk” because of their religion.
As a cause for mitigation, this is absurd. Why on earth should Muslims be treated any differently to other offenders, simply on the grounds of their faith?
If they are so pious, so respectful of Islamic rituals, why were they drinking in the first place? And shouldn’t their drunkenness in public, an offence in itself, have added to the seriousness of their crime rather than lessened it?
The disgraceful message of this episode is that Muslims can get drunk and maim almost with impunity because the state is so craven about their creed.
The case makes a mockery of the idea of equality before the law - one of the cornerstones of liberal democracy.
The reluctance to imprison Ms Page’s attackers is so indicative of the supine, guilt-ridden mindset of our modern ruling class, where cowardice is dressed up as cultural sensitivity and self-loathing masquerades as tolerance.
This mentality, which is tearing apart the moral bonds of our civilisation, can be seen all around us. A classic recent example was the police’s initial paralysing feebleness towards the rioters last August because of fears about accusations of racism.
The same is true of the hesitancy in tackling so-called “honour” attacks on women in Muslim communities.
Only last week, it was revealed that the total of these appalling incidents, some of them fatal, is approaching 3,000 a year.
In a similar vein, the police and social services have long been terrified of talking openly about the growing problem of Pakistani gangs preying on white girls in northern towns.
As Detective Inspector Alan Edwards, an expert in the field, has said, “Everyone’s been too scared to address the ethnicity factor.”
In the twisted world of our civic institutions, minorities are always seen as victims.
Tremendous double standards are at work over race crime. Racial killings of whites are frequently downplayed or forgotten.
The name of Kriss Donald is almost unknown today, yet the circumstances of his death could hardly have been more horrific.
In March 2004, while walking through Glasgow, the 15-year-old schoolboy was kidnapped by a Pakistani gang, dragged to open land, tortured, stabbed 13 times and set on fire while he was still alive.
Fortunately the gang was caught and convicted, but this monstrous crime provoked no great outpouring of moral anguish.
Peter Fahy, one of Britain’s leading chief constables, once said that political correctness means it is “harder to get the media interested” when the victims are “young white men”.
The British establishment is guilty of nothing less than reverse racism. Their members, from judges to politicians, think
they are enlightened and compassionate. But in truth they are filled with prejudice.
For often they refuse to expect the same standards of civilised behaviour from certain minorities that they demand of the indigenous population.
Such a perverted outlook is the opposite of equality. In the name of anti-racism, they have ended up in the bizarre position of promoting discrimination.
That is no way to achieve the integration and cohesion that our society so badly needs.

Of course McKinstry ignores the one major contributing factor in all the other cases he mentions in that the perpetrators of all the crimes are of the Islamic faith. It's not just ethnicity, there's a religious factor too, one that promotes an uber menschen view of us and them with Muslims being at the top of the tree and everyone else being scum. I suspect that's one of the reasons that comments are not available for the article, the MSM know what's going on, but until now have not really raised the issue. Besides all the positive comments for the article plus the additional tales and names mentioned by the punters might just harm community cohesion.I suspect though like their anti-EU credentials that the Express is just dipping a toe into the water to see what happens (a smack down from the government or censure from the liberalist shills who have got us into this mess in the first place) if they get away with it perhaps we'll see the whole can of worms opened to the full view of the general public who know something smells rancid but who probably (unless they've researched the subject) don't know the full extent of the betrayal of this country to barbarians by the powers that be in the name of multiculturalism, diversity and community cohesion.
Will this be a case of too little, too late? Will the liberal elite take a blind bit of notice unless it affects them directly (unlikely) Or will they suddenly go through a Damascene conversion with the mob baying for blood outside their doors?
We live in interesting times, inflicted on us from above by those who do not have to live in the mess they make. Well I have news for them, payback when it comes will be a bitch!

Blinkered pygmies

2011-12-12T06:11:00.001Z

No, not just about the Lib Dems, but EUphiles in general. The problem being that they appear to define the UK's relationship with the world in strictly defined terms as seen from our relationship within the EU. They don't see that with the imminent collapse of the €uro that the UK was wise (or lucky) to stay out of it, they just foresee a day when we'd join it and they cannot understand why a nation with the fifth largest economy in the world should view itself differently from the European Union states who don't share our history, laws and culture (and vice versa) Hence the boy Clegg's outburst on the Andrew Marr show when he said "I think a Britain which leaves the EU will be considered to be irrelevant by Washington and will be considered a pygmy in the world when I want us to stand tall and lead." forgetting that the UK does not lead (and never has) the EU.
Express.

NICK Clegg provoked outrage last night by claiming that quitting the European Union would turn Britain into a “pygmy” on the world stage.
In an extraordinary live television rant that intensified the coalition war over Europe, the Lib Dem Deputy Prime Minister vowed to fight “tooth and nail” to stop the Government loosening its ties with Brussels.
His anger follows the Prime Minister’s veto of EU proposals to overhaul its rulebook in the wake of the euro crisis after David Cameron’s demands for safeguards for the City were rejected.
And Mr Clegg infuriated Eurosceptic Tory backbenchers by condemning them as “spectacularly misguided”.
But he caused most offence by suggesting that Britain’s international standing rested entirely on its membership of the EU.
He said: “I will fight that tooth and nail because I think a Britain which leaves the EU will be considered to be irrelevant by Washington and will be considered a pygmy in the world when I want us to stand tall and lead.”

Perhaps Washington will consider us irrelevant (until they need an ally to fight alongside them) though I suspect once Obama bites the dust the USA will get back on track with its economy and view the over taxed, over regulated EU with mild amusement. There's also the problem of the imminent collapse of the EU, despite all the grandstanding by the governments, a new “fiscal compact” will not resolve their problems but simply exacerbate them delaying the inevitable perhaps, though the markets will move on far more quickly than the EU governments can react. There's also the greed factor, particularly as shown by French President Sarkozy who came out with this astounding statement “You can’t have an offshore centre taking Europe’s capital.” forgetting that it isn't Europe's capital at all, it belongs to companies, individuals, pension funds and various other investors, not the EU and not the UK either for that matter, it provides a means to invest money and allocate it to areas where it will produce profits (and loss if they aren't careful) and it does it far better than the other financial centres of Europe, hence the French hatred of it.
No, the only pygmies are those who see the EU as some sort of ideal structure to be worshipped and adored and slavishly obeyed. They are the ones who have no vision of a free economy and a vibrant UK outside the constraints of an over regulated, corrupt and greedy system. That's why we need to get out, but they are too blinkered by their own beliefs to see that there's a better way for the UK.

I predict a riot

2011-12-11T13:47:00.001Z

Well, wouldn't you know it, the Home Office and the Police want to try out a new device that temporarily blinds rioters. A good idea in theory I guess, though their idea of temporary and mine might not gel too closely and you can bet the first person permanently blinded by it will be heading towards compo heaven.
Telegraph.

A shoulder-mounted laser that emits a blinding wall of light capable of repelling rioters is to be trialled by police under preparations to prevent a repeat of this summer's looting and arson.
The technology, developed by a former Royal Marine commando, temporarily impairs the vision of anyone who looks towards the source.
It has impressed a division of the Home Office which is testing a new range of devices because of the growing number of violent situations facing the police.
The developer, British-based Photonic Security Systems, hopes to offer the device to shipping companies to deter pirates. Similar devices have been used by ISAF troops in Afghanistan to protect convoys from insurgents.
The laser, resembling a rifle and known as an SMU 100, can dazzle and incapacitate targets up to 500m away with a wall of light up to three metres squared. It costs £25,000 and has an infrared scope to spot looters in poor visibility.
Looking at the intense beam causes a short-lived effect similar to staring at the sun, forcing the target to turn away.
"The system would give police an intimidating visual deterrent. If you can't look at something you can't attack it," said Paul Kerr, the firm's managing director, told The Sunday Times.

I wonder just what it would take for some bright spark to think that a rowdy demo is in fact a riot (in their mind) or for some pissed off copper to decide that a bunch of kids playing loudly need to be dispersed. Not saying it will happen of course, but for every tool that the police bring out, the frustration of those who do not like what the state gets up too at times grows as well.
Not that I approve of rioting or civil disruption, I just feel that in a lot of cases heavy handed policing and ridiculous laws along with a serious attitude problem in both the police and certain groups adds to a very heady brew at times and I really don't want the police to be thinking of these methods or have them deployed for use where they aren't needed. Certainly the recent riots in Tottenham and elsewhere could have been prevented or reduced in scope by the police cracking down hard initially rather than standing back. This, and 3 water cannon plus the increased training of police officers in plastic baton round training suggests simply that the government expects a lot more trouble in the future, but from whom and where remains a bit of a mystery, but if the powers that be have it, you can be sure at some stage they'll use it, probably on the wrong group at the wrong time.

Can someone please do something about this moron?

2011-12-10T12:25:00.001Z

Why is it that politicians can't seem to grasp just whose money it is they are giving away with their ridiculous beliefs? Take Chris Huhne (please, please, somebody!) Who believing in the fairy story of man made climate change has decided that it's ok to give away £6 billion of our cash whilst our pensioners look forward to a bleak cold winter with the stark choice of eat or heat the house.
Mail.

Climate talks hung in the balance last night with Britain pushing for a global deal to cut emissions in poorer countries which would cost British taxpayers £6billion.
Energy Secretary Chris Huhne told world leaders to commit to binding targets for greenhouse gases to keep global warming within 2c by the end of the century.
Yesterday he said he was hopeful that the ‘high ambition’ group would win out as talks continued late into the night on the last day of the United Nations climate summit in South Africa.
Britain and the rest of the EU want the world’s biggest polluters – the U.S., China and India – to agree for the first time to ‘legally binding’ caps as they account for nearly half the world’s emissions.
If they refuse to accept a ‘roadmap’ for a deal, the EU – which accounts for only 15 per cent of emissions – will not commit to a second period of the Kyoto Protocol which expires next year.
As well as a deal which Mr Huhne admitted ‘may go pear-shaped’, world leaders are expected to outline the details of a £64bn package to help the developing world cope with climate change.
The Green Climate Fund is set to cost Britain £1billion a year, or £6billion by 2020, to fund solar panels, flood defences and technology.

Imagine what the government could actually do with £1 billion? As in actually do something for the people in this country rather than give it away to kleptocratic dictators in foreign climes. But there seems to be no way of dealing with those in power who are fanatics in the green cause, the damned police wont even arrest Huhne over his alleged driving offences till after Christmas.
Instead we're left with the sickening sight of the imbecile doing his political posturing on the world stage for a failed, dis-proven, shambolic con trick foisted upon us by enviroloons, lying scientists and crooked politicians in another attempt to wreck our economy and give away taxpayers cash to the truly undeserving!
To paraphrase King Henry II "Will no one rid us of this turbulent politician?"

Saying no

2011-12-09T17:33:00.001Z

Well, as predicted, Cameron used the UK veto to prevent the UK from being drawn into negotiations on a new Eurozone treaty (there is no treaty as yet, despite claims by Cameron and the MSM), which from his point of view was probably the least worst option open to him. If he'd accepted the offer he would probably not be PM this time next year, if he'd called for a referendum, the Tory party would likely split down the middle (well more likely an 80/20 split) As it is, the only people he really upset were the Lib Dems and the odd few Tories who believe that some how or other being ruled by Brussels is better than actually doing their jobs.
As it is, Cameron opted for the only way to keep his job and keep himself marginally onside with the EU even if it huffed Sarkozy, still no doubt the EU will plan its revenge, though in this instance Cameron does hold a trump card in that if they pressurize him too much he can simply call an in or out referendum and ban any EU funding from being used for advertising.
What happens now though is anyone's guess, the rest of the EU have voted to start negotiations to hand control of parts of their economy to an EU regulator on financial services something which is unacceptable to UK interests and the financial centre of the UK in London if only because the way the EU does business is not the way we do and our model works very well creating massive profits and income for the UK. This essentially is at the nub of all EU attempts to regulate finance, the French and Germans want the "City" to play under their rules and transfer some of its business to France and Germany and so grab some of the profits for themselves. That was the reason behind the recent EU attempt to administer a Tobin tax on financial transactions, not because it would increase revenue for them, but because it would seriously impede the UK's financial markets where most of the financial transactions in the EU take place.
So, what's next?
Well Cameron is still under pressure from the EU and EUphiles, even if his popularity in his party has risen. Sooner or later the stresses this creates will force the Tories to decide if we really want to be in or out. Then they'll ask us or make an announcement to ask us and then, all hell will break loose.
To which I say, bring it on.

It might be inevitable, but don't expect it to be easy

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000Z

It does say something about politicians that sooner or later (usually later) they get the message about something the UK public has wanted for years. You can only lie, obfuscate and change your mind so often before an election before stuff comes back to bite you after all.
So it is with referenda and the EU and certain missed opportunities for a Tory leader who increasingly is looking ineffectual and out of touch with the national wishes. We want a referendum on the EU, he wont allow it and with the possibility of a new set of EU treaties being brought in to set up another doomed project of EU countries Cameron instead of saying we'll ask our people, has indicated he'll veto the procedure. Something that is going to make him very unpopular with both groups.
Express.

AN EU referendum on Britain's membership is now 'inevitable', a senior cabinet minister has claimed. Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson claimed proposals for closer fiscal union in the eurozone made it crunch time for Britain's future in Europe.
It came as Prime Minister David Cameron came under renewed pressure over Europe today on the eve of the latest summit, with London mayor Boris Johnson also demanding a referendum if the talks result in a new EU-wide treaty.
Mr Cameron promised the House of Commons during PMQs that he would safeguard Britain's interests at the European Council summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, when leaders of the 27 EU states will discuss a Franco-German plan for closer fiscal co-ordination between the 17 countries which use the euro.

The Euro is of course pretty much doomed, the politicians don't seem to realise as with the Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis of a previous Tory Administration, that it is now the markets who will decide if a fiscal union will work, certainly not the politicians, after all, their pronouncements are often too little too late as they seek to conserve their power rather than do what's right.
Many of us predicted this outcome years ago, though mostly we take no pleasure in it as lives will be ruined, pensions lost and businesses ruined, though admittedly the EU seems to be perfectly capable of managing that quite well by over regulation anyway.
So will we get a referendum?
Don't hold your breath, chances are we'll only get one if the politico's know they'll win, at the moment though they know they'll lose. So if we do, expect the question not to be a simple in or out, more of a "Do you wish to remain in the EU with all the benefits to you that it confers" and "Do you want the UK to go to hell in a hand cart if we leave the EU"
That's what we can pretty much expect, well that and the EU pouring millions (which it hasn't really got) into buying us off, like they did with the Irish, who probably now wish they'd voted no a second time.

Mind you, it might all come to nothing if the Dutch have a referendum

An unlikely political prisoner

2011-12-07T01:24:00.001Z

Tram woman Emma West is probably the most unlikely political prisoner in the UK, now world famous for her so called racist rant on a Croydon tram (11 million views so far) she has apparently been locked away on remand for her own protection after her magistrates appearance on Tuesday, in stark contrast to the Gravesend couple accused of child cruelty and abuse who had vigilante's outside their house and were oddly granted bail.

Eye witness account.

Up date on Emma West’s predicament, eye witness account, first hand from me , Frank.
Emma was advised by her council today to plead not guilty, much to the relief of the 30 odd people who had sat through the courts proceedings since 10 am this morning. This “racist woman” has elected to be tried in front of a jury, much to the frustration of the prosecution.
As a spiteful retaliation to her defiance, the crown opposed her bail, on the grounds that she has received death threats on fb. and twitter, so must remain in protective custody until her case comes up in the crown court in one weeks time. The prosecution also stated that the police were informed that Emma had received death threats on her mobile and her landline. Her family deny this.
Her defence argued that, even if her address was compromised by the media, her family, several of whom were present, could ensure her safety at any one of their homes.
The ethnic woman representing the crown insisted that fb. and twitter were a reliable source of evidence, and to the astonishment of the public witnesses, this was accepted as fact. Despite the magistrate in the middle, patronisingly informing the defence council that he was familiar with both media.
The defence then went on to say that even in the event that she was found guilty in the crown court, the maximum she could receive is a fine and a community service order, and that, after the week she has already spent in prison, she has already suffered more than her alleged crime prescribes.
The head honcho on the bench was not English, by his accent he was obviously north of the border, a Calvinist perhaps.
His annoyance at Emmas’ refusal to accept his judgement was ,,,, well you could almost taste it.
The magistrates then went out for a theatrical amount of time, and came back with the decision that was horribly predictable by now, That she be refused bail and remain in custody until her crown court appearance, for her own protection.
The press, her family, and many other interested parties arrived early to be sure to get admission to those proceedings today. We sat patiently through several cases, waiting for Emma to appear, including one of a white man in his 20s, early 30s, who was arrested out-side a primary school while he was masturbating. He was released on bail,with an exclusion order to stay 50yards from the school in Carshalton, and not to enter Short Lane, where the school is. I've not google earth it yet, but suspect that Short Lane is about 50 yards long. The magistrates were seemingly unaware of how many schools there are in the Croydon area.
So if I don’t sound like I’m more phukt off than anything I’ve ever been phukt off about before, then I’m proud of my self control.
There’s so much more to this, I trust you will be able to see it and point it out to me. I’m still partially blinded by a red mist.
The fiasco continues. I'll stay on the case. IT wasn't just to punish her, you can take this personally, it was done to cow the rest of us.Another own goal from the libtards. Every one who was there to witness that travesty just got out of their seats and walked out in contempt of those gutless dhimmis. None of that "The court will retire. All stand!" bollocks, we just walked out in disgust and left the class monitors sitting at the bench. Spontaneously.

I'm told on good authority that what started the rant was one of the other passengers spitting on the floor at her feet, there also appears to be a chunk missing from the middle of the video too, though we'll have to wait until the trial perhaps to find out what actually happened assuming the case isn't simply dismissed.
What the Crown Court will have to do is judge Emma's intent and that is the critical matter here, watching the video a few times it seems to me that for all the language, she never actually specifically targeted any one person and what the jury will have to decide is the intent of what Emma said and was it specifically racist. It is the intent that has to be judged. It may be that the jury will simply find her not guilty of intent, the full circumstances are still not known, but whatever happens a gross miscarriage of justice by the minions of the state is already in action, Emma will be denied a Christmas with her family all for a "crime" that would normally only have gotten a small putative fine under normal circumstances at worst and probably a simple ban from travelling by tram.
As it is Emma is now as far as I can see a political prisoner and this whole case has taken on a life of its own, get the popcorn in for January 3rd and lets see just what British justice is made of.

If you wish, you can send a Christmas card and personal support gift direct to Political Prisoner and English mother:

Emma West, c/o HMP Bronzefield, Woodthorpe Road, Ashford, Middlesex, TW15 3JZ

(Please remember the authorities open all post)

Doesn't add up

2011-12-06T13:54:00.001Z

According to the "experts" the UK could be heading towards a water shortage by the end of the century, conversely we'll also be at greater risk from flooding, which of course prompts the question, which is it?
Express.

A QUARTER of Britons could be short of water by the end of the century if climate change is not tackled, experts said last night.
The UK could also be at three-and-a-half times greater risk of flooding by 2100, says a report by the Met Office.
Projections for the impact of global warming on 24 countries were revealed during talks in South Africa.
Around 160,000 more people could be at risk of coastal flooding due to sea level rises, while 18 million could face water shortages.
The warnings come as parts of Britain suffer the driest 12 months on record. Global warming already means the UK has 35 more warm days a year than in the 1960s.
The report says most agricultural land will be more suitable for crops due to fewer frosts.

These experts from the Met Office, the same Met Office which cannot predict the weather next week can't have it both ways, even rising sea levels wont exactly be flooding as it will be an accomplished fact. Yes, it has been a warmer drier year, but that as the ecoloons often claim is just "weather" not climate (though only it appears when it suits their cause) And this warming? Well they've already admitted that the planet is going through another cooling phase like the one which lasted 300 or so years starting in the 1600's so what will it be like in 2100? Well, I don't know, I suspect they haven't got a clue either, but they're following an agenda which is not in yours or my interest anyway otherwise they'd not be doing what they're doing in squeezing us for money or adding additional taxation onto energy and fuel bills.
If they are worried about the possibility of a quarter of the UK population being short of water, then do something about immigration, reduce the population naturally rather than keeping the floodgates open and watching our population soar.
But then again, they wont get any cash from us for doing that.

Further inequality ?

2011-12-05T06:09:00.001Z

Further to yesterdays post on the inequalities in our legal system lets do another compare and contrast. In one corner we have Emma West, she's the woman who gained notoriety for (drunkenly?) mouthing off racist abuse on a train, whilst having one of her kids on her knee, unfortunately for her someone decided to film this and post it on Youtube, I'm sure you can still find it somewhere. As a result, there's a media/twitter frenzy and she's found, arrested, remanded in prison without bail and her kids taken away by social services. Normally you'd only end up on a section 5 public order offence, which in normal circumstances (assuming they even bothered arresting you) would get you a spot fine of £80. Now I don't know Emma West, it might be that she's exactly what the Youtube video portrays her as, though I would like to know what set her off and why there appears to be a chunk missing out of the middle of the video. I do know remanded in custody and your kids taken away from you is a disproportionate punishment for saying what you think, however warped your views are, but Emma was caught abusing a group protected by the state and for the temerity of saying what she did the full (unequal) weight of the law came down on her.
However yesterday the main horror story was of a 1 month old baby (rumoured to be a boy) who ended up in hospital with a broken arm, a broken collarbone, punctured lungs and severe bruising. and fractured ribs, with all the signs of a sexual assault too. On this too, people are up in arms, even vigilante action has been threatened. Yet the people arrested were bailed and released.
You can see the hypocrisy in our legal situation in its full measure here say some hateful words on video about a group of people the state for some reason or other gives special protection too, get remanded in custody and your kids taken away. Be arrested for a horrific assault on a 1 month old baby, get released on bail, with the possibility of a Christopher Jefferies situation developing.
(On December 30, Jefferies was arrested on suspicion of murder.He was questioned for three days and then released on police bail, an indication that he remained under suspicion. Three weeks later a Dutchman, Vincent Tabak, was arrested and charged with the murder, but it was not until March 4 that Jefferies’ bail was lifted and police confirmed he was not a suspect.)
No, I'm not saying that the people arrested for doing this are guilty, that's for an investigation and prosecution to determine and yes Emma West was caught bang to rights, although with the proviso's I mentioned. Yet the way the law has treated the people in these two cases is entirely different. The reaction by law enforcement for saying something and doing something is seriously out of kilter here.

Bet this doesn't go down as a hate crime

2011-12-04T07:49:00.001Z

One of the things I occasionally rail at is the double standards in the law in which if a violent crime is committed by a white person against someone of a different colour it's treated differently if the positions were revered. A case of if you're white you have to prove an attack against you was racist, whereas if you're the perpetrator you have to prove it wasn't, for as we all know, only white people can be racist..
Mail.

A teenager has been viciously stabbed to death as he tried to flee a gang of youths.
Police launched a murder investigation after 18-year-old Danny O'Shea was found bleeding from stab wounds in Gill Avenue, Newham, east London last night.
A police spokesman said earlier that next of kin had been informed but formal identification had not yet taken place.
There have been no arrests.John MacDonald, detective chief inspector of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command, said: 'We believe that the victim may have been chased from Butchers Road at the junction of Hooper Road down into Boreham Avenue, E16. The people chasing him comprised of a group of black males.

I'd also care to place real money that if the police do not catch the perpetrators, this poor young man will not be another Stephen Lawrence and have millions spent over him trying to prosecute again and again just to make yourselves appear not institutionally racist.
Danny O'Shea, if he were any colour other than white have a publicity campaign whipped up by a media frenzy if he had been stabbed by a group of white males. No stone would have been left unturned, public enquiries would have been instituted and the state would have spent millions on investigating the causes and trying to place the blame on the indigenous (racist) English.
I do hope the ones who did this are caught, but you can bet your bottom dollar that it will be almost impossible to prove this was a race hate crime, whereas if the colours were reversed, it would be almost impossible to prove it wasn't.
Such is the hypocrisy built into our social and legal systems, where only those who are not white English get the full benefit of the law and our legal system.

Without honour

2011-12-03T09:45:00.001Z

There were over 2,000 so called "honour" attacks last year in the UK, mostly against vulnerable women and all committed by members of the other than white multicultural parts of our society.
BBC.

UK police recorded at least 2,823 so-called honour attacks last year, figures from 39 out of 52 forces show.
A freedom of information request by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (Ikwro) revealed that nearly 500 of these were in London.
Among the 12 forces also able to provide figures from 2009, there was an overall 47% rise in such incidents.
Honour attacks are punishments on people, usually women, for acts deemed to have brought shame on their family.
Such attacks can include acid attacks, abduction, mutilations, beatings and in some cases, murder.
Ikwro said its research, carried out between July and November, is the best national estimate so far of the extent of honour violence in Britain, although the charity says the figures do not give the full picture.
A quarter of police forces in the UK were unable or unwilling to provide data and communities have often been reluctant to talk about the crime, Ikwro said.
Its director Diana Nammi said families often tried to deny the existence of honour attacks and those who carried them out were "very much respected".
She told the BBC: "The perpetrators will be even considered as a hero within the community because he is the one defending the family and community's honour and reputation."

The Western concept of honour was always to protect the weak and defenceless and the worst thing that used to happen in the occasional case of a knocked up daughter was a shot gun wedding. No, I'm not saying that we're saints or anything of the sort, just that our concept of honour never included mutilation, acid attacks, abductions or murder, certainly not these days. Nor can you escape the hypocrisy of the situation where many of the men in these communities see white western women as whores to be used yet will kill their own sister/daughters if they even attempt to live the same lifestyle as the men.
We really ought to change the wording of this sort of activity, there is no honour in it at all, though I'm a bit stumped as to what we could call it, something that when charged would bring ridicule and shame on the perpetrators would do, perhaps honour violation will do.
We'd probably have done this country a lot more good if we'd just allowed the ladies to come here and not their men. It seems we have opened the gates to barbarians in the name of multiculturalism and tolerance.

Suppression

2011-12-01T05:00:00.000Z

We all know the MSM and the leftist National Union of Journalists suppress certain articles or alters them for the publics perception to fall generally in line with left = good, right = bad. Which is why when you know how to read media "code" you know that to tag right wing onto anything is to imply racism, fascism, or just plain evil in a way that to tag anything as left wing does not impute the amorality, greed, envy, corruption, evil and plain stupidity that that particular doctrine promotes as a matter of course. Which isn't to say that all left wingers are evil, simply that those who rise to the heights in the "left" (basically those on the extreme left as normal people really can't afford the time to do so having real lives) are generally corrupt mendacious control freaks and pretty much the mirror image of the authoritarian "right" those who would seek to control the general mass of humanity for their own selfish ends.
Still it's always interesting when someone in the media blurts out a home truth as opposed to the official line, which is what former Daily Star journalist Richard Peppitt did during the Leveson enquiry into press standards and ethics, which is currently being held in the High Court in London. ...

Seems the Daily Star deliberately suppressed information by which support for the EDL could be gauged with over 2,000 calls to an online survey (they usually only get 10) and 99% in favour of the EDL's (unstated) policies and this was deliberately suppressed by the MSM and the NUJ
As far as I'm aware other than the recent Demos survey (downloadable here), there has never really been any attempt to try and estimate just what level of public support an organisation like the EDL might have or just who or what their membership such as it is contains, even the Daily Stars heavily edited response to the poll was attacked from every angle.
No, I'm not suggesting that the EDL has 99% public support, but and it's a big but, there seems to be an active collusion in the MSM and government to cover up what level of support it has, along with increasing vilification in the press over its activities as well as attacks by the police when they weren't doing anything unlawful along with attempts to ruin its leaders business and wreck his and his families life.
The EDL are only one of a number of such groups who seem to have their activities misrepresented in the MSM by the NUJ and their infamous and insidious "guidelines" in which they seek to suppress the truth and the feelings of the general public to the previous governments attempts to rub the rights face in multiculturalism.

H/T Vlad Tepes blog for the find.

A sense of entitlement

2011-11-30T11:00:00.000Z

30th of November will be a momentous day for some, it's my good lady's and my first Granddaughters birthday, though I suspect a lot of people in the UK will associate it with another attempt by the left leaning public service unions to keep the publics cash flowing in their direction.
You have to wonder a little at the seeming right of entitlement by the public sector workers to the publics cash to top up their pension schemes. In effect they are trying to protect what I suppose is a state of status quo in which people like me who work in the private sector are being asked to support those who can retire early on an index linked pension whilst the rest of us who earn less and are going to be forced to retire at 67 sooner than we like and get poorer pensions to boot.
They seem to believe they'll have overwhelming public support (unlikely) and that somehow or other the government will just magic up the means to pay them, after all that's what the government to in the weird and wacky world of the left where money just grows on trees and doesn't come from the pockets of those who actually produce something rather than
*Can't really see a problem with this at all...
BBC.

More than one million public sector workers in England, including teachers and civil servants, are set to strike on Wednesday over changes to pensions.
About 90% of the 22,000 state schools in England are likely to be closed, the government said.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) said public sector workers had seen a "triple assault" on their pensions.
The government said the cost of public service pensions had risen by a third in a decade so changes were needed.
The impact of the strikes will be felt across the country, with some flights expected to be delayed, health and care services affected and many public buildings closed.

Oh I'm sure there's a case to be made about honouring a contract for those who joined the public services, I'm also sure the unions will screech on about nurses, policemen, firefighters etc and quietly ignore the diversity co-ordinators and five a day supervisors who also suckle at the public teat and whom tales of startling inefficiency, absenteeism and plain old skiving often come to light in various surveys. Not that the private sector is immune from such things, just it is usually swiftly dealt with and rarely endemic.
I expect both sides to claim a victory tomorrow, though I suspect that a lot of careful analysis of the protests will also be done by both sides to see what the general level of support is.
Either way, the only losers will as ever be the long suffering public.

*Caution, use of irony in progress.

And plan C is?

2011-11-29T13:11:00.001Z

The Chancellor will be telling us (again) that due to Labours attempts to ruin the country as an act of wanton spite knowing they were going to lose the election he's going to borrow more (and spend more). He's calling it sticking to plan A and will take up to 2017 to pay off the debt. He could do it quicker, but he still wants to spend our money on non-essentials such as giving African nations up to a billion to fight ~~global warming~~, ~~climate change~~, global climate disruption. As well as increasing the foreign aid budget.
Mail.

'We must stick to Plan A': Osborne to outline measures to boost Britain's shrinking economy as UK debt 'won't be paid off until 2017'
£380m to double free nursery places for toddlers
Rise in fuel duty will be postponed
Rail fares capped at 1p above inflation next year
£30bn programme of public investment and infrastructure spending to boost growth
Rise in pension age to be brought forward
Ed Miliband: 'I hope the Chancellor, in the interests of the nation, will change course today'
George Osborne will today outline plans to boost the economy amid gloomy predictions of a double-dip recession caused by the eurozone debt crisis.
The Chancellor will warn that Britain faces more years of austerity as it is forecast that the deficit will not be eliminated until 2017, two years later than planned.
It is the toughest challenge yet for Mr Osborne, who has come under criticism for refusing to consider an economic 'Plan B' which would slow deficit reduction in order to promote growth.
His Autumn Statement comes just a day after the OECD predicted that the UK could slip back into recession over the next few months.
Measures the Chancellor is expected to announce today include a huge investment in infrastructure, a freeze in fuel duty and a doubling of nursery school places.

Nowhere does either plan seem to include taking a chainsaw to the state and massively reducing the functions this and previous governments have saddled us with. Nowhere does there seem any plans to rid us of the crippling climate levy and nowhere is there any real plan to get industry and trade going by the subsequent tax reductions cutting back on what the state does would give us. Simply declaring that any company setting up would pay zero tax for 5 years in the UK if they took on ex public servants and turned them into productive citizens would be a start. Though no doubt there's some sort of EU regulation preventing this, still if we left the EU that would save us a small fortune too. Anyone else see the advantages of offering businesses a chance to set up cheap on the outside of the EU looking in without having to pay their ridiculous tariffs? After all a lot of their business could be done online and the EU exports a lot more to us than we export to them so they're not going to crap in their own nest and stop trying to sell us stuff.
No, Osborne is going to play the same tired old game with the same results, high taxation, high government spending and a long cruel recession thrown onto the top of all that. Being on the inside he really doesn't see that the problem is the state and that the solution is to reduce it and its powers.
But then again he wouldn't, would he?

Dark days

2011-11-28T17:17:00.001Z

My father was diagnosed with having an untreatable cancer today, he's in good spirits, but the experts reckon on about a year. He's off to see some more specialists next month for chemotherapy to see if they can contain it, though sadly not get rid of it.
On top of this one of my good Lady's brothers also has an inoperable tumour, nothing they seem to be able to do is having an effect on it. He's not doing so well either.
Seems I'm going to be doing some travelling over the next few months to a year.

Goodbye's are so very hard.

This isn't saving us anything

2011-11-27T10:03:00.001Z

I don't know if it's the MSM or politicians, possibly it's both who seem to think that we're stupid when they trumpet headlines saying "George Osborne to announce pain relief plan for 'squeezed middle'" Then when you read through it looking for details, you find there's nothing of the sort, just a load of hot air.
Telegraph.

The Chancellor will attempt to give families and firms some relief from rising prices and stimulate the economy amid a backdrop of continuing gloom and falling growth.
He will use his Autumn Statement on Tuesday to appeal to the key political constituency of the “squeezed middle” — hard-pressed families on middle-to-lower incomes whose votes will decide the next general election.
He will announce changes to a funding formula that would have seen rail ticket prices rise by more than eight per cent from January.
The rise — affecting season tickets and peak fares across Britain, as well as the Tube and buses in London — will now be just over six per cent. George Osborne is also expected to confirm there will either be a freeze or delay in a 3p rise in fuel duty, again planned for January.
Motoring groups have said the planned rise, combined with an annual inflation-linked increase due in August, would lift the cost of petrol by 8p a litre from next summer.

Can you see any money coming back into your own pockets there? Damned if I can, all that's been announced is he might no allow planned "increases" which to me isn't a saving at all. I like many others in the private sector got no pay increase this year, yet our costs went up, council tax, fuel and the associated knock ons with fuel increases such as higher food prices as well as goods and services. To add insult to injury the government despite the ever increasing evidence that it's a scam and we know its a scam are continuing with their green levy's as well as announcing that by 2016 all houses built must be carbon free and run carbon free energy wise thus making sure that the price of a new home goes up possibly by 2/3rds, yet they still intend to use our money to guarantee the mortgages for those places.
So what we have is an example of soundbite politics, it's not even a good soundbite either because once you look past the headline, the "squeezed middle" will still be feeling squeezed, just not as much as those greedy morons running the country had initially planned on doing.
We need a revolution now, to get us back to sound fiscal government who run the country for the people, not their own vanity projects, we need to take a chainsaw to the state and those who suckle at the teat of the state. We need to make sure after its done and dusted and the last of them have breathed their last at the end of a noose, that the next government will never ever be in a position to increase our taxes without asking us by referendum first.
It's definitely time for change.

Back

2011-11-26T18:32:00.001Z

Well I'm back and refreshed from a couple of days down in Bournemouth and the New Forest, a pretty quiet time for myself and my good Lady.

Bournemouth was unusual in that I had it in my minds eye that it was some sort of seedy coastal resort which had seen better days and was full of retired people. To my amazement it was full of young people, looked very affluent and we had the unusual experience of being the oldest people in a cinema (we're in our very low 50's) by a hell of a margin I don't think anyone else was over 25. We didn't feel threatened even wandering about with a street map and looking like tourists and people were friendly and very helpful, it was like going back in time 30 plus years without the appalling fashion sense. Recommended restaurant Coriander, a Mexican restaurant that's very, very friendly, recommended pub, The Goat and Tricycle, for a fabulous selection of real ale.
It was the trips out and the walking that we were really there for, visiting Lulworth Cove and walking along the clifftops to the Durdle Door.

Lulworth Cove

Durdle Door

We also walked in the New Forest, a truly beautiful place and found a superb pub too with incredible doorstep sandwiches.

Lyndhurst Parish, New Forest

Good pub, good beer, good food, heaven on Earth.

So, I'm back, I've ate too much, drank too much and had too good a time, but will turn my eye back to the world tomorrow, to see what I can see. Until then, life is good.

Back today

2011-11-26T07:00:00.000Z

Back today, but not blogging

The anger resumes tomorrow.

Still away #2

2011-11-25T07:00:00.000Z

Is this what happens to us all in the end?

I hope not, I'm still fighting.

Still away

2011-11-24T07:00:00.000Z

More from Frank, summing up my darker moments.

Parish notice

2011-11-23T07:00:00.000Z

I'm off gallivanting with my good Lady for a few days in the glorious English countryside/coastal areas. Will be back Saturday evening, but probably wont resume blogging till Sunday.
Till then, enjoy this, which encapsulates part of my outlook on life.

Money, money, money

2011-11-22T06:00:00.000Z

Four headlines and four attempts for either the government or others to get hold of our money via the government.
BBC.

Eighteen Church of England bishops have signed an open letter, criticising the government's proposed welfare changes.
In the letter, in The Observer, the bishops express concerns about plans to limit the amount any household can claim in benefits to £500 a week.

£500 a week? Dear Lord! What planet are they living on? As the only working person in my household I bring in just above that and work 4 on 4 off 12 hour shifts and these Bishops say that people who are on benefits should be able to claim more than someone on the average wage and who works for a living actually brings home. They just don't get it do they? What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. Basic morality really though these Bishops seem to have forgotten that principle.
Telegraph.

The Prime Minister and his deputy, Nick Clegg, will unveil proposals to help first-time buyers of new homes by carrying part of the risk of their mortgages.
They also propose subsidising the construction of 16,000 homes by giving £400 million of taxpayers’ money to property developers.
In a further move, ministers are working on a scheme under which billions of pounds of money in pension funds will be used to finance the construction of power stations, wind turbines and roads.

Have these morons not heard of the federal mortgage protection agency that became known under the friendly acronym Fannie Mae? This was the organisation in the USA which did exactly the same thing that Cameron and Clegg are proposing to do, it went bankrupt and American taxpayers are having to pick up the results of that. As for the windfarm rubbish, I'm with Prince Philip on that one all the way.
Express.

FIRMS should get cash handouts from the Government for offering jobs to poorly-qualified British youngsters rather than migrants, the country’s top business leader said last night.
The astonishing suggestion by John Cridland, director-general of the Confederation Of British Industry, threatened to ignite a fresh “British jobs for British workers” discrimination row.
“If we gave employers £1,500 as a cash subsidy to take on a 16-year-old, they might take on a 16-year-old with lack of work experience and sometimes poor qualifications rather than a migrant worker or a mature worker who has got those skills,” he said in an interview on the eve of the CBI annual conference, which opens today in London amid growing calls for radical action by the Government to stimulate economic growth.

Or how abouts we actually come up with an education system that doesn't deposit semi-literate 16 year olds out into the big wide world? Get rid of all the crap about racism, the environment, religion that kids have to go through and actually make the little buggers learn something. Set up apprenticeship schemes by all means but drop this get everyone into uni nonsense only the top 10% should be going there and if they were it should be ok to make it free. Sort out the education system and the CBI should stop asking for our money.
Get us out of the EU and stop immigration... Sorted.
Mail.

Toll lanes to relieve the congested road network are to be built as part of a major Government drive to kickstart the economy.
Firms will be asked to construct dedicated ‘express lanes’ alongside busy sections of motorways and trunk roads.
Drivers using the lanes would be billed per journey, with the profits going to the private sector.

I can see why the Tories think this is a brilliant idea, they won't have to pay for it or maintain it, the problem I foresee is road rage as those of us who cannot afford to pay up are stuck in congestion whilst those who can get pranged by others who resent the £50 billion in motoring taxes of which only £7 billion are spent on roads and don't see why we don't have the best roads in Europe for our hard earned cash being spent on things it's not supposed to be.

And they wonder why we hate and despise them?

There's no fool like an old fool.

2011-11-21T07:13:00.001Z

You can tell the EUphiles are getting desperate when they start wheeling out the likes of Michael Hesletine to try and salvage their position. hen again I might be wrong and it's the EUsceptics who let him have his rave as it certainly will not have done the EUphile cause any good at all, still I think I'll apply Occams razor and assume Hesletine thought he might actually be doing his cause some good.
Express.

FORMER Cabinet Minister Lord Heseltine fuelled Tory tensions over policy on Europe yesterday by insisting that Britain will join the euro.
The Tory peer, who is an adviser to David Cameron on economic growth, claimed the ailing single currency will survive the present crisis and grow stronger, eventually leading to the UK scrapping the pound.
And he further infuriated Conservative Euro-sceptics by describing the European Union as a “remarkably successful adventure”.
His outburst, in a BBC interview, came amid new signs of Tory splits on policy towards the EU.
London Mayor Boris Johnson, seen by some as a future Conservative leader, rubbished the Prime Minister’s call for a “big bazooka” euro solution.
The controversy left senior party figures again at odds over Europe.
Lord Heseltine said: “I think we will join the euro. I think the chances are the euro will survive because the determination, particularly of the French and the Germans, is to maintain the coherence that they’ve created in Europe. “My guess is that they will find a way through. I hope they will, because the downside for the British economy of the euro going under is catastrophic.”

Utter bollocks of course, even his later assertion that the EU prevented war is an outright lie, what prevented a war was American troops on German soil and a very dangerous Soviet Union poised to gobble up the European states if they collapsed. Now there's no Soviet Union, few if any American troops and Germany is suddenly flexing its economic muscles again despite or because of the EU, it makes no difference, Germany is the EU's economic powerhouse, its will, will prevail eventually as Greece and Italy have suddenly found out. The other sniggeringly hilarious detail Hesletine appears to have forgotten is that the UK would require a referendum on joining the €uro, unless of course our politicians decide not too, though I suspect even those parasites know their heads would go into the noose if they did.
Can anyone imagine the UK voting to drop the pound and join the €uro? Even in their wildest federast dreams, the EUphiles know they wont get away with that one.

Following the money

2011-11-20T11:52:00.001Z

Just when the enviroloonies think they've gotten into the clear with their ~~global warming~~, ~~climate change~~, global climate disruption scam along comes another bit of evidence linking those who promote the scam to ~~brown envelopes stuffed with cash~~ to grants from the Climactic Research Centre who were at the eye of the storm when the CRUtape leak was uncovered. Step forward Roger Harrabin the BBC’s ‘environment analyst’ who accepted ~~bribes~~ grants from the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to fund an ‘ad hoc’ partnership he ran with a friend.
Mail.

A senior BBC journalist accepted £15,000 in grants from the university at the heart of the ‘Climategate’ scandal – and later went on to cover the story without declaring an interest to viewers.
Roger Harrabin, the BBC’s ‘environment analyst’, used the money from the University of East Anglia’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to fund an ‘ad hoc’ partnership he ran with a friend.
Mr Harrabin, an influential figure who both broadcasts and advises other BBC journalists, later reported extensively about Climategate. The scandal erupted two years ago when emails were leaked from the Tyndall Centre’s sister department, the Climatic Research Unit at the same university.
The leaks left the scientific community in dis-array after claims that key data was manipulated in the run-up to a major climate change summit.
An official inquiry later found that although there had been no scientific fraud, there was ‘a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness, both on the part of CRU scientists and on the part of the UEA’.
In none of Mr Harrabin’s reports on the subject were the grants that he and his friend Dr Joe Smith had received from UEA ever mentioned. However, BBC insiders claim that the use to which the money was put – annual Real World seminars for top BBC executives on issues including climate change – had a significant impact on the Corporation’s output.
‘The seminars organised by Roger and his friend were part of a process which has effectively stifled all debate within the BBC about man-made global warming,’ said one senior journalist. ‘As far as the high-ups are concerned, the science is settled.’

Ok, grants are a legitimate part of research and promotion of a position, however when working on something promoting an issue it's customary to have to declare an interest, though in today's climate (no pun intended) this seems to have evaded the political classes as witness the recent flurry of Labour MP's not declaring the fact that they were paid cash by Unions to amend legislation. It's the same with the higher ups at the BBC too, as far as they are concerned the science is settled so what's the odd ~~bribe~~ grant here and there as it doesn't matter anyway the planet is going boil in a decade or so or we're all going to drown unless we go back to living like medieval peasants (except for environmentalists, politicians and the rest of the political classes)
Still it's one more section to the web of lies we've been fed over the last decade or so and sooner or later I expect the political classes will try to come up with a new scam.
Seems even Prince Philip is in the know now...
Telegraph.

In a withering assault on the onshore wind turbine industry, the Duke said the farms were “a disgrace”.
He also criticised the industry’s reliance on subsidies from electricity customers, claimed wind farms would “never work” and accused people who support them of believing in a “fairy tale”.
The Duke’s comments will be seized upon by the burgeoning lobby who say wind farms are ruining the countryside and forcing up energy bills.
Criticism of their effect on the environment has mounted, with The Sunday Telegraph disclosing today that turbines are being switched off during strong winds following complaints about their noise.
The Duke’s views are politically charged, as they put him at odds with the Government’s policy significantly to increase the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines.

One of the advantages of not having to please political opinion is the ability to speak the truth, I may not like all he has to say, but by God I'm glad he does say it, unlike his moron of an eldest son.

Is it cos he's black?

2011-11-19T07:00:00.000Z

First, let me be clear, I do hope that those who murdered Stephen Lawrence do finally face justice, though I do have some very severe qualms at the lengths that the police seem to want to go to prosecute someone for this crime. Currently the cost of bringing another trial to attempt to prosecute the current defendants has reached well over £10 million including the Lawrence Inquiry plus various other attempts to place the perpetrators at the scene of the crime.
Wikipedia.

Stephen Lawrence (13 September 1974 – 22 April 1993) was a black British teenager from Eltham, southeast London, who was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993.
After the initial investigation, five suspects were arrested but never convicted. It was suggested during the course of investigation that the murder had a racist motive and that Lawrence was killed because he was black, and that the handling of the case by the police and Crown Prosecution Service was affected by issues of race, leading to an inquiry.
In 1999, an inquiry headed by Sir William Macpherson examined the original Metropolitan police investigation and concluded that the force was "institutionally racist". The inquiry has been called 'one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain'. The report of the examination's work and conclusions was published in 1999 as The Macpherson Report.
On 18 May 2011, it was announced that one of the original suspects, and another man, are to stand trial for the murder in the light of "new and substantial evidence" becoming available. A jury was selected on Monday 14 November 2011, and the trial started on the following day.

I cannot remember a more sustained campaign to find justice for a young man, though I was more than a bit surprised to learn that he had a plaque marking where he died, I know he's famous (for a given value of famous) but not in the respect that a plaque should be awarded, such is the politically correct frenzy surrounding the manner and means of his death and its supposed racist connotations. Yet I cannot help wondering if there were to be the same sort of outcry and sustained attempts to jail anyone if Lawrence were in fact a white teenager.
Guardian.

On a mild November evening in 2003, 14-year-old Charlene Downes kissed her mum goodbye and walked with a friend to visit the Carousel bar on Blackpool's North Pier. When she failed to come home by the following morning, police circulated her description.
Last year, the trial of two men accused over Charlene's murder was halted when the jury failed to reach a verdict. The subsequent retrial collapsed owing to concerns over a key prosecution witness. Both men were cleared of the charges. The case is still open.

Rumour still has it that Charlene was fed into a mincer and fed as kebabs to unsuspecting punters. The two convicted eventually got compensation from the state for winning their trial, the police however aren't looking for anyone else.
Democracy forum.

Nineteen-year-old Gavin Hopley and his two friends were making their way home to Rochdale after a night out in Oldham when they inadvertently wandered into the Muslim-dominated 'no-go' area of Glodwick and were chased and attacked by a gang of, at least, ten Muslim men and youths.
Unfortunately, though his two friends escaped, Gavin was cornered and brutally beaten by the gang with his head stamped on repeatedly by his assailants. After the attack, a kindly elderly Muslim lady called the emergency services and covered the unconscious teenager with a blanket. He never regained consciousness and later died in hospital.
Six men were eventually jailed for violent disorder and theft following the attack in February 2002 on Gavin Hopley, but no one has been successfully prosecuted for his murder. All of them now walk the streets of Oldham, ostensibly free men, but the abolition of the double jeopardy law which prevented repeat prosecutions can put that in doubt should fresh evidence emerge.
At the time, Gavin's parents issued a public condemnation of certain members of the Muslim community in Oldham for protecting the culprits.
The killers of Gavin Hopley got off, just as those of black teenager Stephen Lawrence did. But how many people know about and remember Gavin Hopley?

Again, the police are not looking for anyone else, as far as they are concerned the case is closed.
So I'm wondering if justice in the UK is based on the colour of your skin, certainly appears to be the case in the Lawrence trial where the police after the Macpherson report on the Lawrence murder accused them of institutionalised racism, but the two I've mentioned have yet to get any justice, there are others out there too let down by a system that seems now to be designed that only if you're not white will you get justice and expenditure on your death.
I do hope that those who murdered Lawrence get justice, but I am truly saddened by the fact that there are so many white murder victims by coloured people who will not.

Pot, kettle

2011-11-18T16:00:00.000Z

In a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black Labour have accused the government of intending to borrow more than they originally intended. This would be the same Labour party behind the tax and spend initiatives which have pretty much left the country bankrupt and needing to borrow in the first place.
BBC.

The government could borrow over £100bn more than it planned to up to 2015, according to Labour.
The party compared Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts from November 2010 with the latest estimates.
Labour said it showed the government's plans were "reckless" but Economic Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke said the claims were "nonsense".
Meanwhile, Labour leader Ed Miliband will later urge ministers to change course away from economic austerity.

So we have a case for Labour accusing the government of borrowing more and the leader of the Labour Party calling for an end to austerity economics, which I suspect would mean the government borrowing more.
Fact of the matter being, we are where we are economically because of massive Labour overspending and a new government far too weak owing to the vacillations of its leader before the election to effectively tackle the overspending by taking a chain saw to the state budget and shifting the public spending over into tax relief for any employer taking on ex public servants. The Labour government were also responsible for the massive increase in uncontrolled immigration putting a further burden on our public services by their insistence that they did not have to integrate but that the state would enforce measures to allow them to remain separate with translation services and various other means which pandered to the alien societies within our midst.
I realise that it's the oppositions job to oppose the government, but really when it comes to economic statements, the Labour Party should really just keep its mouth firmly shut.

Not so quietly abolished

2011-11-17T10:34:00.001Z

Suckling at the state teat has become a truly outlandish business for various "experts" in all sorts of fields where they can pronounce their current bias against anything the public seem to enjoy doing. Of course, when a new government gets in and starts threatening the finance you can hear the squeals in the press, even if it was supposed to be something supposedly quietly abolished.
Telegraph.

A panel of advisers on tackling obesity has been disbanded over claims the Government was too sympathetic to the food and drink industry.
Members of the advisory group, which was set up under Labour, said the Government preferred to consult food and drink firms than scientific experts over Britain's obesity crisis.
The decision to dissolve the panel was taken some weeks ago but was not revealed until this week, according to the Financial Times.
Experts were disappointed with Health Secretary Andrew Lansley's approach to "nudge" people to make better lifestyle choices.
Klim McPherson, a member of the panel, told the FT: "Ministers were more inclined to involve food and drinks companies than scientific experts."
He said the health issue was as big a problem as global warming, adding: "An obesity epidemic cannot be prevented by individual action alone and demands a societal approach."

I suspect the food and drink industry has its own scientific experts too, considering how likely it might be that they'll get sued if they cause problems with peoples health. But the main reason that this lot had to go was the fact that it really isn't the governments job to hector people over what they eat, it should also not be the governments job to hector people over what they drink or smoke either, but we're still working on that one.
Another clue that the people involved are just placemen was the raising of the old shibboleth of "global warming" clearly someone has not been outside in the real world for far too long otherwise they'd know that the warmist industry has had to change its tack to "climate change" and then "global climate disruption" or whatever it is they're trying to scare us with these days.
I wonder how much these panelists were claiming, I suspect it was far more than the minimum wage, I suspect it was far more than the average wage. I doubt we'll miss them, the IQ of the various public services probably went up a notch or two when they were disbanded.
Still, that's only one down, probably thousands to go, but good riddance all the same.

Cold comfort

2011-11-16T17:51:00.001Z

Many of us in the blogging world have railed for years against the depredations of the Green religion pointing out the fallacies behind their predictions and the inevitable end results of their policies as enacted by politicians who do not have the best wishes (or intentions) of the people they are supposed to represent simply seeing the Green agenda as another way to screw more money out of the taxpayer.
Express.

ENERGY bills are set to soar by 60% bringing financial pain to millions of people already struggling to pay.
In a bleak prediction, industry analysts warn that annual electricity prices could rocket by 60 per cent, with gas increases of 54 per cent because of rising wholesale costs.The steep hike could result in total energy bills in excess of £2,000 a year.
Experts blame the upward trend on the green agenda which will force suppliers to invest in new technologies that consumers will have to pay for.
The experts warn that average electricity bills could rise £300 a year to £800 in the next 10 years and gas prices could increase from £845 annually to more than £1,300 – a leap of £455.
The predicted price rise “could be catastrophic for many households”, said Thomas Lyon of price comparison website uSwitch.com. He said consumers had already been “knocked for six” by this year’s hikes.
Among a panel of experts for SmartestEnergy, the UK’s leading purchaser and supplier of energy generated by the independent sector, 90 per cent predicted a rise, with one third saying it would be 60 per cent. The average increase predicted was 43 per cent by 2021 which would see electricity bills alone rise by more than £200 a year.
Robert Groves, chief executive of SmartestEnergy said: “While it is impossible to forecast with any certainty what will happen, it is clear that many in the industry are bracing themselves for significant increases.”
The Daily Express reported last month that more than 2,700 older people died over a 12-month period from illnesses caused by not being able to afford to heat their homes.
Higher energy bills and freezing weather could see the figure soar this winter.

Saying I told you so is very much a cold comfort to me, because even now we're not in a position to hang the arch traitors and various other enemies of the people from the lampposts including energy secretary Chris Huhne and anyone else in authority who gave the ok to ruinously expensive "green" energy projects. These are also the people trying to stop the production of shale gas extraction as cheap energy is anathema to their creed and their ultimate goal of depopulating the planet and setting the majority of us back (who survive) to a medieval struggle for survival, no doubt lorded over by a technocracy living high on the hog in their guarded compounds.

There is no need for energy to be so expensive, we should drop the green levy on power generation, stop building bird mincers and subsidising them, stop subsidising solar power and build lots of cheap gas power stations and train apprentices up to engineering standards to help run them.

But we wont, we'll just carry on down the same path to economic self destruction until we finally snap, probably during a power cut during the X factor finals knowing just how dumbed down our population has become.

No you won't

2011-11-15T06:08:00.001Z

"Big Man" Cameron was spouting nonsense at the annual foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, I really don't know if he believes the guff he comes out with or he's simply hoping that we believe it (or will swallow it like the moronic MSM do)
Mail.

I'll get powers back from the EU, says Cameron: Prime Minister's vow to rebellious MPs in Lord Mayor's speech
Vows to refashion EU to best serve nation's interests
Remarks at odds with that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Says leaving EU is not in the British interest
Boris Johnson questions Government's willingness to boost IMF
George Osborne hits out at plans for financial transaction tax
David Cameron last night said the EU was ‘in peril’ and described the debt crisis as an ‘opportunity’ to claw back powers for Britain.
After being rocked by a Tory MP rebellion over Britain’s future in the EU, the Prime Minister cast himself as a ‘sceptic’, attacking ‘grand plans and utopian visions’ and vowing to ‘refashion the EU so it better serves this nation’s interests’.
He accused the EU of being out of touch and attacked its ‘pointless interference, rules and regulations’.
His remarks are diametrically at odds with those of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who called yesterday for the EU to focus on building a ‘political union’ as she warned the continent faced its biggest crisis since the Second World War.

The EU is in peril, but it's a self inflicted peril and if like a disease we don't isolate ourselves away from it, it might just take us down with it. We aren't in the €uro, we can still be outside and trade with them and frankly we don't need them, their ways are not our ways, their laws rub across everything we (used) to hold dear such as the rights of freeborn men to do what we wanted so long as a law did not prevent it, rather than the authoritarian European way of permission being granted if a law allows it.
Cameron even had the nerve to add at one point "we sceptics" truly a monumental lie if ever there was one as he also stated "Leaving the EU is not in our national interest," he will argue. "Outside, we would end up like Norway, subject to every rule for the single market made in Brussels but unable to shape those rules." Which to my mind says that Norway isn't subject to any of those rules save only what Norway wants to subject itself too. We can still trade with Europe, heaven knows they'll still want to trade with us it's just that we'll also be able to trade far more cheaply with the rest of the world by applying their standards to whatever they want rather than have overbearing EU standards to meet simply because we're in the EU. No more tariffs either, no more Common Agricultural Policy, no more Spanish fleets hoovering the seas off our coast, our ancient rights and freedoms returned to us (no doubt after we hang all the lawyers) Our country, run by our people for its people rather than by EU regs designed for Italian or Greek olive growers but fitted into a one size fits all package rubber stamped by the fools at Westminster.
We should leave and seek our own destiny again, this is why Cameron is wrong, this is why he has to go!

Catastrophic for whom?

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000Z

Seems phoney Tony was spouting a lot of nonsense about the collapse of the €uro being a catastrophe for Europe, though I suspect he really meant it would be a catastrophe for the politicians who backed the €uro and back the EU.
BBC.

Former prime minister Tony Blair has told the BBC the collapse of the euro would be "catastrophic" - and Europe must get behind it.

Mr Blair said he hoped it would not collapse, but European leaders faced "very difficult and painful" choices.

A "long-term framework of credibility" was needed, he said, which included "strong fiscal co-ordination".

Chancellor George Osborne told the BBC there must be more co-operation on tax and spending in eurozone countries.

Don't know why Osborne thinks co-operation on tax and spending will help either, it was co-operation on tax and spending that caused the €uro to come about in the first place. Not that it was helped by certain EU members lying about their GDP to get into the €uro, but that's what politicians tend to do when they are in pursuit of a pet project. I doubt very much that a collapse of the €uro would affect ordinary people too much either as we'd have politicians scrambling to save their hides by reintroducing "old" currencies very quickly to prevent them from being lynched, though admittedly it depends on just how badly they try to stave off what seems inevitable. I suspect crops will still be grown, people will make things and industry will continue, international industry will probably do reasonably well as they'll simply switch the currency they use for transactions, Swiss Franc anyone?
Blair also went on to say...

"The myth that the Italian and German economies were the same - that ten-year myth has now evaporated."

The only people who appeared to believe that myth were politicians, certainly no economists, I'm fairly sure the ordinary guy in the street didn't either, though they appear to be the ones stuck with paying back for political incompetence and ruinous borrowing by the various Eurozone governments.
Rule 1) in (my understanding of) economics is that you cannot buck the market, something that seems to be wiped from the memories of politicians, bureaucrats and various apparatchiks of the political classes. You can certainly ramp up your credit and borrow against future growth, but like all forms of gambling you also have to take the chance that prices can go up or down in other words if you bet the family silver against a sure thing, you'd better have a plan B if the nag loses the race and that's where the political classes of the EU have failed woefully. They did not believe they could fail despite the warnings, despite the accounts not being signed off, they literally thought wishful thinking would buck market trends. Well now the bailiffs are sniffing around after their money back and guess who's being stiffed with the bill.
It's going to be a little bit like one of those domino rallies now as one country topples taking the next with it and who knows where it will end.
But a catastrophe, well only if you believe in or work for the EU perhaps.

At the going down of the Sun and in the morning

2011-11-13T15:59:00.001Z

On a cold November Sunday morn, an old man sits a while
Looking though old photographs, he can’t help but smile
They’re all there, all the boys, with hair cut short and neat
Uniforms of khaki, strong black boots upon their feet.
They met as strangers but soon became like brothers to the end
Smiling at the camera, there could be no truer friends.
They all took the Queen’s shilling, went off to fight the hun,
Soon learnt the pain of loss once the fighting had begun.
So many never made it home, lost on foreign shores
Many more were injured and would be the same no more.
The old man’s eyes mist with tears as he remembers every face
Each of his fallen brothers and the killing which took place
He proudly dons his beret, his blazer and his tie
For today he will remember the ones who fell and died.
On his chest there is a poppy, a blaze of scarlet on the blue
He steps out into the cold, he has a duty he must do
Once at the cenotaph he stands amongst the ranks
Of those who marched to war and those who manned the tanks,
He bows his head in reverence, as the last post begins to play
And he wonders what will happen at the ending of his days
Will anyone remember? Will anybody care?
About the lads so far from home whose life was ended there?
I wish that I could tell him, that he should fear not
For this soldier and his brothers will NEVER be forgot
We owe a debt of gratitude that we can never pay
And this country WILL remember them, on each Remembrance day.

Maria Cassee

An odd day out

2011-11-12T13:51:00.001Z

Yesterday, I and others were in London to pay our respects to those who died in service of their country, there was no intent on our part to cause any trouble, indeed the police and the home secretary appeared to have removed any threat to the ceremony with the banning of Muslims Against Crusades along with a raid against its leader the previous night.
Nonetheless, it was decided a day off and a ticket already bought should not go to waste so I and several hundred others from the EDL and other patriotic groups converged on London to pay our respects, wearing our poppies with pride and sadness as we we stood silently at 11 minutes past 11 no disruption, no chanting, just an eerie silence with occasional traffic noise in the far background, this had been preceded by a spontaneous round of applause to the veterans standing in Whitehall.
Afterwards I and a few others then went to look in the grounds of Westminster Abbey at the row upon row of poppies laid out by the various forces to remember their dead a truly emotional moment.
It was then that things got weird. We heard a lot of sirens going on and reports started to come through that the bulk of the EDL who were well dressed, no colours, no flags, no chanting had been surrounded by the police where they were standing and forced back into the Red Lion pub.


The picture really doesn't do it justice, but the police presence was very large and very aggressive.

Any attempt to approach the area and you were warned off, no-one was getting in or getting out, though apparently a few did manage to slip away before the "kettling" became 6 deep in places. Apparently the ~~Dept of pre-crime~~ The Met Police had decided to act upon a facebook rumour that the EDL were going to march and attack the Occupy London camp at St Paul's. If the EDL were, then it was news to the EDL and the various groups of other EDL members who were wandering around knew nothing of it, there were certainly enough of us to go to St Paul's if we wanted, though none of us really give a damn about them.
2 hours after the initial "kettling the police began dragging individual EDL members out and arresting them to "prevent a breach of the peace" not for actually doing anything, simply because of suspicion, a suspicion I know not to be true as the amount of texts flying about from EDL members showed their utter confusion as to what was going on. One of the guys dragged out from the pub also had a heart condition and his treatment triggered an attack, the video here shows it at about 1 minute in...
You'll note that he was dragged past 2 police first aiders who ignored him and when they realised he was not too well, they simply de-arrested him and told him to get lost, no ambulance called etc. He ended up in hospital seriously ill as a few other EDL watching did call an ambulance.
By that time though I and the others I was with had dispersed back to our homes wondering just what has happened to our society, when people peacefully respecting the fallen can be caged, arrested and then released with no charges 7 hours later when there had been no intention other than to show respect.

2011-11-11T07:00:00.000Z

This land was built from Blood and Tears
The sacrifice of 2000 years,
The Romans came, the Vikings, too,
So why would we be afraid of you?

But mark my words and mark them well,
It was 1066 since we last fell.
When it comes to a fight, we hate to lose,
So Respect our Men or leave……
you choose.

For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

MAC have been banned and have said they will not go (cowards) but I will be there to add my respect to those who fell in their countries service.

So why don't we just leave

2011-11-10T17:06:00.000Z

It sounds simple and simply by revoking the original charter signed away by Ted Heath we could be out of the EU tomorrow. Yes I know our treacherous politicians will wait until the last minute in the hope that something may turn up from the débacle that is the EU and the collapse of the €uro, one of the greatest political and economic blunders of recent times. For too long the EU apparatchiks forgot that what they had was only a monetary union, not a fiscal one in other words Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and possibly even France "borrowed" the credit rating of Germany to finance their way up in the world, which was fine only so long as there was a buoyant economy, now the recession is here, the debts are being called in and there's no possible way they can be repaid. That's not to say those countries are bankrupt, they still have wealth it's just that the state can no longer act as guarantor of the loans save by taxing the living hell out of their people, something that might just have the politicians having a squeaky bum moment at the thought of it.
Yes it will certainly affect us, the UK's banks were involved after all, however if we pull out now, yes it will hurt, but at least we'd recover and we wont be dragged screaming into a 10 year (at least) slump with high taxation and no growth.
Sad thing is, people like me and far more wiser heads than me were warning of this years ago, saying I told you so is now cold comfort indeed at the prospects of picking up the tab of our reckless, feckless politicians greed and ambition.

EDL 1 : 0 FIFA

2011-11-09T17:22:00.000Z

Despite the scurrilous claims of a few utter morons, Islamic's and white poppy wearers, the Red Poppy is not a political symbol of militarism or imperialism, it merely reminds us of those who laid down their lives serving their country in our armed forces. It does not matter if the war is just, legal or not, that's a matter for politicians, not for those who serve and we do well to honour them at this time of the year.
This is something that FIFA cannot grasp as they applied petty rules about England having an embroidered poppy on their football strip for their match against Spain this Saturday,
Mail.

FIFA has insisted the rules will not be bent to allow England to wear poppies on their shirts against Spain.
The Government piled the pressure on FIFA by writing a letter pleading for the symbolic flower to be allowed on shirts at Wembley on Saturday.
But football's governing body has again refused to make an exception for the FA over the request to add the poppy to mark Remembrance Sunday.
The world body have now issued a 'final statement' rejecting the plea.
A letter from FIFA to the FA sent read: 'We regret to inform you that accepting such initiatives would open the door to similar initiatives from all over the world, jeopardising the neutrality of football.
'Therefore, we confirm herewith that the suggested embroidery on the match shirt cannot be authorised.

FIFA’s rules on its member nations do not allow adorning their shirts with ‘commercial’, ‘political’, or ‘religious’ symbols or messages. The poppy is none of those, yet FIFA would not change their minds and so provoked a reaction from the EDL.
Telegraph.

Two members of the English Defence League climbed onto the roof of Fifa's headquarters in Zurich with a banner protesting against the ban.
A Fifa spokesman confirmed the protest is ongoing and that Swiss police were in attendance.
The two protesters displayed a banner with two poppies on which read: "English defence League. How dare Fifa disrespect our war dead and wounded. Support out troops."

The Telegraph actually has it wrong, there were actually 6 EDL involved, but no matter, they also have the usual drivel from a "Hate not Hope" troll decrying the fact that someone reminded FIFA about the symbology about the poppy.
The EDL will also be in London this Friday along with other patriotic groups in an attempt to stop the imbeciles of Muslims Against Crusades burning another poppy outside the Royal Albert Hall sometime between 10 and 12am. Followed by a march to the FA headquarters to highlight the England football teams issues with Fifa concerning them not being allowed to wear our poppy on their shirt on Saturday when they play against Spain. We believe it is disgusting and disrespectful of Sepp Blatter & co to treat our national team like this hence why we will be popping over to Soho to show our support to the National Team and to urge each and every player to wear their poppy with pride the next day when they smash Spain regardless of Fifa`s Decision.
FIFA, MAC, Hate not Hope and Unite all fascists (UAF) should remember that disrespect begets disrespect.
Update, Mail.

An FA statement read: ‘The FA can confirm that FIFA has today agreed that the England team will now be permitted to wear a poppy on the black armbands the players will wear during Saturday’s match with Spain.

Though only on their armbands, not their shirts.
Well done the EDL!

He's not listening...

2011-11-08T17:40:00.002Z

I don't know what it is about political leaders and not actually listening to what they're being told, seems that unless it comes from green energy idiots or brazen EUrophiles then it's a case of "la la la I'm not listening"
Mail.

Collapse of Euro 'would leave Britain BETTER off but if it stays we will see 10 years of austerity'
Bailout contribution could rise to £40bn
Get tough on Europe IDS tells Cameron as Tories hold crisis talks
Cost of Euro collapsing will be 2 per cent of GDP
UK's IMF liability is currently £29.4billion - and moves to raise it have sparked fury among Tory backbenchers
The collapse of the euro would ultimately lead to a strengthening of Britain's economic position, a think tank predicted today.Despite resulting in a short recession and costing the economy 2 per cent GDP, the end of the European single currency would ultimately be beneficial, the study showed.The Centre for Economics and Business Research also said that if the euro survives the current sovereign debt crisis with the help of bailouts, Britain could face a decade of austerity measures.The study will add further pressure on David Cameron who will today hold crisis talks with Cabinet eurosceptics as it emerged that Britain’s exposure to the International Monetary Fund could rise to £40billion.Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith and Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson will tell the Prime Minister he needs to toughen his stance on Europe, setting out a clear timetable for clawing back powers handed to Brussels.There is increasing concern that core EU nations are planning to use the debt crisis to join forces to ‘bulldoze’ over British interests, leaving the UK marooned in a permanent voting minority as they integrate further.Alarm on the Conservative benches deepened last night as Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander, a keen Europhile, confirmed that Britain’s contributions to the IMF could rise to £40billion and said he would have no problem with more money being loaned to Greece.

Yup, that's right, the Centre for Economics and Business Research has pointed out the obvious that if the €uro collapses we'll be better off, if it doesn't we're in for 10 years (at least) of penury. You even have imbeciles such as Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander saying he would have no problems loaning more cash to bankrupt Greece, doubt somehow he means his own cash though, which is ever the problem with our politicians loosing sight over just whose cash they are playing with.
The warning signs have been there almost from the start as the EU has grabbed ever more power to itself that was overreaching itself to such a degree that the slightest mishap (global recession anyone?) would start the collapse of their house of ~~cads~~ cards. The ever more desperate attempts to somehow shore it up in the face of the markets reluctance to support the €uro is only prolonging the agony, the EU states and their economies are too disparate to survive under a monolithic state, not even the USA does that with the Dollar, leaving a lot of control to the states themselves in how they set prices and taxes. The only way it could survive is the one path they cannot take, that is to allow individual members to control their own economies as that would sound the death knell of the EU superstate.
I just wonder how much damage will be done before it collapses.

I'm surprised it's only 8 out of 10

2011-11-07T17:54:00.000Z

People think England is crowded, though a quick check of land usage for buildings only has about 3% of available land built upon. What is crowded is actually our cities and towns where immigration, high birth rates amongst immigrants and a low level of expansion in building infrastructure at prices people can afford means that expansion is not happening and you're ending up with too many people in one place. At the moment we're heading for a possible 70 million population with the majority of it in England, this isn't sustainable unless we're either trading to accumulate wealth by producing jobs or services others want (fat chance with us being in the EU) or we have enough land to feed ourselves (we clearly don't)
Express.

ALMOST eight out of 10 people in England think the country is overcrowded.
The support, which also reveals that more than a third believe England to be “very crowded’’, will pile pressure on ministers to keep their promises to slash immigration.
The petition survey was conducted by YouGov for the MigrationWatch UK think-tank.
It was launched on the Government’s website last Tuesday and had collected more than 90,000 signatures by yesterday, making it one of the fastest- growing appeals on the site so far.
Petitions have to be considered as the subject for a Commons debate once they gain 100,000 names.
The MigrationWatch petition condemns the “mass immigration’’ permitted over the last 10 years and voices concern at official projections that the UK’s population will rise from 62.3 million last year to 70 million by 2027.
Two-thirds of the rise stems from immigration with the rest due to rising birthrates and increased life expectancy.

This accelerated over the last 15 years owing to the previous governments opening the floodgates to immigration to "rub the rights nose in multiculturalism" and has lead due to multiculturalism a fragmented non homogeneous nation, a sure recipe for a civil war at some future stage. Not that the current government done much to stem this, they've admittedly had to deal with a recession plus a lot of the crap that Gordon Brown left as minefields in the economic system to cause the new government a lot of problems (sheer spite) and just another reason why I wish fervently that Labour will never ever get into power ever again.
The problem we have now of course is that we have them (immigrants) and are either going to have to integrate them or remove them, the longer it goes, the more chance there will be that someone will unite the people and say enough is enough and wholesale forced repatriation will begin. Personally I don't want to live in a country that would do that, but unless this problem is nipped in the bud, it will happen.

A deep ongoing cultural malaise

2011-11-06T15:22:00.000Z

An energy watchdog has announced to the UK that our energy bills will probably rise something like 30% in the next 5 years, pushing ever more people into fuel poverty and causing many of the rest of us to ration our heating and power usage during what will probably be some quite harsh winters with the inevitable "dying off" of our sick and elderly accelerated by government policy and the idiocy that is green energy and the environmental tariffs placed upon our bills to support the madness that is low carbon efficiency.
Express.

HARD-PRESSED households will see their gas and electricity bills rise by 30 per cent within the next five years, according to a senior industry watchdog.
Given current trends, she believes that energy prices will have risen by nearly a third by 2016.
That comes on top of the 21 per cent rise in energy prices over the past 12 months that has left families and pensioners struggling to find, on average, an extra £224 for heating and with a bitterly cold winter said to be on the way, rising energy prices will have “dangerous consequences” and put people’s health at risk, says Ann Robinson, director of consumer policy at price comparison website uSwitch.
Research by uSwitch found that 23 million households, or 89 per cent of the population, will ration their energy usage this winter, either by keeping their heating on low or turning it off altogether to save on fuel bills.
That would indicate four million more people than last year will be rationing their heating.
“As the cost of our energy bills escalates people are being forced into making potentially dangerous choices,” Ms Robinson said.
“Whether they sacrifice something else to keep the heating on or turn the heating off to pay for something else, there is a modern-day Russian roulette going on in homes up and down the country.”
Last winter more than half of all households went without heating at some point to keep their energy costs down, risking their health and wellbeing. Additionally, 6.3 million people were pushed into fuel poverty by energy price increases.
As well as worries about the health implications of going without heating, uSwitch’s research found that households are going into debt to pay their bills.
More than one in three has turned to borrowing to cover their household bills, with 20 per cent owing £500 to £1,000 and 17 per cent owing between £1,000 and £2,000.

All this to pay for "renewable" energy sources that are inefficient and expensive to run, that frequently don't work when the weather is at its coldest and that have to be subsidised (by us) to be economical compared to other energy supplies that work. We're even sitting on a potentially massive energy source in shale gas production, but this is being delayed by envirolunacy in the Dept of Energy and Climate Change and the Lib Dem idiot Chris Huhne as it might cause earthquakes in Blackpool. We're even sitting on about 300 years worth of coal for Gods sake! That's stored energy in an easy to use form, we can even use lean burn recovery systems on it to reduce pollution! But no, we build sodding bird mincers that are expensive and don't work if there's no wind and also if there's too much wind as well. That are expensive to maintain, are occasionally out at sea and suffering from marine corrosion (salty air and electrics don't mix)
Our people, those who are most vulnerable are going to die because of envirolunacy, perhaps we should declare it some sort of mental disease or psychological condition, because for the life of me that's what it appears to be.

Action speaks louder than words

2011-11-05T15:59:00.001Z

I wonder what will come of this little spark of genius from Chris Grayling the Employment Minister, seems he's deciding as to whether or not it will be worth trying to sue the EU for trying to flood our country with benefit claimants from the Ukraine and North Africa.
Mail.

The Government will take unprecedented legal action against the EU to prevent ‘benefit tourists’ from the Ukraine and north African countries coming to Britain to collect benefits without working.
Employment minister Chris Grayling said he planned to sue the European Commission to block millions of people who could arrive on UK shores to claim state pensions and benefits.
He said he believed EU officials were trying to create a system where people from either inside the EU or from countries bordering it, were able to come into Britain and start claiming benefits.
In a newspaper interview, the minister said the EU had launched a ‘land grab’ and ‘pre-emptive action to stop this’ was now necessary.
He said: ‘We are concerned about benefit tourism, we want tighter rules. We want the rules changed and they are just not listening.

The problem he has and cannot seem to grasp (a bit like most politicians) is that the EU doesn't have to listen or sort anything out for us at all if it isn't in their interests too. What they will be thinking is that the UK will be some sort of magnet for the sort of people whom they don't want emigrating to their own countries. We could resolve it quite easily simply by leaving and taking back control of our own borders and destiny, though no-one in the government with any real power to do anything about it seems to relish that possibility either.
Thing is, pretty much every time the UK government has gone up against the EU, we've lost, they operate on a completely different set of rules and laws to the UK system and once something is settled with them then all have to fall in line, or just ignore the rules or in the case of France make any attempt to get into their system as long winded and damn near impossible as they can.
It's the UK's ever increasing folly in that with the EU we tend to follow the rules to the letter, something no other EU country seems to do, this is because before we were in the EU our rules few as they were suited us and were easy to follow.
Grayling mentions further down the article that he was sympathetic to the calls from back-bench Conservative MPs for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership and that ‘renegotiation’ of the relationship was now necessary.Save only that sympathy isn't going to win us anything from the EU, only leaving that monstrous system will ever resolve the UK's problems, or at reast put the resolution of the problems back into our own hands.

Rip(a)e for scrapping

2011-11-04T15:25:00.000Z

Ripa, the Regulatory Investigatory Powers Act, brought in by Labour ostensibly to keep an eye on terrorists, but so loosely written that local councils found it a handy tool to spy on what people were putting into its bins comes in for criticism again.
Mail.

The astonishing extent of Britain’s surveillance society was revealed for the first time yesterday.
Three million snooping operations have been carried out over the past decade under controversial anti-terror laws.
They include tens of thousands of undercover missions by councils and other state bodies which are not responsible for law enforcement.
Cases include a family who were spied on to check they were not cheating on school catchment area rules and so-called ‘bin criminals’.
The campaign group Justice is demanding the hugely controversial Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act – under which all the operations were authorised – be scrapped altogether.
Since the Act was passed, there have been:
More than 20,000 warrants for the interception of phone calls, emails and internet use;
At least 2.7million requests for communication data, including phone bills and location information;
More than 4,000 authorisations for intrusive surveillance, such as planting a bug in a person’s house;
At least 186,133 authorisations for directed (covert) surveillance by law enforcement agencies;
61,317 directed surveillance operations by other public bodies, including councils;
43,391 authorisations for ‘covert human intelligence sources’.
In total, the report says there have been around three million decisions taken by state bodies under RIPA, not including authorisations given to the security and intelligence services.
Yet fewer than 5,000 of these – just 0.16 per cent – were approved by judges.

There are times when you can honestly believe that someone took George Orwell's novel 1984 as a template for the future of the UK. Even the language is twisted in the same way as newspeak where a new Protections of freedoms Bill means anything of the sort. The problem has always been that people in authority will use the tools available to that authority in ways the lawmakers never envisaged. This with the coupling of the EU Code Napoleon (where a law is required for permission) into various areas of UK justice (where if there isn't a law against it, it's legal) has put the UK public under ever more scrutiny even for mundane things than at any time in our history.
The most damning thing of all though is the fact that only 5 thousand of the 3 million undercover investigations ever came before a judge and worst of all, none of the 3 million were authorisations given to the security and intelligence services.
We are snooped on, spied upon and told constantly that it's for our own safety, yet the system itself is frequently used to target those whom the state see as inconvenient, people such as the leader of the EDL.

He's had his business destroyed, investigated by the taxman, been held under bail for over 18 months, had an attempted 10 year ASBO thrown at him, his wife arrested, constantly followed by special branch officers.In the end, he was given a 12 month suspended prison sentence, a 150 hour community order, and must pay £200 costs after being found guilty of assault, despite the fact that the guy who was aid to have been assaulted refused to press charges or appear as a witness for the prosecution.
Indeed as for the ASBO, the judge Peter Ward refused the application and said he did not believe it would have been submitted but for the defendant's links with the EDL.
Everywhere you go people who have stuck their heads above the parapet to question the states judgement or even request something the state is unwilling to give or simply doesn't believe them are targeted and lives investigated and occasionally destroyed.
We need to temove RIPA, we need to go back to the days of UK justice based upon ancient traditions and those who abused (in a very real sense) the provisions of RIPA should be sacked and/or imprisoned for their authoritarian abuse.
It's time to start trimming back the state, both financially, in size and in powers. Our freedom depends on the state having as little power over our lives as possible!

Greed

2011-11-03T08:45:00.000Z

The public sector unions and their members who voted to go on strike are taking the piss, despite the improved offer from the government, which as far as I'm concerned is still mostly coming out of the taxpayers pocket. No, I'm not saying they don't deserve a pension, but, what I am saying is that if they do want something better than the state pension they should be funding it themselves and not asking the rest of us to cough up.
Express.

BRITAIN is set to be crippled by strike action after union leaders yesterday rejected a massively improved deal to reform bloated public sector pensions.
There was outcry last night at the damaging union move to deny any attempt to reform the system to help solve the country’s debt crisis.
The union refusal came despite the Government offer of concessions worth billions of pounds.
Under the offer announced by Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, pensions of low and middle earners would be as good or better than now. Around a million workers within 10 years of retiring would not have to work longer and would keep their final salary pensions. There would be no more reform for 25 years.
A teacher on £37,800 would get a pension of £25,200 a year under the deal, compared to £19,100 now. A nurse on £34,200 would get a pension of £22,800 compared to £17,300 now.
Unions welcomed the improved offer but will press on with plans for a mass walkout on November 30 following demos in June.

Nowhere in private industry would you expect to see such pensions, they are simply unsustainable without massive contributions from the workers themselves. Only in the deluded world of the socialists controlling the public sector unions would you expect to see the rejection of such generous terms and still have the meally mouthed gall to claim that public sympathy would be on their side carefully mentioning nurses, teachers and policemen whilst carefully avoiding any mention of diversity co-ordinators, racial awareness officers and healthy living administrators who also expect those of us who create wealth to pay for their long term comfort whilst struggling to make ends meet today never mind saving for their old age.
Yes I realise there are certain professions that have short term lifespans owing to the physical nature of the job, but by and large most civil servant and public servants could cope quite well with working to 65+ like the rest of us poor buggers paying their way.
The unions should simply be told that it's take it or leave it, any strike will be a breach of contract and grounds for automatic dismissal, followed by re-application for the jobs at sensible contributions, oh and in a union free environment.
People need to learn, if you want something then you pay your way to get it, you should not expect anyone else to dip into their pockets to pay your way, ever.

Cultural enrichment

2011-11-02T06:57:00.000Z

Muslims are funny sorts, lot of rules and regulations as to how to live your life all based around the ~~ravings~~ teachings of a desert bandit about 1500 years ago and spread around the world sometimes by the sword occasionally by assimilation. Problem being of course times change, but owing to the peculiarities of their holy book they can't as it's unchangeable. Add into the mix certain tribal customs transported in from the northern Indian sub continent, coupled with UK societies idiotic multiculturalism/political correctness and you have a recipe for trouble.
Mail.

A young Asian bride was drugged and held prisoner by her family after she broke off an arranged engagement to her first cousin and secretly married another man, a court heard today.
Naila Afsar, 23, was also threatened with death, assaulted and abused by angry close relatives after they discovered she had wed Afsar Saddiq without telling them, it was alleged.
She was given a milky drink laced with a prescription-only sedative in a bid to put her to sleep while they took her back to the family home - and away from her new husband, it was said.
Mr Saddiq, meanwhile, was visited by Naila Afsar's family, who told him his new wife would not be returning before stealing his mobile phone to stop the couple keeping in contact, a jury heard.
Naila Afsar's mother Shamim Akhtar, 58, father Mohammed Khan, 57, her elder brother Shamrez Khan, 34, all from Bradford, West Yorkshire, and her sister Saima Mahmood, 30, and her brother-in-law Zahid Mahmood, 36, both of Accrington, face a string of charges.
They all deny false imprisonment, kidnap and two charges of administering the drug lorazepam with intent, in January last year, after claiming in a police interview they were trying to help Naila 'resolve a domestic situation'.

Usual use of Asian to hide the fact that these are Muslims of Pakistani descent you'll note and the usual Muslims of Pakistani descent approach to dealing with a domestic situation involving a female of the family ie. threats and violence. That's the problem you get when you introduce an alien culture to a new place and then allow it to refuse to integrate, keep its customs and generally foster the worst aspects of that culture with its culture of shame (dis)honour and misogyny. Naila Afsar I suppose is lucky she didn't end up like Shafilea Ahmed, or Tulay Goren, though it's not just women affected.
Yet for years our police ignored this as they also did with the Islamic paedophile gangs in the name of community cohesion and fear no doubt of being accused of racism. So we have a festering malignant custom frequently brushed under the carpet by the community involved, compounded by the off time intermarriage between close relatives and increased many-fold by the previous governments ridiculous immigration policies and multicultural edicts.
The law is supposed to be upheld without fear or favour, yet to the same of our senior police and politicians, kidnappings, murder and violence all thrive within Islamic communities all hushed up within those communities and ignored unless it's blatant outside them. They don't feel as if they are doing anything wrong, which makes it all the more terrible, you don't resolve a family dispute by threatening and drugging the objects of the dispute.
But try telling that to some Muslims.

Well there's a surprise

2011-11-01T17:51:00.001Z

There are times when my contempt of the legal profession knows no bounds, particularly those sucking on the teat of taxpayers largesse aka human rights lawyers, who seem to do rather well for themselves by doing good.
Mail.

Lawyers defending the Dale Farm gypsies have been handed £6million of taxpayers' money in just five years, it emerged today.
Leeds-based Davies Gore Lomax cashed in while villagers living beside the Essex campsite had to fund their own campaign to evict the travellers.
The firm, which specialises in helping the 'vulnerable and disadvantaged', pocketed more than £1.1million in legal aid in 2008, The Sun has revealed.
It then received a further £1.1million last year from taxpayers through the Legal Services Commission.
The firm's website reads: 'Whether you are a privately paying client or eligible for representation under the legal aid scheme, we offer the same high level of service and specialisation.'
Of the Dale Farm case, the company said: 'It is a wake up call to all councils to provide the sites that are needed.'
But the firm's founding partner Keith Lomax told the newspaper that their work for gypsies only made up 'a tiny fraction' of their lucrative business.
He added: 'It is very good value for money and the fact that there are still lawyers prepared to work for such low pay to assist vulnerable people should be celebrated.'
Another leading law firm specialising in helping travellers has also netted millions in legal aid, The Sun discovered.
Birmingham's Community Law Partnership, whose funding also covered housing and asylum cases, earned £4.8million between 2006 and 2011.

Now the rights and wrongs of the Dale Farm travellers case don't really concern me, I've seen comment on both sides of the case and thought simply at the end they were taking the piss big time, but as their lawyers were milking the public, no wonder. Most people who were defending themselves in such circumstances would have simply cut their losses well before bringing in the U.N. and filing objections simply to prolong the case itself.
My concerns are that the legal battle itself rather than be for the benefit of the travellers, strayed over in being to the benefit of the legal firm. After all, if you know that legal aid will cough up no matter what, you'll milk it for all it's worth. Nor am I suggesting however that people should not have access to the legal profession, simply that there should be limits. One case and one appeal should be the norm and only extra access should be granted if there is new evidence prejudicial to the verdict, not simply new evidence and not simply withheld whilst the case was ongoing to gain further access to the legal aid teat. Either that or a cap is set on expenses that can be claimed. Nor would I expect this to move legal firms away from such cases, after all the money would still be there, just that the pursuing of a case to the bounds of idiocy will have been removed.

40 billion reasons why we should just leave now

2011-10-31T18:41:00.002Z

It's smash and grab time for the rapidly failing EU, in order to raise the €1 trillion they need to stave off the inevitable they've told the various EU states to cough up (I'm sure there's an or else in there somewhere too) Which pits David Cameron in a bit of a quandary.
Express.

DAVID Cameron will come under pressure this week to block a fresh European Union bid to grab £40billion for its budget.
Eurosceptic MPs say they will try to force the Prime Minister to use his veto to stop the increase which would saddle British taxpayers with a colossal bill for the rest of this decade.
MPs will have the chance to debate proposals that would increase the EU’s budget for seven years covering 2014-2020 to one trillion euros (£898 billion).
It would amount to a 4.9 per cent rise on the funding for 2007-2013 – a rise of some £40billion.
Britain, France and Germany all say the budget increase, proposed by the European Commission, is unacceptably high.
It comes a week after 81 Conservatives rebelled against the PM to back a call for a referendum on UK membership of the European Union.
The Commons will be asked to back a Government motion that supports ministers’ “ongoing efforts to reduce the commission’s proposed budget”.
But it is likely that Tory MPs will demand that Britain uses its veto to block the increase.
Chris Heaton-Harris, one of the Tory referendum rebels, said: “Voters realise that if the EU’s budget goes up at a time when national governments are imposing cuts, then something is going wrong.”
Mr Cameron is already under massive pressure over Britain’s membership of the European Union.
Polls have suggested that two-thirds of the public – and 80 per cent of Tory voters – agreed with the referendum revolt last week.
Philip Hollobone, also one of the 81 rebels, said: “Many backbenchers think that the seven-year EU budget is a very good opportunity for the government to use its veto if it does not get what it wants.”

Cameron has already wound his backbenchers up with his heavy handed control freakery on the referendum debate and now has to go cap in hand to the commons to ask them to cough up for the EU (or else, I'm certain there's an or else) He'll need the support of the Lib Dems (normally a given on the EU) and quite possibly the treacherous Labour party and even then I suspect he's not going to get it, nor will he be able to repatriate powers back from the EU as he doesn't seem to know which powers he wants back (Hint, all of them Dave)
I'm fairly sure now we're approaching the straw/camels back moment, though it will be interesting (from a watching a train crash perspective) on just how badly the damage will be before it does collapse and the Germans finally invade France (again).
We are living in interesting times.

Catching on yet?

2011-10-30T19:00:00.000Z

It's always interesting when MP's come face to face with political decisions made by the government, only the other day we had Tony Blair telling the people of the UK just how good mass unfettered uncontrolled immigration has been for the UK.
Mail.

Tony Blair has defended Labour’s controversial mass immigration policy by claiming that Britain cannot succeed unless it opens its borders to more people from different backgrounds.
The former prime minister said it was 'right’ that the country was made up of different cultures and faiths mixing together.
Mr Blair added that migrants had made Britain 'stronger’ and said those calling for greater curbs on foreigners entering the country were wrong.
His comments come just days after official figures revealed that the population is expected to soar by the equivalent of a city the size of Leeds every year for the next decade.
A defiant Mr Blair insisted his party’s policy on immigration was the right one. He said: 'It’s been a very positive thing and there is no way for a country like Britain to succeed in the future unless it is open to people of different colours, faiths and cultures.’
Under Labour, up to 5.5million people born outside the UK arrived as long-term migrants.
Between 1997 and 2010, around 2.3million left the country, meaning the UK population increased by around 3.2million as a direct result of foreign migrants.

Of course Tony Blair doesn't really live here a lot of the time and more to the point doesn't live where the immigrants are going, so it's a bit hypocritical of him telling us it was good for the country when it appears to have only benefited Tony Blair and a few others.

Of course today we had the flip side of the coin...
BBC.
An MP has described how he waited for police behind a locked door during a constituency surgery after he was threatened by a group of men.
Mike Freer said it happened at North Finchley mosque in north London as he met constituents on Friday afternoon.
Mr Freer said about 12 people forced their way inside, with one of them calling him a "Jewish homosexual pig".
The trouble began after messages on the Muslims Against Crusades website urged supporters to target him, he said.
Mr Freer said a message posted ahead of the incident on the group's website made reference to Labour MP Stephen Timms, who was stabbed while holding a surgery in east London last year.
It warned the attack on Mr Timms should serve as a "piercing reminder" to politicians that "their presence is no longer welcome in any Muslim area".
The Finchley and Golders Green MP, a member of the Conservative Friends of Israel, said there was a vocal demonstration outside the mosque as he began his surgery, but then a second group of people arrived and forced their way inside.
"One of them sat at a table where I was dealing with a constituent and was abusive," he said.
The MP said he was then escorted by staff at the mosque to a locked part of the building until assistance arrived.
Mr Freer said he only realised the potential danger he had been in when he was made aware of the website's reference to the attack on East Ham MP Mr Timms.
The message also stated that "as a member of the Conservative Party", Mr Freer had "the blood of thousands of Muslims on his hands".

The group, though not mentioned in the BBC article is Muslims Against Crusades (MAC) this was the mob who decided to burn a poppy at the Remembrance day ceremony last November and plan to do the same this year too. It's interesting that Tony Blair thinks that "it was 'right’ that the country was made up of different cultures and faiths mixing together" whereas MAC think that for anyone who criticises Islam "their presence is no longer welcome in any Muslim area"
I wonder if Mr Freer thinks that mass unfettered uncontrolled immigration has been good for the UK, he certainly came face to face with one of its results on Saturday. Mind you, I can imagine the conversation when he gets back to Parliament.
"Hi mike have a nice weekend?"
"No not really, I was holding a surgery on Friday at a mosque and had to be locked in a room for my own protection from Muslims wanting to kill me"
"Oh dear that's terrible , anyway's we need to tackle the EDL I heard they had a demonstration in Birmingham this weekend, they are "sick" didn't Mr Cameron tell you??"
Btw I and several other patriots will be at the Cenotaph on Friday the 11th of November to show our contempt at MAC, no it's not an EDL demo though most will be EDL members. We will be respectful and polite as we honour the fallen, so feel free to join us if you can.

http://ironicsurrealism.com/2011/07/14/chart-comparing-totalitarian-systems-nazism-and-communism-with-islam/

Who's going to pay more?

2011-10-29T15:47:00.001+01:00

Cameron came out with a soundbite stunner today, I'm sure it will fool a few people, but to those of us who know how these things work...
Express.

BENEFIT claimants convicted of breaking the law will be forced to repay up to a third of their handouts each week in fines under a new welfare crackdown.
At present, courts can order offenders on benefits to pay fines at a rate of up to £5 a week.
But David Cameron yesterday revealed that the sum will be increased to £25.
The Prime Minister has ordered the move in response to public disgust at the numbers of jobless scroungers involved in last summer’s riots and the widespread culture of lawlessness on Britain’s streets.
He said: “People need to understand if they commit a crime they will face the consequences.”

The flaw being of course that it's really the state paying the state from the states largesse. A self fulfilling incestuous cosy arrangement for the state creaming off money via a fine only to pay it back out again once the legal profession have creamed off their take.
There are also so many proviso's built into the HRA as well to prevent people from starving, they'll still get their rent and council tax, child allowances etc. that it's just a complete waste of time.
Sounds good though and plays to the hard of thinking who believe that benefit cheats should be punished, but haven't given that much thought to how it actually ought to work.
Personally I think hard labour ought to do it.
But I'm interested in making the system work, not sounding off in an effort to look like I'm doing something.

Picking the wrong fight

2011-10-28T19:32:00.000+01:00

One of the things I've learned in the school of hard knocks that constitutes daily living for most of us, is to pick very carefully the fights I get into with authority and figures of authority. if I do choose to go up against them, I make damned sure of the ground I'm standing on and whilst I'm not averse to helping out a losing (if just) cause I also know that sooner or later a situation might arise when it's time to call it a day and cut your losses.
It's a lesson some people never seem to learn.
BBC.

A private clamper accused of immobilising royal protection officers' unmarked cars acted "belligerently", a Hampshire court heard.

Gareth Andrews refused to removed the clamps despite the fact PC Mark Cox showed him his warrant card.

Mr Andrews, 39, of Privett Road, Fareham, denies wilfully obstructing a police constable in his duty.

The officers were protecting the Queen as she visited Portsmouth, the city's magistrates' court heard.

PC Cox told the court that because of Mr Andrews's "belligerence" he had no option but to arrest him.
The officers were both dressed in plain clothes during the operation on 25 May, having parked the cars at Gunwharf Quays marina.

Colin Shackel, prosecuting, told the court parking spaces allocated to the officers were temporarily being used by a delivery lorry so, after consulting security staff, they parked in adjacent spaces.

He said Mr Andrews had arrived and clamped the cars and refused to release them because he did not believe he was dealing with real police officers.

"By the time you have been shown a warrant card and security guards are involved, it would be clear to anyone that it was real officers who weren't just trying to avoid a clamping charge and had duties to perform," he said.

Now sometimes it pays to take on the police/authorities when they are abusing their position to gain some sort of advantage either financially or through abusing their position, however trying to prevent the close support royal protection group by essentially immobilising their cars strikes me as a war you cannot possibly win.
I can only assume the years of abuse Gareth Andrews must have suffered as a clamper have inured him to what appears to be a suicidal tendency, not that I have much (if any) sympathy for a clampers seeing them as state/authority sponsored parasites operating on the fringe of legality and often enough taking advantage of those who were not aware of any restrictions on a parking space. That plus the fees they charge often enough amount to legalised blackmail. So all in all I'm fairly pleased the guy is getting his comeuppance.
Just a shame that the ordinary people in this country don't have similar means to make those who make our lives a misery a misery in turn.

Second tier

2011-10-27T15:50:00.000+01:00

Apparently Osborne the Chancellor is warning that the UK may become a second tier EU state because the fools in charge want to squander €1 trillion to try and prop up the Euro and might decide that the UK as it's not part of the Euro wont be invited to any of their summits. A sort of picking up their ball and running off with it.
Mail.

Britain could become one of Europe's 'second-tier countries' following a decision by those signed up to the single currency to form a tight inner circle, George Osborne said this afternoon.
The Chancellor said he feared the development of a 'two-tier' Europe after the 17 countries who use the euro decided they would have their own president and twice-yearly summits.
Britain will not be invited to take part as it is not part of the single currency.
The dramatic move towards closer fiscal union was announced as eurozone leaders thrashed out a deal they hope will convince markets they have an effective response to the growing economic crisis.
Speaking to the House of Commons, Osborne said: 'We have to be alert to the danger of caucusing ... in areas that should legitimately be the preserve of the 27.'
It confirmed fears that the eurozone is taking on the trappings of a state within a state and that the 17 will starting coordinating decisions on business and social policies, to the detriment of Britain and the other non-euro countries.

Apart from wondering if that last bits the case why don't we just leave, I cannot see how throwing €1 trillion at the problem will resolve it, even with writing off Greek debts, Greece being only part of the problem, There's Italy, Portugal, Spain and Ireland to sort out next and I cannot see the Germans carrying on with paying out forever. Biggest worry is of course where the €1 trillion is going to come from, I simply hope they don't decide to dip into our pockets, Osborne could simply point out that no chair at the table means no money for a bail out, though I much prefer my first thoughts of getting out before they drag us down with them.

The final insult

2011-10-26T06:55:00.000+01:00

Protocols and policies, the refuge of the jobsworth when faced with criticism over something they've done which flies in the face of common sense and compassion. Excuses will be offered and occasionally an apology, sometimes compensation and the platitude that "lessons will be learned." Usually far too late.
Express.

A SOLDIER killed in Afghanistan had £433 deducted from his final pay because he had failed to complete “a full month’s” work.
Lance Corporal Jordan Bancroft, 25, was shot dead in Helmand province in August 2010. More than year later, as the Ministry of Defence finally settled his outstanding wages, £433.13 was deducted because he had died 10 days before pay day.
Yesterday his father Tony, 47, called the action “a disgrace”, adding: “It’s a massive slap in the face for us and especially Jordan, who laid down his life for his country. I had to read the letter a good few times to take it in. It seems £433.13 is all his life is worth to them.”
Taxi driver Mr Bancroft, from Earby, Lancs, and his family had raised £10,000 for his son’s regiment and £6,000 for the Help For Heroes charity.
He said: “It’s not the amount they’ve taken that upsets me because it’s not about the money, it’s the principle. We’ve raised a lot of money for his regiment and yet the MoD have no qualms about taking £400 from us. The regiment has been great; it’s the MoD who have done this.”

It will be a written policy somewhere that will have been followed to the letter, chances are the person doing it wont have even known who Jordan Bancroft was yet the utter lack of compassion is not fitting for someone who died whilst serving their country. I'm even sure the MOD could point out hundreds of cases where something similar has been done without complaint from people too stunned and grieving over their loss to challenge the MOD's complete lack of compassion. This can also be seen in its attempts to cut costs by removing £250 million from Servicemen’s allowances for serving in non hostile areas overseas.or between postings yet failed to sort out the massive overspending on contract renegotiation for necessary equipment.
The treatment of our armed forces is a disgrace and this is frankly a PR disaster for the MOD, though again I expect some sort of apology, lessons will be learned etc then business as usual. Perhaps those who make this sort of decision should be given a rifle themselves and sent to Afghanistan to serve, pour encourager les autres...
One way of bucking their ideas up.

She may just have secured my future vote

2011-10-25T06:22:00.000+01:00

My MP is Tracey Crouch, you may not have heard of her, but I've met her and she seems a nice enough lady, though I didn't vote for her to represent me in Westminster as I have grievous qualms about voting mainstream at any time. Yet she did me proud last night even if under the Cameron regime she may have put her career on hold for a time.
Express.

FIRST let us salute the MPs who held their nerve, despite heavy whipping and the threats and blandishments of their leaders. That so many stood firm and, after 36 years, got another vote on our relationship with Brussels counts as a stunning success.
These MPs are the ones who understand that political power can only legitimately be exercised by public consent.
Senior Tory and Labour backbenchers were foremost among the rebels.
But last night some younger MPs showed their mettle by voting in defiance of party chiefs.
Anybody searching for new political stars should look to them first. Big political figures are defined by their readiness to make elbow-room at the top table rather than just bow to the whips.
On that basis, it will be MPs like Priti Patel (Witham), Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) and Tracey Crouch (Chatham) who will have a big say in the future of the Conservative Party, for this vote will be long remembered by the British people. Those MPs who let them down will suffer the consequences at the next election.

As for the vote, well, there wasn't much of a chance of success given the odds against it, but 111 MP's including 79 Tory rebels decided that conscience was to be their guide not the orders from on high.
Here's the list courtesy of the Guardian.

• Tory rebels Stuart Andrew (Pudsey), Steven Baker (Wycombe), John Baron (Basildon & Billericay), Andrew Bingham (High Peak), Brian Binley (Northampton South), Bob Blackman (Harrow East), Graham Brady (Altrincham & Sale West), Andrew Bridgen (Leicestershire North West), Steve Brine (Winchester), Fiona Bruce (Congleton), Dan Byles (Warwickshire North), Douglas Carswell (Clacton), Bill Cash (Stone), Christopher Chope (Christchurch), James Clappison (Hertsmere), Tracey Crouch (Chatham & Aylesford), David Davies (Monmouth), Philip Davies (Shipley), David Davis (Haltemprice & Howden), Nick de Bois (Enfield North), Caroline Dinenage (Gosport), Nadine Dorries (Bedfordshire Mid), Richard Drax (Dorset South), Mark Field (Cities of London & Westminster), Lorraine Fullbrook (South Ribble), Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park), James Gray (Wiltshire North), Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry), Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne & Sheppey), George Hollingbery (Meon Valley), Adam Holloway (Gravesham), Stewart Jackson (Peterborough), Bernard Jenkin (Harwich & Essex North), Marcus Jones (Nuneaton), Chris Kelly (Dudley South), Andrea Leadsom (Northamptonshire South), Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford), Edward Leigh (Gainsborough), Julian Lewis (New Forest East), Karen Lumley (Redditch), Jason McCartney (Colne Valley), Karl McCartney (Lincoln), Stephen McPartland (Stevenage), Anne Main (St Albans), Patrick Mercer (Newark), Nigel Mills (Amber Valley), Anne-Marie Morris (Newton Abbot), James Morris (Halesowen & Rowley Regis), Stephen Mosley (Chester, City of), Sheryll Murray (Cornwall South East), Caroline Nokes (Romsey & Southampton North), David Nuttall (Bury North), Matthew Offord (Hendon), Neil Parish (Tiverton & Honiton), Priti Patel (Witham), Andrew Percy (Brigg & Goole), Mark Pritchard (Wrekin, The), Mark Reckless (Rochester & Strood), John Redwood (Wokingham), Jacob Rees-Mogg (Somerset North East), Simon Reevell (Dewsbury), Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury), Andrew Rosindell (Romford), Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills), Henry Smith (Crawley), John Stevenson (Carlisle), Bob Stewart (Beckenham), Gary Streeter (Devon South West), Julian Sturdy (York Outer), Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth & Horncastle), Justin Tomlinson (Swindon North), Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight), Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes), Charles Walker (Broxbourne), Robin Walker (Worcester), Heather Wheeler (Derbyshire South), Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley), John Whittingdale (Maldon), Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes)
Two Tory MPs acted as tellers for the rebels. They were Peter Bone (Wellingborough) and Philip Hollobone (Kettering).
Two Tory MPs voted in both the Aye and Noe lobbies. This counts as an abstention. They were: Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) and Mike Weatherley (Hove)
• 19 Labour rebels Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley), Rosie Cooper (Lancashire West), Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North), Jon Cruddas (Dagenham & Rainham), John Cryer (Leyton & Wanstead), Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West), Natascha Engel (Derbyshire North East), Frank Field (Birkenhead), Roger Godsiff (Birmingham Hall Green), Kate Hoey (Vauxhall), Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North), Steve McCabe (Birmingham Selly Oak), John McDonnell (Hayes & Harlington), Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby), Dennis Skinner (Bolsover), Andrew Smith (Oxford East), Graham Stringer (Blackley & Broughton), Gisela Stuart (Birmingham Edgbaston), Mike Wood (Batley & Spen).
• One Liberal Democrat rebel Adrian Sanders (Torbay)
• Eight Democratic Unionist Party MPs who voted for the referendum: Gregory Campbell (Londonderry East), Nigel Dodds (Belfast North), Jeffrey Donaldson (Lagan Valley), Rev William McCrea (Antrim South), Ian Paisley Junior (Antrim North), Jim Shannon (Strangford), David Simpson (Upper Bann), Sammy Wilson (Antrim East)
• Independent Unionist who voted for the referendum: Lady Sylvia Hermon (Down North)
• Green Party Leader Caroline Lucas (Brighton Pavilion) voted for the referendum

Thank you, I often rail against politicians and their weird ways, but today for the 111, thank you for at least trying.

It's those Asians again

2011-10-24T11:11:00.001+01:00

Another example of cultural enrichment happened in Leeds last night, a young woman was raped by an "Asian" whilst his mate kept lookout.
BBC.

An 18-year-old woman was raped by a man in a park in Leeds while his friend acted as a look-out.

The woman was in Cross Flatts Park on Friday evening after visiting friends, West Yorkshire Police said.

She leant against a tree and was passed by two men who were walking towards the park's Dewsbury Road exit.

The men turned back and one of them raped her while the other acted as a look-out. Police said the victim was "extremely traumatised" by the attack.

After the assault, both men left along Cross Flatts Avenue.
'Vital information'
The woman's attacker is described as Asian, in his late 20s to late 30s, 5ft 9in (1.77m) tall, skinny with brown eyes and a small moustache.

What kind of Asian of course we are not told, though I suspect it wont be of the Hindu, Buddhist, Jain or even the oriental kind, but as they haven't made an arrest yet I'm holding fire on identities.
That said, I rather doubt this is the kind of cultural enrichment meant by those who favour multiculturalism and racial diversity. The problem of course being that people from other lands frequently as not bring their criminal habits along with the law abiding ones. It's exacerbated by various do gooders who tell them that they don't have to mix in or integrate into our society to become part of a homogeneous whole. Then throw in a few special privileges such as being put on top of the housing lists and you have a recipe for resentment amongst those of us who were born here and form the mainstream. I don't really have issues with fairness mind you, I just expect it to apply to all and that's clearly not happening. You won't see an operation white vote, you wont see a white/Christian police association, you don't see white community leaders being wheeled out to explain why their communities have gone off the rails again and you certainly wont see many politicians representing the mainstream views, so politically correct and right on that they have to be these days.
Yet the resentment still grows as does the anger and the politicians still scuttle out to try and defend a system that has failed. That which divides us can never unite us and there will be a price to be paid before this is consigned to the dustbin of history.