anon126

On MR Fred Goodwin

2012-02-01T15:17:00.001Z

Sir Fred Goodwin was one of those who destroyed great swaithes of the British banking sector. He was also made a Sir by labour for services to banking.

Now after a labour and tabloid witch hunt he has had his knighthood removed.

I'm sorry it's pathetic

I've never met Goodwin and know his knighthood was the result of his close ties to labour. He probably didn't deserve it. However it is so petty to remove his title to appease the mob.

Not being a peer Goodwin would have been automatically been stripped of his title if he was convicted of a crime. But he hasn't been. Goodwin hasn't been charged with any crime at all. He won't be charged with any crime as he only acted in accordance with government wishes and regulation.

So it's wrong to sinlge out Goodwin for a unique punishement for something that wasn't a crime. What has he done that's allows him to be bracketed with Mussolini or the war criminal Mugabe, both of whom had their knighthoods removed? The great robber barons of the eighties and nineties sacked remain Sirs.

This vindictive scapegoating of one man as a way to garner votes and distracting attention from the political incompetence which led to our current financial troubles is beneath us.

If you want to know what is wrong with this country think on this: peers who have been imprisoned for purjury, fraud, and killing people retian their titles, their power to make our laws, power, and their place at the public teat. Those non-politicians who are unpopular but innocent of any crime are thrown to the wolves.

However this is about more than petty tiles and honours. This hounding of the rich and business people makes this country look anti-business and a country where laws and decency can be ignored. In the current economic climate this is damaging our prospects.

Things like this demean our country and show us to be petty and stupid. It's sad.

Save a million lose a billion

2012-01-31T13:13:00.001Z

After all the political witch hunt against the boss of RBS's bonus a million in worthless shares have been saved.....well just over half a million with four hundred grand in tax lost.

A great victory for unpopular political types and the mob.

It's such a shame that the RBS and Lloyds TSB banks, both with serious taxpayer money invested, in the case of RBS being 87% public owned, has lost just shy of a billion pounds because of this witch hunt.

Markets really don't like politicians acting illegally or interfering.

Still as far as Ed Miliband is concerned its only a billion in taxpayer money. It's cheap if it garners him some votes.

Pathetic.

On bonuses and politics with the poor taxpayer paying the price

2012-01-30T17:26:00.001Z

I'm not a banker. I do not know any bankers. This needs to be said. However I feel the way in which politicians and a rabid press have forced Stephen Hester, the man brought in to fix the mess that is the Royal Bank of Scotland, wrong.

RBS is a disaster. Polticians in the UK and Scotland helped make it so. It was they that encouraged the bank to make insane investments. The result is the nightmare we are all paying for.

However Hester isn't culpable for anything. He's rich and successful but that isn't a crime. Indeed if you wanted someone to fix RBS and save our hundred billion you'd want a person who has made his fortune by being a very good banker.

We need the best person to fix the bank.

That costs a lot of money.

So Hester is appointed by labour with a employment contract agreed to by Ed Milliband when he was in Cabinet. And he does a good job turning seven billion loss into a profit.

And so by the legal, and politically sanctioned, employment contact he was entitled to a bonus of near £1 million in RBS shares.

Cue labour and the tabloids who have made him by threat turn down this legally earned bonus.

This is what's wrong with this country. In the civil service bonuses are handed out for abject failure. Projects go tens of billions over budget, are decades late, or simply don't work, and they get bonuses.

But when one person brought in to fix a politically sanctioned mess gets a bonus for a good job the same people who agreed the contract and encouraged the original management to overextend in the first place go for the cheap votes.

For the tabloid to attack Heston when they pay their editors of loss making papers four million in wages and bonus is hypocritical.

And where are the unions? A worker with a legal employment contract has been forced to give up what is theirs by right. How is that fair?

And so the poltical types and the press have their little victory and a million is saved....

But we also lose the four hundred thousand we'd get in tax.....

And the £340 million that's been lost off RBS shares.

You see the market is simple. It doesn't like uncertainty. It definitely doesn't like politicans acting beyond their legal powers. If they can force the head of their state subsidised bank to give up what is his by law how can the market be sure that poltical interference and illegal pressure won't be applied to RBS in the future.

Law is vital for a free economy. If a country doesn't have a open legal system free from political interference that country is no better than corrupt banana republic.

That's dangerous for confidence and security.

If Hester resigned due to poltical pressure, as I would, we're fucked. Not only would we lose someone that seems to be doing the right thing (and I'm not ignoring the tragedy of job losses here) to make a bankrupt bank into a viable one, who in their right mind would take his place? Who needs the pressure and the vitriol?

This grubby witchhunt is pathetic.

Whiplash

2012-01-29T15:34:00.001Z

The Mail on Sunday is doing yet another campaign with the assumption that we are all out to con their honest readers. Usually this is an attack on the disabled but today, as last week, it is an attack on those who claim they have whiplash injuries due to a car accident.

Now I am sure that there are crooks out there who do use whiplash in order to make money from innocent drivers. Such people are criminal and deserve prison. Thier crimes make the already expensive business of driving more so.

However.....

Exactly eight years and four weeks ago today my cousin stopped at a roundabout near his home when a woman drove into the back of him in a minor shunt. No real damage was done to either car and he just laughed it off as one of those things.

He was in his late thirties. He was as fit as an ox. He was in a job he was very good at and loved. He had a loving wife and very young family whom he adored.

He was happy.

And two weeks later he was dead due to whiplash injuries.

For all the tabloid fury we mustn't forget that whiplash, regardless of all those who fake it, is a real and potentially deadly injury. We shouldn't let tabloid anger blind us to the reality or stop the real injured from getting treatment or compensation for thier injuries.

Whiplash kills don't forget that.

Twitter censorship

2012-01-27T14:54:00.001Z

One of the truly revolutionary ways in which the world has changed is the way in which ordinary people like us can use the the Internet, specifically social media, to fight against repressive regimes. For all it's lies and misuse the ability of people there to report what they see in real time changes news gathering and gives us the raw truth.

Such empowerment undermines the vested old media and threatens governments. It is an amazing thing when one thinks about it.

Of specific interest is the amazing way in which Twitter was used in the Arab Spring to allow people to fight against their dictators and abusers. Twitter helped brave people tell their truth and helped them overthrow their overlords. The way in which Twitter used new technology to allow such freedom, with special numbers to allow people to speak their Tweets, and and help overcoming draconian censorship earned Twitter well deserved praise and massively raised its already high image.

I am therefore saddened to learn that Twitter is changing to allow national censorship of its members.

Now the Internet isn't always nice and illegal activity abounds but I'm agianst this. If you are threatened with death or rape then you should have some legal protection but not such national censorship. Freedom is too important for this.

It's a shame that Twitter seem to be putting thier own business interests before our freedom. Let's put it this way, China, Russia, and other states with unenviable human rights records are lucrative markets but wouldn't like the uncensored Twitter if it undemines them.

So it makes business sense to stop people being rude by these regimes so that Twitter can operate in these untapped territories but it destroys all the kudos Twitter has earned during the Arab Spring.

It's sad.

Vote Newt and get 2001

2012-01-26T12:42:00.001Z

I like unusual names but for the life of me I cannot see why any adult would go around calling themselves Newt. Even if it is his birth name you'd have thunk he'd change it.

Anyway Newt Gingrich has made his latest bid for his party nomination to face President Obama by saying that if he becomes president he'll give the US a permanent moon base.

How cool is that!

Leaving aside if Newt would be a good president, or is a good man, it would be a good move. It goes without saying that such a base would give rise to images 2001: a Space Odessy, or even Space 1999. Lurid spandex for all! However such a base would, I feel, inspire many to get into science and engineering. This can only be a good thing. It'll be expensive it goes without saying, but it could pale in comparison to all the advances and products such enthused people create. In a world in which such advances are vital this is important.

More than this though. America is losing its dominance of space and high technology. China, India, and who knows who else are mastering space and the prestige of America is slipping.

That's a shame and is agianst the national need of America. As things stand America is in danger of losing the future. For all it's many faults it would be better that a open, democratic, country is top dog in the new frontier.

Pity the idea is being put forward by a man named Newt.

How can we not have a limit on benefits?

2012-01-25T17:40:00.001Z

I know many people who receive benefits. I have no problem with this. People in need require help. There isn't anything to be ashamed about in receiving benefits. Indeed too many people, especially the elderly, do not claim the help they are entitled too thus condemning themselves to poverty.

However how is it possible that benefits can pay seven/eight thousand a month on renting people houses in the most expensive parts of the country?

Provide council houses by all means but don't have a system which private landlords can make fortunes by renting houses to benefit claimants.

There needs to be some limit to benefits. If there isn't work becomes second class activities done by idiots. Without some maximum figure we'll be bankrupt.

How can this be contentious?

Why do we subsidise MPs meals?

2012-01-23T16:53:00.001Z

A subsided canteen is great for those on a small wage. However I cannot understand what we are paying just under £6 million to subsidise the luxurious meals, beer, and champaign of MPs.

These pampered people are paid over £60,000, much more if they are ministers, and are able to claim thousands more a month for their food.

Why the hell should the hardworking taxpayer, many on minimum wage, pay Even more toward their steak and bubbly?

They are well paid enough to pay for their own meals. They can cry about the expense of living in London or the like. The simple truth is this: they knew the amount MPs were paid when they clamoured to become MPs. If that's not good enough for them then they shouldn't have stood and should stand down and allow someone else to 'struggle' on sixty grand plus expenses.

These cosseted knaves have no understanding of the real world.

David Laws and what it tells us of a out of touch political class.

2012-01-22T18:14:00.001Z

The Lib-Dem MP, David Laws is being positioned for a comeback into government. Spin and kind words abound about how he will/should return to his rightful position in government to rule over us minions.

It must be nicety have such friends.

But it's wrong.

You see Laws is a man well liked in parliament and the press. I have no doubt he is a talented man and a beacon of sanity in a out there party. However the fact remains that Laws had the shortest ministerial career because he had to resign when he was caught fiddling his expenses big time.

It doesn't matter if he is a nice man, apart from stealing from the taxpayer, which for too many in parliament isn't a bad thing. It doesn't matter if he's witty and wise. It doesn't even matter if if he has the very ideas and skills we need in our time of need.

A expense fiddler should have no place in government. If there was any justice Laws would have been prosecuted for his action, just like anyone else. Prison should have been his punishment. Laws should think himself lucky to escape justice and retired to anonymity wracked by guilt.

He shouldn't be about to embark on a career in government bossing the law-abiding around.

The fact that the poltical elite cannot see how their stealing from us is such a bad thing shows how for all the fine words they are still as out of touch with our anger as ever.

That's very sad.

On the proposed Thames Estuary Airport

2012-01-18T17:09:00.001Z

One of the really sad things about me is my love of artificial islands. These totally man made edifices are brilliant. Of course I studied archeology for a couple of years so maybe that's where it started. My engineering bent really kicked in with the creation of the offshore airports in Japan and their artificial testbeds. The science behind building a artificial island to house an airport is amazing.

And then I discovered that I've been driving past an artificial island every couple of weeks or so.

So I am a fan of monumental artificial islands.

However.....

Even I don't support the Mayor of London's wheeze to boost London by building a new airport on the Thames Estuary.

Not only will it cost god knows how much more than the budget like every other government grand scheme, it is going to be built in a fragile environment which needs protection rather than destruction.

More than that though, why should a London Mayor be able to ruin the environment and social conditions of an area outside his jurisdiction. The Thames Estury residents didnt vote for Boris so why should he be able to irrevocably damage thier lives?

I support the use of artificial islands as a way of providing runways and to bring economic benefits to the country. So why creat a very expensive runt airport when we could build a much cheaper and much larger one at sea and link it to London by high speed rail or even commuter airplanes?

Being able to build a massive airport with room to expand and no neighbours must be the better option.

On the British government's support for anti-Semites

2012-01-17T11:55:00.001Z

Anti-Semitism is on the increase. For too many the irrational hatred of Jews is acceptable.

However I am not one of those who think that any criticism of Israel is automatically an attack on all Jews. Often this form of attack has been used to stifle justified debate and criticism of Israel.

No country is perfect. Politicans make mistakes. That shouldn't damn a race or creed.

I do however agree with Melanie Phillips when she writes about how wrong it was for David Cameron and Nick Clegg to meet the Palastinian President and only criticise Israel.

It is sickening that supposed democrats can honour and laud anyone who seeks to wipe another country off the map and create an state with not a sinlge Jew, or black person, or any other racial or religious group, in it. For them to encourage a Holocaust denier is sick.

To use such a platform to attack Israel and ignore the terrorism, human rights abuse, and very real racism of the Palestinian President shows either breathtaking ignorance, stupidity, or worse a very troubling mindset.

With ingrained racism those who hold such views don't think it's wrong and don't see how it clouds their judgement.

Racists or holocaust deniers shouldn't be honoured at Number 10.

Ed Miliband's unpopularity: it's our fault not his!

2011-12-27T17:03:00.001Z

Politics can be very superficial. The spin merchants are firmly in charge. The spin is the only thing that matters rather than substance.

Take the labour leader Ed Miliband. He is doing unbelievably badly. Even before the EU veto boost he was trailing David Cameron. At a time when people are terrified of losing their jobs and the economy in general it's shocking.

Now it's not really a surprise as Ed has never been popular. He lost the vote for leadership from his fellow MPs and MEPs, and the general membership of the party. These people, including those who know him best, didn't want him as leader. They knew he wouldn't chime with the people.

And so it has proved.

Ed is only labour leader because he is the unions creature and they used their undemocratic block vote to foist him on a reluctant party.

Apparently it's our fault we see him as a weird, tongue tied, unimpressive, loser. It seems we are so stupid that we need more spin rather than being able to see how much of a loser Ed is.

Rather than it being the politicians fault it needs more spin and propaganda.

Not only are too many politicians vacuous they think the rest of us are even worse.

The simple fact is that we see Ed as a weird loser because that's what he is. Spin won't fix this.

Prince Philip's health: a right to press restraint

2011-12-26T14:52:00.001Z

I have a soft spot for Prince Philip. He's funny and smart. I do find the way in which the press or the professional complainers damn him for anything the press say he has said and demand he shuts up whilst demanding that they have the right to say anything, even if they call for someone's death odd, though symptomatic of an inherent hypocrisy.

Any way Prince Philip is in hospital after undoing a heart operation. I hope he makes a full and easy recovery as I wish all those in hospital or ill health.

Now the press are in hot water because of their illegal use of private records, including medical ones. The worst of the press let us not forget, under Piers Morgan, published photographs of a mentally ill woman in hospital. Others published what a famous person said under therapy. The press hounded a dying Freddie Mercury out of the country because of the way they treated him.

So with such a background is it a good idea for the press to publish private details of Prince Philip in hospital?

Quotes such as "Philip: Just let me go home!" are wrong.

Now if we assume that the Daily Mail haven't made the quote up, and the press do make stuff up, how dare they trample over the right to privacy Philip or anyone has just for a story? Philip being ill is newsworthy but there is no right to hound a ill person in hospital. Medical records, or what is said to medical professionals are private. If people worry what they say will be splashed over the press then they'll think twice about saying anything embarrasing. That'll kill people.

There is no justification for the press to hound an ill person.

How can any paper be as stupid as the Mail today?

Christmas Day

2011-12-25T14:58:00.001Z

Another year passes and another Christmas.

For all the anger and distrust that surrounds us every day let this be the perfect day of peace and love, warmth and good cheer.

A perfect day for believers and unbelievers alike.

It won't be, but I hope that just for once we get what we long for.

Days like today show how things should be. That politics and fighting aren't as important as family and friends.

So at the risk of being seen as silly I wish all a Merry Christmas.

On Chris Huhne's lack of perverting the course of justice change

2011-12-24T15:18:00.001Z

Chris Huhne is by all accounts guilty of perverting the course of justice. Though he is alleged to have made his then wife commit purjury to take penalty points he deserved he is said to have made a carrier out of making underlings take penalty points on his behalf.

Now the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions have been studying the facts behind the latest Huhne incident with shall we say, unusual vigour and have taken more time to decide to prosecute than they do in the most serious cases of murder.

For an open and shut case with such a huge amount of seemingly damning evidence agianst Huhne it's ..... Odd.

And in light of this delay the frontage of today's Times newspaper, see the Sun for details, makes interesting reading. It has a story from the police wondering why the DPP has taken so long to prosecute Huhne.

The police want Huhne prosecuted for his blatant crimes.

Now we all now why the delay and special treatment meted out to Huhne: he's a important man and politican.

And that type of thinking is what allows our politicians to get away with fiddling, lying, and worse. It allows peers to kill people and return to the Lords.

This pathetic subservient attitude has given us the terrible bunch of fith rate professional polticians that infect out body politic.

By not prosecuting Huhne for such a blatant crime the DPP is bringing the justice system into disrepute.

Prosecute Huhne and hand him the same jail sentence that any other perverter of justice would receive.

Politicians should not be shielded by the legal system for the consequences of their crimes.

It's wrong.

Huhne deserves jail, just the same as if you or I did the exact same thing.

Nick Clegg is going to set the agenda at the next EU summit!

2011-12-23T15:36:00.001Z

Politicians are a strange breed. Take Nick Clegg (please...anybody!). He made an idiot of himself and his party over David Cameron's EU veto. First he agreed with it, then 48 hours later after some on his party whined about it decided he was against it. Them it emerges that over half of his party supported Cameron's decision.

The whole palaver made Clegg look childish and utterly out of touch with his party and the people.

And now Clegg has decided, with what can only spectacular derangement, that he is going to set the agenda for the next EU summit and he will be representing the UK along with Cameron.

Now I'm sorry but this is either the rambling of a fool, or more likely those of a man who takes the rest of us as fools. Clegg will not be setting the next EU meetings agenda. He won't be co-leader of the UK. He is an utterly minor poltician from a utterly insignificant party. Leaders of other countries are not going to allow the Number 10 tea boy to have a say. He might I suppose wheedle himself into a trip to be fobbed off looking at a local school, or whatever the wives of leaders do in such events, but he won't be allowed to speak. He won't set the agenda of the big boys chat.

The very idea that the leaders of Germany, France, Greece, or any state are going to take orders from such a powerless, minor politician is laughable.

How can Clegg spin such a ludicrous line to the voters or even his own party? He must think them very stupid indeed.

Is there no situation that Clegg cannot make much worse for himself?

Piers 'moron' Morgan unites the nation: all hate him!

2011-12-21T19:50:00.001Z

Piers Morgan us a smug, oily, nasty piece of work. His appearance at the Leveson Inquiry on the press showed him to be untrustworthy, with lapses of memory that would worry someone with brain damage. His trying to make people believe that he knew nothing of phone hacking as editor of one of the worst offending papers was idiotic.

However the worst thing was his wriggling when asked about the article he wrote which described how he listened to the private phone message from Paul McCartney to he soon to be ex-wife. Leveson told him that only Heather Mills could have given permission to hear such painfully private recordings. Morgan refused to reveal his sources.

Today Heather has announced that she didn't leak the recordings.

The only way Morgan could have listened to the message was illegally obtained hacking.

What I find interesting is that the sheer hatred and contempt Morgan is held by most people. The left and the right are united by contempt for the sleazy Morgan.

I do hope Morgan faces justice for his actions.

How can the Sun sponsor the national military awards?

2011-12-20T18:20:00.001Z

The National Military Awards are a nice way in which our military can get a fraction of the recognition and respect they deserve. In a just world they should be a proper government run event. However our government, this and the last, don't like paying for such justified things, they just love getting the credit for their bravery.

But....

How can these awards still be sponsored by the Sun newspaper?

This is a newspaper which hacked the telephones of the families of soldiers killed on active duty and those injured.

How can the military stomach mixing with such tabloid scum?

It's not right.

On the death of North Korea's Kim Jong-Il

2011-12-19T17:12:00.001Z

The oddball leader of North Korea Kim Jong-Ilhas died aged 69. I am probably wrong about this but this must have been one of the very few times a head of state has died on a train. Seems as odd an occurrence as he was for some reason.

It is easy to regard the late Kim as an eccentric amusement on the world stage with his penchant for purple jogging suits and bad films. You could be tempted to see him as a amusing contrast to our own identikit politicians.

He wasn't a joke. Nor was his dictator father, nor his dictator son.

Behind the questionable dress sense and quirkiness lies a wicked man. He loved movies, which is good, but he kidnapped directors and artists and forced them to make them for him under pain of death. This is evil.

He kidnapped countless people and forced them to work for him. This isn't a joke.

Worse of all he and his family have killed millions of their own people in pointless war and starvation.

The Kim's are people who the world would have been better if they had not lived. They bring nothing to their people, or the world, but death, torture, and misery.

And in the tradition of many communists unearned, unelected, dictatorship is passed from bloodthirsty father to bloodthirsty son. Strange how too often the communist and socialist hatred of inherited position and wealth does not apply to them and their offspring.

For all the funny clothes and jokes about Kim remember that he was a monster. God help the poor people of North Korea.

Shouldn't 'Nazi' Balls be sacked too?

2011-12-18T18:58:00.001Z

A minor Tory MP has been sacked for being in the same room as people who dressed in Nazi uniform for a party. They themselves weren't dressed as a Nazi, but he's been finished anyway.

As it happens I have no problems with people dressing in Nazi uniform per se. In my book people can dress as nurses, soldiers, witches, the other gender: they can dress up as anything they want. The only thing that matters is the context of such dressing up. If you dress as a SS Stormtrooper at a neo-Nazi rally you deserve to be arrested. Dressing as a nurse in a party is fine, but if you try to be a nurse when you're not you deserve arrest.

Dressing up in any uniform for a party is fine: it's a party. It's a joke. The clothes are not illegal. We should have freedom to dress any way we like. It's called freedom.

However I am surprised that any politican could be so stupid not to realise that their presence at a party with people in Nazi uniform will give your poltical enemies a stick to finish your career.

The thing is this if being in the same room as people in Nazi fancy dress can destroy your career does this not mean that any poltican who is photographed dressed in Nazi uniform is finished. That their leader would have no option to sack them, that they should be kicked out of thier party for mocking the Holocaust.

So why is the labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls who dressed up as a Nazi and was photographed smiling in the dread uniform still in position? Not only was he in a room of people dressed as Nazis he donned the Nazi garb himself.

In our new world of Puritan disgust at people having a bit of a laugh at parties dressing in clothes that are perfectly legal shouldn't Balls be thrown out of labour and parliament in disgrace?

The IMF and the Euro: why?

2011-12-17T18:53:00.001Z

The IMF is a major international body created to help the developing world and bringing the most disadvantaged and poorest people in the world out of poverty. It is there to help the starving feed themselves, go stop the poorest people on the planet being poisoned by beat up polluting industry.

The IMF was created to help improve the Third World.

OK it may not be very good at this but that is its laudable aim.

In light of this how is it possible that the IMF is funnelling tens of billions of $'s away from the Third World and squandering it on the untenable mission of supporting the failing Euro? Three of the Euro states are in the top seven most advanced and richest countries in the world. How can these same affluent states be allowed to take money away from the starving?

Politics and power really is obscene sometimes.

Implications if the UK isn't isolated in the EU?

2011-12-16T15:38:00.001Z

The powers that be tell us that with the deployment of the British veto David Cameron has condemned the UK to the darkness by committing the greatest diplomatic blunder in sixty years. Labour and the Lib-Dems went into to full attack mode labelling Cameron out of touch and isolated. He as supposed to be an idiot who has condemned millions to the dole.

However things aren't working out like that. Cameron's decision is overwhelmingly supported by the British people. Indeed if anything the labour and Lib-Dem attacks show it is they who are out of touch with both the British people and their own members.

However it goes beyond that. Far from being isolated in the EU it is those who supported the new treaty and attacked Britain who are in trouble.

Several countries have decided that their premier has overstepped the mark and didn't have the power to sign away their rights to an unelected EU. Many are having to call referenda's before they can sign. Even the French are in trouble with the party who is probably going to win the next election early next year coming out against the treaty.

So what happens if far from being an isolated fool Cameron has the support of many EU political parties, and much more importantly, the people?

If this is the case political disaster would be transformed into a political triumph. By becoming the figurehead for opposition to the undemocratic treaty Cameron could build an alliance which would wield serious power in the new EU.

If this happens the damage to labour, the Lib-Dems, and the current EU elite could be immense.

I don't trust or like Cameron however if he plays his cards well and does what the people want this veto adventure could make him.

It also shows the current incestuous, cowed, EU elite to be a busted flush.

We are living in strange days indeed!

With friends like these why are we in the EU?

2011-12-15T16:45:00.001Z

The UK is one of the rarest if things: a EU state which pays much more into the EU than it takes out. It is probably unique in applying all the petty laws the EU decree no matter how damaging it is to Britain. We've handed over our lucrative fishing grounds to the EU fleets at the cost of tens of thousands of British jobs, tens of billions of lost revenue, and to the devastation of our fish stocks.

So why is it that the other EU states seem to hate us?

Just because our PM decided to exercise his right under the EU law to veto a agreement which would have destroyed a vital British industry we have been under sustained attack by MEPs and the French state.

We are now beyond the pale. We must be made to pay for not towing their line. Germany demands that we pay countless billions more into the bottomless bucket that is the EU as a punishment for daring to not do what the Germans tell us to do.

My question is this: why are we a member of a club which costs us much needed billions, which we pay extra tens of billions, up to fifty billion so far, in propping up other members, a club which destroys business and costs us jobs if they attack us so?

The EU is an important market but they need us much more than we need them. If we leave we would still have the same access to the EU, as do fifty odd countries from around the world.

So why stay if instead of friendship and gratitude for our money we get hate and are made the fall guy for the mistakes of other governments?

The disconnect between political elites and the people: the EU veto

2011-12-14T17:21:00.001Z

A very strange thing has happened. David Cameron has vetoed the EUs push for more power and to make the UK pay more taxes than any other EU state to pay for the incompetent, corrupt in some cases, and profligate, actions of these countries.

The universal attitude of the political elites in the UK and the EU that this veto was a scandal and idiotic. They think that the UK is a weak little Pygmy who should just shut up and pay the bill for others mistakes. More than that the EU is seen by UK parties as a total non-issue. The public were simply not interested so Cameron could be attacked, and his followers smeared as little Englander bigots.

However things aren't working out like that. Every poll since the veto has shown incredible support for Cameron's veto and a growing dislike of the undemocratic and corrupt way the EU works. This isn't a poll of Tory supporters either. Labour supporters are overwhelmingly in favour of Cameron's action. For gods sake over half of the visceral pro-EU Lib-Dems are in favour of the veto.

Far from being a disaster politically for Cameron this veto has put the Tories in the lead, or on par, with labour. This is unheard of. With the continuing collapse of the Lib-Dem support this means that they may be able to win the next election outright, if they play their cards right, or form a Tory/UKIP government.

What strikes me is the total disconnect this shows between the political elite and the voting public. If labour, like I've written here before, had positioned themselves as the anti-EU party months ago their support would have been immense and they would now be the government in waiting. Now the Tories have taken than crown.

Our parties are so out of touch with the people that they didn't hear the disquiet and anger the EU has been causing the people of this country. So the parties are totally unprepared for the support of Cameron and simply had no idea that people outside the incestuous pro-EU elite don't share their views.

This disconnect will boost the anti-EU UKIP and may change British politics. It may finish the Lib-Dems.

All because the parties don't listen to real people.

It isn't healthy for our politics that our parties are so out of touch and incestuous. When the public break their silence the elites are in trouble.

And they simply don't understand why.

Our politics parties are their to represent our views. We are not there to make them rich or to do what they tell us to do our think. They have forgotten this for too long.

I hope this changes.

How can Ed Miliband criticise David Cameron for not getting support?

2011-12-13T10:20:00.001Z

First things first, I am not a fan of David Cameron. I also don't entirely buy the whole EU veto triumph malarkey.

However I do find it rich that the labour leader Ed Miliband can dare criticise Cameron's lack of support in the EU. Ed couldn't even win the support of his own MPs, MEPs, of party in order to become labour leader. The only way he became labour leader is because of the unions block votes.

Ed couldn't win the argument in his own party and we are supposed to buy the spin that This very unimpressive man would win the argument in the EU by his eloquence and charisma.

I don't think so!

Nick Clegg should leave the government: if he had any principles that is.

2011-12-12T08:48:00.001Z

David Cameron deployed he veto which the Lib-Dem leader, and deputy PM! nick Clegg, was fine with. That is he was fine until the weirdos who pass for his party grandees decided they were not happy. When the started to get restless Clegg flipped, as he does with any principle or action (see student fees).

Now Clegg says he is bitterly disappointed, that Cameron was wrong to veto, that things would have been different if there was any justice and he was handling the talks, and for good measure, that the UK was some kind of irrelevant 'pygmy' adrift from the EU. Apprarantly Britian is too weak and needy to survive outside the undemocratic control of the EU.

So much for consistency, or the old mantra of collective responabilty , and not attacking your own government whilst in government.

I really think Clegg should now leave government and bring down the coalition.

I mean he and his party seem to dislike their partners and their government with visceral intensity so now can they continue?

So a fallen government and a new election should be held.

The thing is Clegg has doe something incredibly stupid. He's made is, and his party's, continuation in government untenable. However Cameron has done something that chimes with a huge majority of the voters. Clegg's own party is in decline and its going to get much worse once their slavish EU mentailty filters through.

They will be anhiliated at any electection.

No power, not limos, no jobs. Only the dark days of scrabbling for jobs and impotent snipping.

This isn't good for a party that needs time to become popular or raise the cash to fund an election.

However any party of principle cannot continue in government now Clegg and his party have destroyed the trust, shared responabilty and relationships with their coalition members.

So Clegg will bring down the government now.

Won't he?

As a little hint the answer is no. That would mean no power. No limos. No glamour. And electoral disaster.

It just shows how utterly unprincipled Clegg and his party is. It's not nice.

Vince Cable resigning?

2011-12-11T14:10:00.001Z

There are wild rumours swirling around that Vince Cable is finally going to reign out of pique that a British PM would dare to to what his people wanted and protect their interests. Apparently that is beyond the pale for Cable. We don't matter only his love for the unelected EU.

Any road up Cable is said to be resigning.

Maybe......

Personally I doubt he'll go as the thrill of power is addictive and this minor ministerial position is the only sniff he'll get of any real power.

However since Cable bragged to attractive women journalists that can trigger a nuclear option and bring the government down if he decides to leave what happens when no one notices?

And that's the thing. If you build your self image on your power to destroy a government and nothing happens when you trigger your bomb what do you do?

If Cable leaves, which I seriously doubt he will, the government isn't going to fall. The Lib-Dems would be slaughtered in the election such a move would cause. The Tories would do well out of an early election as their veto is popular. Labour would be thrown as anti-EU feeling may work against them. UKIP should do very well as they are overtaking the Lib-Dems in all the polls.

The next government may even by Tory/UKIP. The Lib-Dems would be the bloody corpse still twitching in the wreckage.

So the Lib-Dems won't collapse the government. More than that their weakness may reduce their influence in government. Cable cannot undermine his own party as destroying the Lib-Dems by splits wouldn't make him popular with his own party.

What happens if Cable triggers his much vaunted nuclear option to destroy the government and no one notices and the government survives?

It'll be fun to see his Cable deals with being an irrelevance.

Cable isn't that old but he has the mentality of a silly old fool.

Boris Johnson's brilliant political strategy

2011-12-10T13:21:00.001Z

The Mayor of London may look like a bumbling fool but it is all a cunning ruse. Behind the mask he is a political genius. He has come up with a sure fire way to win votes.

In his case it's all down to buses!!!

When he stood for election he realised that the very long, very dangerous, and very fire prone, bendy buses the previous Mayor had introduced were unpopular. So Boris solemnly promised to scrap them before his first term in office was over.

Opponents laughed at the idea. They told the world that bendy buses were the only option out there, that they were the only legal option now that, at the insistence of the German bendy bus makers, the traditional British double decker bus was illegal, that such long buses were the greenest option, and that it would be impossible to to replace within one term any way.

Boris was attacked as being that most common of things; a politician who makes promises he knows he cannot keep.

And here is where the Machiavellian genesis of Boris comes in: he has scrapped the dangerous bendy buses. He's done so within the first term in office. He's replaced it with a much safer and greener electric double decker. These buses have a small diesel motor to recharge the batteries but they get double the miles per gallon than any other bus.

It comes to a pretty state of affairs when a poltician actually delivering on their promise is a surprise. A welcome and unexpected one which will do Boris a lot of good when he stands for reelection.

If Boris knows the importance of doing what he's promised and does so even though it's a technically hard to do, why doesn't Cameron, or labour before him, do what they promise? From Medals for deserving Arctic veterans which a simple and cheap to deliver, to giving people their promised referendum, why don't polticans do what they promise? Not only would it boost their election prospects it stops all the cynicism and and anger of the people who put you in power when they find out you lied to them.

If Boris understands this why not Cameron?

John Bercow for President:so says Tony Benn!

2011-12-09T12:23:00.001Z

Tony Benn is widely seen by those in the media and beyond as a national treasure. A sort of pipe smoking loveable uncle.

He never was. He's been wrong about most things his entire political life. In fact with the odd exceptions if Tony supports a cause it's wrong.

What really boils my goat is the kudos he gets for giving up his peerage to become an MP. He kept the ninety odd million he inherited. I would have thought keeping the title and giving up the cash would be more impressive. More than that it's easy to spout far left rubbish if you're cushioned with vast, unearned, wealth.

In what must be a pitiful attempt to have people listen to him Tone has come up with a spiffing wheeze. He want our constitutional monarch kicked to the kerb and the slimy John Bercow, and with talentless embarrassment of a wife, to be made President and wife.

Certain things strike me. Firstly the idea that Bercow who is a divisive figure mired in the expenses scandal, and a man actively supporting MPs in the efforts to rip off the taxpayer by being able to continue to fiddle is the right person to be president shows a man utterly blind to the public mood.

Secondly you will note that under Benn's scheme the public doesn't a have a say. Now I support the monarchy but the idea of a president is to make the system more democratic. However under Benn's plan the paying public get no say. Bercow becomes president because MPs made him Speaker.

So under Benn's new system the people also have no choice. So we get no more democracy bit are lumbered with a sleazy, politically partisan, embarrassment as figurehead. It does seem to reflect Benn's old style, none loveable, hard line lefty beliefs of old. He was a supporter of the Soviet Union.

In a way it's sad that this is the best he can do in order to anyone to take notice.

It takes a speical kind of stupid to want Bercow as president. It's bad enough to have as Speaker!

On David Cameron's promise in the new EU treaty: another promise after he has broken so many

2011-12-08T15:21:00.001Z

The EU is in turmoil. Democratic governments are being replaced by unelected stooges. The EU treaties are about to be redrafted to to ever more power to unelected elite and the German and French governments. David Cameron was elected in part by being spun as being Euro-sceptic and promised us a referendum once elected. He changed his mind once in power but promised us he'd changed the law to guarantee us a referendum if the EU treaty is changed. Now we are faced with an unprecedented power grab by the EU and the creation of fiscal union and massive changes to how Britain is taxed and ruled but for some reason the people won't get their say even after all the promises and supposed law changes, we do however get a yet another of his solemn promises,

"Clearly, we will need to look at the right safeguards for Britain in the light of what is proposed. Our colleagues in the EU need to know that we will not agree to a treaty change that fails to protect our interests."He said: "My job is to defend and protect the British national interest. Britain is a member of the European Union; its institutions belong to all its members, Britain included. We benefit greatly from the single market, which we must both safeguard and extend."

I don't believe him.

The Arctic Convoys & Andrew Robathan: heroes vrs dickhead

2011-12-07T01:25:00.001Z

Image from Wikipedia

The Arctic Convoys of WWII were hell. The voyages to Russia were horrific voyages fighting German submarines, aircraft, and ships. The weather they had to face was insane. Anyone who fell in the water was dead. Inches of ice needed to be constantly chipped off the ship to stop it capsizing. This combination of atrocious weather and constant enemy action made the Convoy's one of the most dangerous and stressful theatres for any Navy, or Merchant Navy person, to find themselves.

The drama and danger these very brave men overcame is truly heroic. The sheer drama has been immortalised in fiction with the brilliant HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean.

The Allies lost 101 ships. Over three thousand sailors died in this battle.

By any stretch of the imagination this was a major theatre of war on par with any military action in any war.

And yet the men who fought such an incredible struggle have never received their proper governmental recognition. They have not been awarded the campaign medal they have so earned.

In opposition David Cameron solemnly promised the brave survivors that he would rectify this injustice and award the veterans their medal.

However like many of his promises Cameron has gone back on this simple, inexpensive, promise.

However worse than that one of current crop of defence secretaries Andrew Robathan explains why Cameron won't be honouring their pre-election promise by saying

'We don't just dole out medals like Colonel Gaddafi'

The contempt for brave men is dripping off the lips of a Tory MP.

How can any MP, much less a Tory who is supposed to be pro-military, be so sneeringly condescending and idiotic?

Why insult veterans?

Medals aren't expensive. The surveys of the Convoys aren't many. These men earned the medals. They are not a gift or a treat. They are earned by danger, blood, and loss.

By any criteria the veterans should have their bravery and sacrifice recognised.

For the life of me I cannot see why all the governments since the war, labour and Tory, have felt fit to insult the Convoy veterans.

Why not give them their due?

And as for Robathan, he is a ignorant dickhead undeserving of being an MP. His presence on Tory benches diminishes the Tory party and their spin of patriotism. What I find utterly shocking is that Robathan was once a professional solider in the guards and the SAS (though he didn't recieve any bravery medal). He actually volunteers to return to the army in Gulf War 1 where he was a prison warden. Why would such a veteran insult other veterans who fought a much more dangerous and costly battle?

If Cameron didn't want to give brave men their medal then he shouldn't have used the promise for electoral advantage before the election. To give a promise of a medal than renague on it shows him to be a liar, shallow, ignorant and fundamentally untrustworthy.

Zac Goldsmith MP compares the press to Auschwitz: fucking moron

2011-12-06T00:21:00.001Z

Image from Wikipedia
I have been steadfast in my disgust at the illegal actions of some in the press. Time and again I have called for the guilty and those who put them up to it to face justice.

I still hold to this view.

However the actions of some who are angry with agendas toward the press makes you despair.

For example the ultra-rich Tory MP Zac Goldsmith has made an idiot of himself during his testimony to the Leveson Inquiry. Now I've nothing against rich people being politicians, though it has to be said that Zac didn't make his money rather was given it by his dad who did make the billions, and changed British politics. The only thing I know Zac actually has done is to transform a magazine his dad bought him as a hobby into an ex-magazine. This is not the finest example of business acumen.

Anyway Zac is cross with the press, rightly, for allegedly leaking private emails showing his adultery.

Again all well and good.......

Right up to the point he brought up a Auschwitz analogy,

"If the only way a business can stay afloat is by engaging in immoral or unethical behaviour, then that business should either change its model or go out of business," he said. "No-one said that Auschwitz should have been kept open because it created jobs."

There is a truism that all arguments on the Internet descend to the point where someone calls another a Nazi, after that the argument is over as nothing more can be achieved.

Expanding this truth: the very instant someone compares their relatively minor problem, however justified their anger is, to the racist murder of millions of innocent men, women, and children during the Holocaust then they have lost whatever more high ground they may have had.

The inability to see that your problems, however bad, pale compared to the genocide shows you to to be a shallow idiot.

Zac is not a stupid man, allegedly, having the finest education his unbelievably rich father could afford, though his Dad's riches couldn't get him to university. In spite of this Zachary's idiocy shows him to be vacuous. He has no sense of perspective. He gives the impression at he thinks the press printing details of how he was screwing around and betraying his wife and small children, however illegally obtained, is the greater crime because the Holocaust didn't happen to him. His vast inherited wealth and the sycophancy it brings seems to give the impression that he is the centre of the universe.

He isn't.

Zac stupidity actively hurts his argument.

Worst of all it shows he is a fucking moron.

Trevor Kavanagh strikes back at Alistair Campbell

2011-12-05T15:46:00.001Z

Last week at the Leveson Inquiry into the press the war criminal and perjurer that is Alistair Campbell was very sanctimonious about the press, and singled out the Sun's Trevor Kavanagh for specific attack as the example of what is wrong with the press. Strangely this disgust hasn't stopped Campbell from working for the same boss as Kavanagh, who also owned the News of the World.

He must have forgot his outrage!

For monumental cheek the hypocrite Campbell takes some beating.

Alas for Campbell his power to instil fear in the press is waning. Once the victims of Campbell would keep silent to his bullying, or kill themselves. The world would continue to pretend that Campbell was a decent, honest, sane person.

Not Kavanagh though who has the following in his column today,

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL, who once played the media like a fiddle, has the nerve to accuse the Press of being "putrid".
He is fortunate lobby journalists never reveal their sources.
Otherwise a queue of hacks could reveal how Alastair routinely dripped poison into their ears about everyone – then swore them to secrecy.
Luckily, some of us kept a diary.

Now there's a threat! Apparently the rumour is that Kavanagh not only has a diary, he's got the recordings to back it up!

If a supine press aren't scared of you and feel under threat because of the lies Campbell says they'll rip him to shreds. Not by lies or insinuation as they usually do, but by spilling the beans on how he and labour operate and how most of the most egregious political attacks are down to him. That'll scupper political control of the press and may finish him at least allow him to be sued by the papers for his lies.

I honestly think that Campbell is so used to being feared and being able to bully he forgot his powerless reality and how the papers and journalists will defend themselves against his lies.

Supporting the Daily Mail's stance on Gary McKinnon but worry about there motives

2011-12-05T15:08:00.001Z

I've been a supporter of Gary McKinnon and his fight against extradition to the US from the start as I am a supporter of all those who face unjust extradition under the European Arrest Warrent. It is simply wrong that people, especially one as vulnerable as Gary, can be extradited for crimes committed in the UK, with the evidence not being checked here to see if it merits extradition, or even for actions which aren't crimes here.

All this is wrong and an abuse of the rights and freedoms we should expect.

It's a nightmare that needs fixing.

The Daily Mail has an editorial today supporting Gary and demanding our polticians get their finger out and scrap the unjust extradition process.

All well and good but is it wrong of me to think that self interest plays its part in these fine words? Now a campaign is a good way for paper's to gain publicity and readers, but how much of it is to stop DM types being extradited to the UK if it discovered they hacking people in the US? I mean to say who can now doubt they could have acted illegally in the US for a story if they wanted?

Anyway regardless of the reasons I totally support Gary and hope this unjust poltical mess is fixed so that we British enjoy the rights and protections our forefathers fought for.

On the false media outrage on Jeremy Clarkson's views in suicide.

2011-12-04T16:36:00.001Z

Jeremy Clarkson is very good at what he does. You simply don't create the biggest tv programme in the world or win writing awards and international prizes if you're not good at what you do.

For this he is very well paid. They say he is being paid around £1 million a year from the BBC. This is a lot of money. However when even BBC radio presenters with dozens of listens are paid the same it isn't. Clarkson is one of the few who could actually make more money in the independent sector but chooses to remain in public broadcasting. He's turned down vats of cash to move to the US to work but wants to remain in the UK.

So he worth it as he brings the BBC vastly more money than he or his programmes cost.

He is not popular with some because he's blunt, and because he dares present a programme about cars which they think is evil personified.

There has been a lot a false outrage about his remarks that those who commit suicide by throwing themselves under trains are being selfish as it is traumatic for the driver, unpleasant for those who have to clean up the aftermath, and causes incredible delays for the passengers.

Cue outrage from journalists and the left jealous of his talent, wealth, and popularity. Page after page is filled with personal attacks on Clarkson and how he insults suicide victims.

It all fills pages on slow days, may allow them to bring down the object of their jealousy and allows the worst type of tabloid mentality to emerge with demands that we cannot say, think, or do what these tabloids hacks, currently having their crimes studied, disagree with.

Two this need to be understood.

The first is that Clarkson, like all of us, has the right to say anything we want. Once we go down the route of censorship, prosecution, or people losing their jobs because of their views we are in dangerous territory. For a discredited press fighting government control of their views this is nonsensical. It's the type of reasoning which will be used to censor and control the press.

The second is that Clarkson in right.

This isn't an attack on suicide victims, or those who battle depression. Their hell isn't something anyone can doubt, or be anything but sympathetic to. As I've written before people need to seek help and support without embarrassment or stigma to help them cope and hopefully overcome the black dogs who hound them.

In the end people are free to do what they will with their own bodies, regardless of if anyone else thinks its good or bad. Control of our destinies is the most fundamental part of our uniqueness. Choosing to live of die is the most fundemtnal part of our being.

However suicide is a selfish thing.

Therapists and suicide prevention organisations make great play on this fact. It goes along the lines of "if you kill yourself what will your kids, partner, family, friends do? How will they cope? How will they feel? What will they do? Don't you owe it to them to get help and stick around?"

Such a reality check helps some people decide to seek help and support rather than ending it. It reminds people that people love and need them, that they are not alone. That there remains hope.

Clarkson is also right about the sheer selfishness of doing so much damage to the poor innocent train driver. For a driver to see a person standing on the line when you're doing a hundred plus and knowing that you cannot stop and having to decide if you should try to slow down or speed up to ensure that their death is as quick as possible is devastating. To kill someone and having your widescreen splattered in blood and gore is the stuff of nightmares.

We are not talking about someone taking an overdose and the trauma of the person who finds the body. Though this is bad enough. We are talking about making someone kill you.

To do that to a innocent person is horrible. I do appreciate that the suicide victim is mentally ill and not in their right mind but it is a horrible thing to do to anyone.

The trauma of such events can destroy the lives of drivers.

The horror of those who have to clean up the carnage is intense. It isn't a nice thing to do to clean still warm bits of human off a track.

A friend of mine lives in a isolated university facility below a tree covered hill topped with a hidden roman fort. Early one morning several years ago a young eighteen year old student came banging on his door hysterical babbling about finding a body on the top of the hill hanging from a tree whilst jogging.

Entrusting the devastated girl to his wife he grabbed his phone and climbed the mist shrouded hill alone. On the top by the hidden fort he found the man strung up from an ancient tree. He phoned the police, then his wife, and waited on his own by the body. He was there what seemed hours, he and the hung man.

This was a suicide but even now the image of the body effects my friend. How it effects the poor student who found him all alone in the semidarkness I don't know. It would scar me for life.

The suicide victim was in unbearable pain and needed help and support. One's sympathies remain with him and those he left behind. However the selfishness of his action by killing himself in the manner they did has hurt and devastated people who did him no harm.

That's selfish.

Returning to the train drivers. They don't deserve to be the weapon of death for a suicide driven person. Clarkson is totally right about that. Don't let the vacuous muckraking of the tabloids and the left blind us to the fact.

We need to provide help for those in need and encourage people to seek it without shame. Our natural sympathies for those in pain shouldn't blind us to how their actions hurt others.

Will David Cameron fulfil his promise and give us our referendum on the forthcoming EU treaty change?

2011-12-03T12:57:00.001Z

No.

Cameron, like his predecessors, lied when he said we could have our say last treaty change. When this proved less than popular with his own side and the public he promised that we could have a say next time there were treaty changes...oh and by the way these treaty changes aren't 'real' treaty changes so he didn't have to give our say anyway.

Lies aren't good. Worse than that it was politically idiotic as most of the people who voted for him, and most of the people of the country, wanted a say. The only thing it did was boost UKIP's popularity.

Now fast forward to today: the Euro is dead and only being kept breathing by German power. In an attempt to use any crisis as an opportunity Germany and France are demanding fiscal union which will remove any pretence of statehood from the Euro states and make them pay homage to Germany, and France (so France hopes).

Such major treaty changes effect all EU members, Euro states or not. It will also cost the UK more, and transfer more power to the EU.

By any measure the people of the UK should have their referendum. Denying that the treaty changes are treaty changes is untenable as these will be major changes and the Germans and French ignored Cameron's begging and insist on calling them treaty changes.

And yet Cameron is still vague about giving us a referendum.

We won't get one unless the Tories and a chunk of labour rebel.

Cameron won't give us our say for three reasons.

Firstly he wants to keep the Lib-Dems sweet, though personally I think he shares their views anyway.

Secondly he knows he'd lose the vote.

Thirdly he likes being PM and knows the last EU PM who demanded his people had a referendum was replaced in a EU coup by an unelected stooge, and that when the Italian premier kicked off he, and his whole democratically elected government, was replaced in a EU coup by unelected EU rulers.

And that's why we won't be allowed to have our say. We are too stupid to be trusted to give the right decision. We are here to do what our betters tell us, suffer their cuts, and pay for everything.

Indian boy murdered for sharing a name: haven't we got beyond this insanity?

2011-12-02T14:12:00.001Z

I am a deep admirer of Indian culture and history. It is truly a remarkable and advanced culture. Even though I have been studying Indian crime I am still stuck by how vibrant and amazing the culture is. I'm not talking of the wealth or power it has but the ordinary people.

I'm a fan.

And yet sometimes something happens which saddens the soul.

Neeraj Kumar was fourteen and of the Dalit Caste, the so-called 'untouchable" caste. His father, Ram Sumer, was ordered to change his sons names when a member of a higher caste called Jasahar Chaudhary after he found out that their sons shared the same names. Both have sons named Neeraj and Dheeraj.

The simple fact that a untouchable had sons with the same name as his own was apparently in matter of tension for Chaudhary.

Long tragedy short two friends of Chaudhary has been arrested for strangling Neeraj Kumar, his sons a strangely absent.

Chaudhary denies involvement and blames the police for framing him.

For all the great things in this world how is it possible that a young boy can be murdered for his name?

At times there seems little hope for humanity.

I truly hope that justice is done and that the killers, and those who ordered the murder face the proper punishement for thier crimes.

My worry is that with the discrimination the Dalit's still face and the tortuous and laboured rigmarole involved in gaining justice is that he won't.

Such murderers as this insult India and its people. In a modern world, which India is of growing importance, we should have moved on from this. To discriminate agiant 166 million of your population from birth because of thier caste is inhuman.

Who can order the murder of a child for daring to have the same name as your son?

Why do unions want to jail Jeremy Clarkson for making a joke?

2011-12-01T14:19:00.001Z

Jeremy Clarkson is a talented man. Like him or loath him he is a really good writer and is the presenter, writer, and driving force, of the world's most popular tv programme.

You cannot be that without public support in vast numbers.

Yesterday he made a joke about the striking civil servants live on the BBC. He said firstly how he supported them, paused, then said because the BBC has to be balanced, the strikers should be executed in front of their families.

As a joke it may lack something, but it does reflect a strange hinterland the BBC is in: it has to give both sides by law.

As a joke you may not find it funny, but thats not important.

Cue false outrage by the strikers on Twitter. Full of outrage with calls for his immediate imprisonment. It's funny really. This is the exact type of mob behaviour these people mock the Daily Mail readers for indulging in, the anti-Clarkson mob may be lefty but as just as ridiculous.

Perhaps we are not so different after all.

However that was just people jumping on a bandwagon. All fluff and fury........

Until the huge Unison union comes out and calls for Clarksons immediate sacking and is calling the police and want him jailed, beaten up, or other nastiness.

How can a union be so stupid?

If Clarkson is agianst the strikes then it his right. Why would a union make itself so ridiculous as to attack anyone's freedom of thought or expression when they are using the same freedoms to strike? To be intolerant of others whilst preaching tolerance for your own actions is hypocritical.

It is rather amusing to have right on types who are supporting a chap who was convicted for threatening to blow up an airport on twitter because it was a joke demanding jail and sacking of Clarkson for his joke. Are they hypocrites or just monumentally stupid I wonder.

For a major union not to realise how bad this makes them look is worrying. More than that the fact they don't understand the concept of freedom of speech, or the fact that Clarkson made two statements one pro and one anti striker, or that it was a joke, does not reflect well on them.

As for labour's Ed Milliband, put in place by the unions and beholden to the unions for money, to call for Clarkson to say sorry it's sort of pathetic.

If Clarkson wants to say sorry fine, but he shouldn't be made to. No one should be made to apologise. Freedom of expression means we don't have to cower like a beaten dog when those in power threaten us with punishment for what we say.

The freedom of expression and thought are a way to rebel against authority without threat of jail for what you say.

Freedom of thought and expression means we don't have to apologise or hide what we think or feel. We don't have to keep silent when we see abuses, or injustice. We can say what we like. That's the point. We don't have a right not to be offended only the right to freedom of speech.

People forget that.

As it happens Clarkson won't be sacked. His Top Gear programme is the biggest tv programme in the world. Each episode of this cheap to make programme is seen by over three hundred million people in over 100 countires. The magazines, DVDs, books, games, toys, etc., the BBC sell off the back of this programme makes Clarkson and Top Gear the biggest and most profitable venture in the history of the Beeb.

If they sack Clarkson he'll either take Top Gear to another channel as its his baby and isn't made by the BBC or make a rival programme. Clarkson is key to TG's success so either option is bad for the BBC.

For those who hate the programme or Clarkson and would love seeing it being finished think on this. If Clarkson or TG go there will be massive cuts to the BBC arts, entertainment, etc., budget. Clarkson's profitable programme is a rarity. He subsidies all the drama, documentaries, and the like who don't make a penny. Without the Top Gear income BBC drama will be devastated.

Jeremy Clarkson has the right to make a joke. It is a right enshrined in law.

For unions or the left to call for his sacking or jailing shows a shallow, ignorant, mindset. It shows a terrible tendency to bully those who disagree with them and an inability to see how stupid it makes them look.

Alistair Campbell calls for the elimination of a free press!

2011-11-30T17:09:00.001Z

Alistair Campbell is a stain on our society. He was a tabloid hack who admitted making stories up. He was proved to have lied in court. His bullying of the press whilst he was Blair's attack dog stifled debate in this country. He used his press contacts to drive a good man to his death.

And let us not forget he has the blood of over 600,000 Iraqi's on his hands due to the twisted, untrue, dossier he wrote.

If there was any justice he'd be facing war crimes charges.

And yet today this lowest of the low, this proven liar, bully, and current News International employee is demanding the elimination of the free press and bloggers.

Why is any one, much less the Leveson Inquiry, listening to this bullying liar?

Some of the press and journalists have acted illegally. Such illegality, like Campbell's own war crimes, need to to be punished. However the crimes of some papers shouldn't be used to shady poltical types to destroy a free and open press. You see creeps like Campbell would love a cowered press terrified the government would take away their licence. Think of the power. Not more scandals being published. No more sleaze being uncovered. Crime and corruption unpublished. No more angry voters as you cannot be angry at what you don't know.

Oh yes the polticians would absolutely love that.

That's why press freedom is so important.

Punish those who broke the law but don't let polticans get away with murder.

On a sadder note I find it pathetic that Campbell is another who thinks that UK law can regulate non-UK bloggs and news sites.

On Guido Fawkes being called before the Leveson Inquiry

2011-11-29T10:23:00.001Z

The blogger known as Guido Fawkes, the man who is Paul Staines, is seen as a very naughty boy by the Leveson Inquiry as he is being made to appear in front of them because he published the testimony of Alistair Campbell.

However two people have committed the same 'offense', that is publishing the evidence of Campbell before Leveson said they could. The other is Tom Watson who Tweeted and printed Campbell's testimony as it was happening.

And yet only Staines is being made to appear with threats of prison if he doesn't.

The fact that Watson is a labour MP may have something to do with this.

This bias and appeasement of of politicans whilst coming down hard on bloggers makes Leveson, and the whole inquiry, look idiotic.

If Staines is guilty of a crime so is fat boy Watson both should be treated the same.

On Gary Speed's suicide

2011-11-28T18:56:00.001Z

It is truly shocking that the football manager Gary Speed has committed suicide. I offer my deepest condolences to his family and many friends.

It is a tragedy. Not becuase he was famous but because it is tragic that any one so young, he was 42, with a young family feels completed to take thier own lives. Fame or fortune make it neither more or less tragic.

To feel so desperate and alone that you think your only option is ending it all is awful. To bottle up your feelings and problems isn't healthy.

I urge anyone who needs help, or just someone to talk to, not to keep quiet. There is no shame or stigma in asking for help. It might save your life.

If you need help please contact the Samaritans.

I hope Gary's suicide gives those in need the push they need to seek help.

My condolences to his family and friends.

Piers 'moron' Morgan guilty of hacking: says ex-labour reporter!

2011-11-27T12:55:00.001Z

It must be hard to be Piers 'moron' Morgan: he's an idiot. Especially hard now the noose is tightening around his bloated neck. The reason is that his past crimes he has so assiduously denied are coming back to haunt him.

The loathsome Alistair Campbell is a a nasty piece of work. His malign influence led to us going to war on a lie and his bullying drove a good man kill his death.

However he did work for 'moron' at the Daily Mirror when moron was the editor, this being before Morgan was sacked for publishing faked stories that put innocent soldiers lives in danger, and avoided being prosecuted for financial crimes.

Now Campbell is giving testimony in which he says he saw proof that Morgan ordered, and paid for, the phone of the then PM's wife Cheri Blair, or her weird alternative guru Carole Caplin, to be hacked by people working for the Mirror during Cheri's pregnancy, and that his own banking records and private details were subject to 'blagging' attacks, that is by journalists or people working for journalists pretending to be someone else in order to obtain confiential records illegally, these people working for he Morgan run Mirror. More seriouslly Campbell says his phone, or the then Deputy PM's phone was hacked by the Mirror as private conversations between the two were recorded.

If true, and one must remember Campbell is a proven liar, this is devastating to Morgan and the Mirror. Hacking the PM's wife and senior members of the government moves the scandal into a far more serious affairs than hacking celebrites, and hacking them is a serious crime.

When it concerns polticans, espeically those running the country, the legal authorities will thow the book at the miscreants.

If this is true, and Campbell is saying that he was shown proof that it is by the police, then Morgan is finished and faces prison. The Mirror is in a bind as the NoW precident means the offending newspaper has to be closed and they only have one daily paper and one Sunday.

Still they gloated when the NoW was closed so if their more serious, in the eyes of the polticians at least, crimes means they have to be closed they cannot complain.

It would be nice to seek Morgan's smug face get its comeuppance.

On Ann Widdecombe's title snub

2011-11-26T13:50:00.001Z

Image from Wikipedia.

Like her or loathe her the ex-Tory MP and senior minister that is Ann Widdicombe is a character. Regardless of her politics she's wonderfully eccentric and by all accounts a really nice and kind person to those she knows.

More than that she is one of the most recognisable of all our politicians regardless or party.

And yet when she retired from parliament she was refused a peerage even though some incredibly unimpressive, unknown, in some cases corrupt ex-politicians got their title and a place in parliament.

Widdecombe has given an interview in which she reiterated her complaint that she was snubbed by David Cameron because of who she is, and that he considers her too old fashioned.

She may be right about that however I think it's her independence of spirit that is the real reason as well as the fact she's not one of his cronies.

Widdicombe puts principle before party and once stood up in parliament and attacked her ex-ministerial boss because of principle.

It is this independence that is her real crime for Cameron. For all the spin he puts out about being all modern and hip he is all about the surface rather than substance. Unless you're a crony you have to be young, preferably a minority, inexperienced, docile, obedediant, and a stooge. Having a independent woman with a proven track record isn't his sort of thing at all.

Alas labour are worse, and at least Cameron hasn't sold peerages.

Widdecombe has a lot to offer. She's untainted by any sleaze and has made some incredibly popular documentaries about unemployment, deprevation, and poverty. People of her experience with knowledge of the real problems facing the vulnerable are rare. She has the talents and the voice that can help make our country a little better. More than that people, espically the normal working-class people, know and like her.

And still Cameron refuses her and appoints cronies and tv script writers as peers.

To my mind it is a stupid, avoidable, mistake by Cameron. He is is trouble for his alleged patronising, insulting, attitude to women. He is seen not to like women unless they are pretty, inexperienced, and smile lovingly at him don't not worry their little heads by thinking. Doing what they are told is important to him.

This is damaging to him and is seriouslly putting off female voters.

So why would he go out of his way to snub the most well known and popular female poltican?

This whole episode makes him look out of touch, petty, shallow, inept and facile.

It makes him look anti-women.

This isn't good for a leading politican.

Widdecombe should be a peer as she has a lot still to offer.

JK Rowling's 5 year old daughter and the journalist

2011-11-25T14:30:00.001Z

At the Leveson Inquiry into the press the author JK Rowling gave some horrible testimony. Now I'm not comparing it to how the families of murder victims have been treated but it shocking. Under oath Rowling related a story of finding a note a journalist had placed in her five year old daughter's lunch box and feeling that the little girl was unsafe even at school. See here.

This is a horrible story whose truth I do not doubt. I mean to say only an idiot would doubt that some in the press would not stoop so low. There is simply no justification for this act. It's against the press code and probably agiasnt the law.

However some things about this I find odd, agian to reiterate I believe Rowling, but bits of it are! like I say, odd.

Why didn't she name and shame the journalist or the despicable newspaper for which they worked? Rowling rightly named journalists and papers in other evidence so why not in this more shocking case. I would hope the gutter journalist would be held to account for the actions.
Why didn't she report the incident to the police? This goes beyond harassment it could be construed as grooming a small girl for who knows what ends. It also tends to show that someone had illegal access to her home, why didn't she seek to find out how?
What type of idiot journalist thinks leaving a note for a five year old is a good idea?
What type of idiot thinks that a five year old, whoever bright, would be interested in the contents of a note or understand what it meant? How is such a young child supposed to contact the journalist? Email, dead letter drops, and clandestine meetings wearing a red rose and carrying a rolled up fishing news is beyond such small children.

I believe Rowling but it does show some jounrlajsts ate thick as well as deeply unpleasant. I only wish the police had brought the vile person to justice.

MPs may be allowed to keep fiddling their second home expenses!

2011-11-25T12:59:00.001Z

MPs were caught fiddling their second home allowances. In some cases this fiddle netted individual MPs over £100,000, and this is just what we know of.

The way they didn't need to provide receipts for most of their claims and how the kept all profit by selling the expressive homes we buy them, often profiting then getting the taxpayer to buy them another to be sold later, was a recipe for abuse and fraud.

After their sleazy behaviour when it looked that the crooked were to be kicked out of their cushy jobs the system was changed. Like anyone else they were supposed to have to supply receipts, and we wouldn't buy them each a house, only rent them one.

They were supposed to have changed and be innocent of all crimes. These moves were done to con the public into thinking they'd changed so we didn't need to kick them out of parliament. The con worked as most of the iffy remain MPs.

However that was before the election. Since then the MPs have plotted and bullied to get these minimum restrictions on their abuses watered down.

Now they want to stop having to provide reciepts for most expenditure, get the taxpayer to pay their mortgage thus giving them free houses to sell for profit, and to provide them with lump sums of free cash.

At the moment the independent expsenses authority says it is only asking for opinion. For what it's worth I, and most people, are against such a move as it will lead to fraud and abuse. These are the same MPs who fiddled and abused the system last time such a scheme was in place. They cannot be trusted. They have proved that over half of them fiddle.

Secondly the taxpayer shouldn't make politicians rich by giving them free houses which the taxpayer will pay to do up and allow them to sell and keep the profit and buy them another home to do the same thing over agian.

It's insane. We shouldn't be the cash cows here to make politicians rich.

Alas I doubt it's our opinion which is being sought. Politicans will be asked and I am sure would welcome the return to the old system. All their bullying and political pressure since the election has been about allowing them return to fiddling.

Too many of our MPs fiddle. This move is shameful.

Piers "moron" Morgan to give evidence on his phone hacking career

2011-11-24T15:10:00.001Z

In good news the slimy, loathsome, cretin that is Piers "moron" Morgan has been called to give evidence at the Leveson Inquiry into the press.

I can only hope this most tabloid of tabloid editors gets all that is his due.

This is a man who admitted in his own book listening to private messages illegally hacked from a mobile phone and laughing hearing a distraught Paul Macartney weeping in a private message to his soon to be ex-wife. A man who bragged about phoning a new mobile phone number obtained illegally of a famous actress who was forced to change her number because of the press harassment. A man who sent his gutter dogs to hound people he had arguments with, and their families, going through their trash and making thier lives hell.

All of these crimes and breaches of the press code he admits. Indeed he treats them as a joke in his smarmy way.

They aren't a joke. They are criminal acts which can bring jail time.

Morgan is an oily creep who thinks he is above the law because he is of the left and has labour friends.

I hope he is wrong about this.

I hope the new mood against tabloid illegality allows him to get his just desserts.

When Morgan appears at the Inquiry I hope they rip him apart.

As I have always said press illegality and phone hacking was never confined to the News of the World or News International. It's not even confined to the tabloids. However no one else has been so stupid as to admit in their own books their criminal activites.

He really has no defence from his own stupid self-incrimination.

It would be nice to see a smug moron get his comeuppance. This Inquiry could finish his US career. It may even derail his UK one.

He could end up in jail for his crimes going back decades.

And so in the depth of recession and gloom we have good things to hope for.

Piers "moron" Morgan is a tit!

How can a policemen who has an affair be sacked but not a politicians having an affair with a member of staff?

2011-11-23T13:06:00.001Z

PC Paul Rice has been sacked by the Metropolitian Police for damaging it's reputation. His crime? Theft, or violence, selling information to crooks, or maybe killing someone.....

No none of these things. The many police offers with the Met can do the above and still remain officers.

Rice's sacking offence was that he had a perfectly consensual affair with the wife of Alan Johnson, the then Home Secretry he was protecting.

How is it right for an elite police officer, and such bodyguards are elite, can lose his job, career, and face ruin for falling in love? This wasn't a crime. It wasn't an abuse of office. It wasn't corruption. It is two people, deciding to have an affair.

Cheating is not a nice thing to do, though Johnson wasn't totally pure in this respect, but it isn't illegal.

So why sack Rice?

Worse than that it seems to reflect a idiotic mindset that says a wife is just some braindead serf who has no free will. She cannot decide who to love, or sleep with, indeed shouldn't be trusted with money, or anything more onerous than looking pretty for the cameras.

Pathetic really.

John Prescott abused his official position by having a seedy sexual relationship with a civil servant in his office during work hours. This was against the civil service code and could easily be seen as abusing his power to pressurise a women into sex.

He wasn't sacked.

So if a poltician can escape any censure for a situation which is more open to the threat of abuse why should a police officer be sacked for falling in love?

Of course we all know the answer: his crime was falling in love with a politicans wife whereas Prescott got away with it because he is a poltician.

So much for equal treatment for all.

If you want to know why politicans get away with fraud or mothering offences look at this case and the cowering attitude of the Met police.

The phone hacking inquiry: the unplanned smell of Daily Mail fear

2011-11-22T16:12:00.001Z

The press, especially the Daily Mail have loved the destruction of the News of the World and humbling of News International. Some if it has been seeing enemies humbled but a lot has to do with being able fill page after page with juicy stories and make more money by picking up extra readers from the defunct NoW.

Oh yes the DM were having a great time.

Until Hugh Grant gave evidence at the Leveson Inquiry into press illegality. In his damning testimony Grant, under oath, listed all the many times the DM broke the law in relation to him and his family, their lies and making up stories, and named DM reporters. I advice you to read the supplemental evidence he has provided to the Inquiry, it is shocking.

This is a devastating blow for the Mail. Other papers have been caught out braking the law, some have apologised. But not the Mail. They keep swearing blind that they are purer than pure, even though they have a proven history of hounding Princess Diana with photographers and probably contributed to her accidental death.

Now the Mail are not happy little bunnies and have used their pages today to deny their proven crimes.

And that's the thing. What seemed to be a story concerened with only one media empire is growing. All the tabloids are effected, and not only the tabloids. The broadsheets have been caught out breaking the law. The Guardian have a reporter under arrest for thier allegedly illegal reporting. The BBC have been discovered to use the same criminal privite eyes.

The web of horrible actions is spreading.

As it happens I do not indulge in the fashionable DM hatred. However If I were them I'd be scared. In the present climate criminal reporters will be jailed and criminal papers will have to follow News International and shut criminal papers.

And as for Hugh Grant I have to say he was impressive in his testimony. Of course the press won't tell you that they'll say he's sore about having his hooker adventures made public. But that would be a lie. Grant told the Inquiry that this was a judgifiable story and he didn't complain about such intrusion. He was only concerned with the hounding of his family, hacking, lies, an burglary.

Grant isn't perfect, none of us are, but he was funny, intellegent and devastating. it was also delivered under oath. He isn't going to risk prison by lying.

If I were tha DM owners I'd be worried now.

PC World advert: why

2011-11-21T19:57:00.001Z

PC World have a new advert. It must have been a massively expensive one to make as it has Star Wars' Darth Vader.

All very nicely done, for an advert.

However.....

Why would any business think it a good idea to link your firm and product to one of the most famous baddies in the history of film. More than that PC World are linking themselves to a fascist, genocidal, evil empire.

One would have thought that this isn't the greatest image for a shop to be linked with. But that could be me. Perhaps the whole point of the ads is that the mangers would love to run an evil empire and would like to excuse those who stand in their way!

Whatever an odd choice.

Why is it fashionable to call Cliff Richard gay?

2011-11-21T14:52:00.001Z

Image from Wikipedia

I am not a fan of the singing legend that is Cliff Richard. His music isn't my type of thing at all. However I do admire his career. I mean sixty odd years and still going is amazing. I honestly don't think anyone else will be able to beat that.

The thing I have never been able to work out though is why it has become fashionable, especially for ever so right on comedians in sundry tv programmes, to call him gay. You don't see anyone else being mocked because of their sexuality.

You'd have hoped that we'd moved away from laughing at people because they are gay.

The fact is I don't know anything about Cliff's sexuality. I do know he had a well published affair with a women, but that he is unwed.

To my knowledge none of the comedians who regularly mock him for being gay know if he is or not.

So why call him gay?

Cliff's Christian beliefs are well known and important to him, but Cliff isn't antigay and is a supporter of gay marriage so he cannot be accused of hypocrisy.

If Cliff is striaght then calling him gay in jokes is using the contention that being gay is in some way shameful or funny. This isn't a nice thing for comedians to think, and it's worse for the BBC to broadcast.

If he is gay then it is horrible to attack a man who became a star when homosexuality was a crime and has lived his life in terror of being found out.

If this is the then it is sick that he is being attacked for his sexuality now after living a life full of persecution.

Hasn't he earned the right not to be attacked because of his sexuality?

Every person has the right to privacy. Each of us has the right to keep our private lives private. It is deeply ironic that the BBC and their right on comedians pry and insult Cliff when they attack the tabloid press for prying and insulting the private lives of others.

I am not a fan of Cliff but the way he is singled out for attack and riddle because of rumours of his sexuality is wrong.

So why is it fashionable to call Cliff Richard gay? And why do the BBC keep broadcasting the attacks?

Why the delay in charging Chris Huhne?

2011-11-20T14:00:00.001Z

The Mail on Sunday has a timely article on the nasty piece of work that is the Lib-Dem Chris Hunne. Specifically why an apparently open and shut case of him perverting the course of justice by making his wife take the penalty points he earned for speeding has taken so long to decide.

To most people it is an open and shut case: he's guilty.

This isn't some vastly complicated murder or financial crime that takes thousands of man hours and shifty through hundreds of thousands of records or breaking encrypted files, it's a simple motoring offence. It shouldn't take so many months to decide to prosecute.

This delay is damaging to our justice and political system. It's shows people that there is not justice for all and that the elite are treated with kid gloves as the legal establishment scrabble around looking to reasons not to prosecute.

This is an affront to the people of this country and the police officers who have provided evidence that he's guilty.

This instilled simpering when dealing with the most iffy of politicians is offensive.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Prosecute Huhne.

Tax free Bishops playing party politics.

2011-11-20T13:48:00.001Z

There is going to changes in the way benefits are awarded and the amount given. For obvious reasons this is a serious issue and huge care needs to be taken to ensure that those in real need are not penalised or condemned to poverty.

However the whole thing is a political punchbag with labour and the unions telling us that the poor will be thrown into workhouses and have to sell their children for week old bread. Such exaggerations do a disservice to the real issues as it makes the government ignore the labour line and good advice is lost in the political slinging match.

This always happens and is always pointless.

However I find the even though I worry about the changes in help we give to those in need I find it distasteful that eighteen unelected bishops write to the Observer newspaper attacking the governments proposals and supporting the labour party line that the poor will be cleansed and have to live in holes in the ground.

I find it wrong that the leaders of the country's biggest landowner with a record of forcing people out of business by horrific rent increases, who have tens of billions in cash hanging around can criticise anyone for the support given to the poor.

The church itself helps no poor person. It's members do but the billions the church has aren't spent on the poor. These bishops weren't even elected by their flock. They became bishops because the knew the right people.

Worst of all, like I have said before, these bishops live in palaces and drive in chauffeur driven luxury but don't pay a single penny in tax, not does their church.

If they are so concerened about the poor then sell off their vast estates and give their billions to the poor. Failing that pay their taxes so that the billion extra in taxes their church would pay, plus the clerics own tax, could be spent helping the poor.

Until they actually do something rather than tell us to pay more whilst not contributing a single pound I'll not listen.

What I find wrong is the blatantly party political nature of the letter. They could have written to any paper but they chose the Observer. This sister paper of the Guardian doesn't pay it's taxes, but it's also the official paper of the labour rulers.

These tax avoiding bishops write a pro-labour letter in the labour party official paper.

Regardless if you agree with the letter or not it is wrong to be so blatantly party political.

If you believed that more taxes and more spending was the Christian thing to do why would you hoard unearned billions, force the poor out of business, and not pay tax?

The Children in Need tv marathon break another fund raising record

2011-11-19T13:09:00.001Z

Times are hard for most people. The threat of losing one's job and a falling standard of living haunt us all. So it's quite encouraging that in such troubling times that the BBC's Children in Need appeal has broken the previous record and has raised £26 million, with the expectation that it'll raise £40 million over the coming days.

If I'm totally honest here I didn't watch it because I'm so cynical that when I do I see celebrities giving their career a boost by doing good work in the full light of publicity. I think the same when I see the Beebs Comic Relief.

However I applaud the public's efforts to raise money for good causes and apologise to those famous types who give their time purely for the most noble reasons.

Regardless of what you think of some involved it is great to see so many people not on tv or hungry for fame actually doing something to help those on need.

In these days of bad news and threat it's heartwarming to see that charity still moves people.

It's easy to be cynical and negative sometimes, rightly in too many cases, but times like this show there are positive things out there and that people do good works for no reward.

It's nice to remember that.

On Ireland's vassal status to Germany: why do politicians treat the people as fools?

2011-11-18T14:51:00.001Z

I am not a fan of the EU but I don't believe that it's a nazi group achieving German aims by other means. I do think it's corrupt and undemocratic though.

There is great controversy at the moment when the forthcoming Irish budget was leaked in Berlin just after the Irish PM visited to pay homage to the German chancellor. The whole budget was leaked before the Irish parliament voted on it. Before they even saw it.

Now the Irish government deny that the PM gave the budget to the German leader for approval and spin the line that they don't know how it could have emerged in Berlin just after the PM's trip. They also refuse to hold an inquiry on how the most sensitive part of Irish government business which has the danger of derailing their recovery and spooking the markets seems to have been handed to the German government for approval.

You know one of the things that really depresses me is that politicians take us for stupid.

We all know that the Irish budget was leaked because the Irish Premier gave it to the German leader for approval before he presented it to his people's elected representatives. The leaked budget is not a fake; it's the next Irish budget. For the real thing to be leaked days after the premier's visit makes it inconceivable that it is anything but a present from the Irish PM.

Nothing else makes sense.

Germany is the most powerful country in the EU and is even more in control now that the Euro states are economically screwed. However it is disconcerting that the EU mask seems to be slipping and reveals German mastery. Now the EU isn't a German plot for empire but a changing Germany and a crisis is pushing Germany more to the fore. However even so it leaves a bad taste in ones mouth that a leader of a supposedly proud and independent nation supplicates himself before their unacknowledged master to get permission to set their tax rates, impose swinging cuts, and the like.

It's wrong.

German power is obvious to all but I am surprised at the idiotic way this has been done. I don't know why the Irish leader didn't give his budget to the EU apparatchik's rather than directly to the German leader. Even if the EU boss was German it wouldn't look like the leader of a subject nation cowering before their conquering master.

The Irish deserve better than this.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect is the actual leak itself.

I worry if it shows a newly confident German establishment unshackled by war guilt keen to show the world their mastery and power of nations by showing the world that vassal states need their permission to do what independent states do on their own.

This would not be good. The fear of Germany and the resentment of German power in the EU is growing and such German bragging of their power will not go down well.

This is a shaming day for Ireland. And a worrying day for the rest of, including the Germans.

The petition to get Baroness "filddler" Uddin kicked out of the House of Lords

2011-11-17T16:24:00.001Z

I'd like to thank Tom Marshall for being to my attention the government e-petition which sets out to get the sleazy and, to my mind, criminal labour peer Baroness Uddin kicked out of the lords.

I strongly urge all to sign up to this modest proposal regardless of one's politics or party leanings. No one as sleazy as Uddin, who let us not forget has become rich by being unelected and stole £125,000 from us, should be able to remain a peer or have a expenses cushioned position in our parliament.

She, and her iffy chums, should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

So I wish Tom all the best in his efforts to have Uddin kicked out of the lords even if she'll retain her title and still escape prosecution.

Uddin and the other crooks, arsonists, and killers who infest parliament are an affront to decency and all law abiding, uncorrupt, people.

It's a shame to think that even if there are 100,000 people who will vote for this simple measure there's is no way fiddler Uddin will be kicked out. There are too many iffy people in parliament who'll protect her to allow their own iffiness to remain hidden.

Sad really.

Good luck Tom in your efforts.

How not to make friends and influence people: German empire building

2011-11-16T16:28:00.001Z

The EU and specifically the Euro states, are in a mess. Political corruption and spendthrift ways are causing real pain to millions. This pain is going to get worse and go on for decades.

So it's not the best time for senior German politicians like Angela Merkel's chum Volker Kauder to strut around bragging how Germany is now the undoubted master of Europe. Telling the world that

"Now all of a sudden Europe is speaking German. Not as a language but in acceptance of the instruments for which Angela Merkel has fought so hard — and with success"

Is stupid.

It's true, but stupid.

Germany has achieved through hard work, and massive grants to rebuild after the last war, what Hitler couldn't. The EU will dance to their tune. They, like the UK, pay for the whole undemocratic edifice. Now the easy times are over the real power of Germany's might is made clear.

But it is stupid to let the peasants know whose the master.

As it happens I like Germany and most of the Germans I have met but it is undeniable the real terror they still spark in people. Several years ago I was talking with a modern European leader. They were sleek, modern, and pro-European. They were also terrified of Germany. I was shocked at the time but the more you meet European politicians and people the more this visceral fear comes to light.

It's not talked about in the press or polite company but it's there.

Worse than that the fear of German power and people is most pronounced when you talk to young Germans. This is a terrible thing to hear. The younger generation bear no guilt for the actions of those who came before but this isn't about war time guilt. They are afraid of what the over mighty modern German state can become now.

So with this aura of fear and mistrust, especially as the Germans are not popular in Greece and other Euro states, it is idiotic for German politicians to brag, swagger, bully, or throw their weight around.

Bullying can backfire. If the people of the German vassal states turn against the Germans, and they are a handy scapegoat for their own mistakes, it'll get messy and the German power-base will fall.

The thing they forget is that Germany is not invulnerable. The Euro mess could, if they muck up their rescue packages, destroy the German economic miracle. They are rich, modern, and powerful, but not that rich, modern, or powerful.

In this life pride does come before a fall. Germany, like every country, needs friends not resentful stooges.

Seduction is better than bullying or bragging. The German politicians need to understand that.

Charlie Gilmour freed!

2011-11-15T11:48:00.001Z

The son of the Pink Floyd star David Gilmour, Charlie, has been freed from prison after serving only a quarter of his sentence.

My views on his crime, which included violence as well as insulting those who died fighting fascism and their relatives, are well known here.

In short I think he is a dick head posh boy playing revolutionary cushioned by his fathers vast, and well earned, wealth. I also think that if he hadn't such a famous and wealthy dad but was the son of a scaffolder he'd have been much more seriously punished.

However what really boils my goat is this serving only a quarter of his sentence bit. Handing down sentences knowing that the guilty person will only serve a fraction of it is a con on the public. It's there to persuade the gullible that the establishment feels for us, as it is us that suffer the crime and not the protected elite, and punishes accordingly.

It's lies. They care about what they see is the real victim, the criminal, and not us.

The sentence handed down should be the minimum.

It's time to stop conning us. It really is that simple.

I hope that Charlie boy doesn't become a professional 'victim' but actually does something good with his life. The danger is that a stupid incident becomes the defining thing in his life. That the lefty types that flock to him, his notoriety, and wealth, stop him from moving on and becoming a worthwhile member of society.

We all make mistakes and act stupidly at times, though not so stupid as to insult the working class dead who defeated fascism, the trick is to learn from our mistakes and move on.

I hope Charlie understands this fundamental truth. If he doesn't he's a waste of space parasite.

Baroness "fiddler" Uddin: shameless

2011-11-14T13:47:00.001Z

The labour Baroness Uddin should by rights be languishing in a cozy prison cell now thinking about how she used her unelected position to loot the public purse to make herself rich.

Instead her gender, ethnicity, religion, and politics allowed her to escape the just punishment former fiddling over £125,000 from us.

She was handed a minor suspension from the lords and had to return her looted dosh.

She retained her posh title and was told she can return to parliament where she could get on with telling honest people what to do and deciding on what laws the law abiding have to follow.

You'd have thought that the greedy mere (which isn't sexist as I call any male peer as sleazy as her the same) would have thanked god for the PC rules that allow someone like her who should be in jail to get off with it.

However that is to ignore the obscene sense of entitlement professional politicians of the worst kind like her have. She is utterly shameless in making money of our backs.

And so she will return to the lords as if she was honest, she will spout forth as if we needed another sleazy person to tell us what to do. She will also use her lords expenses of £300 a day to repay the money she fiddled from us. See here.

To be perfectly explicit: Uddin fiddled £125,000 from us and is going to use her expenses she'll be claiming to repay the fiddled money. Gets gets to keep money she fiddled.

It's obscene.

To put it into context this £125,000 is £15,000 less than the marble she had fitted to her Pakistani mansion paid for by our taxes.

Uddin, and all other peers, MPs, and the like, who steal from us should be prosecuted and jailed. I don't care who they are, what party they are from, how senior, their sex, race, orientation, or hair colour. It doesn't even matter if I agree with their politics or like them as people.

If they fiddle they should be jailed.

We would be.

Uddin and her crooked chums should be stripped of their titles and banned from public office.

It is really that simple. They are crooks.

To allow a person caught out fiddling their expenses to keep on claiming their expenses to repay us the amount they fiddled is idiotic.

I agree with the house of lords. There are many people in this country who deserve peerages and who could bring unique talents.

Uddin and the other political stooges deserve to have their titles removed as they bring nothing but greed to the proceedings.

Uddin, and all other fiddlers, should lose their titles, positions, and expenses. They should be prosecuted.

The sad thing is that those in charge don't see that this is the right thing to do. It is this appeasement of fiddling and sleaze that is doing untold damage to us politics.

Sleazy Uddin should be shunned not pampered.

Remembrance Sunday

2011-11-13T15:14:00.001Z

Another year passes and we honour our war dead in another Remembrance Sunday.

This day isn't about politics or pomp. It is about us remembering those who fought, who died, the injured, and bereaved on our behalf. It isn't about the rightness or wrongness of a war or battle: it is about us.

It is about our family and friends, about our neighbours and acquaintances. It's not about leaders or the high-ups it is about us.

It is about remembering sacrifice, and bravery. It is about brave men and women remembering and being the shown respect they deserve.

Wars are political acts which politicians like to indulge in to appear all big and important but never pay the price.

Today we remember the consequences if their actions.

The just and the unjust war, the won or the lost don't matter. Only our dead and our sacrifice matter.

Remembrance Sunday isn't about leaders it is about all of us. It is about our pride, our loss, our pain, and our respect for our fellow man.

For all of the cynicism and politics today is something to be proud of. It is a special day for all of us.

Ed Miliband's childish attacks on David Cameron makes him look stupid.

2011-11-12T14:09:00.001Z

Make no mistake I am not a fan of David Cameron and feel there are many things one can rightly attack him for. However I find the way in which Ed "posh boy who inherited millions tax free" Miliband is attacking him by telling the world that Cameron is using the Euro disaster to hide his own failings pathetic.

This line of attack is purely party political, albeit it's not very good at that. Ed is supposed to play the PM in waiting as such he is supposed to look all grown up, serious, and UN-weird.

What is happening with the Euro is a utter disaster for the people in those countries. If things get worse it will devastate the world economy. It will do untold damage to the US, China, and he's the UK.

This is a basic fact.

There is not a hell of a lot the UK, or even the US, can do about it.

Neither are Euro states, neither have the borrowed cash to prop up the troubled states. It has to be down to the states, the people, and their German and French masters to sort things out.

In these troubled times even the best plans for a country may not matter. If the world is thrown into a massive recession because of the Euro such great plans don't matter the country will still suffer. Of course making the wrong choice will make things a lot worse but cannot hope to stop the country being forced into recession.

This is what a global economy means.

For Miliband not to acknowledge the very real danger the Euro poses makes him look stupid, or a liar.

Having two options of being out of his depth or untrustworthy are not attractive to the voters.

My worry is that Miliband is the type of professional, union foisted, politico who puts his own ambition before this country. We've had top many of those.

There is much to criticise Cameron for but this line of attack shows labour in a bad light.

Lord "thief" Hanningfield to keep making our laws

2011-11-11T19:24:00.001Z

Lord Hanningfield is a thief.

He is a jailbird who served prison time for this stealing from us by his fraudulent expense claims whilst being a peer.

He is a thief and a crook.

He has given a BBC interview in which he plays the victim card saying how his prison experience will make him a better peer.

Two things here. The first is that it's total bollocks. Being a criminal doesn't make you a better politician. When MPs are up for selection by their party they don't go down their cv and see a criminal record as a plus. A broad experience is needed but not if that experience is being a crook.

The second pint is that he, and the other crooked peers, make it explicit that they will continue to take their seats in parliament, make our laws, and rake in a fortune in expenses.

There is a ludicrous situation that criminal peers retain their titles and seat in parliament. This is utterly ridiculous.

Jeffrey Archer, of whom I'm not a fan, is a peer and jailbird. But to give him his due he's never took his seat or claimed expenses since his release even though he didn't kill or steal.

However the new crop of criminal peers, thieves, arsonists, and killers, know no shame and continue to rule over us and cost us a fortune.

How is it we are in a situation whereby criminals, including those who abused their position to steal from the taxpayer, who have killed innocent people, continue to make our laws and claim taxpayer money?

This isn't party political it simply a matter of right.

Hanningfield and his criminal mates shouldn't be peers.

Hanningfield is a thief.

The Daily Mail attacking the disabled again

2011-11-11T14:48:00.001Z

The front page of today's Daily Mail is a nasty piece attacking the disabled......again. The Mail seriously don't like the disabled. You'd think the very idea of people being less then perfect offends them. It is most odd, it seems to hark back to the Mail's pro-nazi and pro-eugenics past.

Any road up today with the world riven by economic collapse, war, social unrest and the like the most important story, according to the Mail is:

Disabled benefit? Just fill in a form: 200,000 got handouts last year without face-to-face interview

The thing is its bollocks. People don't just fill in a form and are given truck loads of cash. Every person has a strong medical history with their own doctors and hospitals that prove they are entitled to help.

The trouble is that too many disabled people are not getting the help they need because the government pays private medical companies to turn down requests or they are too embarrassed to ask for help. Stories like this feed into anti disabled prejudice and will cause evermore people not to apply for the vital help they deserve.

What really sickens me about the story is the way the Mail doesn't attack the system of awarding disabled benefits. That is the fact that the near billion it would cost to examine each claimant is not a justified expense as it is proven than disabled benefits are rarely abused. No it attacks the disabled person for following the rules and doing what is expected of them.

But that's the Mail all over. It never attacks the government when it can attack the vulnerable.

The Newcastle anticapitalist camp

2011-11-10T14:04:00.001Z

Image from Wikipedia

In the centre of Newcastle Upon Tyne stands Greys monument. It is a symbol of praise to a prime minister, tea aficionado. And the abolishment of slavery.

It's a rather impressive edifice which has survived the ravages of development. This is a public space usually occupied by people having a rest, tourists, or market stalls for the local farmers market every week.

It's a nice space.

It symbolises on of our greatest achievements which led to a hundred year battle to eradicate the sickening stain of slavery.

More than that though it provides a space whereby small local business people can sell local produce and crafts to a major market. It provides a vital income to these people and is environmentally friendly as is massively reduces air miles.

In short it's a good thing.

However it's been taken over by a rather sad lot of anti-capitalists.

It's a little odd to be fair as there are only a few tents but they are arranged so you cannot see how many people are in the camp. All you see is one person haranguing a bored audience spouting inanities and piffle. This isn't helped by the fact that when I was there it was the same local religious nut who usually preached at people dressed in dog collar and cowboy regalia.

Most of the public space is surrounded by crash barriers denying anyone one else access to this prime site. It doesn't seem fair to deny the public their right to their public space. Worse than than that this group are denying real people who need access to a prime market a chance to make some much needed money for all their work. For the small holder dependent on income from their years work this is terrible.

It seems symptomatic of the disconnect between what these protesters say they want and what they doing. They are against big business and for the small local enterprise and yet they are damaging the local small business person by denying them there most profitable selling space. They are supposed to be about freedom and the use of public spaces but deny such spaces to others.

Seeing the so-called camp I was left with the thought of "what's the point". No one was listening. The only police presence was two very small policewomen who happened to be passing, they did not look at the protesters or give them any heed at all.

The camp is pointless. It's doing no good at all.

Finally I was amused by the fact there were no portable toilets on the site which means the protesters are very much dependent on the big, multinational, companies which surround the site for lavatories. Says a lot that.

Newcastle is a working-class city, labour controlled and concerned with job losses. If the middle-class protesters cannot spark any interest in them it shows how their cause has not sparked anything. It shows how they are only speaking to themselves.

Not terribly revolutionary is it?

How can a government give away £40 billion without parliament talking about it?

2011-11-09T15:56:00.001Z

The UK has been hit by massive cuts in order to rectify the economic disaster left by the the labour government. Now it is vital that our finances are put back in order but a lot of people are suffering. With the added uncertainty about jobs and an seemingly ever decreasing standard of living its hard for many people, perhaps most. With the cuts in our defence budget and other vital services the cuts have gone to far and borders on the stupid.

But like I say this pain needs to be endured for the sake of our future and our children but this doesn't reduce the very real pain we are suffering.

So in light of this pain how can it be possible that a government can commit £40 billion of our money to the IMF to prop up the falling Euro?

This massive figure, on top of the tens of billions we've spent propping up Ireland and other states, dwarfs the massive budget cuts we've have suffered through so far. We've cut ten but are spending fifty plus. Spending it on other countries who have squandered their tax revenue and run up insane levels of un-repayable debt.

It doesn't seem fair that the UK which have paid our taxes, and have suffered horrendous cuts has to take the pain while being liable for spendthrift debts of other countries. We are in financial trouble with untenable debt but we are going to borrow tens of billions more to lend to other EU states who will most likely default on the debt.

That's insane.

My real problem is not the liability we are talking on to support the Euro but the fact that the government, any government much less a much spun euro sceptic one, can spend such gargantuan levels of borrowed money on other countries but refuse to allow parliament to debate the burden.

Regardless of ones views on the rights or wrongs of our guaranteeing others debts it is wrong that the decision can be made without any reference or debate in parliament.

It stinks to high heaven.

Parliament should have its debate. Hopefully it should make its views known , maybe it'll be cowed by the whips but it should have a chance to do its job representing the people.

This is wrong, and the same thing would be happening under any of the mainstream parties as all will do what the EU tells them to do.

It's a sad day.

We peasants seem only fit to suffer, pay, and allow our political elite to squander tens of billions without a say.

It's wrong.

May Day: incompetency and immigration

2011-11-08T16:07:00.001Z

The scandal of the de facto scrapping of any immigration checks continues to grow. The way in which labour are trying to make political capital out of this farce does stick in ones craw after all the millions of people labour purposefully allowed into the country in order to make it less white, Christian, and British, but Theresa May's handling of integration is an incompetent disaster.

However what concerns me here isn't the actual letting in of who knows how many terrorists, murderers, tapists and the ilk but rather the politics of actual government policy as decided on by Theresa May, the Home Secretary. It seems she didn't agree to dropping all checks on non-EU visitors but she did order EU nationals not to be checked.

She ordered less vigorous checks on who enters the UK.

This is fact.

Leaving aside the rights or wrongs of unfitted, uncontrolled, immigration or not knowing if murderers are being waved in I am surprised by the politically tone deaf way in which May, and her government, is handling immigration.

The vast majority of people in the UK are concerned by immigration. Poll after poll show this, and this isn't a racist concern as a majority of non-white second and third generation children of immigrants share the concern and most immigrants are white. The anger at labour for their allowing of millions into the country was one of the main reasons they lost the last election. The Tory party won because of the fact they were seen as being different to the labour and Lib-Dem parties who wanted amnesties and unfitted immigration.

Simply put the Tory immigration policy was one of the main reasons they are in government.

So why would any politician worth their salt go against the public's will and their own election promise?

Campaigning at a recent election on a policy of controlling immigration and then scrapping checks in immigrants is idiotic.

May's stupidity, which I am assuming is government policy, scuppers their strongest vote winner. It allows a shameless labour party to rewrite their history, and will be a massive boost for the loathsome BNP vote.

This disaster is what happens when you have incompetent people with no firm beliefs isolated from the concerns of real people in charge.

I sometimes think that the shallow spin merchants and professional politicians who run our parties couldn't run a whelk stall. They really, with a few exceptions, not very competent.

How can a civil servant change UK border policy on his own?

2011-11-07T13:40:00.001Z

In a frankly unbelievable turn of events it seems that one man, an unelected civil servant called Brodie Clark who is head of the UK's Border Agency and so in charge of who comes into the UK, ignored direct orders from politicians and decided to order his staff not to check non-EU passports.

And so we've gone from a situation whereby we have unknown numbers of illegal immigrants who have overstated their visas and moved to a situation whereby arrivals weren't even checked to see if they were known criminals or terrorists. We know of at least one case of a extremists with links to terrorism being who was on the list of person's banned from entering the country able to arrive in the UK unchecked and being unable to be kicked out because of human rights law. Who knows who else has been able to arrive because of Clark.

If this farce is due to Clark and he alone it's worrying. Immigration is a key area of concern for the public and helped lose labour the last election. As it is such a key topic you'd have hoped that the politicians would have kept a bit of an eye on it.

If it is all down to one man thinking he knows best and going against the will of the people it's shocking that he could have changed national policy unnoticed. Where are the checks and oversight?

To my mind it shows how the "I know best" mentality of too many leftwing types allows them to ignore the will of the people and the direct orders of democratically elected politicians. Either that or he knowingly caused this scandal that puts people's lives at risk as a way to protest staffing cuts. Now I think we should have more border control staff but if Clark put lives in danger to make a political point it should be criminal.

The thing to remember about Clark is that he's a labour placeman with a history of incompetency. He allowed terrorists to escape his prison for flips sake.

So the question is is he utterly incompetent, in which case why did he keep getting promoted after every scandal, is he playing politics with public safety, or perhaps worse, is he an arrogant idiot who thinks he knows best and will ignore anyone, politician or member of the public, to do what he wants?

Whatever happens heads should roll. His of course, and those politicians who allowed this scandal to occur.

Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu's attack on the rich

2011-11-06T13:03:00.001Z

I am not, nor have I ever been a banker, or rich. However I am getting a bit sick of the hypocrisy of the CoE.

Finding an apparently easy bandwagon to jump upon the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu has condemned the rich bankers for not bring taxed enough and getting honours. Apparently it's an affront to society that the rich exist.

Now I have no problem with people having this view. Not being rich it doesn't effect me at all and we are supposed to be a free country.

But

Image from Wikipedia

This is the free PALACE Sentamu lives in. He has servants paid for by his church. He is chauffeur driven in limousines and travels first class. it costs well over £5 million a year to pay for this luxury he has become accustomed to.

He is a senior figure in a company that owns more of the UK than anyone else. Has tens of billions invested in the stock-market and banks.

His church doesn't pay the billion a year they'd have to pay if they were a business.

Sentamu doesn't pay one single penny in income tax. He doesn't pay for his palace or butlers.

You could say that the greed of some bankers is wrong and be right. But isn't worse that a man who costs his church five million a year, and the taxpayer billions for his organisation to criticise the greed of others and the wrongness of the gulf between rich and poor?

And as for the rich getting honours Sentamu is one of the 24 Lords Spiritual who have a peerage solely because of being a bishop. Why should unelected clerics get seats in our parliament that gives them power over us when a person who has made a fortune, employes people, and pays huge amounts of tax shouldn't get a CBE?

I would think that someone who contributes to our economy has more use than someone who doesn't pay tax.

As I have said before if clerics are against the rich and for the poor they should voluntarily pay their tax before demanding we pay more. They should sell off their land and give all the billions to the poor. Until they do that I will ignore them.

How can a person with six months experience become party leader?

2011-11-05T13:15:00.001Z

The Scottish Tory party finally chose a new leader. The contest seemed to go on for far longer than needed to be honest. The most noticeable thing about it is the then deputy leader and leadership hopeful made an ass of himself by wanting to scrap the party and comeback under a new name. This damaged the party and made him look a right twonk.

Anyway the party have chosen a new leader, a 32 year old lesbian Ruth Davidson. This ex-BBC reporter is new and shiny which is nice.

However it does strike me as slightly wrong that a person who only joined the party two years ago and has only been elected to the Scottish Parliament six months ago is now the leader of the party.

It's one hell of an insult to the other MSP's.

The trouble is Davidson was Cameron's candidate and is everything he wants from the party for spin purposes. She's young, female, gay, and a media type. The danger is that going by age, gender, and sexuality isn't enough. Such trappings aren't that important. Ability and experience are. Choosing someone from a BBC background with no experience of the real world outside this taxpayer funded bubble is dangerous because they don't know about the real economy or the real lives lived by people. This disconnect and move to a media and spin elite running our parties may not be such a good idea.

I fear she may be yet another shallow professional type, who will meekly do what shes told, that infect all our parties.

I hope Davidson proves me wrong and I wish her all the best.

Greece told they'll be kicked out of the EU if they go for the democratic option

2011-11-04T12:09:00.001Z

Politicians forget that they're not our masters and that our countries belong to the people and not our self serving elite. Case in point the ructions is the Euro/EU countries because the Greek PM, George Papandreou, decided that he was going to hold a referendum on the latest bailout from the EU states.

My the other leaders aren't happy little bunnies because one of their ilk dared to consider asking the people if they agreed with the decades of serious hardship they will be suffering because of the conditions attached to the bailout.

You see the Euro, and EU, leaders think the Greek people are too thick to make their own decisions and should just do what their betters say like good little drones.

Just in case you think this is a racist attack on the Greek people our 'betters' think exactly the same about us: we're thick and stupid only good enough to pay for their lofty schemes and to make them very rich.

After intense pressure from other leaders the Greeks probably wont get their say.

The EU, and a surprising number of EU states don't like democracy. It comes to a pretty pass when we have the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, telling the Greek PM that if he dared cross her she'll kick Greece out of the EU for at least ten years.

Regardless of your views on the Euro or the EU how is such a blatant threat and interference in the internal politics of a supposed friend and partner right? To order PM of another sovereign state to go back on his word and deny his people their say is wrong.

Greece isn't a vessel of either Germany or the EU. Greece, or any other EU state shouldn't be bullied and ordered about by Germany or France.

This highhandedness, especially from Germany with its sad history with Greece, insults the German people and will do nothing but inflame the Greeks.

More than that this open contempt of people and democracy damages the EU.

Worse than that it's an affront to civilised people everywhere.

Why should be spend thousands of John Bercow's vanity?

2011-11-03T13:08:00.001Z

The Speaker of the House of Commons is a vain little pipsqueak. Mired as he is in the worst excesses of the expense system he is the wrong person to be Speaker, even if he wasn't pompous, biased, and totally useless.

Even if he was the finest person to be Speaker why should we the taxpayer spend thousands on two suits in which to clothe him?

The Speaker used to be dressed in ceremonial robes to reflect their non-political position but Bercow decided he wasn't going to do that. He was happy enough with the massive wage, palace, and titles which came from the position, but not the uniform.

This was his decision. As such why should we pay £3,700 for two suits when he chose not to wear his uniform?

I have no problem with a Speaker being given ceremonial robes to do their job. It's traditional and cannot be abused. Well you cannot wear them to a theatre without looking peculiar. However if you decide to wear a suit then you should pay for them yourself. Bercow earns just shy of £200,00 a year and love rent free with free food. He can afford his own bloody suits!

It is this systematic use of expenses to live in free luxury that has done so much damage to our political system. Politics should not make politicians rich. Expenses shouldn't be used for anything more than the basic necessities to allow a politician to do their job. Fancy clothes or food don't fall into this category.

Bercow may be a joke, but he's flipping expensive.

Archbishop Williams' hypocricy

2011-11-02T14:21:00.001Z

The Church of England have got itself in a right muddle of their mishandling of the anti-capitalist protest camp at St Paul's. The mistake of evicting the police and siding with the protesters is costing the Church £20,000 a day. It's also stoping worshipers following their faith and has disrupted weddings, but this doesn't seem to matter to the modern church

Anyway after weeks of befuddled silence the Archbishop of Canterbury, aka Rowan Williams, has come down on the side of the protesters....well to be fair he's waffled and used obtuse language and has made no firm commitments, but that's what this out of touch, vacillating man always does. Williams has demanded that bankers be taxed until the pips pop in order to help those poorer than they.

It goes without saying this is an idiotic suggestion given to divert attention of the mess and irrelevance of the Church he running into the ground.

To put it simply if any country is going to pile huge taxes on bankers they'll move to another country, in the EU or Hong Kong, where they'll not be taxed. We are not talking about massive factories or mines here, these are mobile individuals able and rich enough to move anywhere.

If the banks left the UK the taxpayer would lose just shy of £200 billion in taxes from the banks, plus the income tax of the rich staff.

However my concern is with the hypocrisy of Williams. He calls on the rich to pay more tax to help the poor when he is the leader of the biggest landlord in the country and one of the biggest financial blocks in the world.

His Church doesn't pay any tax.

If the CoE did pay tax on its profits like any other profit making organisation they'd have to pay £1 billion a year to the exchequer.

More than that Williams and his cleric chums want someone else to pay more tax when they don't pay one penny in income tax. Williams lives in a palace and has chauffeur driven limos to transport him in golden luxury. He talks about the poor but he is an unelected cleric living like a prince and is a lord which gives power to rule over us all. And the people have no say or vote about it.

And he doesn't pay a single penny in tax.

This hypocrisy stinks.

You can argue about the rights of wrongs of higher taxes, but if Williams and the CoE are really concerned about the poor in this country and budget cuts they should voluntarily pay their taxes. If they don't they'll be seen as hypocrite parasites.

If the CoE want to play politics then they should pay their tax like the rest of us.

Imagine how much better this country would be if we had the benefit of all those trillions of pounds the CoE haven't paid.

It's no wonder the CoE is in such a state with men like this in charge.

If the Greeks can have a referendum why are we denied one?

2011-11-01T11:36:00.001Z

Greece is in a mess. The decades long system of not paying taxes, retiring early on unsustainable pensions, and monumental amounts of borrowing has come home to roost. The sheer political incompetence that allowed such untenable practices to happen has left the Country bankrupt. Being part of the Euro and not being able to devalue their own currency has resulted in a nightmare whereby the only option is savage cuts and selling large parts of the country to the Chinese.

The social unrest and pain inflicted on the ordinary person is horrific and is going to get worse if they comply with what the Germans want. People have already died in these protests and it could get a lot worse when the savage cuts come into play.

The worst case scenario is serious civil unrest resulting in insurgency. This would be bad, if the EU sent its police and military to put it down, as they can under EU law as well as allowing the EU to execute people, it'll be so much worse.

The fault lies with the Greek governments past and present and the Greek dislike of paying taxes while expecting government largesse to be lavished upon them. It also lies with the EU member states, especially the Euro members who allowed Greece to join the Euro even though they and everyone else knew that Greece didn't meet the financial criteria for membership. Basically Greece, and Italy, et al, fibbed about the level of their debt. What is happening now is a direct result of this history of bad government, wasted money, and tax avoidance. Their joining of the Euro was a political decision for a political project. The Euro members have made it much worse.

It is a boring truism that tax and living within your means are unpleasant as we all would like luxuries and treats using borrowed money but massive debt and not paying tax leads to economic collapse and serious pain.

As always my sympathies lie with the innocent people suffering because of their politicians. Rather than having a fair taxation system and safe debt these are the people who are going to suffer.

I do wonder about the unexpected calling of a referendum by the Greek government about the massive budget cuts the Euro members, well mostly Germany, are demanding as part of the massive financial injection Greece will get.

I am not criticising Germany at all as it would be idiotic to throw tens of billions at a spendthrift without some guarantee that it'll be wasted. It would be wrong for hard working, overtaxed, people to reward untaxed people whose government will waste the money.

I am also not criticising the calling of a Greek referendum. The Greek people are going to suffer hugely because of the cuts so they should give their consent. The fact that a democratically elected government is being ordered around by an undemocratic foreign elite is wrong. The people need to give their explicit consent for the pain they're going to have to go throw.

Giving people a say may not be convenient for the EU as people have a tendency for not doing what they're told. It would make things ever so much easier if the great unwashed just shut up an do what our self-proclaimed masters tell us.

But that's the thing about democracy: it's a pain for rulers but vital for us. That's why it's the least worst system we have.

I do have a question though:

If it is right that a country who is desperate for money from the EU can hold a referendum when the 'wrong' answer will will seriously damage that country, the Euro members, the EU, and indeed the world economy, why cannot the British people have our referendum about our relationship with the EU when the vast majority of the people want it but when it wouldn't impact on any other country?

A country belongs to its people not its politicians. They forget that. We deserve our say, I mean to say if it's good enough for the Greeks it good enough for us!

A tabloid attempt to use a tragedy to curb our freedom

2011-10-31T13:16:00.001Z

I've written here before about the horrific, senseless, murder of Jo Yeates. This is a tragedy who will haunt her family and friends. I am glad her murderer has been convicted and I truly hope he serves his full sentence.

My sympathies go out to Jo's family and friends.

Though I think it is obvious where my sympathies lie I find the use of this horrid crime by the Church of England, and the Daily Mail to threaten ISP's with pulling millions of pounds if investment if they don't agree to censor the web in a way the Church demands, in the case of the Church, or demand that all websites need to be vetted and those the Daily Mail don't like to be banned and the readers punished.

The Mail, which let us not forget had to pay out a fortune to an innocent man they told the world murdered Jo and was investigated for contempt of court which would have led to the murderer going free, crudely uses the death of Jo to whip up public support for their censorship crusade with an editorial entitled

In Joanna’s name, close these vile sites

Column after column in the DM is about demands that the Internet should be censored or others will die.

The thing is this isn't about right or wrong: it's about a failing tabloid exploiting the tragic death of a beautiful and talented young woman to sell newspapers. And that it.

The second time I was threatened with death was when I wrote elsewhere about the horror of violent pornography. It's vile. However they are also perfectly legal in the US where most is made and hosted. My personal disgust at such vile stuff is personal and based in my sense if what is moral. I don't call for it to be banned or the sites taken down.

Just because you don't like or agree with something doesn't mean they should be censored or made illegal. That's the point of freedom of expression. We don't have the right not to be offended.

The tabloids and the church say Jo's killer killed because of him having watched some legal porn. The judge ruled otherwise.

I do find it strange that the DM is excusing the inexcusable actions of a murderer. By launching a campaign against images and videos they don't like they are saying that Jo's murderer is a victim and was not responsible for his murder.

The deflection of responsibility is wrong. Vincent Tabak is solely responsible for his actions.

The vast majority of viewers of porn don't kill or rape. Such images don't make people killers: people do. Blaming the Internet is like how the tabloids blamed videos, or photographs, or novels for all the world's problems. It's simplistic nonsense.

All this talk about controlling and censoring the Internet is part of the concerted political effort to limit what we say or can see. It's about giving vested interests in politics and media control. You see it in China and the Middle East which censors and controls the Internet to keep the public in the dark and you see it here where politicians seek to stop us knowing about their sleaze and corruption.

It is easy to fall into the trap of letting our freedoms be curbed because of a horrific crime but rest assured that once we have governmental, church, or media censorship of what we see or can say it'll not be limited to vile porn but will spread to non-politically correct, or politically embarrassing views.

We will be less free.

That is the real danger here and the reason politicians are pushing for their control of a free Internet.

For a tabloid so mired in allegations of their own crimes to launch a moral crusade is laughable.

For the Church or England to try to blackmail anyone to do what they say when this church has hundreds of millions invested in weapons manufacturers who provide the means to kill and have helped kill umpteen thousands of innocent children is a sick joke.

Sympathy for Jo, her family and friends, and disgust at her sick murder isn't reason to jump on a tabloid bandwagon to makes all less free.

On the passing of Sir Jimmy Savile

2011-10-30T12:18:00.001Z

Image from Wikipedia

It is sad to record that Sir Jimmy Savile has passed away at the grand old age of 84. Jimmy was a man for whom the word eccentric was made. His, shall we say, distinctive, dress sense, phrases, looks, and cigar made him unique.

Jimmy was a disk jockey, and one of the faces of Top of the Pops in its prime. However it was his role as a children's tv presenter that made him an icon. Presenting a programme that allowed children to fulfil their dreams was simple but wonderful. The thing that impressed me most is his refusal to go with the kids when they fulfilled their dream. Not for laziness but because he didn't want to overshadow the child and take anything away from their day. That's a nice, considerate, thing to do. Not many media types would do that.

Many people seem to get honours for nothing, especially in the entertainment field. It seems that posh, rich, and connected people get knighthoods when those who deserve them get ignored.

But not with Jimmy. You see you could like his style or eccentricity or not but you cannot deny he deserved all his honours.

This is a man who came from poverty whose Christmas present was to look in a shop window and that alone, who had TB as a child (though the doctors never bothered to diagnose it because as he said,

"in those days if you were poor you just died".

And left a death certificate rather than find out what was wrong. This is a man who broke his back when conscripted to work down the mines and to,d he'd never walk properly again.

Such a life is unheard of now. It truly is a different world.

It's the measure of the man that through sheer grit he did walk and built a media career.

More than that this is a "cripple" who ran well over 200 marathons for charity raising over £40 million. A man who came from abject poverty but who gave away 90% of his income to charity. A man who raised the funds to build a spinal injury unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital to help those who like himself had spine injuries. A man who worked as a volunteer porter at his local hospital in Leeds. A man who worked as a volunteer at Broadmoor Hospital for the criminally insane. This unglamorous role helping the most dangerous and vulnerable isn't something you do if you are doing something for publicity. He spent so much time there helping they even gave him his own room.

Often famous people lend their name to a charity for publicity but don't actually do anything. Jimmy did something. He gave away fortunes and more importantly gave his time. Time running, in committees, but more importantly time doing the boring menial tasks that need to be done.

That's impressive.

The fact that Jimmy didn't move to London but remained in Leeds shows a down to earth man whose feet remained firmly in the ground.

All of these things show a remarkable man. This is a man who came from nothing but spent his time, money, and fame helping others.

Jimmy is one of the few people you can say deserved all his honours and praise. It has become fashionable to mock his eccentricity and style of broadcasting. We should relish it. His eccentricity was wonderful and his charitable works awe inspiring.

So today our world is a little more grey.

My sympathies go out to his family and many friends.

Ireland rejects a man of violence in favour of a man of peace

2011-10-29T12:16:00.001+01:00

At times there seems little to feel good about in this world in turmoil. So it is with a glad heart that Ireland has overwhelming rejected the blood soaked Martin McGuinness and have chosen the man of peace Michael D. Higgins to be their next President.

None of us, regardless of our country, need violent, vile, unapologetic, monsters to be our figurehead. The fact that Ireland has the maturity and wisdom to reject the divisive and choose the constructive is great news.

The political resignation of the Rev Giles Fraser

2011-10-28T14:41:00.001+01:00

The leftwing Cannon Giles Fraser is the brother of a wealthy banker who has made a bit of a name for himself spouting lefty causes. From gay marriage to criticising people for spending their own money on things they want, like their marriage, to the Tory party he's there on the BBC preaching to the leftwing converted.

Not converted to religion you understand but to leftwing politics.

This right on reverend made a major mistake when he ordered the police off the steps of St Paul's Cathedral when they tried to move protesters, and supported the protest camp which were there. This stupid decision has both undermined the Church by being blatantly political, worse the camp is still there and is costing the Cathedral £20,000 a day in lost revenue as the site is closed to visitors because of the camp. For a old building that needs this money to pay for its upkeep and pay the wages of the expert staff needed to repair and care for this vast building this is a disaster that shows no sign of ending.

Faced with the consequences of this monumentally stupid decision Giles has resigned spinning the line that he could not stand the thought of police violence when they are called in to clear the tented camp. He forgets that it is his stupidity that caused the problem in the first place and that any violence, which would be deplorable, is down to him.

Thus isn't a left/right issue. The camp is wrong regardless of if you support the cause or not. Freedom of protest doesn't trump the freedom to practice one's religion or for businesses or organisations with nothing to do with the protest, or innocent residents to be penalised, bankrupted, or threatened.

Giles, who is yet another posh boy playing leftwing revolutionary, is part of a long, inglorious, line of Church people using a cause to further their career. Many years ago I knew a Cannon who got a massive career boost by getting government money to get underlings to hire unemployed people to teach others. It made his career but it wasn't a good scheme. He set up offices all over the place but there was no money there for any of them to operate properly. Whole departments had to operate on a budget of £1:45 a week.

It was pointless. Now it could have been a great thing but he expanded far to much to gain him maximum press and do him the most good. He didn't actually do any work, but he got all the praise. Anytime any of the staff taken on for a pittance wanted him to sign a form in order for them to get extra help he refused as he was worried it would reflect badly on him.

He, like Giles, weren't really concerned about the unemployed or the poor. They were using their spin to give their ego and career prospects a boost.

It's not nice.

What gets me is the hypocrisy of Giles. If he is so against the capitalists and all for the poor why doesn't he voluntarily pay tax on his wage? Why does he not criticise his own Church's billions invested in the stock market? Why doesn't he criticise the way in which the Church is the biggest landowners in the UK? Or the way his Church is forcing small businesses into bankruptcy by their massive rent increases? Why doesn't he demand that all the Church assets be sold and all the money given to the poor both in the UK and the third world?

Until he does any of these things Giles is rich play radical who wouldn't survive in the real world.

Giles' resignation, in twitter which is so pathetically wanting to be young and hip it's embarrassing, is spin to deflect criticism of his actions and turn himself into some leftwing hero.

He isn't. He's a shallow idiot who made a decision which is costing his Church and the taxpayer a fortune and may lead to people being hurt.

Giles is why the Church of England is what it is today: a minor irrelevance.

Lord Prescott and the taxpayer funded casino splurge

2011-10-27T16:49:00.001+01:00

I have met John Prescott and even on so short a meeting you can tell what he is. His hypocrisy is rank. I mean this is a man who whipped up class hatred with his attacks on the unelected peers and called for the abolition of lords and unelected peers who, like a lot of labour types, snapped up their peerage and fills their boots, to use the phrase of one of his ex-colleague's currently in prison, at our expense.

I'm sorry this isn't an attractive trait.

And now it emerges that Prescott used his government credit card to pay for his trip to an Australian casino, aquarium, and restaurant.

Image from Wikipedia

Why should we pay nearly £500 for Prescott's casino jolly?

But it's worse than that. These three luxury trips weren't claimed in expenses, which would have been bad, but we're paid directly using a credit card supplied by the government and paid for by the taxpayer.

Now having a government credit card is a useful thing. If you need to buy a computer for your job when you're abroad, or pay for plane tickets on the hoof then it's useful to have such a card rather than not have enough money to buy whatever is vital to your job.

But it isn't there to be abused.

Paying for Prescott's casino jaunt or his ogling of fish is an abuse. There is no national benefit to the British taxpayer for these frivolous trips.

Prescott, like many of his ilk, have such a sense of entitlement that they think titles, expenses, luxury, and special treatment is their divine right. They have made a system that panders to their every whim and grants them privilege after privilege.

They are what is wrong with the system. His casino splurge is symptomatic of what is wrong with the system and too many of the politicians who created the system.

His luxury lifestyle shouldn't be paid for by us. He's rich enough through his gold plated pension to be able to pay for his own trips. The taxpayer shouldn't be there to pay for greedy lords to live like feudal barons of yore for free.

Prescott isn't a nice man. Hypocrisy and greed make the man.

Not nice.

Vince Cable the scourge of tax dodgers: a tax dodger

2011-10-26T12:22:00.001+01:00

Vince Cable is the ex-Lib-Dem leader and current business secretary. He may look like a doddery grandad but Cable is ruthlessly ambitious and will tell any story that makes him look good. So he tells us he is an economic sage who has predicted the last two crisis and forgets the other twelve predictions he got wrong or the way he stumbled around changing his mind eighteen times a day.

When someone keeps bragging about their economic greatness it really should send up warning flags.

As part of his spin Cable has made great store about how he is leading the battle, in the face of Tory opposition, against tax dodgers and those who don't pay tax. This spin is to play on the public's anger at rich people who pay a pittance.

He 'forgets' that as leader of the Lib-Dems he accepted millions that were stolen and tax avoided and how he and his party refuse to give the stolen cash back.

image from Wikipedia

Spin is always more important to Cable than reality.

Anyway Cable tells us he is the scourge of those scum who don't pay their tax.

So it's a bit embarrassing that Cable has been fined £500 for not paying the taxman £25,000 he owed in VAT.

It's typical that the scourge of those who don't pay their tax is a person who didn't pay his tax.

It strikes me that this tax bill for Cable's media work is wrong. Not that he has to pay tax on his media earnings you understand but the fact that a full time minister, MP, and member of government of a country in dire straights has the time to take any media work when we pay him handsomely and when he should be busy.

More than that it shows there is something seriously wrong with our tax system when a self-professed economic expert who has a phd in economics and taxpayer funded helpers cannot understand the tax system so that he is caught out.

No one like paying tax and tax should be lowered but regardless of ones views the tax system shouldn't be this complicated and expressive to run.

Cable really is the joke who believes his own hype.

Is he a tax dodger or just incompetent?

The list of those MPs who backed the people against their leaders

2011-10-25T14:16:00.001+01:00

The behaviour of the main party leaders over the call for a referendum on the EU has showed an incestuous elite who forget they are supposed to be our servants and it is the public who have the power and should have a say if the demand it.

However some MPs put principles and the public demand before their party and voted for a referendum. These are,

Stuart Andrew, Conservative
Steven Baker, Conservative
John Baron, Conservative
Andrew Bingham, Conservative
Brian Binley, Conservative
Peter Bone, Conservative
Bob Blackman, Conservative
Graham Brady, Conservative
Andrew Bridgen, Conservative
Steve Brine, Conservative
Fiona Bruce, Conservative
Dan Byles, Conservative
Douglas Carswell, Conservative
Bill Cash, Conservative
Christopher Chope, Conservative
James Clappison, Conservative
Tracey Crouch, Conservative
David Davies, Conservative
Philip Davies, Conservative
David Davis, Conservative
Nick de Bois, Conservative
Caroline Dinenage, Conservative
Nadine Dorries, Conservative
Richard Drax, Conservative
Mark Field, Conservative
Lorraine Fullbrook, Conservative
Zac Goldsmith, Conservative
James Gray, Conservative
Chris Heaton-Harris, Conservative
Gordon Henderson, Conservative
George Hollingbery, Conservative
Philip Hollobone, Conservative
Adam Holloway, Conservative
Stewart Jackson, Conservative
Bernard Jenkin, Conservative
Marcus Jones, Conservative
Chris Kelly, Conservative
Andrea Leadsom, Conservative
Jeremy LeFroy, Conservative
Edward Leigh, Conservative
Julian Lewis, Conservative
Karen Lumley, Conservative
Jason McCartney, Conservative
Karl McCartney, Conservative
Stephen McPartland, Conservative
Anne Main, Conservative
Patrick Mercer, Conservative
Nigel Mills, Conservative
Anne-Marie Morris, Conservative
James Morris, Conservative
Stephen Mosley, Conservative
Sheryll Murray, Conservative
Caroline Nokes, Conservative
David Nuttall, Conservative
Matthew Offord, Conservative
Neil Parish, Conservative
Priti Patel, Conservative
Andrew Percy, Conservative
Mark Pritchard, Conservative
Mark Reckless, Conservative
John Redwood, Conservative
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative
Simon Reevell, Conservative
Laurence Robertson, Conservative
Andrew Rosindell, Conservative
Richard Shepherd, Conservative
Henry Smith,Conservative
John Stevenson, Conservative
Bob Stewart, Conservative
Iain Stewart, Conservative
Gary Streeter, Conservative
Julian Sturdy, Conservative
Sir Peter Tapsell, Conservative
Justin Tomlinson, Conservative
Andrew Turner, Conservative
Martin Vickers, Conservative
Charles Walker, Conservative
Robin Walker, Conservative
Heather Wheeler, Conservative
Craig Whittaker, Conservative
John Whittingdale, Conservative
Dr Sarah Wollaston, Conservative
Ronnie Campbell, Labour
Rosie Cooper, Labour
Jeremy Corbyn, Labour
Jon Cruddas, Labour
John Cryer, Labour
Ian Davidson, Labour
Natascha Engel, Labour
Frank Field, Labour
Roger Godsiff, Labour
Kate Hoey, Labour
Kelvin Hopkins, Labour
Steve McCabe, Labour
John McDonnell, Labour
Austin Mitchell, Labour
Dennis Skinner, Labour
Andrew Smith, Labour
Graham Stringer, Labour
Gisela Stuart, Labour
Mike Wood, Labour
Adrian Sanders, Liberal Democrat
Caroline Lucas, Green
Gregory Campbell, Democrat Unionist
Nigel Dodds, Democrat Unionist
Jeffrey Donaldson, Democrat Unionist
Rev William McCrea, Democrat Unionist
Ian Paisley Junior, Democrat Unionist
Jim Shannon, Democrat Unionist
David Simpson, Democrat Unionist
Sammy Wilson, Democrat Unionist
Lady Sylvia Hermon, Independent

And so I'm in a strange position of praising these MPs who voted with their conscience and supported the oft expressed public will. Regardless of party or my criticisms of some in the past, all deserve brownie points.

Sadly my MP put party before the will of the people. Then again she's a infamous party stooge and sycophant.

Good work by the above MPs.

Cameron's EU referendum battle: has Milliband made a mistake?

2011-10-25T13:39:00.001+01:00

As was always going to happen David Cameron won his battle to stop the people having a referendum on our relationship with the EU. This was an insane battle for Cameron to fight. Having nearly half of all Tory MPs who aren't actually in the government openly rebel against you despite the three line whip isn't good. More than that I cannot for the life of me understand why Cameron would inflict such a needless wound on himself.

Even in the unlikely event of parliament agreeing with the public and asking for a referendum about something to do with the EU, and the proposal allowed for other options rather than a straight in/out question, it isn't binding on the government.

Even if Cameron lost the vote he still didn't have to hold a referendum.

So why cause himself needless harm and ruin his relationship with an already distrustful public, party members, and a sizeable chunk of his MPs?

This is a wound which will continue to damage Cameron and could destroy his chances of reelection and may lead to his ousting.

This is bad for the Tory leader. However the thing I really don't understand is the action of Ed Milliband. He is a unpopular figure with the country and needs to be seen as a a good leader and not some weirdo. Cameron presented him with an open goal. Poll after poll have shown that a majority of the people want a referendum on our relationship with the EU. So why didn't Milliband go after this massive and growing public demand and back a referendum? As I say the vote isn't binding and we all knew the political elite would never allow us to have our say, so why didn't Milliband play politics and go after this massive voting block?

If he had he could have ensured labour won the next election.

One would think, if you were a conspiracy fan, that our cozy, wealthy elite, did what their EU masters wanted in order to secure a huge payoff from the EU when they lost political power.

It's a very strange day for both main parties with needless damage done to all and a public betrayed.

Anonymous takes down child porn site

2011-10-24T12:05:00.001+01:00

The sexual abuse of children is obscene. In a world with so much abuse, violence, and evil the abuse of children is the worst. I simply cannot understand the sick depraved mentality of the monsters, male and female, who abuse children.

In light of this natural revulsion I am a little conflicted by the news that the Anonymous group of hackers have taken down websites they say contained images of peadophile abuse.

On the one hand I am glad that such horrific images have been removed.

However I worry that the hackers have let their political and activist beliefs blind them to the proper action such sick images should have resulted in.

If they found such sick images of abused children why didn't they report the site to the authorities?

We have no proof that the images were illegal because the images weren't judged in court. There have been arguments that needed to be settled in court about what constitutes illegal imagery so just because someone says they are criminal doesn't necessarily mean they are. This ties in with the whole art and freedom of expression debate.

And that's the problem. These images, and I am assuming they are obscene images of child rape, we're destroyed rather than reported to the police or have their legality judged in court.

This isn't about the vagaries of artistic expression versus child abuse. It's about the fact that Anonymous found images of child rape and destroyed the evidence. This means that the guilty scum who took such images, rape children, or downloaded such evil images go unpunished.

Being antiestablishment is one thing but not reporting child abuse images to the police because of this is wrong.

Some things are simply more important than being against the "man". This is one such case. To destroy evidence and issue a press release bragging about the fact seems to miss the reality of what the rape of children is. To me it seems a tad shallow.

If you find images of abuse tell the police and help bring the guilty to justice and save he abused from their hell.

Nothing else matters.

Another day another Mail attack on the disabled

2011-10-23T15:40:00.001+01:00

With sad inevitability the Mail on Sunday has returned to its envy filled attack on the disabled.

Apparently the politicians, who let us remember are well over 50% proven expense fiddlers, are going to stop the disabled getting expensive cars.

This is gutter attacks on the disabled from the corrupt and the tabloid based on lies and spin.

Firstly the number of disabled who has cars in the 35,000 bracket are minuscule. Some may have nice cars but most pay for them themselves out of their wages.

Secondly the price cutoff is ridiculous. 35 k can get you a nice sporty car, but if you are severely disabled and need a large vehicle with massive conversions it will, on occasions, not be enough. There are two issues here, one is the freedom of choice. Why shouldn't people have the freedom to chose how they spend their own money? The Mail, and ignorant seriously want the disabled to be confined to blue disabled tricycles even though they are illegal as they were death traps. The calls for the disabled to have to drive cheap, dangerous, unsuitable vehicles emblazoned with disabled logos is unpleasant ghettoisation of the worst type. The second is that it cannot be right to change the system so the people who need their vehicles the most are the very people who cannot use them.

It's idiocy driven by tabloid fuelled jealousy.

I've written before how Motabilty vehicles aren't free. Like the recipients of child benefit and the like people spend the money they are entitled to. With Motabilty they are actually spending the money on what the money was given to them for: transport, which is more than the case with child allowance.

It doesn't matter what vehicle the disabled person leases. They could get a Micra or a Rolls Royce it still costs the taxpayer the same. If you want a expensive vehicle the disabled person has to pay thousands, in some cases tens of thousands, of pounds. They don't get this money back after three years. In fact Motabilty actually gets a better deal if the disabled person leases a more expensive car as it doesn't cost them more to acquire and they get much more for the vehicle when they sell it.

The ignorant way the tabloids are stirring up hatred is reflected by the growing numbers of disabled people being physically attacked. For a tabloid owned by a tax dodger with a pro-nazi background which is been investigated for endemic illegality to attack the vulnerable is repellent.

And so yet a agian the Mail returns to its nazi past and attacks the vulnerable. It's not nice is it?

On the unique treatment of the BNP by political opponents

2011-10-23T12:17:00.001+01:00

As any reader of this site will know I despise the BNP. They are one of the few things I break my own little rule and insult. Vocally and often.

However I find it worrying and counterproductive that a labour council in Sussex has demanded that a small community centre ban the BNP leader Nick Griffin from speaking there or hand back it's council grant.

However much you despise the BNP this is wrong. I have no problem if all political meetings were banned from community centres but they aren't. Indeed my local centre has been used to hold my local MP's surgery for years. But this isn't about using public buildings for political ends.

This is about singling out a political party you don't agree with and using the power that comes from our tax to stop debate. This is about the attack on a single party whilst allowing others, including those who preach violence and hatred, to use community centres with impunity.

Hate the BNP if you like, I do, but the simple fact is they are a legal political party with a greater democratic mandate than most minor parties. Being legal should mean they cannot be silenced or persecuted just because you don't like what they say.

The loathsome Griffin is a democratically elected MEP with a legal mandate to speak.

Unless the BNP, or any party or individual, has broken the law and is made illegal they have every right to speak.

For labour to stifle debate is not only a disgrace it is playing into the hands of the BNP spinners. As I've said before the BNP make great play of being the voice of the majority oppressed by a politically correct state. This petty ban reinforces this view and will be used during the coming elections as proof that the BNP are the way forward.

I doubt this is what labour want.

If we can have sitting parties banning opposition parties from speaking would labour be happy if the Tory councils ban them from holding debates in their area?

Like it or not both labour and the BNP are legal parties. If you can ban one because you don't like what they say you can ban the other.

This isn't good for our democracy. It does reflect the dictatorial leanings of some labour types though, which is sad.

Cameron's EU referendum farce

2011-10-22T13:14:00.001+01:00

I worry about modern political types. I simply find it odd that they seem hell bent on shooting themselves in the foot for no reason.

The case in point is the Cameron wheeze to hold e-petitions with the promise that if over 100,000 voted for a particular motion Parliament would chat about it, though can ignore what the public want. It is obvious that two things would top any such poll. The first is an EU referendum, and the second capital punishment. So it seems odd that Cameron seems totally unprepared for dealing with these two issues.

It seems the farcical way in which Cameron is handling the vote on Monday by imposing a three line whip, or a one line whip, or whatever fudge he finally decides on (he seems to be blowing in the wind about what he will do now he is faced with real Tory anger) is doing serious political damage to him. Most of the country want a say on Europe. Most of the people who voted Tory want a vote. Most of his MPs want a vote.

So the way in which he is ignoring the will of the majority, and his voters, after breaking his own solemn commitment to hold a referendum on the EU will lose him votes and cause party unrest.

This inept attempt to rig a non-binding debate destroys all the spin he put out about being pro-UK and against the undemocratic EU. It shows him to be an untrustworthy PR man.

By acting so against what the people wish he is ensuring he will not remain PM after the next election. The way he constantly ignores his MPs and appeases the Lib-Dems is weakening his position within the Tories.

The way in which Cameron is mishandling this easily foreseen event shows a shallow man surrounded by shallower advisers totally out of his depth when faced with political realities. The sad thing is that Ed Milliband and Nick Clegg are quality out of touch.

On Col Gadaffi's killing

2011-10-21T13:02:00.001+01:00

And so the story of Colonel Gadaffi is ended. He was taken alive but injured and then executed by a mob.

Now I will shed no tears for his demise. For all his eccentric ways he was a blood soaked tyrant who deserves no sympathy. However I feel sad that he wasn't taken alive to face trial for his many crimes. The killing of Gaddfi allows apologists and conspiracy theorists to divert attention away from this monster by talk of him being killed for some vague reason. This is a pity. More than that by not allowing him to face a fair and open trial the wounds he caused to Libya remain unhealed and the people who helped and profited from his criminality escape justice and Libya will not be able to heal from his reign by having light shone on the darkness.

Murdering an injured man who was taken alive Isn't a very nice way for a country to behave. It shows a worrying lack of discipline which, I fear, may point to a worrying future for Libya. If the people of Libya can be killed without trial what hope can there be for a fairer, uncorrupted, democratic Libya they deserve?

Actions n the heat of turmoil usually show the nature of a leadership. I just hope in this case the new leadership aren't reflected in extrajudicial murder of people they don't like.

On the Dale Farm evictions

2011-10-20T14:20:00.001+01:00

I've written here before about how I don't understand the controversy surrounding the illegal traveller camp at Dale Farm. To me it's not about ethnic groups but about protecting our environment by enforcing the laws that stop the destruction of our green belt. Our law needs to apply to all. It doesn't matter what the colour of your skin is, your religion, philosophic bent, or your politics, the law should apply to all equally. It shouldn't discriminate against one group or give another more protection.

Equality is all.

So I'm pleased that the illegal camp has been cleared without serious injury or death. In the past I have criticised some police officers for their use of inappropriate force, in some cases terminal force, however I have nothing but praise for the poor sods tasked with clearing the protesters at Dale Farm. To clear a dangerous site which was booby trapped, whilst having missiles thrown at you, and at the same time ensuring the idiots who chained their necks to rickety towers aren't hurt is a dangerous activity. For the police not to have injured anyone, or take injuries themselves, shows them in a good light.

In such complex environments it's easy for things to escalate and discipline breakdown leading to injury or death. That this didn't happen shows the police at their best.

And finally I simply cannot fathom why the Dale Farm travellers can get away with calling themselves an ethnic group. Politically and legally it is a good PR tool but they are not an ethnic group. You could argue they were a cultural subset but not a different race. If you haven't noticed they are a white group in a majority white country.

So I'm pleased that the illegal camp has been cleared and hope that all our green belt land is protected for future generations to enjoy.

Mike Hancock jumps before being pushed

2011-10-19T16:10:00.001+01:00

Self confessed teen fondler, to use the rather accurate description given him by Guido Fawkes, Mick Hancock, the Lib-Dem MP, has finally left his very important position on the Defence Select Committee over his hiring and sleeping with a rather beautiful and young Russian woman called Katia Zatuliveter

It would have been nice to think he left out of shame because he was been used by this alleged spy to ask questions of very great interest to the Russians about British nuclear submarines and NATO matters. However this is not so. He's left because it became public knowledge that he was going to be sacked from this vital position today. He jumped before he was sacked.

Now I don't know if Katia is a Russian spy or not, but the fact that she's been sleeping with an old man on a key committee targeted by the Russians and that he was infamous for his liking of young women, some very young, would seem to point to the spy role for Katia. The fact that she seems to have made a career of targeting western diplomats and military officers strengthens this impression.

There is a danger to think of Hancock as a old harmless letch. He isn't. He has a history of abusing his position and pestering young women sexually. His closeness to Russia even as it killed people in London and moves every into anti democratic ways isn't nice.

It's wrong .

Hancock is one of lefties how betrayed our country to Stalin knowing of his crimes.

Sometimes you'd think that the Lib-Dems have a selection process which weeds out the normal and the rational and only leave the weird and odd. Hancock strengthens this impression.

On the Hillsbourough tragedy

2011-10-18T09:45:00.001+01:00

It is undoubtedly a tragedy that so many innocent people died at the Hillsbourough stadium tragedy. To lose a loved one during a sporting event is horrific. Even after so many years my deepest sympathies remain with the bereaved.

There is a movement to have all the documents associated with this tragedy to be made public. The labour party have jumped on this bandwagon and demand that these records are made public.

I don't know why any records are still secret. There may be a good reason, or it may be to protect the incompetent. I suppose it depends on how cynical you are.

However what really boils my goat is the attitude of the labour party.

If labour really were concerned with the dead and the bereaved and truly believe that all the relevant documents should be made public they shouldn't whine about the current government or stamp their little feet and hold their breath until they can claim victory when the records are made public.

No if they cared about the many victims of Hillsbourough they would have released all the documents and perhaps have held an inquiry during the thirteen years they were in power. Labour had thirteen years to do something and did nothing. They didn't care about the dead or the widowed when they could have done something about it easily.

What really disgusts me is the base political spin and the use of the dead for political advantage by labour.

I may be a cynic but I all sweetness and light compared to labour.

This incident shows labour at its absolute worst. It's part of their habit of using the dead for political advantage. They always love waving the bloody shroud of the dead. They did it with murdered children, and they are doing it now.

Labour don't care about Hillsbourough or the dead. They only care about gaining votes.

Listening to someone else's conversation

2011-10-16T12:32:00.001+01:00

One of the things about me is that I don't tend to listen to other people's conversations. I'd like to say its because I was brought up not to be nosy, but I fear a lot of the reason I am not that interested in what other people.

Often when they are talking to me.

As it happens I am overhearing a conversation between a group in a coffee bar. There a mixed lot, different ages, working/middle class.

Just normal people having a Sunday coffee.

I fear the conversation is a sad indication on the state of politics in the this country.

The women really dislike David Cameron because of his patronising of women. They think Ed Milliband is frankly unattractive and odd.

They really don't like the fact that all the politicians have never had a proper job and are utterly out of touch with real life and the pressures which effect normal people.

I say 'all' but it isn't totally accurate. They, especially the women like the resigned Doc Fox as he had a proper job. David Davies they like because he is a working class chap who did well. Eric Pickles they love as he was a successful self made businessman prior to his political career. He's also from Yorkshire which may impact their views. William Hague they absolutely adore because of his writing talent and they lament the fact he's not Tory leader.

No labour or lib-dem is mentioned which shows how low they are on the radar.

What it interesting is their professed hatred for corrupt politicians. More than that that how wrong it is for ex-ministers to cash in on their position be being hired by companies who sold stuff to the ministers whilst in power. Michael Portillo is held in low esteem because of this.

Dark mutterings are emerging with allegations that ex-ministers are receiving payback for funnelling work to their new employers.

They're not happy about this.

The real hatred is reserved for Tony Blair whom they, male and female, young and old, loath with a passion. Apparently not for his wars, or sucking up to the Americans but because of his visceral greed and how he's screwed every penny he could out of his time in office.

This whole conversation is indicative of the hatred the public has for politicians.

And it's the politicians own fault.

It is they who chose people with no experience of life, business, or the pressures which face people.

It is they who choose identikit rich bods with nothing in common with us but everything in common with other politicians regardless of party.

But most of all it's their greed and corruption who has done the most damage to their reputation.

It's their fault.

When people are talking about politicians like this after the fiddling scandal is supposed to have died down it shows the longterm damage the politicians have done to our country's political system.

It will take a long time to repair this damage. If it can be. I doubt it. It certainly wont whilst these politicians are allows to fiddle and the endemic corruption and greed remains.

And that's sad.

Overheard conversations can be interesting sometimes.

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Is it sensible for to borrow money to give to a bankrupt country when you know it won't help?

2011-10-15T16:33:00.001+01:00

The G20 big boys are meeting to talk about the untenable bankrupt state of many of the Euro nations. There is talk about making banks keep more cash reserves and about throwing more money at these poor bankrupt nations.

The UK is lucky enough not to have joined the Euro zone but is going to give billions more to this zone by giving ever more billions to the IMF to give to Greece, et al.

Two things strike me:

The first is the obvious fact that it won't work. Greece and some other nations will be forced out of the Euro. More than this it will be much better for the poor bloody Greeks not to be saddled with having to deal with the economic nightmare their politicians Euro dream has caused them.

Secondly the sheer insanity of the UK giving billions more to shore up the Euro. How is it remotely sensible for a country on the verge of recession, which owes mountains of cash, a country who has sacked and cut back at home thus depriving its own people of jobs and services, to negate such economising by borrowing billions more than the amount the cutbacks have saved in order to give it to some other country which has not made the cutbacks?

The talk here is of raising the pension age to 67 and above, and the dire pension received, and yet the Greeks retire at fifty on a hefty pension and we are giving billions to support them.

It simply seems idiotic.

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Minister uses bin scandal! Is this the best the press can do?

2011-10-14T18:14:00.001+01:00

There are major problems in our world. Real scandal and corruption abound. This is why a free press is so vital to a free country.

So it is rather sad that the Daily Mirror are trying to make the fact that the minister Oliver Letwin disposed of some official papers in a bin.

This isn't a scandal. Indeed it's quite nice that Letwin's not littering.

The Mirror don't seem to realise that there is a difference between official documents and secret documents. Just because you have letters on headed notepaper doesn't automatically mean its secret.

Letwin put some non secret rubbish in a bin. And that's that.

What this silly story does show is that the Mirror, like all tabloids, go through people's rubbish for a story. Luckily in this case it's a public bin.

This isn't a scandal. It's not even a story.

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The care of the elderly in the NHS 'alarming'

2011-10-13T18:08:00.001+01:00

A official report has found that the way in which elderly people are treated in a significant number of NHS hospitals is 'alarming'.

The writers visited 100 hospitals and found problems in 55 cases.

As someone who has seen how some elderly and vulnerable people are treated in hospital, as I've written here before, I'm not surprised.

I'm not demonising the majority of NHS staff who do a brilliant job, but I'm not going to say all nurses and the like are earthbound angels either. I feel that there is a problem with how nursing is treated with the move away from practical nursing skills and to a more class bound approach.

Basic nursing can be lacking if you're old or vulnerable.

As I've written here before to be old, vulnerable and alone is a scary thing in some hospitals.

The discrimination against the elderly is killing people. Some die of neglect in hospitals but worse than that I've seen many elderly people being frightened into refusing expensive treatment. I've seen doctors question elderly and the whole session is to gage if they live alone or need help. I've seen the same doctor terrify and already scared old person into refusing lifesaving treatment.

Scaring the old so they refuse treatment saves the NHS money and keeps the doctors survival rates up.

Sitting in hospital you can predict who won't be on expensive treatment. It's not about health, it's about if they live alone and have no one to act on their behalf.

It's frightening to be old, alone, or vulnerable.

Discrimination is obscene. It's also illegal. I just hope it ends but I doubt the vested interests who run the NHS or represent the staff will allow it.

And that's a scandal.

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Charges dropped against Dominique Strauss-Kahn

2011-10-13T15:50:00.001+01:00

After all the delay, losing his job, and controversy the rape charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the US his French rape allegations have been dropped. The reason being that the alleged crimes happened so long ago that it fell outside the statute of limitations as the alleged crime was sexual assault rather than rape.

I have no idea of what happened as I wasn't there, and I do think his attitude to women is wrong, maybe criminal, but I am not surprised the charges were dropped. If one had a nasty turn of mind you could say it was bound to happen as he is a powerful politician who may become French president someday. Or it could be that the nearly nine year delay in bringing the allegations scuppered the case.

Yes DSK is a nasty man who I would despise if we met, but to destroy his career in the US, which he was very good at and actually helped the worlds poor, and put him in jail on the testimony of a proved liar with criminal links and a history of lying about rape is wrong.

However the French allegations seemed much more persuasive. The delay in reporting the incident could be excused by the way politicians are allowed to get away with terrible things and the fact that the French press won't investigate their politicians.

For a young woman not to complain about a powerful politician isn't not very surprising.

Or she could be a liar. I wasn't there.

Regardless of the truth DSK is a horrible man who seems to think that they can do anything. This arrogance infects professional political elites.

It's horrible.

Just because someone if horrible doesn't mean they should have their lives destroyed based on such a bad case as the American case undoubtably was.

But their power should not deny real victims justice.

Getting justice for rape victims shouldn't mean denying justice for innocent accused. We all deserve justice.

The question is who is the victim of the French case? Is it DSK or is it his accuser? We'll never know now.

The fact is though that DSK isn't a nice person.

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Why don't lottery winners opt for anonymity?

2011-10-12T15:55:00.001+01:00

It must be nice to win a fortune. Yes I can safely say that winning umpteen millions seems like a good thing to do. I appreciate that for many this leads to a decent into drink, drugs, wanton women but others have been known to waste their cash. With the world wracked with economic uncertainty the hope of winning a fortune gets evermore attractive.

I'm not concerned with the minuscule chances of winning a fortune, or even the fact that the lottery is a tax on the poor and desperate which billions are syphoned off be a rich elite to fund their interests. Put it this way children's hospices receive little lottery money, or ex-service charities, or even most working-class community projects, but billions goes to the art, opera, and ballet. I'm all for the arts but most people would want the lottery funds spent on things that effect most people.

But most people don't matter. An unelected clique dole out the cash and it goes to their interests and friends.

It doesn't seem fair.

The thing I never understood is why people who win a fortune, especially the recent ones who have won over £100 million, opt to have their details made public rather than remain anonymous.

If you have the option why would you willingly make your life hell?

I heard a radio interview years ago with a normal lady who won over £2 million and allowed her name to be made public. She was a happy person in a happy community....until it became known she had won a fortune.

In the end she had to move because the stress of begging letters, jealousy, and unpleasantness became too much.

Every person who wins a fortune and lets people know faces the same problems.

So what tell people?

If and when I win my fortune, which may be some time since I don't play the lottery, I am going to remain anonymous. I may squander the lot, I may give to charity, I may even have fun but I won't get the begging letters from the greedy, or have unknown relations pester, but most of all I won't have a tabloid press muckrake my past.

Who would anyone chose publicity?

It's very odd.

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