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.

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.

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...

Madness

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

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

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

Presumption

The Lib Dems love affair with the EU carries on apace despite their drubbing in the recent election, though no doubt they've convinced themselves that it was simply a protest vote and that come the next election things will go back to normal. Still they've seized on figures drawn up recently by the treasury that show that 3 million jobs would be at risk if we left the EU, leaked despite the fact that the Tory chancellor didn't want them released.
Telegraph.

Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will say that official Government figures show that 3.3 million jobs could be at risk if the UK leaves the EU, prompting a row with senior Conservatives
More than three million British jobs would be at risk if Britain leaves the European Union, an official Treasury analysis has disclosed.
Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will today inflame tensions in the Coalition by making public Treasury figures that show Britain’s reliance on the EU.
He will say that Treasury experts have calculated that 3.3 million are connected to Britain’s continues membership of the EU.
It will anger senior Conservatives and comes just one day before David Cameron travels to Brussels for a major clash with EU leaders over the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission.

The question is of course is the risk defined? Bandying words like could and would simply implies that if things go terribly wrong and the EU decides to cut off its nose to spite its face and suspend trading with the UK  then jobs could be at risk. Trouble is, the EU is unlikely to do so as they sell far more to us than we sell to them and they will not want to get into a trade war. The treasury report will be as other reports do giving best, worst and middle grounds and it may be that the best report simply says that things will carry on as they are without the cost of the dead hand of EU bureaucracy upon us. Certainly there may be some jobs that will go, particularly in the civil service, but its hard to define if industrial jobs will go, we may find new markets outside of the EU or our products become cheaper to sell in the EU without their oft stupid regulations on hours and paperwork.
Any argument put forward using words like 'could' and 'would' falls at the first step as it implies that they don't know. I rather suspect Mr Alexander doesn't either yet has seized on a report which on the surface appears to support his position like the old Clegg battle cry of 6 million jobs which has been quietly shelved as people now doubt the EU has done so at all.
I still doubt Cameron and co have the balls to leave the EU, I suspect it will take a little while longer for the dissent amongst the population to filter through to the political classes.
We knew this was a long road when we started, but in the end we'll get there.

It's not complacency

Again and again whenever there's a problem to do with muslims some useful idiot is wheeled out to give some pronouncement about what islam is, who muslims are and what muslims should do. Unfortunately as the idiot isn't usually a muslim they are ignored by muslims who generally take no notice of non-muslims and the rest of us who have come into contact with real islam and know bollocks being spoken when we hear it.
Mail.

Muslim communities in Britain are guilty of ‘complacency and passivity’ over the threat from home-grown jihadists, the UK’s top counter-terrorism officer warned last night.
The Metropolitan Police’s Assistant Commissioner, Cressida Dick, said there were many cases where ‘warning signs’ about extremists were not brought to the attention of authorities.
She also indicated some Muslims were too accepting of radical views, saying it was the police’s ‘greatest challenge’ to make them ‘wholly hostile to violent extremism’.
Her comments came as the Government was confronted with a damning assessment by a former head of the military of Britain’s capacity to confront terrorism.
Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, chief of the defence staff until last year, said the military was ‘not good enough’ to deal with the global threat from jihadis.
The crossbench peer, formerly General Sir David Richards, called for a rise in defence spending and warned that without it, the effectiveness of the Armed Forces would inevitably deteriorate further.

I'm pretty sure such warnings were given over the Nazi party too.
No, the complacency lies with those in authority and the political classes who don't see the real threat because they don't live with it. It's the same reason that criminals get off lightly and the Human Rights Act has become such a burden on our society with its allowing violent criminals to remain amongst us. The muslim communities are not complacent, they've at best given tacit consent to the preachers who are encouraging  jihadism in this country as jihad as they see it is a noble cause no matter how ignoble its methodology as it's usually carried out against non-muslims and they aren't real people. That is the problem of trying to dictate to something that has tied its barbarism to religious trappings, you are dealing with faith, a written book and traditions which encourage barbarism and it's run by a bunch of imam's who see no reason to moderate what the quran and hadiths say, most of it coming from the life and works of a murderous child molesting slaver with a psychopathic god complex.
So no, telling muslims what they should do won't work, if you aren't a muslim then your words are meaningless, four times as meaningless if you're a woman.
Yet it doesn't stop idiots like Cameron and Cressida Dick telling us and muslims what islam is and what it should be doing.
Nor apparently those in power deliberately disarming our military strength to deal with them in the future.

Apparently we're thick

It appears that in certain political circles that a conclusion has been reached that one of the reasons people voted for Ukip is that they weren't computer literate, didn't know how to send emails and look things up via google. In other words we're thick...
Telegraph.

Ukip voters feel disconnected from mainstream politics because they don’t know how to send emails or browse the internet, Labour’s shadow business secretary has suggested.
Chuka Umunna, said that “a lot of those voting for Ukip” in the local and general elections were not computer literate and “can’t do things like” sending and receiving emails or browsing the internet.
The UK Independence Party stormed to victory at the European elections, the first time since 1906 that a party other than the Conservatives or Labour had won a national election.
Nigel Farage's party also picked up more than 100 seats from Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems in council elections nationally.

This does seem a bit rich from a party who used to rely on votes from working class communities to the extent of a running joke that if you put a red rosette on a donkey it would get in. Thing is though that those communities and groups who traditionally voted labour wised up when said Labour government flooded their communities with masses of immigrants who caused problems and disruption for the people there reducing wages in semi skilled jobs and removing the chances for the school leavers to find work. The strain on health facilities and education as well as the ongoing sensation that they were taking the pee over benefits as well as the feeling often enough that when you went shopping you were no longer in an English speaking country was just the icing on the cake as it were.
Yet these people aren't stupid, they can use computers, pads and phones to see what's going on, the read headlines and they've learned not to trust said headlines or politicians who spout off about who or what they think they are and why they do what they do.
Essentially Labour like the Tories are losing traditional voters because in their scramble to make new friends they trampled over their old ones and in the case of Labour called them racist bigots to boot.
For years political parties have presumed their core groups would vote for the proverbial donkey with a coloured rosette, they are now finding that it was possible to go too far in their arrogance and hubris, they no longer can count on our support so believe us to be stupid or ignorant.
Once again it appears that they never learn...

Lowest common denominator

One of the main reasons for the failures in some of the state schools is that they default to having to try to spend more resources teaching those at the bottom end of the learning spectrum. The brightest and best have a tendency to become bored or are simply ignored as teachers struggle to cope with the disruptive and struggling in their classes. Because of the insistence of only moving kids forward one year at a time and massive resistance to streaming the brightest into their own classes to learn at a higher pace, we ended up with a train crash of an education system...
Express.

COMPREHENSIVE schools are still linked with “mediocrity and failure”, the chief schools’ inspector said yesterday.
Sir Michael Wilshaw, head of watchdog Ofsted, believes too many are still clinging on to poor teaching methods which are a “throwback to the 1960s and 1970s”, such as “informal learning”.
He also attacked a lack of academic rigour, a neglect of basic literacy and numeracy and a resistance to exams and “meaningful” qualifications.
Sir Michael warned that nearly one in five is not up to scratch and many others are in a “constant battle to avoid slipping backwards”.
In a speech at Wellington College in Berkshire he said: “Even though the ideology that afflicted so many... has been largely discredited, its damaging effects remain.”
These include a half-hearted pursuit of high standards and a toleration of poor behaviour.

As mentioned above, one of the reasons for a half hearted pursuit of high standards is many teachers are forced to deal with kids who don't want to learn to the detriment of those who do. Add to this a heady mix of uncontrolled immigration and a set of pupils who initially do not understand English any too well and the situation is far worse than it need be.
Once upon a time we had two types of schooling, grammar and modern, kids took the 11 plus exam and the brightest went to grammar schools the rest went to the modern system which was biased towards trade skills rather than academic ones. It wasn't particularly fair to the late developers, but it worked and owing to misplaced leftard delusions of fairness it had to go so all could have prizes. So instead of helping the best we had to do the best they could, we drowned them in a sea of comprehensive education.
We have sacrificed far too many of our children on a bed of political dogma where teaching methods and curriculum were messed with by politicians and leftard so called academics until we have the situation where a lot of kids now leave school barely literate and numerate, something almost unheard of in my generation.
Fairness is for adults, not kids, the schooling system should be aimed at getting the best out of all, but streamed towards the brightest getting preferential treatment. No, it isn't fair, but it will work.

All must have prizes

For a long time now the policy in state schools by those whose allegiance to the left both in government and in teaching has been to downgrade sport. They followed a policy (however idiotic) that competition was somehow denigrating to those who did not win and this somehow damaged them.. Rather than assisting them to understand how the real world worked with winners and losers, they went for an all must have prizes groupthink which as kids are not stupid simply meant that the brighter and better ones simply didn't bother to apply discipline in sport to themselves and those who couldn't thought they were better somehow than they were.
BBC.

Too many state-school pupils are denied the chance to take part in competitive sport by head teachers who treat it as an "optional extra", says Ofsted.
Schools where pupils lack opportunities to excel in sport tend to have worse academic results, says a report from the watchdog.
It explores why so many top athletes are from private schools.
The National Union of Teachers said Ofsted's comparison between state and private school sport was "ridiculous".
The report, Going the extra mile: Excellence in competitive school sport, was commissioned after the 2012 Olympics to explore why so many Team GB athletes had been educated in private rather than state schools.
The report finds that in the most successful schools, both state and private, heads recognise that competitive sport can help build an ethos and boost grades.
Strong teams rely on teachers prepared to dedicate time and energy before, during and after school, as well as at weekends, say the authors.
Staff need to be able to identify talented pupils for extra coaching and ensure matches are accessible to everyone else, they add.

Not every state school of course, but the majority simply fail to see sport as a necessity in developing the children in a positive way. Nor does the NUT's bleat about  State schools having neither the same facilities nor time and space in the curriculum for sport as independent schools hold much water either, facilities possibly, but time? I'm pretty sure that independent schools teach the same curriculum generally as the state ones, though perhaps without the namby pamby leftard nonsense like climate change and multicultural bullshit.
A lot of this is down to political meddling with the curriculum in the past and no doubt future politicians will try to get into the act as well. Yet education is far too important to leave in the hands of anyone who has an agenda other than producing a bright and well educated next generation. Playing political skittles with kids brains to try to be fair to those who don't do so well has been a disaster, kids generally don't think like that anyway and so switch off from the process.
The ethos of all must have prizes needs to go and be replaced with a competitive edge. Sure there will be some who fail, but the winners will gain self confidence and the losers will develop mechanisms to cope and succeed in other ways.
Don't hold your breath on things changing soon though, those who believe that all must have prizes are too well entrenched in education to let go easily.

Silly talk

Cameron went on record telling us that the gravest threat to the UK was the ISIS group (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) currently causing trouble in Iraq. The reason he thinks they are trouble is that jihadis from the UK are amongst them and they may come back armed and extremely dangerous.
Express.

INSURGENCIES led by religious extremists in Iraq and Syria are the most serious danger Britain faces today, David Cameron has warned.
The Prime Minister insisted the prospect of battle-hardened jihadists returning to the UK was a “real threat to our country”.
But he denied that the Government was restoring diplomatic links with neighbouring Iran in a bid to win Tehran’s help to quell the spread of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) militants.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Chinese premier Li Keqiang, Mr Cameron said: “No-one should be in any doubt that what we see in Syria and now in Iraq in terms of ISIS is the most serious threat to Britain’s security that there is today.
“The number of foreign fighters in that area, the number of foreign fighters including those from the UK who could try to return to the UK this is a real threat to our country.
“We will do absolutely everything we can to keep our people safe. That means stopping people from going, it means arresting people who are involved in plots, it means focusing our security, our policing, our intelligence effort on to that area of the world, on to those people.”

My solution is simpler, revoke their passports if they go or are proven to be out there.
Naturally there are leftards comparing the jihadi's who go as equivalents to the Brits who went to fight for the International  Brigades during the Spanish civil war in the 1930's though then they went to fight tyranny (as they saw it) rather than take part and revel in it. Most came back disillusioned with war too, though somehow for our jihadi's I cannot see this being the case.
Nor do I believe cosying up to Iran is wise, their government which is essentially controlled by religious clerics and is pretty much the other side of the same coin, just as fanatical but with the resources of a large state behind it.
Meddling in that area ought to become a maxim similar to that of never getting involved in a land war in south east Asia, it's simply not worth the time or effort and no matter what you do they are going to hate you anyway. Nor should we allow them to come here spreading their poison.
We should simply sell them arms and play one (or multiple) sides off against each other whilst making sure the oil flows.
We can always talk to the last man standing... eventually.

Lord Haw Haw

William Joyce (amongst others) was a wartime broadcaster from Nazi Germany who 'encouraged' the British to give up fighting and praised to high heavens Nazi victories and spouted Nazi propaganda in a series of radio broadcasts during WW2. Essentially he was a tool of the Nazi's to undermine morale and to disseminate propaganda to make it look like the Germans were winning (a bit easier in the first part of the war than the latter days)
Even today though we have apologists for foreign powers telling us that we need to accede to their wishes and roll over to give them what they want, so step forward Lord Davies, ex-Tory now Labour peer...
Express.

In a House of Lords debate, former minister Lord Davies asked the Government to remain “pragmatic” when it comes to assessing what should be run by Brussels and what should be governed by the UK.
Lord Davies, who defected to Labour from the Tories when sitting as MP for Grantham and Stamford in 2007, asked: “Will the government be guided in these negotiations by an honest and value and evidence based assessment of the national interest, and if so, is it not the case that such an assessment might well throw up opportunities for repatriating powers but equally well might throw up areas where it might be in the better and national interest for more powers to be concentrated or given to the Union or at the Union level?
“Will the Government maintain entirely pragmatic about that or will the government reject out of hand or shy away from conclusions of that kind?”

I suppose it is possible that Cameron could come to that sort of conclusion, God alone knows the boy Clegg believes it with all his heart. Yet I fail to see how removing powers from (vaguely) democratically accountable levels in the UK and handing it over to unelected, unaccountable EUrocrats in Brussels who don't have a clue as to local needs and wants is going to help anyone.
All Lord Davies is, is a mouthpiece for the EUphiles who want ever more interference in our lives by Brussels or as they put it, ever closer union. He's even reading the mood of the country wrong by spouting his guff in the face of Ukip's electoral success in the last election in that there appears to be no great desire from the British to give more to the EU or indeed remain in the EU. Nor do his credentials of leaping ship from one party to another stand him in good stead in my mind and simply confirm to myself that politicians are mostly unrepresentative of what the public want and follow their own desire to remain in power rather than resign if they are totally at odds with their party and seek re-election elsewhere.
Btw, we hung Lord Haw Haw... perhaps Lord Davies should bear that in mind.

Guilty until proven innocent

Her Majesties Revenue & Customs don't seem to like the idea that people for a variety of legal reasons (some admittedly obscure) do not pay the tax that they believe they should and so have come up with another wizard wheeze to get their hands on cash they believe is theirs...
Telegraph.

Taxpayers will be treated as “guilty until proven innocent” as HM Revenue & Customs gets the power to force them to pay up front if officials suspect them of tax avoidance.
Under plans announced in the Queen’s Speech, people using tax avoidance schemes will be made to make “accelerated payments” as part of plans to raise around £2 billion.
Treasury figures suggest that 65,000 people could be affected by the new powers. HMRC could raise a more than £2bn in all.
The most controversial aspect of the new plans is for the new rules to apply to a “legacy stock” of pre-existing cases, where people invested money in contentious schemes several years ago.
George Osborne earlier this year announced a major Government crackdown on tax avoiders following a series of high-profile cases involving celebrities including Gary Barlow, the Take That singer.
Experts have warned that it will lead to tens of thousands of potentially innocent British citizens being forced to pay their taxes before they are even due.
The all-party Treasury Select Committee last month expressed concerns about the plans for up-front payments to HMRC.
Neal Todd, corporate tax partner at Berwin Leighton Paisner, warned that the HMRC are acting as “judge and jury”.

Yep, they decide you owe them and force you to hand it over and they hold onto it until you prove it's not theirs. It's a bit like a shop grabbing your wallet before you go in and deciding how much you're going to spend.
HMRC of course have form for getting it wrong and being extremely slow to put things right, it appears once they have our cash in their hands they're very reluctant to actually let go of it again under any circumstances whether its a mistake or incompetence on their part. And what we have with this proposed legislation is the equivalent of letting a fox into the chicken coop with instructions to go after specific chickens, you know it's going to be messy and mistakes are going to be made.
No doubt the leftards out there who bleat about avoidance as if it's a crime will be pleased that companies and individuals will be targeted, yet avoidance isn't a crime, evasion is and it needs to be proven, not simply suspected before you paid up or paid back.
Well you'd hope...

Sounds like Foreign Office influence

The UK Civil Service often enough acts like a world of its own where it takes a view opposite that of the population of the UK as a whole as it deals with foreign countries. Not for nothing is the Foreign Office known as the 'Camel Corps' in its dealing with the Middle east and its opposition to the state of Israel often in direct opposition to UK government policy.Other departments also have a distressing habit of using past precedent to justify its current activities again often in direct opposition to government policy in using officialese language rather than common sense.
Express.

FALKLAND Islands officials were last night said to be “seething with fury” after being repeatedly sent documents addressed to the “Malvinas”.
Furious MPs at Westminster were blaming “political correctness” for purchase ledgers and invoices sent from Whitehall carrying the Argentinian name for the South Atlantic UK territory.
After sheepish Home Office officials blamed the gaffe on a glitch with its computer software, one disbelieving MP asked: “Where did they buy it from? Buenos Aires?”
Labour MP Thomas Docherty also challenged Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire to ban all government departments from using the name which could be seen as encouraging Argentina’s claim to the islands.

Ah yes, political correctness where moves to not offend someone often enough end up offending everyone. Still you'd think that the term 'Malvinas' would be utterly anathema to those running the government particularly as we've shed blood in keeping them. There's also the fact that the islanders themselves voted overwhelmingly (98%) to remain as part of the UK's overseas territory, the sort of landslide you come to expect in 'socialist democratic' states and various Arab dictatorships, though in this case quite genuine.
Nor do I believe computer glitch for a second, this was quite deliberate and the term was put there to 'ease' diplomatic relations when dealing with South America over issues to do with the Falklands. That it ended up in Home Office documentation is probably that the software is used by all Departments and hence has its roots in officialese, the obscure language of the Civil Service where nothing is quite what it appears to be and different rules apply.
I've no doubt certain civil servants would love to be rid of the Falkland Islands and palm them off to Argentina if only to save money to use elsewhere to decorate their offices. The Falkland however remain ours and should be treat with respect both in language and documentation.
That the Civil service cannot seem to do so tells you everything you need to know about their higher offices.

Sticky fingers

Seems that our MP's are a tad worried by the fact that the taxman or HMRC has gained additional powers in the budget to go raiding our bank accounts without our permission or the permission of a judge too.
I have to admit it bothers me that anyone can touch my money without my permission, I have enough problems with the bank asking me questions when I make a large withdrawal, it really is none of their business what I do with it and I'm unhappy enough with the government via the taxman ripping me off by grabbing so much in income tax and national insurance not to mention VAT and the other sales taxes they bandy about.
Telegraph.

Innocent people face having money taken straight out of their bank accounts under draconian powers to be used by the taxman, MPs warn on Friday.
A Treasury plan to allow HM Revenue and Customs to remove cash from bank accounts without a court order is “very concerning” because of its history of mistakes, a Commons committee said.
In a consultation document this week, HMRC said the "direct recovery" powers could be used to take money from joint accounts.
The tax authorities admitted this week that about 17,000 people a year would be targeted under the new measures, set out in the Budget and designed for use against people who owe them money.
But today the Commons Treasury committee says that taxpayers could suffer “serious detriment” if officials are able, either by mistake or through an “abuse” of power, to take money from people who have done no wrong.

Yes, it's not like the inland revenue are infallible, nor are they known for their patience, I can imagine a scenario where they grab the cash and hold onto it whilst an appeal or other proceedings are occurring. Nor would I expect them to simply target their victim announced debtor, the funds in the account may actually be a partners, their children or others held in trust and if they simply grab it without a judge hearing an explanation others could suffer (and probably will)
Giving HMRC this sort of power is akin to letting a kiddy loose in a sweet shop without supervision, they'll simply not be able to help themselves. Seems that putting your cash in the banks (of the UK) is a big mistake, I can see a day coming where overseas banks may become the choice of many, at least the taxman won't be able to get at them quite so easily (so long as they aren't in the EU)

Straining credibility

The continued witch-hunt against Ukip goes on, with puff pieces in most MSM outlets trying to stick the knife in one way or another, although they are really straining credibility now. Accusations of racism, corruption, using actors in their adverts (like every other party) the list goes on.

Clearly racist

Mind you, there was a new one today which caught my eye and showed just how bloody stupid the complainer is...
Mail.

Ukip faced fresh accusations of double standards today amid claims Eastern Europeans have been hired to hand out flyers in its anti-immigration election campaign.
Latvians have been hired by a firm in Croydon to hand out flyers ahead of elections on May 22.
It follows revelations the party used an Irish actor in a poster about Brits missing out on jobs, as David Cameron today stepped up his attack on Ukip, accusing his rivals of not believing the country has a bright future.

Silly thing is, it would have been illegal to advertise to use UK only people to deliver the fliers and I very much doubt Ukip could (or would) ask to vet the staff that an agency would use. Tory MP Gavin Barwell who accused the party of hypocrisy I suspect knows this but chose to make a fool of himself in his quest to make a headline anyway.
You'd think by now the big three would have realised that this campaign of muckraking is having the opposite effect to the one they wanted it's actually rallying support to Ukip and putting people off voting for the big three. There's a sense of circling the wagons from Ukip supporters as well as a rush of support from unexpected quarters (the indigenous working class) who don't see what the odd-ball Ukip candidates as being racist or extremist at all as they live with the bloody problems that the candidates were describing.
There are hints of desperation coming through clearly from the main parties, they clearly are struggling with the concept that a very large minority of people do not like the EU and are being joined by many who simply do not like the mainstream parties and their out of touch policies and rhetoric at all. People are sick and tired of being told all is well when it clearly is not, those same people know just who is to blame as well, it isn't Ukip.

Telling us what to do...

Political parties seem to attract bansturbators, authoritarians, idiots and unprincipled rogues who once in power tend to vote for any set of measures which force people into doing things their way rather than leaving us alone to sort out our own path. Take the current wars on alcohol, fatty food, tobacco, etc, all backed by the government and all lobbied for by groups more or less funded by the government to tell the government what they want to hear. The Tories are pretty bad, but when it comes to really wanting to control what we do with ourselves, well you need to see what Labour is planning...
Telegraph.

The Labour party has drawn up tough new measures to limit the sale and promotion of cheap alcohol, unhealthy food and tobacco, leaked documents revealed
Ed Miliband plans to impose tough restrictions on the sale and advertising of alcohol, junk food and tobacco if he wins power, it was claimed.
The Labour leader’s plan would end the £300million sports sponsorship by drinks firms and impose minimum alcohol pricing to try cut down on the damaging effects of heavy drinking on people’s health.
The blueprint, revealed in documents leaked to the Mail on Sunday, also proposes new laws to limit the amount of sugar, fat and salt in food aimed at children, and a ban on advertising unhealthy products on TV before the 9pm watershed.
Drawn up by Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, the plans are reported to have sparked a backlash within the party led by Blairite Chuka Umunna, who has been tipped as a successor to Miliband.
Supporters of Mr Umunna are worried the plans will appear ‘anti business and interventionist’, the Mail on Sunday reported.

I think they ought to be more worried about what the general public think of their measures given Labours shrinking lead in the opinion polls, though I suspect what the actual public think never crosses their minds save occasionally at election time.
Minimum alcohol pricing as I've said in the past is a none starter, not unless the Labour Party are going to take us out of the EU, they aren't, so it's not going to happen, it's just words.
As for being anti-business, well these are leftards we're talking about, most have never run a business and a hell of a lot believe in magic money tree policies and spend money we haven't got because they can always get more by borrowing or stealing the family silver.
However it's the idea that they can force us to forego our pleasures by removing them from our grasp that gets my goat and the fact that it's the same tired old excuses they come out with. Why the hell can't they just leave us alone to sort out our own lives? Then again they've infantilised a lot of the population to expect the government to do something, to pay their benefits to help them out, however poorly the government seem to do it. They always penalise the majority to deal with a minority problem, they abhor drunken behaviour from a few, so they up the price of booze for all. They say there are too many obese people around, so they penalise the not obese by removing their pleasures too, they declared war on cigarettes, smuggling went through the roof.
Whatever the dead hand of government does always produces unexpected (to them) results as people fight back or find alternatives.
They should leave us alone to sort out our own problems...

Kneejerk measures

The stabbing of teacher Ann Maguire is a tragedy, I'm pretty sure we'll end up with weeks or even months of investigation and inane commentary by those who have a vested interest in turning her death into their advantage by pushing their agenda, some rightly so, others because they see an opportunity to get more control over us. Unlike the Lee Rigby case, there seems no need for the government and special interest groups to go into defensive mode and excuse the killers or absolve their cause, which means of course they'll try to push for some illiberal measures to further control what we can say or do...
Telegraph.

Downing Street has said that it will do everything possible to prevent a repeat of the murder of Ann Maguire, as it emerged that the teenager accused of stabbing her is a fan of a violent video game marketed with the slogan “prepare to die”.
A 15-year-old boy was still being held on suspicion of murder on Tuesday night as police said questioning him “may take some time”.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that “of course” the Government would look at any “lessons to learn” from the murder at a school in Leeds.
The boy is known to have become withdrawn after his parents, a civil servant and a human resources director, separated 10 years ago.
He is said to have turned up at school with gin, Jack Daniels whiskey and beer in his bag on various occasions.

Wow, talk about a golden opportunity to insist schools have metal detectors installed at their gates along with cctv, or a ban on video games and joy of joy for the anti-alcohol brigade to propose increasing booze prices way above what ordinary folk could afford. There's even the opportunity to blame rising divorce rates for a cycle of violence in society too.
Whilst I'm not saying any of this will happen, you can bet your bottom dollar that some hysterics out there will already have their prepared spiel about why xxxx was responsible for Ann Maguire's death and why we should do xxxx to prevent it happening again increasing the surveillance and/or increasing the sheer bloody misery of society where just about anything we can say or do is monitored or covered by legislation and there's always someone out there who believes we need more, more control, more surveillance, more taxation penalties, more censorship, along with less rights, less freedom, and less knowledge of what's actually going on.
There was a recent survey done which found out that we were amongst one of the unhappiest societies in modern times, our happiness index was quite low and politicians etc were scratching their heads as to why.
Perhaps it's because they have removed or restricted our basic freedoms by law or taxation including the ability to resolve situations ourselves by speaking our minds that we're so unhappy, it's quite the thought isn't it?
What happened to Ann Maguire was a tragedy, let's hope that those with agendas don't end up making it worse...

Ah that 'must' word again

Must, could, should all often enough used by the media and politicians and in the end pretty much useless in the way of actions or results. There's a stark difference between you must obey the law and you will obey the law one implies the detail that you can ignore the request, the other implies a penalty for not acceding to it.
Mail.

Schools with large numbers of Muslim pupils must respect British values, former home secretary Jack Straw said yesterday.
He spoke as a Muslim MP said a radical ‘Trojan Horse’ plot to take over state schools was operating in Birmingham.
Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, claimed a ‘small group of individuals’ was trying to change the ethos of schools by stealth.
It was also claimed that roving 'morality squads' have been instituted at the affected schools, and would censor talk of non-Muslim festivals and smash pupils' Easter eggs.
Mr Straw said more and more schools were mostly or entirely comprised of Muslim pupils, adding: ‘We have to accept and the schools with a majority of Muslim parents have to accept – as they do if they are Hindu, Sikh, Jewish or Christian – that we also live within the United Kingdom.
‘Alongside values which are religiously based, there has to understanding that this is the UK and there is a set of values – some of which I would say are Christian based – which permeate our sense of citizenship.’

To which those doing the 'Trojan horse' will ignore because what Jack Straw is telling them can be ignored as they don't share his multicultural values at all save only in using and getting away with their little schemes because the enablers in the system viewed it as 'cultural'.
As far as these people are concerned they are doing the right thing by their religion and their culture and so the current furore simply confirms to them that the will of their deviant god is being opposed by the infidel and so they must be doing something right.
Words simply have no effect on these people, they have a plan, they'll do their best to implement it as to them it's the will of their god, telling them no has no effect, you need to get in there and remove them root and branch before they establish themselves. Simply going to the press and saying they must respect us will only make them laugh, they don't and never will respect us, the best we can hope for is that they will fear us and our wrath if they do anything other than talk about or think about trying to promote their religion and culture.

This is insane

What is it with public services that they now feel the need to share out our personal data, even with the proviso that it will be anonymous? You'd think they'd know that trust in them is at an all time low because of the low standards that they have maintained in recent years. Also there's the fear that with many things they do that this is the thin end of the wedge.
BBC.

Taxpayers' personal data could be shared with private firms under plans drawn up by Revenue & Customs (HMRC).
If given the go-ahead it would allow HMRC to release anonymous tax data to third parties including companies, researchers and public bodies.
But former Conservative minister David Davis told the Guardian the plans were "borderline insane".
An HMRC spokesman said "no final decisions" had been taken, and it was committed to "confidentiality".
The newspaper reported that "charging options" were being examined by officials, suggesting that firms could pay to access the data.
But concern has been raised over the plans in the wake of the Care.data initiative - a proposed anonymous sharing of NHS medical records - which is currently suspended after fears were raised as to exactly what information would remain anonymous.

I don't think that whoever came up with this insane scheme realises what can be done and extrapolated in an electronic environment and I rather suspect that it's money making on the part of those seeking such data rather than statistical analysis. I also believe that somehow or other the headline that actual names and addresses have been  'accidentally' released will crop up sooner or later.
Simply put, whenever I see a headline that some public body wants to release private data to interested parties I want to opt out straight away, same as I did with my doctor and the 'Care Data' fiasco. What's mine is mine and whilst I have allowed those public bodies to hold it, they have no right to offer it to anyone else, simply because I can't trust them or know just exactly what it is they are selling and whether they are going to change the rules and assume consent once its given to be a permanent thing.
The answer is and always must be no!

Protecting their own

There have been various hospital scandals around, North Stafford springs to mind, there was the MRSA scandal in my own neck of the woods and only the other day Maidstone Hospital who had the MRSA scandal shut down its gastro-keyhole surgery department because it couldn't guarantee the safety of its patients after the op.
In every case there's been some sort of attempt at a cover up and in the worst cases rather than clean up their act, they've a tendency to go after the whistleblower.
Mail.

A cardiologist sacked after blowing the whistle on shocking NHS failures was cleared of any wrongdoing yesterday – after a 13-year battle thought to have cost the taxpayer £10million.
Dr Raj Mattu, a leading heart surgeon, endured more than a decade of extraordinary bullying by his NHS bosses.
He was sacked after he exposed the fact that two patients had died in dangerously overcrowded bays at his hospital.
Instead of listening to his concerns over the shocking standards of care on the wards, bosses first suspended, then sacked him and then spent millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money pursuing him through an employment tribunal.
They also submitted more than 200 false allegations about him to the General Medical Council – all of which, he says, were rejected.
Dr Mattu wrote to the head of the NHS Sir David Nicholson – dubbed the Man with No Shame – about his treatment and the appalling care at the Walsgrave Hospital in Coventry, but received no reply.
Now, after the 13-year ‘David and Goliath’ battle, a tribunal yesterday found the surgeon had been unfairly dismissed.

This sadly is how things are done in the NHS, because managers back up managers and anyone rocking the boat is hounded out by the managerial clique running the place be they a doctor or a porter. They see it as faults = getting sued and in these days of no win no fee I sort of can see how the mentality developed. Though what I can;'t see is why they don't try to improve the problem rather than attempting to dismiss or sideline the whistleblower with false claims. Improving the bays would surely have cost a lot less than £10 million you'd think?
They very fact that they hounded this man through his career and into illness speaks volumes of the arrogance 'can do no wrong' attitude of the people running the HNS. Despite costing the NHS £10 million you can bet the next whistleblower will be treated in the exact same way in order to stop them lifting the lid on bad practices.
NHS the envy of the world? Don't make me laugh.