One nation, one language

It has always struck me as odd and costly that local councils, public services and national government bureaus translate documents into various different languages for the people who live here in England (Scotland and Wales, different rules apply) Seems I'm not the only one who thinks this, though i suspect eric Pickles will find himself ignored by local government, it seems to be a habit of theirs.
Telegraph.

Councils must stop spending tens of millions of pounds pointlessly translating leaflets and documents into foreign languages, Eric Pickles has said.
The Communities and Local Government secretary said translating documents was a “very expensive and poor use of taxpayers’ money”. Mr Pickles told MPs in the House of Commons he was concerned that the costs were being driven by human rights and equality laws and actually served to divide communities rather than unite them. Independent figures show that local authorities spend nearly £20million a year translating documents into a variety of different languages. Mr Pickles issued a Written Ministerial Statement urging councils to stop spending the money on the translation services. The statement replaced existing guidance on translation services, issued by former Communities secretary Hazel Blears in December 2007. Mr Pickles said: “Some local authorities translate a range of documents and other materials into languages spoken by their residents, and provide interpretation services.
“Whilst there may be rare occasions in which this is entirely necessary – for instance in emergency situations.
“I am concerned that such services are in many cases being provided unnecessarily because of a misinterpretation of equality or human rights legislation.”

Ah yes, it's a human right innit.
Thing is if you live in England you should at least make the effort to speak English and we should be like France where if you want something from the state local or national you do it in French, or you get an interpreter at your own expense.
And that's the rub isn't it, translation services don't come at the expense of those who need them, they come from the pockets of the taxpayer both local and national. To me (and probably you) it's quite simple, to those in charge and have budgets to maintain it's a necessity, though they'll never convince anyone other than their own feckless types that it is.
What we have are ghettoised areas where instead of having to integrate, the state has made it unnecessary for them. So naturally they don't, after all if we went to a foreign country to settle and they insisted in dealing with us in English we'd never integrate, we'd have no reason too.
Translation services should only be provided by the state in the case of an emergency. All others, you want it in Urdu, Gujarati, Polska, Arabic, you pay for it yourself.
Simple really.

 

Viva Italia!

Well if England ever needed proof that there are no easy games in international Rugby nor that they are destined to win at the Millennium Stadium Cardiff because they beat the team that beat Wales previously then yesterdays match hopefully will have knocked that out of them. That's not to say England were awful, they weren't, they produced some very good play at times, though looked terribly flat in their lines and lacked ruthlessness at critical moments. A series of unforced errors in kicking and a lack of discipline in tackling and marking didn't help either as they allowed Italy to dominate play at various times. Indeed the only try of the match came from Italy, all England's points came from penalties harking back to the days of Johnny Wilkinson and the grinding tactics of the past.
Even so, as I alluded too, this may have been a good thing for England giving them pause for thought and improvement. It may (though this is more unlikely) make Wales more complacent at Cardiff as they will look at England's performance and think 'well they can be beaten easily'
That said, the England starting line up will not be the one that walked out against Italy and I think that this is the year of an English Grand Slam. I just hope yesterdays poor performance will have knocked the arrogance out of England, because if they go into Cardiff with the belief that they can beat anyone, they'll lose and probably lose badly.

Not really a punishment

There's a hospital trust near me who is about to get a massive fine for exceeding its C.difficile quota which has always struck me as a bit weird as surely there should be no quota at all for such infections. The problem of course is the fine, who is going to pay for it and where is the money coming from?
BBC.

An NHS trust in Kent is to be fined at least £1.5m after missing its target for controlling the gut infection Clostridium difficile.
Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was set a yearly limit of 49 cases of the diarrhoea-inducing infection up to the end of March.
With three weeks to go, 52 cases of the superbug have already been recorded.
The trust runs hospitals at Pembury and Maidstone and said it was disappointed to have exceeded its target.

I may be wrong, but the only way I can see a trust paying such a fine is by reducing its services (closing wards and reducing staff) or looking at other areas of its budget which might increase the chances of more infections taking hold. There's also the feeling that any fine will simply hit the people using the NHS trust and not those who are actually responsible.
Perhaps a clause put into the contract of senior management responsible for maintaining standards could be put in place saying that if they exceed their 'quotas' they get sacked or fined themselves with a sacking meaning they can no longer (ever) hold a post in public services.
It does strike me as a bit harsh, but on the otherhand if they realise that there will be direct consequences to themselves perhaps they'll make damned sure that the people they supervise are doing their jobs properly.

At least 90 patients died at Maidstone Hospital between 2004 and 2006 in a C.difficile outbreak.

Remember that the chief executive of the NHS trust, Rose Gibb, left her post by 'mutual agreement' prior to publication of the investigation's findings into this incident. And that controversy arose when the Department of Health subsequently blocked a £175,000 severance payment to Ms Gibb after a public outcry. However following a protracted legal wrangle, the High Court upheld the Department of Health's decision and denied the payment.This decision was later overturned by the Court of Appeal which re-awarded the payment. So there are no consequences at all for those responsible ultimately for killing people off due to neglect in the NHS.
There's too much of a culture of blame avoidance and not enough taking responsibility in public services, this needs to change, starting with a contractual severance clause with extreme prejudice if you get it wrong in a manner causing unnecessary deaths.
It's the only way they'll learn.

It's still our money, not yours!

Foreign aid under the Tories has always been an unfunny joke, especially as it was ringfenced to increase when some other budgets were cut. Most suspect that it was to avoid accusations of being the 'nasty' party, though God alone knows Labour and its socialist roots have caused far more misery to millions in the UK than the Tories have ever done.
Mail. (Usual caveats)

Foreign aid is to be diverted through British companies to prevent it falling into the hands of corrupt and wasteful regimes.
Firms will use the money to win infrastructure contracts and boost struggling economies in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The radical move, to be announced by International Development Secretary Justine Greening next week, is being seen as a victory for common sense in the bitter controversy over the £11billion international development budget, which has been ringfenced while other departments face cuts.
It follows years of criticism that the nation’s ballooning aid budget is being squandered by Third World governments on ineffective projects, or lining the pockets of corrupt officials.
Prime Minister David Cameron was said to be ‘hugely enthusiastic’ about the shift of emphasis from simply fighting poverty with handouts to economic development.
In future, a significant portion of the aid budget – adding up to billions over the years – will be used to secure contracts for British firms to build roads, railways and key buildings such as schools and hospitals.

Thing is, there's only the hint of 'a significant portion' of the aid budget going into bribes to get UK firms to build stuff. Where's the rest of it going? And why is my/our money still going to line the pockets of kleptocracies worldwide and not being spent to pay off Labours years of ruinous debt?
Charity in hard times has to begin at home and giving our money away without it being of benefit to us is not something we should be doing. It's ok if it's voluntary, but taxation and government spending isn't they refuse to let us have a say other than at elections, yet wonder why they become increasingly unpopular when they do things like this.
Add to this the billions we give to French farmers via the Common Agricultural Policy and other EU boondoggles and it adds up to quite a bit of our money goes to some very unworthy causes.
It would be so good to just get one party into Parliament who would just say ENOUGH!

I wouldn't hold your breath though.

Not a surprise to me

I doubt it will be a surprise to anyone reading this blog either, though perhaps the odd few who come along to check just what the 'opposition' is thinking might. I have been saying here and on many different blogs and MSM outlets where comments are allowed that the EDL are not what most people think they are and that the media narrative was (and is) to paint them as football hooligans and violent racists. This is despite the evidence that most of the violence at an EDL demo comes from those who oppose them.
Telegraph.

Half the supporters of the far right English Defence League (EDL) are respectable managers and white collar workers, a report has revealed.

Usual prénom of far right tagged in there despite no evidence at all of the EDL being far anything.

The study found the image of young unemployed people alienated by tough economic times and turning to the anti-Muslim and anti-immigration group was a myth.
In fact half of sympathizers are in full time work, almost one in five is university educated and more than two thirds own their own home.
The report, by the think tank Chatham House, warns ministers and those combating extremism need to reassess who they target.
Its author, Dr Matthew Goodwin, also warns that the EDL is part of a new breed of far right extremism that is more “confrontational and unpredictable” and more likely to support violence on the streets.

The only people promoting violence on the streets are the left and occasionally islamic groups, but as the report was comprised by the left leaning 'Common Purpose' it's not too surprising that it is filled with their current buzzwords and designed to make the EDL appear to be the aggressors. Still it must have stuck in their craw to realise that half (at least) of the EDL support comes from people they did not think to be radicalised (their term not mine) As for supporting violence, well the EDL have never set off bombs on trains and buses, nor attempted to bring a pipe bomb to a demo. The EDL have never rioted in central London and indeed were castigated for attempting to defend their homes when other communities were praised. It wasn't the EDL who throw fire extinguishers off rooftops, nor do they burn poppies. Amazingly enough most of us pay our way and do not rely on the benefits system. Though you could never convince a leftard of that or get it mentioned in the MSM who were convinced the narrative of those who opposed the EDL had to be true despite coming from some very dodgy characters (google swp/uaf and rape)

Groups like the EDL also shun images such as “racial supremacism” and actively sought to recruit people from Jewish, Sikh, Pakistani, Christian and gay communities, the report said.

Very 'far right' indeed, doesn't fit with the racist narrative at all does it? Though the public who have come into contact with the EDL are aware that they aren't all white skinheads. I predict the next buzzword from the left will be xenophobic, more in the hope that no one will actually know what it means, but it sounds better than racist which the EDL clearly are not.

They “appear united by the expectation that the country will soon descend into communal violence and are more likely than their fellow citizens to view violence as a justifiable course of action to counter ‘extremists’”.

And whose fault is that?
Who invited the problem in and who defends them despite the clear evidence that they hate us and abuse us?
Clue... It isn't the EDL.

Scaremongering

The government have accused Labour of scaremongering over the so called bedroom tax, I say so called as it isn't actually a tax, more a clawback of benefits to do with under occupancy (as the government see it)
Problem being, Labour don't actually have to do much in the way of scaremongering as anyone who has come into contact with the benefits system will tell you...
Telegraph.

The Work and Pensions Secretary has attacked Labour for scaremongering with claims of a new “bedroom tax” on social housing tenants. Under Government welfare reforms that will take effect in April, tenants in council houses and social housing will have their housing benefit reduced if they have empty rooms in their homes. Ministers say the “under occupancy penalty” is intended to ensure that the best use is made of social housing and reduce the housing benefit bill, currently more than £20 billion a year.
The DWP estimates that the change will save taxpayers £480 million a year and affect around 600,000 people. The average loss for a single empty bedroom will be £14 per week, the department says.

Thing is, it doesn't just affect those in social housing, it affects anyone paying rent or receiving council tax benefits including those who own their own property yet have become unemployed. As for the average loss, well that's just an average, the clawback will be 14% for a single room and 25% for two or more. The government hope it will make people consider downgrading into properties with fewer rooms thus freeing up under occupied houses for those with families where there's a shortage. It's one of the consequences of mass immigration and the selling off of social housing in the Thatcher years without building anything to replace the sold off stock. What it means is there are simply not enough houses to go around, well houses for growing families that is. So what will happen is that anyone who hasn't got enough income will be forced to move out to something smaller, possibly to somewhere they don't want to be and the place they considered their home (not just a house) that they've cared for will go to someone else, possibly more deserving, possibly not.
I can't think of a better plan to lose votes assuming those losing their homes choose to vote, other than forced evictions that is.
Thing is, for all Labour are making a fuss over this can anyone see them rescinding it? I have my doubts as whatever comes in tends to remain, it just gets replaced, not axed.
What we need is to stop mass immigration and start a program of social housing building. Sadly that's not going to happen, well, not any time soon, the government would far rather waste our money on foreign aid, foreign wars, subsidising bird mincers and keeping ministers and civil servants in gold plated pensions.
It strikes me that who ever gets in, they all have their priorities totally wrong. We need a better system of checks and balances (referism) to stop governments both national and local from simply wasting taxpayers money and we need it to force them to do what we want them to do rather than the idiocy that is party policy and dogma.
Politicians are meant to represent us, not their party and not some failed economic or social dogma.
Until that happens, this is what we end up with, attempted savings in all the wrong areas...

I can see a possible flaw in this one...

Volvo have apparently come up with a radar gadget that can apply the brakes if you approach a cyclist (or pedestrian) too closely. This is supposedly a last resort after the car lights up light a Christmas tree inside and sounds an aggravating buzzer to get a drivers attention. They claim it will save lives...
Mail.

Volvo has launched a revolutionary safety device that scans for cyclists and automatically brakes if a collision is imminent.
The Swedish car firm says the camera and radar-guided technology, which is being introduced into cars from May, could save hundreds of lives.
The system comprises a radar scanner in the grille, a camera fitted in front of the rear-view mirror, and an onboard computer. It allows the car to identify cyclists who swerve into its path and reacts by slamming on the brakes.

Can anyone imagine the insurance fiasco that will erupt when someone blames the automatic braking system for a tail end smash? Or a claim that said they were distracted by "a loud audible warning and a visible warning of a row of red lights flashing up on the windscreen?" Modern cars are actually a lot safer for drivers as well as pedestrians and cyclists as they contain many features designed to crumple and absorb impacts as well as smoothed surfaces. What they can't do is account for a pedestrian or cyclist doing something stupid and I suspect this device may just cause more problems than it purports to resolve. It's pointless having the car brake to avoid the cyclist in front if a cyclist behind runs into you nor would I expect any distractions flashing up on the windscreen be anything other than a serious distraction for the driver. they may actually be illegal.
Still I do wonder if this is the first step in nanny statism for drivers to be removed from the process of actually doing any driving at all. Self steering? Sat Nav auto drive? Just sit in the back and let the machine do it all for you...
Why is life becoming so terribly joyless?

Goosestepping into tyranny

The so called guardians of our society railroaded legislation through last night removing a key element to the justice system namely that of open trial.
Ignoring the utter scandal of the family courts which have been kidnapping children for a generation now, the authoritarian bastards in parliament appear to have taken that template as the basis for further removals of our liberties.
Mail.

Plans for secret courts were railroaded through the House of Commons last night despite angry opposition from all sides.
The move to hear cases judged to involve national security behind closed doors saw ministers accused of sacrificing British values and traditions.
Senior Conservatives – including Treasury committee chairman Andrew Tyrie and former leadership contender David Davis – led protests in last night’s debate of the final stages of the Justice and Security Bill.
Cabinet veteran Kenneth Clarke admitted he did not know how many closed hearings would be ordered under the legislation he has championed.
Mr Tyrie warned the Government was undermining ‘legal safeguards which we’ve had for generations’, adding: ‘These amendments may look technical but they are really about the kind of society we want to live in.
‘They are about whether people can get to hear the case that has been made against them… and above all they are about what values we are seeking as a country to espouse and export.’
Mr Davis suggested at least 15 cases a year would be held in secret, warning: ‘We have to live up to standards of accountability. That means open justice.’

You can pretty much guess as to what might be considered national security, though as for hearing about any trials involving it, well the bastards have made sure that you never will know. it means you may not even appeal to the public for support as that would be contempt of court.
Judgement should be open to scrutiny, you may not like the way a case has been presented, you may believe an injustice has been done, but at least you'll know and can protest. Now in certain trials you never will, people may end up in prison and no one will know why outside a small group, even then they won't be able to appeal for further witnesses as that would be contempt too.
This bill should never have been passed and all credit to those who tried to stop it. as for the rest, well I do hope that you'll get yours one day you utter bastards. But rest assured it won't be in a secret trial, I'd want the world to know exactly what you were and what you did.

Fracking idiots

Yes, we're talking about Greenpeace the enviroloons who believe that people should freeze to death in silence when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine and who have taken upon themselves to build an artificial fracking rig on a village green outside George Osborne's constituency offices.
BBC.

Greenpeace campaigners have erected mock drilling rigs on a village green outside George Osborne's constituency office in protest at fracking.
The group has climbed on to the first floor balcony of the Conservative MPs Tatton office in Cheshire, and renamed it the headquarters of "Frack & Go".
They said a new poll found the majority of the chancellor's constituents oppose shale gas extraction.
Tatton has been earmarked as a potential area for drilling.

Definitely smaller than a birdmincer

Apart from being smaller than a bloody bird mincer I can't imagine for one second that village greens the country over are going to have fracking rigs set upon them. We also know just how Greenpeace come up with their market research too. They either lie or they get the pollster (ComRes) to load the question to give them the answer they want, something along the lines of...
"Do you want a massive industrial fracking rig which also acts as a gateway to hell built in your back garden?" "Or do you want clean green energy from alternative sources?"
Exaggerated for effect of course but only slightly one suspects as we know how the enviroloon mindset works. They are so determined to bring about a new dark ages with us proles ruled over by an (environmentally friendly) elite with a massive die off in population because there's far too many of us and only the enviroloons deserve to live.
sadly they are being manipulated by the politicians for their own purposes, one of which is to make money via shares in birdmincer producers, the other is to use any scam to make money and if anyone's going to survive, it will be the politicians and not the environmentalists as they'll be dropped like a hot turd as soon as they become too inconvenient (I give it five years perhaps less if the lights start going out)
So all Greenpeace are doing is annoying people, by building something which wouldn't be in that place at all. It's certainly not as ugly or as expensive as a birdmincer and gives us cheap energy.
I can't really see what their point was/is.
The fact that there have been recorded earthquakes in areas suitable for fracking way before fracking was even tested seems to have escaped their attention too (or perhaps simply ignored)
Then again I can't really see the point of politicians either.

When an innocent picture can go horribly wrong

Sometimes words just aren't enough

She'll not live this one down easily

Promises, promises, always promises...

Here we go again, Theresa May the Home secretary is 'threatening' to take us out of the European Court of Human Rights. Just not right now and with no indication as to whether she can actually do it or find the necessary support in Parliament to actually withdraw.
Mail.

Britain is set to pull out of the discredited European Convention on Human Rights that has allowed dangerous criminals and hate preachers to remain in the UK.
It marks a triumph for The Mail on Sunday’s campaign against the ludicrous abuses of justice carried out in the name of human rights.
The historic move, to be announced soon by Home Secretary Theresa May, would mean foreign courts could no longer meddle in British justice.
The European Convention has led to such hugely controversial decisions as banning the deportation of radical cleric Abu Qatada and giving British prisoners the right to vote.
Mrs May’s bold proposals to include the move in the next Tory Election manifesto reflect the party’s growing hostility towards Europe. If enacted, her policy would leave British judges free to interpret the law without interference from the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Mrs May wants to withdraw from the convention before the next Election in 2015, but Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, a keen pro-European, has made it clear he will veto the initiative.
As a result, it is set to be a manifesto promise to be put into action if David Cameron wins an overall majority. Together with the Prime Minister’s vow to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, it will give the Tory manifesto a strong anti-European theme to combat the increasing appeal of UKIP.

Yes, the boy Clegg and his anti-UK party do not want us to leave the ECHR, nor I suspect do the (We've never met a terrorist we don't like) Labour Party who dropped us in it signed up to the damned thing in the first place. So what we have is a party looking likely to lose the next general election making rash promise to do something they are unlikely to be able to do anyway. Not that the Tories are responsible for the mess we are in, the blame foe that lies squarely at the feet of Labour who put the country in hock for the next few generations because they've never learned how to actually balance a budget and believe in the magic money tree of economics where loans can be taken out and the tax payer can be fleeced to pay for them ad infinitum.
No, what we have are signs of panic in the Tories who have realised just what ordinary people are thinking and that they don't have a set of policies to match. They are not being helped by their idiot leader who believes the centre ground rather than what people want is the place to be. Besides, the man can't be trusted to keep his (cast iron) word, which is why despite an open goal left by the most unpopular labour government in living memory they couldn't actually win the last election and ended up being saddled with Cleggy's pseudo socialist EUphiles.
What people want is that foreign criminals are deported so quick that their feet won't even touch the ground, that they might be killed or tortured when they are deported is not our problem.
We don't want 'the right to a family life' to be an excuse to stay, if their families love them that much they can go with them.
The claim that 'Europe' (actually the EU) is low on most peoples priorities is true, but that doesn't mean the majority don't want out, just that getting screwed over by the government and criminals matters more. It may be a low priority, but it isn't unimportant and most of the Westminster political bubble have failed to notice this.
"We're tired of mass uncontrolled immigration, we're tolerant, but the diabolical solution to rub the rights nose in multiculturalism has done nothing but stir up anger amongst ordinary people who have to live with alien hostile communities in their midst. Again something the Westminster bubble do not have to do.
We want the government and the authorities to stop pandering to islam, shariah law is barbaric and has no place in a moder civilisation, or indeed any civilisation. If muslims want to practice it, fine, they can practice it back in the shitholes that call themselves islamic republics, they shouldn't be allowed to practice it here, nor use it as an excuse for barbarism, grooming or other vile acts.
We're sick of being told about climate change, we're sick of paying through the nose for 'renewable' energy scams schemes that don't work and cost the bloody earth to maintain or supply not anything like enough energy. We're sitting on coal and shale gas, we can keep the lights on for hundreds of years by using those resources, but no, too many politicians are on the take via the 'green' energy supply scam, so we'll freeze and the lights will go out.
The problem Theresa May and politicians really face is politicians, they are the ones who have wrecked this country and allowed an evil festering cancer to grow amongst its people. They are the ones responsible for the lights going out. They must be the ones to pay...
Anyone who votes for the big three is letting this country down, I don't care who you vote for, but if you love this country, do not let it be the Lib/Lab/Con.

The right and what's right.

I always find it strange how people characterise the so called 'right' mostly because as far as I can see there are no real right wing parties in the UK. I suppose UKIP are the closest, but again it depends on how you characterise right wing.
The problem is that the term right wing has been re-characterised by those on the left as to mean something which it actually isn't. Right wing now is assumed to be either racist or fascists or uncaring throw another baby on the fire type of person who wants to destroy the NHS.
Whereas a true right winger simply wants market forces and the free market to work things out without artificial interference from government.
We might wish to destroy the NHS, but that's more because the NHS as it stands simply doesn't work too well, there are cheaper and better alternatives around, though few appear to know this.
As for racist, well considering some of the endeavours of the left at home and abroad, the right as such have an absolutely pristine record when it comes to racism, people think differently because parties like the BNP are called right wing when a quick check of their policies will tell you otherwise. nationalism of key industries as the BNP are calling for is not a right wing policy and never will be.
As for fascism, well a quick check will soon tell you that it's an authoritarian left wing type of political movement, but again the narrative has been stolen and fascist seems to be synonymous with right wing, same as Nazi, which was never of the right either.
Telegraph.

David Cameron has insisted that the Eastleigh result will not prompt him to steer the party further to the right to combat the threat from Ukip.
Despite admitting that the by-election result was “disappointing” the Prime Minister said he would reject calls by some backbenchers to lurch further to the right. He said the Tories will not be blown off course by the defeat in Eastleigh and called on the party to “remain true to our principles”. His comments came after Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said it would be “wrong” to abandon the centre ground.

I very much doubt that Cameron or Gove have any idea of where the centre ground is, it's not that mysterious place between the two main parties, but more or less defined by just how much the state interferes in our lives coupled with economic policies. So Cameron and Gove's centre ground would put them closer to the Labour party rather than move into so called clear blue water by actually allowing the market to work and stop trying to interfere by spending taxpayers money in unnecessary areas of the economy or indeed our lives.
No, what the Lib/Lab/Con are, are social democrat parties and social democrats are of the left with all the idiotic economic baggage that entails. That Cameron and Gove wish to remain there tells you all you need to know about politics in the UK...