Made it

One 27 hour flight (including a 4 hour stopover in Singapore) later I have reached New Zealand.
Job starts Sept 1st.
Life is good, jet lag is manageable.

Aotearoa

The time has come, the movers have been and I'm homeless as the keys have been handed in and I'm throwing myself on the mercy of relatives. On Bank Holiday Monday I begin a 27 hour flight to New Zealand arriving about midday (their time, about midnight ours) on Wednesday the 27th.

Not a lot of this in England

Aotearoa means the land of the long white cloud in Maori and is quite the most beautiful place I've visited, beating the tombs of Egypt easily.
My new job starts on the 1st of September and I'll be working in and around Auckland which is the largest city in New Zealand and has well over a quarter of the population of the two islands pretty much living there. Essentially it means if you want to be alone, you don't have far to go to be terribly, terribly alone.

My grandchildren

To me it was the England which ought to be, they're bloody choosy who they let in and if you don't have a skill they want, forget it. The only unskilled they'll allow are Chinese, muslims need not apply.

My new place of work

It's friendly and the leftards are firmly kept in place, that's not to say they don't have moments of lunacy, but frankly compared to this country it's not too bad.
I love England, but I no longer love what it's been allowed to become. I'll miss you all and the blog will stay open for a while to let you know how I'm doing.
Take care.

QM

Reflections

Well it was an emotional weekend and a few tears were shed. The Northeast has changed quite a bit over the last few years and for all it looks a lot nicer, the people remain more or less the same. There's also far less evidence of any pernicious islamic elements although we did spot one ninja in her bin bag outfit.
The ones we spoke too are not enamoured of the government or the EU though have a weird idea still that Labour are for the working class, then again it's not as fanatical as it once was as even they can see what a mess Labour made of the country.
We also visited Barnsley to see my stepson, first time I've ever been there, nice enough place and the first time I've ever been called 'cock' by anyone. Not too many islamics to be seen there either which kind of gives me a little hope that in the coming civil war (which I believe is now inevitable) that the people of England will prevail if they are pushed far enough by government of any stripe and the bread and circuses start to pall.
Still, none of this will matter as I'm bugging out complete with a nice little tax refund as I finally proved I've been paying too much despite what the bastards said. It will also be a cold day in hell before the UK government sees or gets anything out of me save a passport renewal form and the fee to get it.
Regrets? A few, mostly fear for the family I've left behind, but not enough to ever convince me to stay.
Also I'll never stop loving my England and will retain fond memories of the country I grew up in and will still cheer them on in any sporting events or endeavours if they play against New Zealand, but apart from that I'll be a Kiwi to the core, probably a lot more patriotic than the Kiwi's (though that could be difficult as they love their country in a way that our government has tried to stamp out) in the way that converts to a cause are more fanatical etc.
Tomorrow will be the last main post, though a few posts will follow as updates on how I'm doing, though I'm seriously not getting into doing a travelog of an immigrants experiences in a new land.
A new life, a new purpose and walks on the beach and in the mountains, not political blogging will be my aim.
The one bit of advice I can give? Come and join me in the England that was and should have remained.
Otherwise be prepared for years of tears and sorrow before England prevails again.

Parish notice

Another weekend and the last goodbyes. This one will be hard as it's my Mum and it's still less than a year that my Dad passed on.
Blogging will taper off now, too much to do before we fly out a week Monday.
This isn't the last post, but it's getting close now.

Save only that you get it wrong

I tend to like Ukip candidates, because they aren't 'career' politicians they tend to speak their mind often to the horror of the political class and their chums in the libtard led media.
Mail.

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the last execution in Britain today a newly-elected UKIP MEP has called for its reintroduction.
Louise Bours, who represents North West England in the European Parliament, said there was no ‘ethical reason’ to keep child killers and police murderers alive.
The remarks, which come as anti-death penalty activists welcomed today’s milestone, are likely to spark controversy.

Controversy amongst the political chattering classes perhaps, though I rather suspect that amongst ordinary people  not so much as they tend to see things away from the shade of the intelligentsia that believe in their divine right to tell us how to live our lives down to the smallest detail.
Personally my only objection to the death penalty is that if you do make a mistake it's impossible to put it right and I have no trust in the police or the CPS to make sure that in certain cases the evidence is properly collated and gone through. Sure the likes of Ian Huntley and the 7/7 bombers as well as the killers of Lee Rigby won't be missed, but we all know about miscarriages of justice too and the propensity of the state and their minions to throw their weight around as well as throwing the odd victim to the wolves.
Still, no doubt the idea will be quite popular amongst the real people of the UK, donations to Ukip are now bigger than those going to the Lib Dems after all. But over all, unless Ukip can deal with corruption and incompetence within the legal and policing systems, it's not something I propose they do immediately.
Should be worth a good few votes though.

Not our business

What is it with military commanders that demand we get into ever greater conflicts with areas of the world that we have simply no business being in? Take the middle east, (please) the whole area is a train wreck of competing tribes, factions and religious strife and that's just the muslims. Yet Col Tim Collins believes that somehow or other we should get ourselves involved despite the lessons of the past which tells us that it never works.
Telegraph.

One of Britain’s most respected commanders has compared the massacres in Iraq with genocides carried out by Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot, accusing the Government of failing in its “moral obligation” to intervene.
Col Tim Collins, famed for his inspirational speech on the eve of the 2003 Iraq War, said that Britain’s politicians have “left for lunch” as he urged David Cameron to recall Parliament to debate the crisis.
He told The Telegraph that ancient civilisations will be “extinguished” unless Britain joins air strikes and provides arms to Kurdish forces, and suggested that troops should be stationed in Iraq to provide training and support.
Gen Sir Mike Jackson, Chief of the General Staff during the Iraq War, added his voice to calls for Britain to join the air strikes on “humanitarian” grounds and to bring an end to the “appalling” atrocities being committed in Iraq.

Sorry as I am to see ancient civilisations extinguished, it really is none of our business, we shouldn't even be wasting fuel on aircraft to drop aid, never mind drop bombs. In the end all we do is rile up our own barbarians that our government invited in and don't have the guts to remove root and branch from our own civilisation and so are heading us down exactly the same path as the middle east, civil war, until one side dominates the other. If it's islam then barbarism sets in, the religion itself more or less guarantees it in the way its written and interpreted.
There is no place for islam in a civilised society and we should not be helping any islamic groups. Evacuate Christians, Zoroastrians, Buddhists etc, but just fence the barbarians in and let them fight it out amongst themselves.

Thief quits because the pickings aren't big enough

It's always a pleasure to see a troughing MP go their merry way and in doing so confirm why they should never have been an MP in the first place.
Telegraph.

A Government minister has quit politics claiming he cannot live in London on his salary and expenses of nearly £120,000.
Mark Simmonds said he was quitting as a Foreign Office minister and was standing down as an MP because he was unwilling to carry on staying in hotels while his family were hundreds of miles away in Lincolnshire.
Mr Simmonds is the second minister to quit the department in less than a week, after Baroness Warsi quit over the Government’s policy towards Gaza.
Labour said the double resignation had left the Foreign Office rudderless just as humanitarian catastrophes were unfolding in Gaza and Iraq.

Usual guff from Labour as Gaza and Iraq are really none of our business.
Simmonds is of course renowned as the MP who had his snout deepest in the trough in that his local paper discovered that he was the most expensive MP in the county and was employing his wife on his expenses as well as claiming the maximum in every area. Now it may not be possible to live in the manner in which you think you ought to be accustomed on a ministers salary and expenses, but it is possible to live well in London on the amount he was shoving down his trousers, plus a lot of MP's also have other interests too as well as non executive directorships and advisory roles in various businesses. In short it rather looks like Simmonds was incompetent enough not to make use of the various scams MP's use to get rich at the taxpayers account and so will not be a great loss either as an MP or a person in their own right.
I wonder what he'll do when he actually has to work for a living?

True, but you aren't supposed to mention the war...

One of the pitfalls in today's politics is that pretty much anything you say, or have said or indeed with much of the mudslinging which goes on what they think you said whether you said it or not is that certain words and phrases will get you crucified come what may. Say something about minorities and unless you're a minority, expect trouble. Men saying stuff about women, expect the feminazi's to be on your case. Pretty much the same with criticising the green religion. One big no, no is also mentioning Hitler in a 'good' context (unless apparently you're a muslim and don't think he went far enough)
Telegraph.

A Ukip MEP has defended a seminar which taught young party members to emulate Hilter’s oratory style because the Nazi dictator was "evil" but “good at public speaking.”
Bill Etheridge, had been recorded encouraging students to “pick up little moments” of Hitler’s speaking style, describing him as a "magnetic and forceful" performer at a conference for the Ukip youth wing.
Mr Etheridge later dismissed criticisms of his comments as a “silly unpleasant attack”.
He told Sky News: “Hitler was an evil, monstrous tyrant but that doesn't mean he wasn't good at public speaking.
"I wish he hadn't been, but we must be able to discuss historical figures without being slurred as agreeing with them.
The remarks, condemned as "crass, offensive" and "really stupid", were made as the West Midlands MEP delivered a seminar on public speaking at Ukip Youth Wing’s Young Independence Conference in Birmingham.

Cue the usual suspects and the hints of he must be a Nazi as he said he liked Hitler etc by the Tories and Labour hoping to score political points despite the fact that Mr Etheridge also mentioned Churchill, Martin Luther King and Tony Blair. The truth is Hitler was a demagogue, a great public speaker who could inspire and enthral an audience. That he used his gift to promote and encourage a nation into collective madness is pretty much the case in point, the guy was for the first few years very popular and with military success had approval ratings most politicians would die for.
Part of the problem we have today with a lot of people is that they simply do not understand political speakers and will believe what politicians tell them because the education system has dumbed down to the point where tricks of speaking appear to be substance not fluff. That's why we have charlatans, rogues and thieves running the country because the gullible public believe what they say from the way they say it.
Bill Etheridge was right, Hitler was a great public speaker and that's pretty much all he said. yet the great Ukip witch-hunt carries on apace and the gullible out there will believe what they are told, not what actually was said.

Parish notice

There will be no blogging for this weekend or the next one as I have some important goodbyes to take care of, many to people I doubt I'll ever see again.
Blogging will be slowly winding down over the next two weeks as I prepare for my great adventure in Aotearoa, though I'll let you know how it turns out before closing the blog down.

Controlling the past

George Orwell in his novel 1984 wrote 'He who controls the past, controls the future,' adding also 'he who controls the present controls the past.' Orwell wrote it as a warning, the problem is many of the powers that be seem to have taken it as an instruction manual in how to run the state.
Mail.

Civil servants used government computers to update Wikipedia pages downplaying killings of Jean Charles de Menezes, Lee Rigby and Damilola Taylor
Electrician was shot dead by police officer at Stockwell tube station in 2005
Investigation finds Wikipedia page on death edited by government computer
Suggestion he was on drugs added, and immigration information removed
Pages on Lee Rigby and Damilola Taylor also altered to downplay deaths
De Menezes family spokesman calls page edits 'low and callous'
Cabinet Office says any breaches of civil service code 'will be dealt with'
In June a civil servant was sacked for posting offensive comments about Hillsborough disaster on Wikipedia.
According to a Channel 4 News investigation, users of government computers added inaccurate suggestions that the 27-year-old may have been on drugs, deleted information about his immigration status, and removed a section on his death from a page about the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Changes were also made to pages on the deaths of Lee Rigby and schoolboy Damilola Taylor from government computers which downplayed their deaths, the investigation found.
The updates were made from computers using the government's secure intranet service, which is used by the civil service and police officers.

Now it may be simple malice or a desire to present things in the best possible light by individuals, though personally I suspect otherwise and believe the dead hand of the state is trawling through certain things and making sure that any controversy is removed before the public can read it. Not that it will always be politicians, but Acpo the company run by the chief inspectors of the police have also got an agenda via common purpose which is wildly at variance with what the public want. Others may such as in the case of Lee Rigby want to make sure islam and muslims names aren't dragged through the mud which may be the work of individual muslims, though knowing the states love affair with islam it may very well not be as witness the support they give to various groups who promote it and spew hate against those who oppose it.
Either way, it does appear that government and state computers are being used to rewrite history and downplay certain events and Wikipedia is the natural area to start as unfortunately it's the first port of call by many looking for evidence or knowledge and sadly it's also the last too. People tend to be lazy and will use a product to the exclusion of others such as Google and Wikipedia and the state has cottoned on to this hence their attempts to block Google reporting on their mistakes and rewrite Wikipedia to gloss over the past.
I suspect Orwell had it wrong in 1984, he meant 2084 and the problem we have is we'll never really know unless we remain vigilant.

The Warthog resigns

The governments attempts to be inclusive often mean they take on some unsuitable people, just last week Cameron took on several new faces because pressure groups were telling him he didn't have enough women, not that he didn't have enough competent MP's (debatable at best) Still there was one face left who probably should have been pushed and that was Baroness Warsi the Minister for Faith and Communities.
BBC.

David Cameron has defended government policy on Gaza after outgoing Foreign Office minister Baroness Warsi called it "morally indefensible".
The prime minister said he had been "consistently clear" in calls for peace, adding that he agreed the crisis in the region was "intolerable".
Lady Warsi resigned on Tuesday morning, arguing that the government was not doing enough to alter Israel's actions.
She said she had tried without success to shift the government's position.

Basically she wanted the government to support the terrorist group Hamas who are linked the the mass murdering ISIS against the Israelis. She then waits until a ceasefire is more or less in place and then resigns making a big fuss in the process.
Thing is, the government have got it pretty right about Israel and Gaza in that it's absolutely none of our bloody business. I know there are people out there who wish differently, but it isn't.
My problem with Warsi though is that she's not competent, she lost a by-election, got bumped up into the House of Lords and then is offered a cabinet post. Basically she was simply there because she was female, coloured and muslim which ticked three diversity boxes. But as Minister for faith and communities she was only interested in one faith and one community and the more stricter members of that faith hated her anyway because she was a woman.
Basically she was and is an islamopanderer,  a token muslim for the Tories to parade until she jumped before she was pushed probably after the next election. She was crap at her job and carried her prejudices into her work as well.
All in all, she won't be missed and I reckon Cameron thinks he's well shot of her.

Shouldn't we be remembering its end?

The first world war was a tragedy, the flower of a generation was sacrificed in a war in which the tactics of a previous generation were used to ill effect against machine guns and trench warfare. The term lions led by donkeys came about when the foolishness and arrogance of the generals was questioned but not the courage of the men they were supposed to lead to victory not ignominious death.
Yesterday the news was full of 'celebrations' of remembrance for the start of the conflict, last night a lot of public buildings were in darkness save for a single candle in commemoration. Yet what we were commemorating was the end result of politicians meddling in what they termed the great game, whereby they tied this country into a series of treaties that made war of some kind inevitable. The flower of a generation, bright, patriotic and willing to give their all for king and country were mown down because of a series of treaties meant that the killing of an archduke in Serbia by a Serbian nationalist drew a response from Austia-Hungary and started unravelling a whole web of treaties in which eventually the Austrian ally of Germany invaded of Belgium because France was allied with Serbia drew us into the conflict.
In essence for all we're being told that we're remembering the courage of the men, were also commemorating a massive failure by politicians, one they are likely enough to repeat, after all world war two was a direct result of politicians botching up the negotiations at the end of world war one.
No, we should not be getting into bread and circuses for the start of WW1, we have a perfectly good Remembrance Day in November to remember the brave.
The start of WW1 was a tragedy made flesh by the idiocy of politicians, that is what we should remember.

Just words

The recent Ukip surge has politicians a bit rattled. Ukip stands for many things, but the main one is leaving the EU, however that's not the policy which has the main political parties worried. Ukip's anti immigration stance is the one where they believe they are going to have to act tough not quite realising that the second goes hand in hand with the first...
Mail.

The public has lost faith in government claims about tackling immigration because it does not tally with what they see on the ground, Nick Clegg will admit.
In a speech on immigration tomorrow, the Deputy Prime Minister will say it is ‘no wonder’ that people do not believe what ministers tell them when they have been ‘repeatedly told one thing only to then see another’.
He will speak out in favour of the free movement of European citizens but seek reforms to ensure that fewer Eastern Europeans move here if more countries are admitted to the EU in future.
Labour’s welfare spokesman Rachel Reeves will also call for reforms to the freedom of movement – to tackle benefit tourism – in a speech tomorrow.

Yes people have lost faith in the government mostly because we know they lie to us and unfortunately for the boy Clegg and Rachel Reeves they are lying to us about reforming the EU too as reform particularly on the free movement of labour (even if it is benefit tourism) is one of the cornerstones of EU policy and they aren't going to change it to suit us.
Nor is it EU immigration that really concerns people, it's immigration from islamic countries and the setting up of ghetto's of islamists who don't integrate, hate us and are just as big benefit leeches via their families who don't work and have severe medical problems due to generations of first cousin marital inbreeding.
The fact is, we've been pushed to the limits by mass uncontrolled immigration coupled with constantly being told that we have to be tolerant and tolerate the intolerable. We are the ones being called racist by the likes of the moronic left and their liberal fellow passengers. We are the ones who live next to the expanding ghetto's with their shariah law, intolerance, grooming gangs, homophobia, misogyny etc and we're told that we are the problem, not them!
What do people do when politicians and the political process fail them? They look to politicians proposing simple solutions. That usually means minor parties like Ukip, but it can also mean groups like the BNP too.
The next twenty or so years are not going to be fun in the UK, I just hope that the damage can be repaired in time. Either way, Clegg and Reeves aren't the solution, they and their parties are part of the problem.

Do as I say, not as I do

It appears that there are some in the government, or rather MP's in favour of the green lunacy that is climate change and CO2 emission control, we know this, we also know that there is very much a do as I say, not as I do culture at large in Westminster.
Telegraph.

Energy Secretary Ed Davey is dodging his own green taxes – by switching his gas and electricity supplier to a company exempt from the charges slapped on domestic bills.
The Cabinet Minister is now spared from paying the average £112-a-year ‘green duty’ added to most domestic bills after he moved his account to a firm that does not have to pay it.
Mr Davey recently changed from Sainsbury’s Energy to Green Star Energy to supply gas and electricity to his Kingston constituency home.
Green Star – which, despite its name, is not an eco-certified company – does not have to pay green taxes because it is a new firm with fewer than 250,000 customers. Its average household bill is just over £1,009 a year, compared with Sainsbury’s average of £1,264 – meaning Mr Davey could potentially save about £255 annually.

It was and is rather noticeable the number of companies who stuck 'green' somewhere in their advertising without actually being green or environmentally friendly at all, it was simply the done thing. Still you have to wonder at the hypocrisy of the Lib Dem member for Kingston in deliberately choosing a company that avoids the green levy his party is so in love with. The evidence is growing daily that climate change is a natural thing and man's effects upon it are minimal to say the least. The biggest contributing factor to worldwide climate change is and remains the sun, closely followed by oceanic currents, not CO2 emissions.
So as it's basically a tax raising scam, we should not be too surprised that MP's will look for a way to get around it, whilst naturally making sure that the rest of us pick up their tab.
This is yet another reason to never vote mainstream politics, they really do think they can take us for fools.
Sad thing is, with a lot of people they're right.

Going after the easy targets

In a UK where illegal immigrants can get the right to remain due to the Human Rights Act it comes as a surprise to find out it doesn't work for just anybody. It does appear that if you're a law abiding citizen you have less rights under the Act than a rapist or a child molester with a family.
Express.

A BRITISH man fears his family could be torn apart because his pregnant wife has been threatened with deportation to her native Australia.
In a bitter battle that has touched the hearts of thousands, Dale Tate's wife, Katherine, has been told by officials she will be booted out of the UK in just ten days, even though her husband and two sons are British citizens.
A judge said the family could stay at home in the UK, where Mr Tate has spent all his life – but the Home Office are seeking to overturn the ruling.
The fight comes as thousands of foreign criminals remain in the UK using human rights laws and the Home Office has only just been able to boot out terror suspects Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza after years of wrangling.
The 30-year-old, from Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, said: "My wife is an Australian citizen, our two children are British citizens, and she is six months pregnant with our third child.
"I own an electrical contracting company and employ two tradesmen and two apprentices in turn creating jobs, skills and a contribution to our economy and welfare system.
"We claim no benefits whatsoever, no child support, no family tax credits or others alike.

As the last sentence tells us, this family are obviously a menace and a burden to society /sarc>
You have to wonder at the mentality of those going after this woman, sure rules are rules, but depriving kids of their mother who is genuinely married to a UK citizen who is clearly a hard worker seems a tad ridiculous. The Home Office have even demanded that the NHS do not treat her pregnancy without the family stumping up cash first and it all appears to be over a paperwork error.
Is it just me or does the suspicion raise its head with anyone else  that had she been any colour but white this whole thing would have been swept under the carpet? After all, if you look at these cases you'd almost certainly think so...
Link.

* A Turkish man, aged 38, who was convicted of rape and jailed for seven years in 2004, but successfully argued that he would be in danger from the anti-terror police and intelligence agencies if he was sent home.
* A 28-year-old Congolese man who was handed four years' imprisonment for causing grievous bodily harm with intent – by battering a man with a metal pole – but won his appeal against deportation because he had an infant son.
* A father-of-three from Pakistan who sexually assaulted a woman after drugging her, and was jailed for 15 months.
* A 23-year-old Congolese man who was convicted of 10 crimes between 2002 and 2006 before being jailed for robbery in 2007, receiving a two-year prison term. His lawyers successfully argued that it would be wrong to return him to his native country where conditions were "harsh and difficult".
* A Lebanese man who was a prime mover in a £3 million fraud, and who admitted receiving £258,000 from the crime to fund a lavish lifestyle including a Mercedes, a Range Rover and expensive watches. The 40-year-old was jailed for 40 months but allowed to remain in the UK because of the effect that deporting him would have had on his children and wife, who was also jailed for her role in the fraud.
* A Pakistani man, aged 40, jailed for eight years for conspiracy to import Class A drugs and conspiracy to kidnap, whose lawyers argued that he should stay in Britain because of his "right to family life".

Guess it's so much easier to spend time, effort and taxpayers cash on going after the easy targets and you'd suspect that Mrs Tate would have though a paperwork mistake and her leading a blameless life would have been easy to surmount, particularly as all her children will be UK citizens.
Perhaps she ought to start committing crimes? It does appear to be the only solution to Home Office intransigence.
What a skewed set of priorities those running the government have.

Open prisons

There are four categories of prisons for men in the UK, A being the most secure and only Bristol on the UK mainland is (or was) categorised as such. Other prisons did have category A wings or blocks too. "B was where most violent prisoners ended up, C was essentially a massive holding type of prison where the vast majority of offenders end up and D is the open prison system where prisoners nearing release are kept along with those deemed no danger to society. Or at least that was the theory...
Telegraph.

Four prisoners a week are walking out of the country’s jails, a rise of 10 per cent, according to new figures.
The National Offender Management Service disclosed that the number of prisoners absconding in England and Wales rose to 225 in the year to March, from 204 in 2012/13.
The figures were published on the same day that it emerged that an armed robber Wayne Whitley who was serving a life sentence, had absconded from Kirkham open prison in Lancashire.
Absconding is defined as when a prisoner “absents him or her self from prison custody without lawful authority” and without clearing a wall or breaking any locks.
Most of the abscondees were from male open prisons where security is notoriously lax. The figures come after there has been growing controversy about the number of prisoners going missing from open prisons.

Unfortunately due to a rise in offenders and the governments (of both stripes) reluctance to build more secure prisons, many prisoners are ending up in categories that were never designed or ran to hold them. Hence we have armed robbers ending up in Category D rather than B or C.
Having worked on the Isle of Sheppey where there are three prisons of B, C, and D it's very noticeable that Stamford Hill the category D prison is totally different to the other two, if only because it doesn't have a wall around it and those it holds are dropped off at the gatehouse and actually walk up to the two main buildings housing the inmates. No pressure and a lot of trust... but as most are only there short term, they probably do not want to mess things up at that stage, so it's a calculated risk in a sense, but pretty good odds.
However add someone in there who is dangerous, has nothing to lose, has quite a bit of time left on their sentence then it's a recipe for abscondment.
Open prisons are a good idea, just not for violent lifers, if they were used the way they were meant to be then there would I suspect be few incidents of escape.
As it is, politicians whilst having no problems spending a fortune on themselves and celebrity causes such as minorities and 'green idiocy' are far more reluctant to actually build prisons and needed infrastructure.
They really don't have a normal set of priorities once they go to Westminster...

Flying the flag

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

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

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

Death and taxes

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

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

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

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

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

Bit of a waste of time and effort

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

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

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

Hate and spite

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

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

Makes you wonder why we fought WW2

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