Vote Franco

Halal For All

2008-06-14T16:54:00.002Z

I had occasion to attend a dinner event fairly recently; although an official type function organised in England by an English institution, I must point out that a sizable minority of those attending would be Muslims. Of course this meant that a dietary requirement of some of those attending would be for halal food, I would expect in cases like this that a halal option would be provided. Of course that involves extra work and expense, so it should come as no surprise to find the institution opted for the easy answer in other words halal for all, except for the sainted vegetarians of course.

I should add that this was not actually pointed out at any stage in the proceedings, but I heard a rumour prior to attending and I noticed there was only one meat option. Most of those attending were probably totally unaware that the main meat course was halal.

I have no objection to catering for the dietary requirements of others; nor indeed if I am a guest of others, or in other countries and I will usually eat what is given to me. However I object most strongly to being at an official type event in England and not being provided with English or at least British type food. The institution was quite prepared to cater for vegetarians, and quite prepared to cater for Muslims, but my money is as good as theirs and we are in England which is not a Muslim country. Why should I (or anyone else) have to subsidise the dietary preferences of others whilst unable to have our own satisfied?

At the reception beforehand there were some drinks, a choice between bucks fizz (a mixture of champagne and orange juice) and orange juice itself. Being the sort of person who wishes to know what he is drinking before selecting my drink I enquired about the choice (and promptly chose the bucks fizz). It appears that others of a different religion, despite knowing of the tendencies of the infidels to drink alcohol, and similarly knowing of their own religious requirements, nevertheless plunged straight in without checking, only to discover later they had been drinking bucks fizz. They then complained that they had been "served" alcohol. We just cannot bend over enough.

Of course a reactionary like me would say it was their own stupid fault and it serves them right, but that would involve them taking some responsibility for themselves by actually checking before drinking; and responsibility is a dirty word. We see here the unintended consequences of partial islamification, the lazy assumption on their part that everything would be according to their preferences has led them to take that which is forbidden. No doubt next year the event must be made alcohol free thus ensuring no one can make such mistakes.

Tags: Islamification, Dhimmitude, alcohol,
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York Council Workers Strike Ballot

2008-06-11T19:37:00.003Z

The local "newspaper" provides a story here about the Unison council workers strike ballot. Apparently they are not happy with their wage offer of 2.45% increase and want more; their justification is that inflation is running higher, so it is, but plenty of people in the private sector (who after all are paying for the council workers) do not have the luxury of inflationary wage rises and the article makes no mention of the pension provision for state workers.

Of course the burden of such strike action will fall heaviest upon the vulnerable, and if it wasn't for that, as far as I am concerned they should be allowed to walk out for far longer than the two days proposed. Of course we should all receive Council Tax rebates for the time they are not in work, but many of these council with their street narrowing and wanting to introduce congestion charging do more harm than good when at work anyway; so given that we have to pay them; I'd prefer to pay them to do nothing.

Ultimately the proposed action is very poorly timed, the economy is teetering and it is difficult to see just how the Labour enlarged state sector can remain viable in the coming years. It will be necessary for severe root and branch pruning, the state sector is top heavy with non-jobs; by which I mean jobs that it makes no difference if they are done or not. These are the jobs that will have to go, and the higher the wage bill is, then the more it will have to be cut.

It is quite sad to see the quotes in the article, take the one from Andrew Waller identified as the Council leader: "We have always had good relations with Unison in the city. We would want to maintain key services during any dispute as our concerns are with any vulnerable residents." This man is elected, by the people, I would expect him to at the very least speak up for the Council Tax payers of York (after all they voted for him); instead his first concern is for "good relations with Unison".

Another quote from a Brain Bladwin (identified as the chair of the employers' side of the National Joint Council) "If the pay settlement is set too high, councils will be forced into making unpalatable choices between cutting front line services and laying off staff." I'm sorry, but if we can lay off staff without cutting front line services doesn't this mean that councils are overstaffed? Furthermore there must be a misuse of public money occurring, as (unless I am mistaken) surely Parliament has not authorised public expenditure for non-essential purposes?

There's only so long an economy can bear that which is unsustainable, for years now Labour have been living off Conservative surplus, all that looks like ending soon. Do Unison really believe the current state staffing levels are sustainable when harsh economic winds blow? Or are they just not bothered?

One thing they can be sure of, when the economy strikes them, it will be far worse than any strike they could inflict.

Tags: state employment, unions, York Council, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

We've got the smokers. Next the drinkers!

2008-06-10T18:28:00.003Z

Whilst I have been trying to avoid the BBC as much as possible, thanks to the unique way in which it is funded, its presence is far too insidious to allow even me (without a television) total abstinence.

Tonight on the local "news" program, an item about the new demons of society, (unsurprisingly a group of which I can claim membership) people who drink alcohol. Actually I must be extra bad because I even indulge in making wine. Unfortunately I have been unable to locate a link for the story, but it appear there is a "charity" that advocates that people should only be allowed to drink on licensed premises. Said "charity" wants to see a ban on things like supermarkets selling alcohol and presumably a ban on people drinking in their homes.

That the BBC had managed to come up with such a story, and a "charity" to give it credence, whilst a disgraceful use of money was not particularly surprising. The report followed the standard format: BBC "reporter" tells us about the goals of the "charity" and some presumably random ordinary people on the street are interviewed. The saddest thing I heard was one individual who said something like this: "I think I have the right to drink a moderate amount in my own home".

NO! The proper response is this: "I am a freeborn Englishman, and in my own house I'll do what I want to (provided it doesn't involve harming others). If I choose to drink alcohol in whatever quantity it is no business of any so called charity or the state or anyone else."

The attitude of the unfortunate interviewee demonstrates how just how low (despite or perhaps because of our wonderful education system) the self-esteem of some individuals is. Here is a supposed free person, at present he can choose how much alcohol to drink in his house; he is now faced with a proposal (which practically is unenforceable and bonkers) that will undermine his freedom and his response is that he thinks he has a right to drink a moderate amount. In other words he is in favour of the proposal, provided he can drink a moderate amount in his house. Effectively he is saying: "I don't know how much I should be allowed to drink please come and regulate me. I also don't trust anyone else so make sure the're regulated too."

What a sad state of affairs.

Tags: alcohol, liberty, rights, freedom
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Absence Without Leave

2008-06-10T18:22:00.002Z

It's been quite some time since I've posted, and I would like to justify it with all the worthwhile things that have been taking up my time. If I did that though it be saying the end justifies the means, but I've never been one to believe that.

I may be approaching a time when regular blogging may resume, so hopefully I'll be back soon.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.

Doctors starting to get it?

2007-02-19T08:29:00.000Z

The Times gives us a report about disillusioned doctors. It certainly shows us the cracks appearing in our socialist health system, and perhaps at last, people such as doctors are starting to realise that taxation and socialism can't solve problems.

The opinions expressed read as a damning summation of the effectiveness of ZaNuLabour's health "policy":

More than half of respondents (56 per cent) said that there had been no improvement in the NHS since 2002.... Only 27 per cent thought there had been.

"...(72 per cent) did not believe that the extra money had been well spent, while 11 per cent said that it had. Similar views were held on the quality of care: 72 per cent said that there had been no improvement; 15 per cent said that there had been."

"...79 per cent of respondents doubted that the highest standards expected of the NHS could be sustained through taxation alone after 2008, when the huge annual increases in funding will drop off."

This last quote read as some sort of sick (pardon the pun) joke: "highest standards ... could be sustained" like we have the highest standards now?

There is also concern about: "... what will happen after 2008, when the rate of increased funding is due to end." Well of course in theory it shouldn't matter as the increase in funding hasn't prompted any improvement, but in reality, all those extra turkeys employed by the NHS with the funding increase will still need feeding, it won't be the turkeys that go after 2008, but patient care, hospital wards and beds.

Apparently doctors still support the NHS in principle, but what will it take for them to wake up and think a little? What private health care provider would have such a turkey army? What costs more? Profits to shareholders? Or people employed to remain off the unemployment figures?

Remember doctors, the turkey army is only possible: "Thanks to the unique way the NHS is funded." It's time to admit failure and move away from this outdated and ineffective socialist funding model. Let's be rid of this burden once and for all.

Tags: NHS, tax, socialism, freedom
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Legal Reform Needed

2007-02-16T08:13:00.000Z

The Times tells us of a garden wall dispute, which after having been taken to the law and the Court of Appeal has cost the loser some £250,000.00p in costs.

The whole this is of course simply ridiculous, but it demonstrates severe deficiencies with our legal and judicial systems. In the first instance, the dispute went to the County Court, which is quite probably an appropriate place for deciding such matters. The problem of course arises when one side doesn't accept the verdict and wishes to appeal, as the county court which is so suitable for the likes of small claims etc has it's appeal route is through the other courts of our legal system and hence this case was heard by the Court Of Appeal.

The Court Of Appeal was pretty brutal in dismissing the appeal, but that could well be because it had no merit, but if it had no merit, then surely if the parties were both advised, it should never have got there? Equally importantly, it seems strange that the country court procedure for small and minor claims, designed to be cheap and relatively quick, has no corresponding appeals procedure, this claim has taken five years.

I think justice would be best served especially in small cases such as these if there were some kind of summary procedure with a cut-off that would automatically apply. In principle something along the lines that if the costs of both parties (calculated with reference to standard market rates) looked likely to exceed 50% of the value of the claim then it should be barred from proceeding further. Of course any claim should be allowed one judgement, but after that there should be limits, there's just no point in this degree of litigation happening. The procedure itself could change with the addition of a small claims appeals procedure, that could perhaps allow a small claims judge to request a reference from a higher court if they wanted a matter of law clarifying, but other than that to keep the matters outside the ambit of the far more expensive litigation.

Most cases would of course only be allowed one hearing, but that would at least be an end to the matter, and in small claims cases (by there very nature) even if you lose, you are subjected more to inconvenience as opposed to a major issue. Take this wall, what did it matter that the brickwork extended, by 2 or three courses above a conservatory? If you lose such a case, even if you're in the right, with no appeal, you'll just accept it and move on. Raise the height of your conservatory if it bothers you that much, it'll be much cheaper.

Imagine the position of the losing party, if he couldn't stand the wall so much, he could have sold and added £250,000.00p plus to his capital and purchased a far superior property. Would not his condition be far happier than that in which he finds himself today?

Tags: justice, legal system
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"It's for the children!"

2007-02-14T08:18:00.000Z

The Times brings us a story about unhappy UK children. They are the unhappiest in the Western World, according to the headline. A quick reading of the story reveals that it's based on a so called "well-being table". From my poor reading of the story, it seems that this has been compiled under the guidance, funding and direction of UNICEF.

The story tells us one of the authors is a "Jonathon Bradshaw"; further into the story, we're told that a "Professor Bradshaw" ("a leading authority on child poverty" - for which I read child poverty pays his wage) tells us how this report, shows us that the unhappiness is down to inequality.

There is clearly an obvious problem of self-interest for Bradshaw which isn't pointed out in the story. The UNICEF report appears embargoed until 10:00 am GMT Today so I can't confirm if the "two" Bradshaws are in fact the same person, but I'll go with my instincts (see I'm in touch with my feminine side) and assume they are.

The full title of the report shows the study is limited to rich countries, which is all well and good especially as it can then avoid any embarrassing revelations such as children in some poorer countries being happier than some in rich countries; after all where would the child poverty industry be then professor?

The professor of course cites inequality as the reason, but is it really, I cannot believe that children in say Italy, Switzerland and Ireland (all well above the UK) live in a less unequal society, if anything I'd say their societies are more unequal.

The report seems a damming indictment and I imagine it's conclusions are probably correct, but we wont even start to address the issues by looking at irrelevancies like so called poverty. It would be different if children were being forced to go out to work to earn money to live, but that's clearly not the case.

Our attitude in the UK has changed considerably over the years, primarily no child can ever undertake any activity with a modicum of risk, ironically the main reason cited being to "protect them", but I think it's having the effect of making the world dull and boring for them, no wonder they're unhappy. It may be prefect preparation for being a subject of the nanny state, but it's hardly going to make for happy well-rounded citizens. The lesson here is if you want happiness you must set them free, you cannot have happiness without freedom. It's a powerful lesson which our government will have to take to heart sooner or later.

Tags: media, government, freedom
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The rulers and the ruled

2007-02-13T07:59:00.000Z

Some of my fellow bloggers have been urging their readers to sign the "online petition" at the Downing Street web site. I haven't bothered drawing this to the attention of anyone, because I have no faith in the government. If the government supports a proposal and people sign an online petition in it's favour, the government will claim public support.

If on the other hand they don't support a proposal, then the online petition becomes: "just one contribution to the debate", weasel words from apparatchik and Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander (DA).

Hence my silence on the issue, there's just no point in signing any online petition because no one cares what you or anyone else thinks.

Anyway we have an article in The Times (strangely lacking the full text of the print version) giving the quote, but there's more of interest. DA accuses the campaign [against road charging] of spreading myths and says he welcomes the "opportunity to set some of the facts stright". Aside from a cynic like me asking: "why just some of the facts, why not all of them?" Any actual setting of major facts straight seems missing from the article, so either The Times failed to report it or DA didn't in fact take the opportunity.

There's a good quote showing how the government in general "works": "A Department for Transport official said: “Doing nothing is not an option. We welcome all debate, but it must be based on fact and not fallacy. The first step to achieving this is to demonstrate through local pilot schemes how road pricing can tackle local congestion.”" So you see the debate has to have a pre-determined outcome in favour of road charging, any route that leads to a different outcome will not be countenanced. Then they wonder why people send them bombs.

A final quote from the department: “Public acceptability of such schemes is one of the milestones that has to be achieved. We have always said that we have to see the results of the pilot schemes before we make a decision.” to which I say: "The government should work for the people, if we the people say "Jump!" The government and its departments should respond: "how high?", if there's no public acceptability for a scheme then it must be abandoned, not forced on the people."

It is a major problem with the government systems of this country, it is far too much the rulers and the ruled over. Instead of prattling about tinkering with the House Of Lords, our priority needs to be to get the House Of Commons working properly first.

Tags: government, democracy
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Cameron drugs row

2007-02-12T08:16:00.000Z

It's no great secret that I'm perhaps not quite in full accord with the Conservative party and the policies of David Cameron.

This weekend we had the spectacle of, the holy media as moral guardian of our nation, informing us that David Cameron smoked some cannabis whilst at Eaton. Why is this relevant to anything is a mystery to me, that he or any other politician may have smoked or taken some drug at some point in their lives is irrelevant. Of course if had an ongoing drug habit that would be different, but let's face some facts, drugs, including illegal ones are fairly widely available. Drugs are bound to be an object of curiosity to people and there will be a temptation to try some no doubt, at some point in most people's lives. That someone does try some drugs in no way disqualifies them from public office or makes them unfit to lead a political party, or makes it hypercritical if at some later point they argue that illegal drugs should remain illegal.

This issue should be a non-story, we expect our politicians to (generally) be honest, but in return for some honesty, the media shouldn't hound and make issues out of things that are irrelevant. Whilst David Cameron has (in the past) never denied or admitted taking drugs, the reason no doubt is precisely because of this kind of stupid media storm, it would have be so much better that when asked he could say: "yes occasionally in the past I've taken some drugs".

In order to lead the way, I'll put my hand up to this and: "yes occasionally in the past I've taken some drugs". I wouldn't advocate or encourage anyone else to do so, it was something that I did at that time. I have no excuses, but I didn't harm anyone (and I doubt any great harm was done to me).

Let's see the media put me on the front page.

Tags: drugs, media
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NHS moves to India

2007-02-09T08:16:00.000Z

The Times reports on the latest set of jobs to go to India, a batch of accountancy ones from the NHS.

Whilst of course I welcome anything that might save the taxpayer money, I feel that a far more radical approach is needed. Why bother exporting jobs as such and why not just export the patients, the private hospitals in India are famed for their cleanliness and care, of course labour being much cheaper there, they also offer excellent value for money. There would I'm sure be quite a saving, not to mention the benefits to our patients, no waiting lists, no months of pain. They'd be further savings too in increased productivity and decreased benefit payments.

Of course it couldn't be used for everything, but think how much more beneficial it would be for many routine procedures. Anyway even without the NHS involvement, increased numbers of UK citizens are privately taking this option, but of course they still have to pay for the NHS as well.

The "money" quote on the present scheme comes from John Hutton the Health Minister: “The joint venture will generate significant cost savings - enough to pay for the annual salaries of 3,000 GPs or 12,000 nurses”. Notice the phrasing, why doesn't he express it in tax terms? He should say, the cost savings will result in a penny decrease in income tax, but of course it won't, and indeed this is why ultimately the move is just irrelevant. It's irrelevant because it won't increase the standard, so desperately needing increase, in patient care, and failing that, it won't result in any money going back to the taxpayer. Instead of the money being wasted on NHS accountants, it'll be wasted on some other turkey.

Tags: tax, NHS
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"... deriving their powers from the consent of the governed ..."

2007-02-08T08:09:00.000Z

The title quote comes of course from the American Declaration of Independance, and I find it highly appropriate as today The Times reports on the latest in the letter bombs which have been afflicting the afflicters as it were.

Now of course this is criminal behaviour and I cannot condone it, if the culprit is convicted, it will be interesting to see what kind of sentence they get. If it's their first conviction for violence, perhaps a course in addressing offending behaviour will be appropriate? What's the betting that for crimes against the government, the book will be thrown at them? But what's the point? After all we all know that long and tough prison sentences are no deterrent don't we? Still it'll make a nice comparison, crimes against an individual as a private person, slap on the wrist, crimes against the government tough prison sentence even though prison doesn't work at all.

Whilst I cannot condone the behaviour, I find it very difficult to have any sympathy with some of the bodies' targeted. Take Capita for example, they administer the TV tax and send me a monthly harassment as I have no television and refuse to allow: "... an official to visit to confirm the situation...". The people who work for Capita know how the group operates, and how it harasses people that it shouldn't be concerned with, but they choose to get paid for working in that way - they have no excuse of starvation as with our generous benefit system the state won't let them starve. If they happen to get targeted by someone harassed into criminal behaviour well it's just part of the territory, they take the payment so cannot complain of the risk. The fact they happen to be at work cannot morally absolve them of their actions.

To return to the "consent of the governed", we have seen considerable expansion of the government, and a huge increase in administrative crimes. You know the kind of thing, failure to fill out a form £80.00p fine, failure to tell the government something another fine and so on ad infinitum. All this has been done with the active consent of the House of Commons in which are supposed to sit our representatives, but there's no way it's been done with the consent of the people. What party would stand and include in its manifesto a commitment to creating the SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) with a strict liability fine for non-compliance? None of them would. They know when they pass this legislation that they have no mandate or consent of the people for it, but that doesn't stop them.

In the main these oppressive appratchikisms have been tolerated, but and let's be clear, tolerated doesn't mean some kind of implied consent. It's also true that many people have been actively withdrawing from the system as demonstrated by the DVLA computer fiasco. Where these letter bombs are concerned, those involved have undergone a similar process, but perhaps haven't thought about avoiding the forms, and are now demonstrating their intolerance of oppressive government by criminal action.

What's the prognosis? Will the government start to think hang on a minute maybe we're going too far? Or will we see more government interference in turn, feeding intolerance of government? Well this other report from The Times perhaps gives us a clue: "Motorists are to be forced to change the way they drive to help car manufacturers to meet strict new emission targets, the European Union announced yesterday. All new cars will be fitted with devices that tell drivers when to change gear, what speeds to drive at and even when to pump up their tyres."

Oh yes a step in the right direction.

Tags: freedom, liberty, government, statism
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18 months. Same sentence, different crimes?

2007-02-06T08:31:00.000Z

Last night on Panorama a programme broadcast by the chief purveyor of Bolshevism the BBC, we had the subject of standing up to anti-social (which in reality means minor criminal) and criminal behaviour.

We had a tale from Sunderland, where a Mr Noble (I think it was) "challenged" a "youth" who appeared to be the ringleader of a group beating up a girl. This "youth" retreated and no doubt thinking it all over, Mr Noble turned his back and walked away. The said youth approached from behind and landed a blow to the rear of the head/neck of Mr Noble killing him. Now you have a blow struck from behind and a blow to an area of the body where a high risk of serious injury/death exists.

The killer got three years for manslaughter and was freed after 18 months. As an aside I can't help remarking on the similarity between this and Tony Martin, this is clearly worse, but we have a blow from behind, and this blow was far more deadly than the shots fired by Mr Martin. So why wasn't this youth charged with murder? He didn't have even the semblance of a self-defence defence.

Anyway I digress. On the same programme we had an example from Kent, a man having to put up with quite a strong degree of intimidation addressed both at him, his family, and racial provocation towards a shopkeeper, I need not point out that successive calls to the police have received the usual modern-English police response (nothing). One night him and the shopkeeper give chase to the youths. They find one hiding in some bushes, (no they didn't set the bushes alight) they confronted him and the youth offers to come and apologise, which he does in a halfhearted manner. The following day the youth surprisingly not a choirboy, but with a long history of minor criminality goes to the police and complains of kidnap. Our man from Kent ends up serving 18 months for kidnapping.

Of course this "kidnapping" was no crime at all so some might say our man from Kent should have approached the youth from behind and given him a vary strong blow to the back of the head. At least he'd have got good value for his 18 months.

Now let us be sure and clear about this, this isn't down to incompetence or stupidity on the part of the government and its agencies. It all forms part of deliberate actions designed to ensure the law-abiding citizen stays oppressed. If you stand up for yourself against a criminal, the government will get you. If a criminal oppresses and kills you, he'll get a slap on the wrist, and you'll be dead.

The power relationship between the government and the governed needs redefinition. The government should be our servants and it should be their role to assist us in our protection. The primary responsibility for the our protection, both of life and limb, and property should be with the citizen, the role of the police being to supplement the citizen if required. If the government want to protect the criminals then fine, but let us start to realise that the government form part of the problem and in this case, the greater part.

Tags: justice, self-defence
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Bi-centenary of the abolition of the slave trade

2007-02-05T08:21:00.000Z

The local "newspaper" informs us of a "walk-tribute" to William Wilberforce, who of course was instrumental in the abolition of the slave trade.

I couldn't help noticing that William Wilberforce was also MP for Hull in his day and I wonder what his views would be on the present incumbent.

Anyway I digress, when discussing the slave trade, it is all too easy to forget the part played by England and Britain in the abolition of the same. Whilst it is true that the abolition doesn't cancel out all that was done, it is also true that the actions taken for abolition shouldn't be ignored.

It was in England that indignation about this trade caused people to campaign against it and ultimately outlaw it. It will be interesting to see just how widely this anniversary is marked. The actions of William Wilberforce and his contemporaries should be a source of pride and honour for the whole nation, I hope to see this reflected in the breadth of the commemorations of this event.

Tags: justice, liberty, rights, freedom
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Muslim Cross-dressers?

2007-02-03T09:19:00.000Z

The excellent UK Commentators publishes this photograph from the Birmingham Post.

I don't think I've seen anything quite like it for quite a while.

Well clearly these days, one can never be sure, but I think it safe to say that these individuals appear to be of the male persuasion. Personally, I would have thought that Muslim males were forbidden from wearing female dress, if so, they must be a great disappointment to their mullah.

I can't quite understand what they're trying to prove either. Not speaking from personal experience, but I understand that most Western cross-dressers will attempt to look like the other gender, and adopting the clothes is merely a part of that. Here there appears to be no effort to disguise the male form, I wonder if this can be explained by the shapeless nature of the burqua. I mean ultimately there's not much point in cross-dressing (I suppose) unless at some point people know you're doing it. As a "burqua-boy" you could go for years without anyone knowing, but by not disguising your form it is clear to all that you are in fact male.

I don't blame them for wearing the veil, after all not all Muslims are liberal like me, and whilst I cannot condone cross-dressing, I'm quite happy to live and let live. Some Muslim countries punish homosexuality with death. Let me be quite clear on this, homosexuality is no crime and between consenting adults, should not attract the attention of the law. It is a shame that such cross-dressers do not feel safe enough in UK society to remove their veils, and I think the government should prioritise this: "Only when Muslim cross-dressers feel safe enough to remove their veils will our task be complete".

Despite their obvious fear, it's good to see some spirit; with a gesture not merely Western, but as English as they come, the "gent" on the left (how appropriate) shows "his" defiance of "his" oppression, I can almost hear him shout "One day I'll be free of this veil and be able to show my face in my burqua!". Will we abandon such spirit or will we help "him" realise his dream? In a caring society there can be only one answer.

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Bias in The Times?

2007-02-02T08:15:00.000Z

Following on from the well publicised defeat for the Catholic Church and it's failure to secure an opt out from the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs), we have the not so well publicised unintended consequences.

Yesterday in The Times page 14 (not apparently online oddly enough) we have a report that "Gay tourist hotels fear equality law". Contrast this approach with a story on the 10th of January "Church group challenges new law banning discrimination of gays" online here. The two stories are virtually identical, the only difference being who is complaining. So The Times are happy to report about objections to a "liberal" law when they come from the usual suspects, but downgrade a story if a "favoured group" is objecting. Clearly they're employing too many ex-BBC types.

Anyway the story tells us there are hotels who cater for an "exclusively gay" market, odd that this wasn't reflected in the stories about the Scots hotelier who wouldn't give a gay "couple" a double bed. These gay hotels (and let me be quite clear I have no objection to them at all, and fully support the stance they're taking) are concerned over likely loss of business: "... a ban on "gay only" advertising could put them out of business" also: "... some heterosexual couples might be unhappy if they unwittingly booked into a gay hotel...". Best quote comes from a John Bellamy who runs a Hamilton Hall in Bournemouth: "... This so-called anti-discrimination law is actually discriminatory as it discriminates against gays."
Another hotelier points out: "When we had a mixed environment, with gay, bi and heterosexual customers, people didn't behave as naturally as they would." I might on another occasion take issue with his wording, but with the concept I'm sure he's right.

Another quote, which could have come from the Franco handbook on property: "At the end of the day this is our home and as a landlord we have the right to refuse entry to anyone without giving a reason." Well mate it might come as a surprise to you and the rest of the country, but not any more you don't!

Stonewall the "gay rights group" is quick to disassociate itself from (by side-stepping and ignoring) these nasty views: "What gay people gain through having an equality law is much more than whether we can just run gay hotels." Yes well the point is you won't be able to run "gay only" hotels anymore.

Personally, I don't think you'll find you gain anything, but I'll leave you happy with your law. As regards Catholic adoption agencies, well there's 21 months in which anything can happen. In the worst-case scenario if they transfer abroad they might be able to circumvent the law anyway.

Tags: liberty, rights, freedom
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They never learn

2007-02-01T08:17:00.000Z

Sorry for the lack of posting, but I've had more computer problems. It's been a shame because you can never catch up.

Anyway, from The Times we have the latest "goody" for the motorist. The plan is that you will have to have insurance all the time, so it can never lapse. If you don't have insurance for your vehicle and fail to declare it "off-road" you'll get an automatic fine and the police will be able to come into your driveway and seize your vehicle.

Now I've said before, I have no sympathy with people who drive without insurance, but what's wrong with storing a car off road for two weeks and not renewing your insurance during that time? If your not using your car - you might be abroad, or anything, why shouldn't you save the two weeks of insurance money?

How will this be enforced? Good question well ... "“This will also only catch those people who are already known to the DVLA. The problem with the motoring underclass is that those who pose the greatest risk to others do not appear on databases.”"

Yes it's our old friend and star of many adverts the: DVLA computer. All this will do is encourage more and more people not to bother telling the DVLA anything. Of course it will make it easy to fine the law-abiding citizen, who not using his/her vehicle merely wishes to save some money. Of course that's what it's probably all about, you're not allowed any money, you must spend it all, if not on taxes or insurance then on fines, bourgeoisieism will be defeated, all will be equally wallowing in nothing.

Tags: tax, DVLA, law and order, socialism
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Learn to Shoot

2007-01-27T09:27:00.000Z

It may come as a surprise to my regular readers, but I have a confession to make. The truth is, despite being very much in favour of more liberal gun laws, to paraphrase from a quote from Kim du Toit's site: "Gun control should mean use both hands". The fact is I don't own any kind of gun, nor could I shoot for toffee.

Needless to say this isn't a state of affairs to be proud of, and have determined to change the same. Deciding that actually learning some shooting skills would be a step in the right direction, I repaired to a local air gun club and have for the last few weeks been shooting 10-meter air rifle.

You can shoot air pistol as well, but I'm inclined to try to get halfway decent on one before trying the other.

I need to try to be clear here for people unfamiliar with the discipline as indeed I was not so long ago.

Basically you shoot at a target slightly larger than a two pound coin, from a distance of 10 meters, the rifle is equipped with "dioptre sights" these are very accurate, but have no magnification, so what you're shooting at is a small dot in the distance.

The rifle shoots .177" calibre air rifle pellets, the .177" refers to the size of the pellet measured in inches. .22" are also available, but are not used in this discipline. Obviously a smaller pellet means greater accuracy is required, no doubt being why they're used for this sport.

The rifle is a highly accurate one, it is I believe heavier than a standard "sporting" air rifle, as a result a specific stance must be adopted, which seems quite contrived at first, but after a while, you soon get used to it.

You shoot at the aiming mark from a standing position, which is the hardest position, and you have nothing to rest on or are allowed any form support, other than clothing. There is specialist-clothing available, but I have none of that so am making do with an old leather jacket, the clothing certainly helps steady your aim a lot.

Air pistol, again uses a special accurate pistol, it only has iron sights, you aim over 10 meters again, but the aiming mark is quite a lot larger than that for air rifle. You shoot with you arm extended, using only one hand and you're not allowed any supporting clothing - obviously you're allowed normal clothing.

So how am I doing?

Well I don't think they'll be calling me up for the Olympics, but you can see the results of last nights range visit.

The two pound coin, is shown for size detail, on the bottom left, you can just make out the black edge protruding from the side to the coin.

So there were 125 shots, 11 didn't hit the black area (obviously at this stage, I'm just wanting to hit the black), which I calculate to be an accuracy of 91.2%. It's much better than when I first started, and hopefully soon I'll be able to put them all in the black. Obviously when you start to get any good, you want to get them all within the sevens or eights, and some people manage even better.

It'll be while before I'm that accurate, but (pardon the pun) it certainly gives you something to aim for.

Tags: guns
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More gun crime

2007-01-26T18:11:00.000Z

The Times give us some Home Office figures on gun crime. It's comforting to know that with the present state of the Home Office, these figures must be wrong. Everyone knows that handguns (the criminals favourite) have been banned in the UK for quite some time now, and given they've been banned, how can criminals get them? That would be illegal! Oh wait that's what criminals do, didn't seem to occur to anyone when they wanted to ban guns though did it?

More related news from the Telegraph h/t to An Englishman's Castle; here the police no doubt upset at charges being dropped against a 74 year old pensioner who shot a 22 year old burglar in the leg.

"Police chiefs have urged householders not to confront intruders, but to call 999 and lock themselves in safely until help arrives." Oh what great advice, the police can't bear the thought of people actually defending themselves and standing up to crime. After all if they can't do it, why should anyone else?

I always used to support the idea and concept of the police, but that isn't what we've got anymore. What we have is a great turkey army called the police, the only reason they're called officers is because they sit in an office all day. You could probably abolish the police and the majority of people wouldn't notice, except of course crime would go down as without the police to interfere and arrest and charge householders defending their property, the risk to the criminal would be ever so much greater.

The only ray of light in the Telegraph article comes from the judge: The judge said that he had "sensibly" armed himself with a shotgun and no one could criticise him for what he did. "It is only a pity that charges were considered against him," he added.

Compare them with the police: "If the intruder steals some of your property, that's far better than someone getting killed. Ring police and secure yourself and your family..." Just remember, if the police don't turn up or fail, they're not liable and you could be dead.

The British Police; another once great institution ruined by socialism. Is there anything that can escape unscathed?

Tags: law and order, police, self-defence, guns
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Jail the chief? Is there a place?

2007-01-26T18:02:00.000Z

The Times informs us of a delay in the "Loans for Lordships" enquiry. Normally I'd be disappointed, but given this unrelatred story about our lack of prison places, it's probably just as well.

It's only right and proper, that people who commit offences and derserve prison get what they deserve, and whilst the image of our (soon to be) ex-Prime Minister handcuffed and taken into custody will bring shame upon the whole country, consider how much worse it would be if there wasn't a prison place to accomodate him.

So yes whilst things are as they are, delay might turn out for the better, it would be a travesty if Blair were denied his place in ~~history~~ prison, because of the incompetence of his government.

Tags: Labour, Tony Blair, probity
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You can escape the DVLA computer

2007-01-26T08:19:00.000Z

We've all heard the adverts on the radio, the machine type voice pretending to be the DVLA computer, informing us of the inevitability of detection if you evade your road tax.

Of course the advert itself is evidence against infallibility, after all if the system was so good, you wouldn't need to advertise it. Everyone who wasn't taxed would be caught and fined, rendering the adverts a waste of money.

The Times tells a different story: The number of people not paying their road tax has almost doubled in the past two years creating a “motoring underclass” of two million drivers who can escape speeding fines, parking penalties and driving convictions.

Some of the report contains statements of the obvious: "Cars and vans that are more than ten years old are five times more likely to be untaxed than those less than ten years old..." Yes well, if you've just spent a small fortune on a vehicle, chances are you can afford the road tax and insurance. If you have little money the temptation is going to be far greater. Anyway with the sky high cost of road tax, it might cost more to tax the vehicle that it cost to buy.

Now I don't condone this activity, because of course it has consequences, which will impact on innocent victims. If you don't tax your vehicle, you won't MOT it, certainly not with the computerised MOT system, because then you can be traced to a garage or an area, and you probably won't have insurance either, and these contribute to making the roads less safe and increasing insurance premiums for law abiding road users. Of course by ironic logic, the increasing insurance premiums will tempt more people to evade road tax: “As motoring becomes more expensive, the groups least able to afford it who need a car are finding it more difficult to make ends meet.”

How does it happen? Simple, when people are purchasing vehicles, they're not filling out the ownership details, or they're providing false ones. The much-vaunted DVLA computer is as much use as a chocolate teapot in cases like this.

It is however a good example of unintended consequences, the DVLA used to have a fairly accurate record of what was what, people would send in the registration documents, etc. As a result, some civil servants/politicians no doubt thought look we can use camera and computer enforcement for many things such as speeding and road tax offences and we'll even tighten up the loophole where people might take their car off the road for a small period of time and gain a month in the road tax stakes, so we'll take even more money off them as well as save on the police.

The result, well nothing is saved on the police, but instead of doing traffic duty: "You can do a journey of 100 miles and you are lucky if you see one police car..." they'll be doing racism class or some other politically correct office activity. What of the people, well it's clear, rather than fill out a form and help the government, they take the risk of not bothering, saving themselves a small fortune each year, but costing the rest of us in increased premiums and decreased road safety.

Road tax should be kept to a fairly small figure say about £30.00 per annum, whenever you purchase road tax, you need to show a valid MOT and insurance. Any revenue from road tax simply isn't worth the high cost of having uninsured untraceable drivers driving cars with no MOTs. The MOT needs to be reduced as well so it only covers safety issues not politically correct pollution concepts or whatever is going through the minister's head. Of course it must be coupled with an increase in traffic police and a decrease in all these cameras everywhere. Simply reducing the tax won't be enough to force those who've gotten away with it, back to the straight and narrow.

Tags: tax, DVLA, law and order
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Mentioned In Dispatches Mr Jack Arthur

2007-01-25T08:20:00.000Z

"Reported" in the local "newspaper" we have a former Lord Mayor of York Mr Jack Arthur, who has been shopping at my local Morrisons store.

Now it has been the policy of that store for some time now to ask any person buying alcohol to confirm they are over 18. Yes any person, as in the case of Mr Arthur who is in fact 87.

It has always struck me as ridiculous and I've wanted to take a hundred pounds or so, load a trolley with alcohol and on being asked if I'm over 18, either replying "No" or refusing to say. Would they sell to me regardless? Or refuse and put all the alcohol back?

As usual, of course the government is involved: "A spokeswoman for Morrison's - whose executive chairman, Ken Morrison is 75 - said they implemented the tough "TASK 21 Scheme" at any of their stores which have been reprimanded for selling booze to under-18s." I can envisage that alcohol may have been sold to an under 18, it's not a major issue really, no doubt the trading standards gave Morrisons a choice either implement this scheme and take a warning or be prosecuted. Of course they've implemented the scheme, "There's no one got the guts to tell the government where to get off".

Quite how the scheme is meant to help anyway is a mystery, I mean under 18s have been buying alcohol for a long time, and when asked, they're not going to say "I'm sixteen", they'll say: "Yes I'm over eighteen".

Anyway rather than prattle on, I'll simply thank Mr Arthur for taking this matter up, it may only seem a small thing, but it's an unnecessary apparatchik interference in the lives of everyone who shops in that Morrisons. In other words an infringement of our freedom.

Tags: Mentioned In Dispatches, Mr Jack Arthur, freedom
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Anglicans start to grow a pair?

2007-01-24T08:25:00.000Z

No offence meant to fellow bloggers such as Archbishop Cranmer or The Sectarian Strand (see sidebar) or to The Archbishop Of York Dr John Sentamu or the Bishop Of Rochester Right Reverend Dr Michael James Nazir-Ali and other Anglicans like them, who (it seems to me) are always prepared to put their faith above political correctness and expediency.

The Times reports on the Anglican hierarchy sending a letter in support of the Catholic stance over the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs see yesterday). The support of Dr John Sentamu whilst welcome, doesn't surprise me, it is unusual to find Dr Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury embroiling himself; quite whether this a reflection of him being worried about being left behind (I suppose we could run a "No Archbishop Left Behind" campaign) or a genuine realisation that Christian belief and political correctness are incompatible remains to be seen.

In any event according to report, Blair and Kelly are turning on the horns of a dilemma and the cabinet (lefties keen to promote a perverse vision of a politically correct "family") are showing no signs of backing down.

Whilst I'm against the SORs, both for moral and practical reasons, if they are passed without any religious exemptions, there will be benefits. The Anglican Church isn't the only one riddled with leftie surrender monkeys, the Catholic Church has it's fair share too, although they tend to be less publicly vociferous; it has always been my view that socialism and Christianity are incompatible, but these lefties have been a cross that we've had to bear.

If the state adopts the route as appears likely, then it will be clear to all that Christian belief isn't compatible with the socialist state which in turn will enable Christians to take more accurate theological political positions on many matters. The leftie priest won't be able to talk about "social justice" and "recommend" a position that ultimately leads to theological incompatibility, as that incompatibility will be visible from the outset.

If Labour continues down this route, they'll force Christians into politics as Christians.

Tags: Church and State
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Protests - Compare and contrast

2007-01-23T08:22:00.000Z

The Times reports on the awaited passenger protest on First Great Western trains, apparently an appalling service has been ongoing for quite some time. The idea of the protest was to board the trains without paying the fare, and presenting a fake protest ticket when requested.

The pathetic public couldn't even muster up enough courage and backbone for this simple non-consequential protest "Commuters took the fake tickets, but most also queued at the ticket widows to buy real ones." Why bother? You should be sending a message to the company and depriving them of their daily takings. Even the company know they're in the wrong: "The train company decided that pursuing non-paying rebels was not the thing to do in front of news cameras..." Both the passengers and the company know the passengers are being "shafted", but the company (either this one or another) needs the passengers more than the passengers need the company, but because the company is bigger than an individual, they (the passengers) sit back and accept it, allowing themselves to be bullied.

If they were charging to take them to prison (or worse), they'd still pay the fare.

On the other hand we have the Catholic Church and the Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs as I shall refer to them). Now as regards lifestyle choices, I believe in freedom provided no harm is done to others, but that doesn't mean I agree with every choice made. Nor does it mean I have to cater for all choices, of course in a free market any choices not catered for by one will by supplied by another (if there's any demand) and it isn't really an area for legislation at all.

Nevertheless the SORs would ensure that Catholic adoption agencies could no longer choose not to use homosexual couples for adoption purposes, as this would be discriminatory. Now for Catholics, homosexual behaviour (along with many other types) is immoral; no amount of legislation, publicity, wishy washy niceness or anything else can alter that; of course it's a matter for the individuals concerned, but when you are responsible for placing a child into the care of others, you have to consider the best interests of the child, not within the context of the BBC, or the media or society, but you must be guided by your own morality and if your morality tells you a certain behaviour is wrong, then you cannot place children into that environment, no matter how many regulations come out of the closet.

"Chris Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda, said: “I suspect the bishops are hopelessly out of step with ordinary Catholics on this. Surely all that counts is the best interests of the child.”" Well no the bishops are in step with ordinary Catholics on this, most Catholics will not be too bothered by what people do and what lifestyle choices they make, but you cannot make the immoral, moral, by regulations and legislation. I for one, don't allow legislation or the media to affect my morality and neither do I suspect do the majority of ordinary Catholics.

The Catholic Church is threatening to, and will close its adoption agencies rather than compromise on morality. The passengers will do and accept anything rather than even risk upsetting the apple cart.

Tags: protest, Church and State
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I warn you ... do not grow old ...

2007-01-22T08:33:00.000Z

The Daily Mail informs us of our "envy of the world" care for the elderly program.

You should read it yourselves, but some "highlights" include: "... some are given just a single scoop of mash as a meal"

"Other bedridden pensioners are 'tortured' with trays of food placed just out of their reach."

Whilst I have a great deal of sympathy for the suffering of those concerned, I regard this as an inevitable consequence of state run care and socialism. Take the system of National Insurance, people pay in, not for money for themselves, but to provide care for others; the idea being that when their turn comes, they get care from the payments of other people are making. This is so wrong in many ways (aside from being ultimately unsustainable), people should be responsible for providing for themselves and the state should be out of it. Everyone who stops to think about National Insurance would soon come to realise the problems, but people have accepted this system without question and without thought. The easy wide road, let the state worry about it, spare me from responsibility. Now the system they supported and accepted is starving them; well you should have known better.

You shouldn't have been fooled by the empty promises of socialism, you should have examined the system harder, kept it in check, ensured there was enough to pay you out.

All debts, have to be paid, and virtue is it's own reward. You have no entitlement to a reward merely for having lived to a point requiring care, if you haven't made provision (no National Insurance despite its name doesn't count) then that is what you should expect - starvation.

Of course there's no choice we all have to pay into this corrupt and stupid pot, but that doesn't mean we have to be fooled by it, or that we shouldn't demand its abolition.

Well my readers this is how the state treats you, you pay in money, and when you want to collect, well, you can starve to death for the privilege. Look how much freer people in the third world are, there you can starve without having to pay.

Tags: tax, socialism, freedom
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Apologies

2007-01-18T08:33:00.000Z

Sorry for the lack of posting, but yesterday was broadband problems and I've meetings for the rest of the week.

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Do as we say!

2007-01-16T08:33:00.000Z

The Times reports on some North British council leader flouting his country's smoking ban. He was smoking in his own office, but the law is the law. When it was pointed out to him that he was breaking the law: "he shrugged and carried on".

Now when it comes to banning smoking, like most bans it is ridiculous, of course there shouldn't be any law against smoking in an office and the person concerned has the smallest modicum of my sympathy. Why so little? Well they are a Labour leader, and they are in charge of implementing the smoking ban in their area; I've never heard of any resignations over the issue, or of any council showing some guts and refusing to enforce this stupid law. If this had happened in a pub or private club, they'd have sent the apparatchiks round faster than you could say it, with fines and fixed penalty notices all round. I don't expect any enforcement action here.

The "leader" has apologised, but is that really good enough? I know the law is rubbish as much as the next person, but I wouldn't enforce it at all, but he can't not enforce it, he has no choice, unless he intends to go head to head with the North British executive. So his only honourable choice is to resign, he has to say: "I can't enforce this stupid law or be part of a structure that does; so I must resign".

The chances of this happening are remote, he'll give up smoking first, but it shows us the mindset of our "leaders" - they know the laws are a load of rubbish, they know it's all stupid unwarranted interference, but instead of fighting against those laws and ensuring they never happen, they kow-tow before the legislation and then expect it not to apply to them. In this case he'll probably be right, there'll be no enforcement, no nothing, but what of others who are denied their right to smoke? What of a private club of smokers and people who don't mind smoking? Or an office staffed by smokers?

Some people oppress believing it to be for a greater good or higher purpose, some know that the professed greater good or higher purpose is a load of rubbish, but "go with the flow" anyway. Which is the greater evil?

Tags: liberty, rights, freedom
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Sick

2007-01-15T08:44:00.000Z

The Daily Mail on Saturday tells us of NHS "patients" being offered the option to pay for their operation and thereby "jump the queue" and receive treatment.

Of course the "journalist" manages to miss an important point. The treatments have already been paid for, either by the patients themselves or others ("from each according to his means to each according to his needs")in the form of National Insurance (Insurance being misleading as the only side of the bargain is payment of the premium). So by asking for another payment, note there's no suggestion of a refund for the premiums paid, the poor people are being asked to pay twice for the same thing.

All of us who pay the National Insurance tax have all paid for these operations, now they cannot happen, we should all get a refund.

Imagine if this was a private company, taking payments in return for healthcare, then when people fell ill, expecting them to pay for treatment, they'd be an outcry. We'd have pictures showing directors houses and cars, we'd have calls for legislation to "protect" the public, every leftie going would be denouncing capitalism, directors salaries and complaining of how people get conned, and how others profit from their misfortune, the reality is that if you have the money and are in pain, you'll be very tempted to give it to the NHS.

I see the NHS as a huge gravy train, not for the majority of staff perhaps, but those at the top are bigger swindlers and robbers than many others. There's been a programme on BBC2 showing some self-made millionaire trying to get Rotherham hospital running efficiently; the chief executive of the hospital (for me) is no manager, but no fool either, he produces government figures and is probably classed as good at his job, ultimately I think he must know the hospital could be run better, I also think he knows he'll get no credit for doing so, just a lot of hassle, but does he resign? Does he forego his (judging from his house and car) generous salary? Yet (for me) he knows as much as the director of a company that continues trading with inevitable bankruptcy that people are being fleeced.

Years ago, when the worker was portrayed as slaving away for the capitalist, at least the capitalist provided something (capital). Now the worker slaves away for the apparatchik - who waxes fat on the food of the poor, but the apparatchik is supposed to work for the people, the reality is he does nothing, but produce figures and take the salary. What a sick system.

Tags: NHS, state apparatchiks, statism, welfare state
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Socialism begins to bite

2007-01-12T08:10:00.000Z

The Times reports on the latest and seemingly unexpected interest rate rise. I suggest you expect more of the same. Bandit Brown has been robbing the country blind to pay for his turkey army and other socialist excess, but there's always a day of reckoning, it cannot be avoided and even though he has in the past managed successful postponement, each postponement brings it's own price.

The "reporter" from the BBC last night was telling us what a strong economy we have with consumer spending and high house prices. What a joke! House prices are high because of restricted supply caused by restrictive socialist planning laws, and profligate consumer spending isn't a sign of a strong economy, it's a sign of hopelessness. During the Second World War, did people worry about saving money or did they tend to spend it? I suggest they spent it. I'd be far more impressed with consumer saving and low debt, still the job of the beeboid is to spin the spin and he did it almost admirably.

People are beginning to have enough as this story in The Times shows us - passengers fed up with a horrible "service" and withdrawing from the rail network. I wish them the best of luck, that aside it shows in general, some basic truths. When people have had enough, they get rebellious and stubborn and people are headed that way now, this has to be coupled with the knowledge that the government is running out of financial options.

My view is that we're headed for a collapse of our socialist market and it won't be easy.

There'll be tears before bedtime.

Tags: socialism, Gordon Brown
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Shove an RFID up an apparatchik (Not literally)

2007-01-11T08:56:00.000Z

Looking at various things yesterday, I came across this gem on this DVLA website, scroll down to "Number plates and registration marks" and then "Electronic number plate trial feasibility report" a pdf report on some trails the DVLA has been running.

The idea is for an RFID chip to be included in your number plate, or tax disc, which can then be read by government (and no doubt other) chip readers for various purposes.

I haven't gone through the report myself, a quick look in the introduction tells us all we need to know about how apparatchiks work. Apparently a provision was introduced in the Vehicle Crime Act 2001 to allow this, and deliberately worded so. So these so called civil servants plan their statist oppressions some five or six years in advance.

Of course the wonderfully gender neutrally named "Ladyman" was only to pleased to authorise the trials (perhaps "for the children" or to "protect against terrorism" or maybe there's a new platitude) which have been taking place.

Anyway I know all my readers will be as pleased as I am by the success of the project; it will also come as no surprise to find the EU is also looking into this, and indeed this helped spur on the DVLA trial.

Personally I don't remember seeing any of this reported in the media, (I admit I could easily have missed it), but I suspect our crusading journalists; don't even have enough motivation to check out government websites for snippets of stories. They're far too busy chasing princes girlfriends, reporting on big brother and other banalities.

Tags: statism, state apparatchiks, media
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Apologies

2007-01-10T08:27:00.000Z

Sorry no post today - swamped.

Tags: justice, liberty, rights, freedom
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One Month On... More Defections

2007-01-09T08:06:00.000Z

The Times reports on more Conservative defections to UKIP. From the two Lords concerned it's perhaps in one way not surprising as both in 2004 "...urged voters to support UKIP".

Only a month since the last defections, this is more bad news for Cameron, it is my view that Conservative supporters tend to be conservative. We don't like change and messing about especially for no good reason. That being said, we're usually creatures of principle and if we find things unacceptable then there will be a conflict between loyalty and principle and everyone will have their personal tipping point where they can take no more.

The Times tells us that Lord Pearson "...has been a major party fundraiser..."; so potentially his defection might really hit where it hurts. Certainly he seems to think so: “If you are a big funder of the Conservative Party, you are likely to be frustrated with the current leadership, and I know quite a few who are. I don’t see why people who have been funding the Conservative Party for a long time shouldn’t put their country before the current leadership.”. That being said it appears the Conservatives will probably support state funding of political parties so it might not matter to them.

Notice that the less out of touch a party is the more likely it is to support state funding. Anyone who believes in their views, and believes in democracy will always be against state funding of parties. If the party is any good and represents people, then people will join it and give it money. Otherwise if it just panders to "policymakers and academics" - well its demise is imminent.

Of course there are the (particularly bad) platitudes that I shan't bother repeating, the only question is how much can Cameron stand? Is he going to start placating the party? Or is he going to do nothing and watch it haemorrhage to UKIP?

Where are Cameron's gains from Labour and Lib Dem MPs and Lords? Where are the increases in party membership?

The defections last month are starting to look like the warning shot they were described as. Cameron risks becoming the leader of an empty party.

Tags: Conservative Party
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Between the Devil and the Sea

2007-01-08T08:53:00.000Z

The Times reports on judicial outrage over planned so-called sentencing reform.

The government proposals include the usual meaningless changes: "...limit the use of community punishments in favour of fines...". Well a fine is only a punishment if it gets paid, and community punishment is just an oxymoron.

"... they also express fears that extending the range of offences that can be dealt with by fixed-penalty notices would create an impression among the public that such crimes were not being taken seriously..." Not like a tough community punishment then? Showing that crimes are taken seriously.

Half the problem is that community punishment is regarded as a "tough" option, I blogged on Lord Phillips serving a term. His perception of what is tough is what passes as normal work for most people.

Equally culpable are politicians who instead of changing laws to ensure that effective punishments are available and used, prefer to talk tough and do nothing. Especially as prison is so expensive, this again is really down to the politicians. Who says prisoners need television in their cells? Why should they receive compensation for being forced to "cold turkey" off their drugs? There's some perverse belief that the depravation of liberty alone is the punishment; in reality that should only be one aspect of the prison sentence, the criminal should have to put up with the rest of prison as part and parcel of the punishment. If they don't like it, who cares?

Criminal sentencing has become largely a joke. Many crimes have no effective punishment and often the government and judiciary tend to blame each other. I blame both of them, but it must be more down to the government.

What we need are cheap effective sentences, and without them, it isn't the judiciary and politicians who suffer. It's the ordinary people trying to go about their everyday business, crime isn't an illness, or something that can't be helped, it's a lifestyle choice and one that impacts badly on others. The judiciary and government should wake up to this basic truth and start giving criminals what they deserve.

Tags: crime
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A tale of Christmas Winterval woe

2007-01-06T09:26:00.000Z

An observant reader emailed me the link below.

It's a story in my local "news"paper, it tells of a couple and their broken down boiler and how: "They spent a miserable Christmas huddled together..."

I don't want to spoil the story, go and read it, make sure you read the comments easily the best part. The story is here.

It's comforting to see the people of York in gerneral have the right idea. It's pathetic to see our useless "news"paper coming out with this drivel and expecting people to pay for it.

What's even worse is that time and again, money is taken from those who've earned it, taken by the state with the threat of imprisonment and then dished out to whichever claimant fills out a form. It I want a new bolier (mine is over 30 years old) I'll have to pay for it myself, where's my state handout? Instead I have to make do with my old one and pay for their new one as well. It's a disgrace.

Tags: tax, welfare state
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The state will protect you or 124D v Luger

2007-01-05T08:03:00.000Z

The Times tells us of the death of Ms Clare Bernal and the inquest into the same.

Ms Bernal had the misfortune of a violent ex-boyfriend who then went on to kill her. Were there any indications that this might happen? "The former Slovakian soldier had vowed to kill his former girlfriend..."

Aside from the fact that he shot her, even though guns are illegal, thus making them accessible to him (the criminal), but denying them for defence (to the victim). The gun was purchased by the criminal, who whilst on bail managed to travel to Slovakia and smuggle it back into the UK.

It appears there were errors by the police, you might think a failure to provide armed officers or protection or some other activity, no indeed it was a failure to fill in the paperwork specifically a 124D form. In evidence to the inquest the CPS said: "that Pech was charged correctly with harassment and would have been given a community service order rather than a jail sentence.

He said that if police had taken further statements from Ms Bernal it was possible that she would have given evidence to persuade the CPS to charge Pech with making threats to kill her. However, if he was convicted of that offence he would have been jailed only for two or three months, ..."

This is a devious platitude, because it makes it sound that had the procedures been followed, he might have been in jail, but remember he was out on bail, so even though charged, he hadn't been convicted. My view is the chances are he still would have been on bail anyway.

In any sensible analysis, if someone is out to kill you, and they are armed, you will need to be armed yourself or at least have an armed bodyguard. I favour the first option as it is cheaper. A 124D won't be of much use against a Luger.

Still no need to worry as there's plenty more platitudes in the article:

"PC Shah said that she had done everything she could to protect Ms Bernal"

"Georgina Kent, a barrister for the police, [said] there was “nothing to suggest that the case would end so unfortunately”. "

"Nataliya Sarapionova, Ms Bernal’s friend and flatmate, said that Ms Bernal was “extremely naive” and, despite the level of violence used by Pech, did not realise the seriousness of the situation." Good job the state and the police had it under control then.

The only fly in the ointment comes from: "Harvey Nichols’s security manager said that he became “deeply concerned” about Pech and advised Ms Bernal to call police. He then began his own investigation, interviewing Ms Bernal’s friends and scanning any text messages sent to her by Pech. He said that police did not take the evidence the store had gathered."

Like yesterday there's no mention that there might be something wrong with the system. Not even the glimmer of criticising that the state should be the sole provider of our protection, no mention of liability attaching to the state when it falls down on the job. It is irrelevant whether Ms Bernal realised the seriousness of the situation, what she probably thought was that the police would protect her; if perhaps she'd thought they wouldn't she may have taken effective steps to ensure her safety.

There's a double scandal here, firstly the state removes the legal capability for the law abiding citizen to defend themselves and usurps that role for itself; secondly despite taking (with the sanction of the law) the money from the defenceless citizen, when it fails to fulfil its end of the bargain it's no liability and platitudes all round.

Tags: guns, self defence, statism
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The Envy Of The World

2007-01-04T08:24:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the latest NHS "envy of the world" [that no one tries to emulate] crisis.

According to the report, with three months until the financial year end, it has simply "run out of money". As a result, people are being turned away for various treatments etc.

The Times report is strong on detail, but surprisingly short on analysis. Imagine if you will, a private company, taking money off people in return for providing health care; then when people needed care, finding they were being turned away. Do you think the piece would have been short on analysis then?

We'd have had pictures showing directors cars and mansions; can we see some pictures of top NHS administrators' houses and cars? We'd have had comment and opinion telling us that legislation was needed to protect people from such scams. Yet that would have been a voluntary scheme like Farepack, who will protect us from the enforced payment of taxes and national insurance?

We'd have had analysis of why the system was wrong and how it could be changed. Yet for some strange reason, the state is immune from journalistic enquiry, there's no call to change the system, no mention of people having paid in advance for this health care, the state now welching on its promise and no redress available.

That the NHS is seriously up the creek doesn't surprise me, in effect their finances are out by a whole quarter. What is just as important and exceedingly pathetic is how journalists kow-tow to statist systems and never, no matter what happens, consider that perhaps it's time the state did less.

It's time to put our hands up, the NHS project is too big, too vast and costs too much, and this crisis proves that it is doomed to ultimate failure. Let's discuss and implement an exit strategy, before it bankrupts the whole country.

Tags: NHS, tax
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"This is only possible thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded"

2007-01-02T08:17:00.000Z

The Times reports here in the latest BBC effort to interfere with legislation. Quite why the state broadcaster should be mixing with the legislative process have never been adequately explained.

I'm sure some of my readers will have seen other blogs pointing to the Today poll asking for a vote on which, of a number of Acts of Parliament to repeal. I didn't vote myself, as an option for "all of them" wasn't available and I remembered back two years when something similar was attempted. In that case it was a question of creating legislation and the winning option was to create a "castle doctrine" so: "that, if property owners discovered a burglary in progress, they should have the right to assume they were in mortal danger and “act accordingly”".

I was and still am very much in favour of such legislation, but of course it all got kicked into the long grass and nothing ever came of it. As a result I expected similar complacency to the result of this vote.

"More than half the votes cast were to abolish the Hunting Act, which outlawed hunting with hounds two years ago."

Of course we have the allegations of vote rigging or fixing, but: "The Countryside Alliance later cheerfully confirmed that it had encouraged members to take part." Well there's nothing wrong with that, you have a poll open to the nation, it's only right and proper that an interest group thinking it is of interest to them, can inform their members of it; said members of course choosing to vote or not and what to vote for.

Democracy is an inconvenient process and sometimes you don't get the result you want, in a true democracy, or in an organisation with democratic ideals, they would accept the result of this poll, and now campaign for that result. Of course we'll see pigs fly first.

It's just like the telly tax, if the BBC thought it represented the nation and good value for money, they would be in favour of a voluntary subscription, or even a paid service. They wouldn't even need advertising or product placement, but they know within themselves, that they produce biased liberal drivel, that in the open market people would much rather do without than pay for. Accordingly the BBC fight to keep the tax.

With the tax, the liberals making up the BBC are protected from the reality of both the market place and what the people want. It is taxation without representation, the only way the tax can stay, is with direct elections to the BBC coupled with direct elections to determine its policy and output. Accountability is long overdue.

Taxation without accountability - the unique way the BBC is funded.

Tags: BBC, television licence
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Battle of Britain & El Cid – Lessons for our leaders.

2006-12-30T23:29:00.000Z

These two films have some good scenes two of which I shall draw to your attention. I really wish certain (almost all) of our political and religious leaders would study these and thereby improve their leadership skills.

The first is from the Battle of Britain film, it’s just after Dunkirk, and the German ambassador to Switzerland goes to visit his British counterpart in the expectation of the acceptance of the German peace terms.

The British ambassador is small and balding, wearing a tweed jacket, and always reminds me somewhat of Peter Rabbit. The German ambassador is tall and well proportioned, his sleek silver hair swept back and he reminds me of a wolf. Brilliant casting. The German is sure of his ground, he expects the British to agree to terms and what’s more the British ambassador appears intimidated and frightened by the German.

Despite this obvious fear no doubt for his country, as well as what seems to be a personal fear of the German, the British ambassador masters himself and sticks to his position. He refuses to accept the German terms, despite both parties knowing that Britain has no real defences left; it is the German who leaves discomfited. That is an important part of what true courage consists of; it is when you are afraid, and you master the fear and stick to your position; even and especially if you know within yourself you cannot win. This spirit was seen not just in the film, but during the war itself, and I quote words from Captain Langsdorff the German Captain of the Graf Spee (made into another film the Battle of the River Plate): “You English are hard. You do not know when you are beaten. The Exeter was beaten, but would not know it!”

Can you imagine that being said of our political leaders today? Rather than turn and face anything, when confronted they’re more likely to crush each other in the rush to run up the white flag. Yet, and this is what amazes me, they rarely if ever have to actually face any real danger; the crew of The Exeter, engaged the Graf Spee, took hits and damage, but still carried on fighting, until finally forced to withdraw. In the film the British ambassador doesn’t mouth platitudes to placate the German, on being told if they don’t agree to terms the Germans will simply march in and take the country, he tells them straight - words to the effect: “if you can do that then go ahead”. Today of course our leaders don’t have to face anything of that magnitude or danger, but surrender seems the only thing they know. This brings me nicely on to El Cid.

Towards the end of that film, the hero El Cid, knows he must go and ride out into battle in order to rally the troops, but he’s dying (I think he’s been poisoned or wounded or something). Knowing that if he rides out, he’ll soon be done for, and in falling of his horse the men will be disheartened, he has a rod of iron fastened to his back, and he is tied to his horse, so he can ride out without danger of falling off.

Any modern leaders reading this (yeah right) perhaps thinking that sometimes they lack the courage they need to stand up to something, can simply borrow the example from El Cid. No need to go to extremes with a rod of iron, a simple stave of stout English Oak will suffice, strap it to your back and see how much better you will function. No matter if it’s a question of standing up for your principles (after you've found some), facing a hostile crowd (oh wait you’re not likely to face any crowd), or dealing with the lovely media, the stave of oak will help you considerably.

No need to thank me, it’s all part of the service.

Happy & Prosperous New Year to all my readers.

Tags: courage, leadership
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"Where getting more like America every day"

2006-12-29T08:57:00.000Z

The above quote comes from a section of comments about an armed robbery in York. I can't believe it myself as apparently a handgun was used in the attack, but haven't these been banned by the benevolent government? You know: "... if it saves the life of one child it'll be worth it ..." ad nauseam.

Anyway clearly no one told the criminals about the handgun ban and now they've used one to commit a crime. Back to the (in the main) appalling comments if the person is referring to spelling and grammar then they might be correct as I suspect they actually want to say: "we're" as opposed to "where". Never mind, just another product of our "envy of the world" education system.

One commentator gives some information missing from the story: "Police turned up in response to panic alarm at 8pm, were more interested in two youths on a moped and left again leaving staff locked inside with robbers! Obviously they left these details out of the press release." Thus summing up the effectiveness of the modern British police. To return to the original comment, the person has missed one very significant difference in that in America, the shopkeeper might well be legally armed, in which case they'll be in a far better position to defend themselves and their property, leaving the police free to deal with important issues such as mopeds.

Another commentator has the right idea, but seems rather short on practicality: "Arm shopkeepers and let them shoot robbers provided it is all on CCTV showing an honest shot!" Yes all very well and good, but what if the CCTV happens to be pointing elsewhere, or is obscured at the time of shooting? You can hardly ask the robber to kindly step into focus "just so I can have a legal shot for the camera sir". So I say allow the shopkeepers (and householders) to arm themseleves and protect them legally with a "castle doctrine". "If it saves the life or property of just one shopkeeper or householder it'll be worth it"

So no I'm afraid we're not getting more like America every day, but I live in hope, with proper application and determination, we might one day get there.

Tags: guns, armed citizenry, crime
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Hurrah for recycling!!! The farce of the future.

2006-12-28T08:55:00.000Z

The local "news"paper "reports" on a council placed, self-congratulatory story about recycling.

Councillor Waller tells us all about the great success of the "plan": "since last January, 2,954 compost bins had been sold to residents."

"Every resident who composts their kitchen waste is cutting York's carbon emissions, producing rich compost for their garden and reducing the amount the council has to pay to the Government in landfill fines." I'm struggling here, if it wasn't being burnt, then how does it reduce carbon emissions? Anyway doesn't it emit carbon dioxide as it decomposes anyway? If it were being burnt then it would produce negligible ash, so would make no effective difference to the landfill tax.

Waller doesn't mention garden waste and notice the focus in the article is on composting kitchen waste. What of garden waste? Oh well the council introduced a "green bin" in which residents can put all their garden waste (not kitchen waste - "Be Good, your council is watching you don't go committing any offences against recycling") and this goes for composting by the council. The success of that scheme is measured in elephants, and it's usually reported as "...having saved the equivalent of forty elephants...", what was done with this waste before? Well a lot of it was composted by people in their gardens, now it's collected, put in the refuse truck, taken to a site and composted by the council, so they can meet government targets. It's great being green, no extra labour or transport costs involved here at all.

We even have a group (no doubt paid for/subsidised by me) called "York Rotters" who: "have done a lot of good work across York by demonstrating how easy it is to compost". Oh quite, how did we manage without them? Thank you council for your rotters.

Anyway there's no stopping the "recycling revolution": "City of York Council is set to roll out kerbside cardboard recycling services to nearly 40,000 more households in the new year." Hurrah!!!

There's more good news: "A study, conducted earlier this year, found that 97 per cent of residents across the city were recycling in some form or another...". Wow! How intellectual: "... some form or another ...", what a great study, I wonder how much that cost?

There are three comments which seem to be calling for more of the same, but with a modicum of sense in that they point out: "...we used to have centres where the guy's would pull out the decent stuff and sell it for a couple of quid. The council stopped this so everything including the timber, furniture either gets smashed up and land fill or burned."

Clearly the commentator has missed the point and somehow thinks that recycling is a goal of itself. You stupid fool, under that system it couldn't be monitored and recorded so government figures couldn't be generated. It's much better now, just look at the figures, 97% of residents are recycling [in some form or another] and soon the glorious 40% will be achieved [albeit by taking and transporting "garden waste" which was previously composted by people in their own gardens].

It's really great to be part of this recycling revolution, I know I'm helping, even if it saves just 0.000001% of the environment for the children it will be worth it [no matter what it costs].

Hurrah for recycling.

Tags: recycling York council
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It's all our fault.

2006-12-23T11:25:00.000Z

In a predictable "mea culpea" in The Times, the Archbishop of Canterbury blames our government and America for: "...endangering the lives and futures of many thousands of Christians in the Middle East..." My regular readers (both of them) will know that I'm no ardent supporter of the government and I have a healthy dislike of Blair and his administration; however we must be fair even to Blair, and ask ourselves: "Where is this danger coming from?"

” In some Middle Eastern countries where Muslim-Christian relations have always been good, he [Dr Rowan Williams] says that extremist attacks on Christians are becoming “notably more frequent.” The extremists aren't named, but from the tenor of the article it's clear they mean Muslim extremists.

There follows plenty of hand wringing and calls on the government and of course calls to that effective international body the UN to do "something". One point I would agree with is that no account seems to have been taken of the Christian population in the Middle East; however at the end of the day, those perpetrating these attacks are Muslims, not Isrealis, not Tony Blair, not the Americans. The responsibility for the attacks lies with those people committing the violent actions.

What might we expect from the "men of the cloth"? Well it's obvious isn't it, they're always telling us of the importance of good relations with Muslims clerics and the community, let them exert their influence; let's see some Muslim leaders and clerics condemn these attacks on Christians. Even if the moderate Muslims in Britain adopted this stance it would be a step in the right direction. There's a fat chance of this, the so called moderate Muslims in Britain will keep quiet, and we certainly won't hear any condemnation of these attacks from the practitioners of the "religion of peace" in the Middle East; no matter how many apologies and acts of dhimmitude we undertake.

It's time Christian leaders woke up to reality, yes being nice to people being tolerant, engaging in debate, it's all very well and good, but it isn't a one way street. If (and this applies to all) the tolerance and respect isn't reciprocated then other measures are clearly needed. It's no good quoting the Bible and saying turn the other cheek, for that can only apply to the person who's subject to the violence. If a Christian leader sees or is aware of such violence yes they can go and put themselves between the victim and assailant and refuse to return any violence, but they cannot say "I'm safe in England, you don't fight back". These Christian leaders aren't even prepared to go as far as saying to other religious leaders "look this is all wrong, you need to speak out and comdemn it, otherwise you can't expect any support from us over anything"; and why not? I think they fear having a few extremists demonstrating outside a church.

Well is this the example of Christ?

Did Christ back down?

What of Saint Peter, on fleeing Rome for his life, was he not told to turn back, and face his fate, and did he not obey?

"11 Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, and persecute you, and speak all that is evil against you, untruly, for my sake: 12 Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets that were before you. 13 You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men. 14 You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. 16 So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

These so called leaders have lost their savour.

Tags: church
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Grooming Apparatchiks - Got to catch them young.

2006-12-22T08:37:00.000Z

Sorry for not posting on this at the time, but better late than never. The Times reported here on Wednesday 20/12/2006 about a primary school exercise in where children were told that Father Christmas did not exist.

Now whilst I can understand the ire of the parents being focussed on this aspect, really the reporter has no excuse for missing the other issues: "The worksheet handed to the Year 5 pupils said “many small children believe in Santa” but that his letters were actually handled by an official at the Post Office. ... the pupils were then asked to compose a reply to one of the “small children” explaining why a request for presents was being turned down." I mean just what sort of Christmas exercise is this? What other worksheets are included in the series? I can imagine one like this:

"You are an official working in the council considering objections to parking tickets. Mrs Jones has been issued incorrectly with a ticket, explain to her why you can't cancel it."

Or how about: "You are an official working for NICE, explain to Mrs Jones why the drugs she needs will not be available. Compose a different letter, granting the drugs and explaning the first letter as a mistake, in case the media gets wind of this."

I suppose for those that enjoy and excel at these "exercises" a more advanced range might be available, based on examples of (socialist (national or not)) state triumphs over humanity from throughout the 20th century.

Maybe I'm considered too cynical, but: "Their parents, some unbelievers themselves, had to explain why not everything that you are taught in school may be true." With all the politically correct and revisionist views circulating the so called "education system" this is something I'd have ensured the children knew before they started attending school.

Tags: state apparatchiks state education
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Now is the Winterval of our discontent.

2006-12-22T08:15:00.000Z

Tucked away in the business section of The Times, but available here online, we have news on that bete noir of the Cameronites, tax.

The extent of Brown's banditry can be traced: "... taxes on income are now equivalent to 23.6 per cent of wages and salaries. The figure is the highest since records were first kept in 1987. The burden on consumers was at its lowest in the fourth quarter of 1997, shortly after Labour’s election victory, the data revealed. "So he's really had a field day. "Taxes on incomes rose by 6.7 per cent over the past year, much higher than the 4.6 per cent rise in wages and salaries." Ah yes, but the government needs it more than me and you, running the country is an expensive business you know.

Still nothing worry about, fortunately the Treasury has stepped in with some platitudes to undermine these Office of National Statistics figures: "... Using the quarterly accounts data, it is not possible to produce an accurate figure for income-tax ratios for households, as they take no account of income from a range of sources, for example savings, shares, and asset disposals. The fact is that, as a result of all tax and benefit reforms introduced since 1997, all households will be on average £1,000 a year better off in real terms from April 2007... " Note that, "all households", well I'd put a pound to an penny any day that I'm not better off. In fact (and without any checking) I'll put my money on it now, if I'm truly better off, then by however much it is, I'll give that extra straight to the Treasury, no problems, but if I'm worse off then they've got to make up the excess. I don't think they'll take me up on this somehow.

Anyway it's a true socialist winterval we're facing, high taxes, cold weather, rubbish government, atrocious opposition. Still dear readers take heart, all bad things come to an end and the darkest hour is just before the dawn. I hope before too long we can all celebrate a low tax Conservative Christmas.

Tags: tax
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Belated apology

2006-12-22T08:13:00.000Z

Sorry for the lack of posting yesterday, but I had a router problem I had to fix.

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The Only Tax Rise I Wanted To See

2006-12-22T07:58:00.000Z

The Times reports here on a great disappointment, namely the small increase in the telly tax.

As a person exempt from this onerous charge (no not through age or blindness), it's one I like to see go up and up, not because I like high taxes, or because the BBC deserve all this largesse. No, every year the BBC produces a plethora of politically correct rubbish and disgracefully biased and or shoddy reporting. The more they charge for this rubbish, the more likely that people will question the existence of the BBC and its funding basis.

The fact that the rise they wanted has not been approved is in my view a sign that the BBC is starting to lose touch, and they should be grateful to their political masters for this measure as now they will be forced into some economies. In the long run it'll make no difference as I'm sure their bias and political correctness will win out, if I'd have been in charge of the decision I'd have let them go up to £500.00p per annum at their own discretion, I'm confident they'd have reached it within a year or two, well before 2012. Thus by giving them enough rope they'd have solved the whole BBC issue.

Tags: BBC, television licence
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The Only Way Is Up

2006-12-20T08:24:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the rising cost of the Olympics, less than a month ago when I wrote here the costs were estimated at 4 billion and I said 20 billion, now there at 8 billion and rising so my 20 billion (like me) seems rather conservative.

Anyway aside from the incorrect headline in the print version saying: "Olympic bill up to £1bn..." which should surely be "up by" the article tells us that up to 80 businesses and hundreds of residents may have to be evicted to accommodate this leviathan and that happily compulsory purchase orders can now be used to ensure the site is vacant.

It's what you'd expect in a third world country, bulldozers moving in demolishing the shantytown to build a new presidential palace. Of course that's no real comparison, here in the Socialist homeland a palace to the people is to be built and these bourgeoisie individualists who are selfishly holding on to their property (remember all property is theft) instead of accepting the generous compensation offers by the good state don't deserve anything and indeed it shall be taken from them.

For those still concerned about the false stories of rising costs of this glorious event of the people: "Department for Culture, Media and Sport officials said they did not consider the agency expenses of relocating businesses to vacate the site as part of the core costs of the Olympic Games." So you can see the costs aren't really rising at all as this kind of thing isn't anything to do with the costs of the event at all.

All the talk of relocation disguises some hard facts including: "Some of those most difficult to move include car breakers and small businesses." This is what it's all about, it's fairly easy to move a large supermarket from A to B, but a car breaker, well no one wants that near them, but it's a necessary service. These businesses are surviving and competing in the market economy and part of that success must be due to their location even to an extent never even considered by the owners, things such as transport links, possibly cheaper labour etc. and relocating them could well finish them off anyway.

In the balance of things, I wouldn't even risk losing one of these businesses for such a wasteful event that the 2012 Olympics will be. The business however small contributes to the economy, the Olympics will drain it, and there's no way it'll match anything done by America or China or Australia. We'll be the shame of the world and it'll give the Aussies another thing to have a go at us with.

Tags: Olympic Games, private property freedom
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Professor Canter returns

2006-12-19T08:38:00.000Z

With the arrest of a suspect in the Ipswich murders, it comes as no surprise that Professor Canter returns to the pages of The Times here. This time is different however lacking the pre-~~Christmas~~ winterval book plug.

Also lacking is his old style, gone are the contradictions and statements of the obvious and instead we're treated to an exercise in banality and a commentary of what the police do. I would have thought a policeman or policewoman might be better placed to tell us what the police do.

Unfortunately, also missing is him telling us what the psychologist does, and I suspect there is good reason for this, something along the lines of the answer being: "nothing". I would have thought that with his "magical insights" see his previous writing, the psychologist would be the ideal "professional" to tell us if this suspect is guilty or not. The suspect himself has publicly stated he has no alibis for any of the murders (itself unusual as no one (apart from the murderer) knows when they happened, so how would you know if you had an alibi or not?) Also that he knew all five victims (what's the odds?). Professor Canter admits that getting the necessary forensic evidence could be very painstaking and time consuming; so I'd have thought it a great boon to know that yes the police are concentrating on the right suspect.

I would have thought that with psychology being clearly recognised as a science that with some psychological techniques and analysis Professor Canter should be able to tell us definitely yes this suspect is capable to these crimes or no he isn't. Remember to that there have been proposals to suggest that these things can be spotted very early on and that such people can and should be "treated" before even committing any crime. If that is truly the state of the science, once they've actually committed the crime, spotting them should be child's play especially to an advanced practitioner such as the professor.

Only a nasty cynic such as myself would say that the reason the professor has nothing to say and can't actually do any of this stuff, because psychology is just a load of mumbo jumbo; that exists merely to pay the wages of the practitioners. I wonder if a true scientific study was undertaken, in the actual tangible provable benefits of psychology what we might actually find, and I'd be surprised if we could rate it above astrology.

I don't think I've seen a horoscope in The Times, perhaps they need one.

Tags: crime, justice, psychology
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"Jail the Chief"

2006-12-18T08:32:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the latest from the loans for lordships affair.

We're told: "the investigation has widened to include a suspected cover-up by those around the Prime Minister ... A prosecution source said: “There is more than a suspicion that evidence has not been handed over, people have colluded and the police are not being helped.

More detail is helpfully given: "The possibility of charges on perverting the course of justice was discussed by CPS lawyers after meetings with police. Such charges can be brought if a person tries to interfere with an investigation that might bring criminal proceedings. The charge, which carries a maximum life sentence, ... . According to the CPS, “it does not matter whether or not the act results in a perversion of the course of justice: the offence is committed when acts tending and intended to pervert a course of justice are done”.

It certainly doesn't bode well. The Prime Minister is enmeshed in this scandal and has brought shame and dishonour not just on himself and his family, but on the office he holds and on the nation. The loans business was bad enough on its own, but now (and unfortunately it comes as no surprise) we can see a culture of deceit and dishonesty. Tony Blair is supposed to be responsible for the government and even if he has no direct involvement with any alleged "cover-up" he has at least allowed and possibly encouraged this rotten culture right at the very heart of our country.

We are told that The Times on Saturday reported: "... his [Tony Blairs'] evidence contradicted that of his close friend, Lord Levy, who will now be interviewed again." [authors' additions] Clearly one of these two (shall we say) must be in error and the investigation seems to be going as I predicted, in that the interview with Blair was just a first tentative step. If he is innocent, and presuming he is genuine about leaving office, he should resign now and concentrate on clearing his name thus leaving the office he holds as unsullied as possible.

Personally I can't see that happening although I hope we're not treated to the spectacle of the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street handcuffed in a police car. These are serious charges, and whilst this cloud hangs over Downing Street, the office of Prime Minister cannot be effectively carried out. When something like this reaches this level there are no excuses, no "poor deprived childhood", no "not my job", no "just following orders" and no "not my responsibility". There are many benefits and much power associated with high office, but very few realise the burden such carries, a better person would never have allowed themselves to get into such a position and Blair must "carry the can" for his failings.

It's so ironic though, a Socialist Prime Minister, who has been responsible for curtailing our freedoms and inflicting all sorts of nonsense upon us, and what's going to get him? Dirty little bourgeois deals involving affectations such as titles of nobility. You should have left these things to the capitalists comrade! Socialists earn their living by the sweat of their brow!

Tags: justice, corruption, Labour
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A Mixed Bag

2006-12-15T08:15:00.000Z

Apologies for the lack of posting yesterday, but an unfortunate over indulgence in sleep meant I lacked the time slot to write. I'm rather disappointed as I seem to have missed Professor Canter's last article, but I'll maybe try it over the weekend, giving me the hat trick as it were.

The Times leads today here with the publication of Lord Stevens report into the death of Princess Diana. I've never been one for the conspiracy theories that abound this tragic event; mainly because I can't see how anyone would benefit from her death especially at that juncture in time.

Princess Diana had a very good public image and a lot of public support, even assuming that she was planning to and would have married Dodi Fayed, it is my view that this would have lost her quite a bit of public support. She would have been seen as someone who'd been married to Prince Charles and who was the mother to a future King, but who had "moved on", and this would have been reflected in how people would have thought about her.

My view is that from the point of view of the establishment, the best thing for them would have been for Princess Diana to re-marry especially to a figure unlikely to engender much public support. This unfortunate situation for me contrasts sharply with the death of Dr David Kelly and I'm not convinced that his death was indeed suicide.

This brings us nicely onto pages 2 and 3 of The Times where we have Mr Blair the Prime Minister securing his place in history by being the first prime minister holding office to be questioned by the police as part of a criminal investigation. The investigation of course not being into the death of Dr Kelly, but rather into the loans for lordship affair.

"Teflon Tony" wasn't arrested or interviewed under caution, or anything like that, he was merely "treated as a witness", so I suppose sort of "helping the police with their enquiries". According to the report he had no lawyer with him, although the report fails to mention that Mr Blair used to be a barrister, (a point I would have thought relevant) so perhaps he didn't feel the same need for legal advice that a non-lawyer might.

According to the report, these honours were "party peerages" and a spokesperson stated: "The honours were not therefore for public services but expressly party peerages given for party service. In these circumstances the fact that they have supported the party financially could not conceivably be a barrier to their nomination." Which is all very well and good but somehow ignores the main problem being of course: "it would be against the 1925 Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act to promise peerages in return for money."

I don't know where all this is going of course. It would have been ridiculous that the first interview with the Prime Minister would be anything other than what happened. I suspect it might end up like an episode of Columbo where he keeps going back to clear up a small minor point, and eventually the criminal is trapped. Of course I'm not saying that Mr Blair is a criminal, but obviously on the television, on Columbo, the whole point of the program is to find the culprit, and an unsuccessful investigation would fail to make an episode. So it could equally be that when they go back to clear up minor points, the Prime Minister emerges as whiter than white and we can all sleep safely in our beds.

Anyway I'm sure you'll all agree with me that the most important thing is for Mr Blair to have secured his place in history. Now this glorious accomplishment has been achieved, he can leave office safe in the knowledge we shall relish his legacy.

Tags: justice, Labour, corruption
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Professor Canter again

2006-12-13T08:15:00.000Z

With the tragic death toll in Suffolk rising, Professor Canter returns to the pages of The Times here with another "analysis" piece. Yet again it's a mixture of statements of the obvious and contradictions, perhaps someone should analyse the professor.

Yesterday we were told of the importance of finding the first murder, as the killer would have slipped up and left important clues, making it relatively easy to solve. Today we're told: "Whatever distorted idea he had about the necessity of the killing will have given way to the cold logic of disposing of her body with the minimum evidence to lead back to him." and further on: "...as the pressures build from the massive police investigation and media interest, he can no longer take the precautions he originally did." Oh so in fact the first murder is likely to be the hardest to solve, well make up your mind professor.

We have some further speculation, no doubt only ever thought of by such an exalted mind: "It therefore has to be possible that even if there was one evil mind behind this he had a willing assistant." Actually professor, by my count that would make at least two evil minds, the "willing assistant" must be evil too, also I somehow suspect that this might have just managed to occur to the police quite independently of your own input.

The professor writes at some length on some killings in America and focuses on the geographic nature of the location of finding the bodies: "What brought the offender to this area? Is it a place he knew from more innocent activities? Or is he trying to put a distance between his base and the victims’ bodies? If so, how far would he think was an appropriate distance?" Yes well, all very good, but in practical terms we're far more likely to be able to answer such questions after the killer is caught, and even posing these questions to the investigative team will give them a bigger conundrum to solve than that of actually catching the killer (or killers); bear in mind that each location may have been chosen for a different reason.

We then get a lot of unnecessary distinguishing between these killings, and the shootings at Columbine and Hungerford, so he could just as well have drawn unnecessary distinctions with a fraud or a mugging.

A ridiculous statement of the obvious follows: "...the killer, or killers, by now will have thought through how best to avoid detection. He will be deeply interested in the police inquiry, but be at pains to avoid drawing attention to himself. As the international media interest grows he may be tempted to reveal his hand some more, but is more likely to be driven further underground." I translate this as: "It could be green or it could be red, but until we see it we really don't know." Do you think maybe the professor gets to be an expert witness in court?

He has more on the role of the police which seems to have changed a little into a more traditional role: "...the police will have the task of filtering out all the disturbed, or silly, individuals who seek some distorted glory, or confused expiation of their imagined sins, by confessing to the police for crimes they have not committed." Actually professor I'd have thought you'd have been best at this, I mean you'd be able to look at the psychology and with your "magical insights" (see yesterday) you'd be able to quickly identify and eliminate these people from the police enquiry.

Finally we get the admission of a sad, but inevitable truth: "...in the past serial killings against victims with whom the offender had no obvious connections have usually been solved by the killer making a mistake ..." Yes indeed no amount of psychology seems to work. We get a nice sop to the "big brother" state though (Is the professor perhaps hoping for something?) "Nowadays, with automatic numberplate recognition and closed-circuit television footage, ... it is much easier for even the most careful criminals to leave identifying traces." Just think if we had compulsory ID cards, perhaps the killer might have dropped his, wouldn't that have made it a lot easier? My view on CCTV and automatic number plate recognition is that any criminal with half a brain could easily avoid them (I won't say how).

Yet again an invaluable and insightful contribution from the professor to our understanding. Thank you so much.

Tags: crime, justice, psychology
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Do You Know What You're Talking About?

2006-12-12T08:21:00.000Z

With these worrying murders of prostitutes in Suffolk and the likelihood that a serial killer is at large, The Times gives us an analysis here from a Professor David Canter.

The good professor starts with some statements of the obvious: "They frequently have criminal backgrounds that can include burglary and theft, drug dealing or, of course, violence. They evolve through various stages of criminality..." Yes well, but when people call for tough deterrent sentences I don't hear you singing professor. Surely we shuold have strongly escalating deterrent sentences to discourage this ascent of criminality?

He then tells us: "...if the police can identify the perpetrator’s first violent crime, (referring specifically to a murder fdm) they will come very close to solving the case." As: "At the time of that first crime, he would not have honed his skills." Yes, but if at the time the police couldn't solve it then, it's going to be much harder now isn't it? If it was some time ago then the trail might have gone cold, unless of course the police made such a pig's ear of the initial investigation. In which case of course the job might be comaparatively easy.

The professor goes on to tell us of the killer's motivation, although in the following paragraph he admits that it is just speculation and adds nothing to the investigation. The professor continues: "Officers no longer believe that magical insights can be had from the poorly informed opinion of some Cracker-like figure." I'm not sure what to make of that, "officers no longer believe", does the professor think that perhaps they should? He certainly offers no justifications for a belief in "magical insights". For the director of the Centre of Investigative Psychology, University of Liverpool, he seems very non-committal.

We're then told: "The investigative psychologists who contribute to police investigations do not call themselves profilers any more but behavioural investigative analysts. They see their job as operational guidance rather than psychological profiles." I translate this as: we couldn't do what he thought we could, but as we're all getting paid and need to justify our existence, we've changed our job title.

The professor gives us some detail on the new role: "They help the police to decide how to identify potential suspects. They give guidance on how suspects may be put into some order of priority. Most importantly, they draw on geographical profiling to create a very detailed analysis of where the victims’ bodies were found to build a picture of what the offender’s “mental map” is of the area, and how it may be influenced by other locations with which he is familiar, such as where he lives or works. That can then be used to focus house-to-house inquiries and other intelligence searches." Well I'd have thought that was the role of the police, you know identifying suspects, prioritising tasks etc. It just sounds like normal investigative work to me.

Still all is not lost as the professor then tells us what the police should do: "Police then need to identify the interpersonal and intellectual consistencies that the offender exhibits by detailed study of how he committed the crimes. For example, leaving the bodies in water will have reduced the forensic evidence but could carry great psychological significance. If there is no obvious sexual activity, as has been reported in this instance, it suggests anger rather than sexual sadism." Personally I couldn't care less for all this guff, I'm not interested in what motivates the killer, I like the vast majority of the public simply want the killer caught and brought to justice (which on the bare facts should mean hanging here), and I rather thought that was the job of the police.

We are then treated to another statement of the obvious: "One significant problem in this case will be the unwillingness of most potential witnesses — clients of prostitutes — to present themselves for questioning." What an insight, I can see why we need these sort of people to guide the police.

The professor finally concludes: "The confusions and inefficiencies in that investigation (Jack the ripper fdm) cast a long shadow over their work. No longer do you hear of police talking of the completely ineffective strategy of leaving no stone unturned. Instead they now have highly trained and sophisticated teams working steadily through the appropriate options. These actions will be guided by behavioural and other scientists, but in the end it will be the intelligence and determination of the investigative team that will bring the killer to justice." So if the guidance from the behavioural and other scientists doesn't solve the crime why do we have it? Note the clever inclusion of other scientists, clearly this behavioural analysis is just as important as forensics. In the end the professor admits that it's the: "intelligence and determination of the investigative team that will bring the killer to justice." So perhaps someone could tell me why do we pay these behavioural bods from the public purse?

Tags: crime, justice
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Merry Winterval From Bandit Brown & The Grabbing Goblins

2006-12-11T07:58:00.000Z

Or a future PM addresses his subjects.

No doubt you'll all recall the recent budget event (it's strange how we now seem to have two of these a year as opposed to only one, which I'm certain used to be the case traditionally). Anyway in the winterval budget, bandit Brown decided we weren't paying him enough in fuel duty and decided to increase the same by some 1.2p per litre.

I attempt to keep an eye on fuel costs, and despite not noticing a connection at the time, recall that the price of petrol at the pump rose by some one point something per litre on the day before the merry winterval budget.

So we've had two increases at the same time, an extra winterval present for bandit Brown, and another gratuitous one for the grabbing goblins of the petrol companies. This is what they must mean by a true partnership between business and government.

The relationship between business and government is a topic for another time, and whilst I'm in favour of the free market, most business that exist and thrive, have usually compromised such principles and accepted some form of subsidy (be it direct money or a more favourable market position) from the government and are in many ways, part of an informal state apparatus.

As you all know, winterval is the ancient festival of sloth, consumerism and consumption. As good comrades, you know the dangers of bourgeois ideology; spending money on yourselves when there are so many others in need is clearly wrong. At this time of year, people travel considerably, not for work, but for their own individualistic purposes, to buy superfluous gifts, and for social visits; as these dangerous and subversive activities cannot be stamped out by physical coercion, it is only right and proper that the government raises taxes on them. It is even better when private companies join in with a gratuitous price rise as this will ensure a harder hit on those selfish enough to indulge in winterval.

This blog clearly salutes our glorious leader and his efforts to suppress winterval, travel should only be used for legitimate work purposes. Any travel for private use must be eliminated by punitive taxation and big price rises for those selfless petrol companies.

Hurrah for socialism.
Hurrah for bandit Brown.
Hurrah for the petrol companies.

Tags: tax, Gordon Brown
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Oh Dear...

2006-12-08T08:11:00.000Z

The Times reports here on some top Conservative defections to the UKIP. This is interesting because only yesterday I read a report supposedly from UKIP that some were indeed planned. It's always hard to know the truth in such cases, but this does at least show UKIP weren't simply "flying a kite".

The article concentrates on Tony Horton, who is a former constituency chairman to William Hague. Some of his quotes resonate with me, and no doubt to with many of my readers: "I didn’t leave the Conservative Party, the Conservative Party has left me...", and "It will become increasingly common. Most Conservatives are instinctively loyal, but there’s always a tipping point."

One conservative MP (unsurprisingly unnamed) is quoted: "This is undoubtedly a warning shot. Many people tempted to join UKIP are cast-iron Conservatives, but they must feel they have something to vote for. It is essential we keep on board traditional Tories." Well unnamed, your views are at odds with those of others, see The England Project here quoting from Iain Dale: "Cameron knows what the right knows. If the price of getting the extra two million votes needed to win an election is to lose a few thousand “scorched earthers” on the right, it’s a price he’s only too happy to pay. So far, he’s managed to keep the right on board despite trying its patience with his failure to deliver on withdrawing from the European People’s Party…", but it looks like it's slipping...

Another defector is quoted: "The way Cameron has led the party means I can’t be part of it, and there’s lots of people like me, ... He’s turned it into something indistinguishable from new Labour, so what’s the point?" Well indeed, and it's quite stupid too, the people who vote and like Labour as it is are never ever going to vote for the Conservatives, no matter what they do. These votes aren't available, which is why your strategy, Cameron is flawed.

Another defector says: "UKIP are now the only voice of opposition in this country, speaking up for all those who feel betrayed by the other parties." Returning to Mr Horton for a similar quote we have: "There is a real need in this country for a party of the Centre Right, and if the Conservative Party doesn’t want to fill it, there is inevitably a vacuum that UKIP will fill. If you want to vote green, there is a thriving Green Party. If you want to vote Liberal Democrat, there is a thriving Liberal Democrat Party." Both these quotes are ignoring any likely threat the BNP might pose, which is probably a mistake, I think it likely that many previous Labour voters will be tempted by a less racially orientated BNP, as they are very socialist after all.

The last quote in the article comes from Conservative headquarters: "UKIP is a party of the few dedicated to a single issue. The Conservative Party is the only political party that can replace this failing Labour Government." Well it won't be a party of the few dedicated to a single issue if disgruntled Conservatives get hold of it will it? It won't take too long to produce some sensible policies on crime, taxes, public spending, immigration and other important issues that the Conservative Party shies away from, and in any event at least they've got an issue, what issue have you got?

We're like Labour, but we're not Blair? You can't seriously expect to win an election with that.

Tags: Conservative Party
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For what we are about to lose ...

2006-12-07T08:02:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the latest Brown tax and burn scheme. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to my readers that it's "for the children" under a "four-year plan to refurbish all 21,000 primary and secondary schools, and bring immediate rises in the amount head teachers can spend as they see fit". Leaving the Stalinist vocabulary aside, quite what's immediate about a 4-year plan I don't know. There's no mention if all the primary schools actually need refurbishment, and I don't suppose it matters when the Chancellor as his money to waste. Oh wait a minute it's our money, so it matters even less then.

We have a "1.25p a litre inflation rise in petrol duty", but remember this doesn't mean you already pay by the mile and it isn't a good enough reason not to introduce road charging at some future point.

We also have a doubling on "air passenger duty from £5 to £10 on most short-haul flights and up to £80 for long-haul flights ...". There is no mention of whether extra revenue is needed, but I'm sure he'll have no problem wasting it on some so-called public service.

The Times tells us that: "Gordon Brown laid down his battle lines with David Cameron yesterday by announcing a £36 billion outlay to rebuild schools, and portraying himself as the leader who would rather spend without shame on the public services than cut taxes." Well if only, he's given Cameron a golden opportunity to really have a go at him, but when it comes to taxes Cameron is as much use as a beached whale.

Actually he's not too hot on the environment either, there's a separate article in The Times interviewing Rebecca Gold a recent graduate, who isn't convinced: "His environmental concern seems fake to me." Cameron you'd be better off being honest about these things, take a strong line, say there's no evidence of man made climate change, and therefore any taxes under the excuse of combating it are just oppressions in disguise. None of these greenies are going to vote for you no matter what you do, and if you're going to lose you may as well lose with Conservative votes than without them.

All in all it's a pretty poor show, no one's even making the case for small government, for less tax, for greater freedom. The people are probably paying more tax in percentage terms than under King John, and our so-called democratic parties are doing nothing about it. Why is the modern politician so distant from those he/she is supposed to represent? History shows us that this sort of situation doesn't go on forever, but quite where and how it will end, who knows?

Tags: tax, budget, Gordon Brown
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Equal opportunities.

2006-12-06T08:21:00.000Z

The Times reports here on another example of Labour stacking a board with it's own supporters. Yesterday there was a report of the Big Lottery Board (gives out lottery cash) where 5 out of 12 members of the board are members of the Labour Party.

This time with true irony, it's the Equal Opportunities Board, with 4 out of 10 members being members of the Labour Party, so it's good to see it living up to its name. Strangely the board seems to have two chairmen (both men), but don't worry as they are both Labour supporters: "A spokeswoman for the Culture Department admitted that Ms Jowell “may have been aware” of the party affiliation of Sir Clive Booth, the new chairman, before he was appointed." and "The chairman of the board will be Trevor Phillips, the former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, who wanted to be Labour’s candidate for London mayor in 1999." I can't work out just precisely who will be the chairman, unless it genuinely will have two (nothing's impossible under Labour).

I just love that "may have been aware"; the reality is if she wasn't aware then she must be incompetent.

Of course we have the platitudes: "A spokesman for Ms Kelly said that the appointments were in line with the rules ..." Oh well that's OK then, nothing to see here, move along now please.

From the article: "Applicants for jobs on public bodies are not required to declare their membership of a political party — only whether they have engaged in “political activity”. But, under the rules set out by the Office for the Commissioner for Public Appointments, information about political activity is withheld from the shortlisting panel and the minister making the final decision." Oh well then the minister can't possibly know, I imagine they have some set procedure where the applicant writes to the minister to "check if Labour membership is compatible with the role" just to be on the safe side. In any event we're not talking about ordinary people you're likely to find at your local working mans club, they are all public figures, so they'll mix together at conferences and party organised things etc. I fairly confident the minister will know.

"Labour Party membership - in tests 8 out of 10 board selectors who expressed a preference said their boards preferred it."

Tags: corruption, Labour, favouritism
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You Can't Fatten The Pig On Market Day

2006-12-05T08:13:00.000Z

A personal tale - Dear readers, I have a sister, who whilst not being a rabid leftie, doesn't exactly see eye to eye with me politically. I could go further but shall merely point out that she "believes" in man made global warming, and likes the theatre and the world of luvvies that represents.

Last night my sister was enraged, no not by George Bush, but by the governments obesity plan. According to my sister, obese people will get free dance classes, fitness membership and other such things in order I suppose to help them conquer obesity. Of course the fact is that people are fat because they eat and drink too much in proportion to the physical exercise/work they do, but free work classes (perhaps mining (by hand) or breaking rocks) seem out of the question. I'd be the first to admit that even I could do to lose some inches around the waistline, but it's up to me and the fact it's there is my fault.

Despite gently pointing out that surely it was a case of: "from each according to their means to each according to their needs", and clearly obese people would benefit from these "free" activities. I was told that these people had brought their obesity on themseleves and it wasn't right the government should pay for their dance classes, when my sister (who isn't obese by the way) has to pay both for her own classes and now with her taxes for those of the obese as well.

I mention this by way of analogy, the votes of people like my sister, those who supposedly care for the environment, people who are a bit leftie, young people. This is the demographic that David Cameron is supposed to be aiming for, but these people aren't stupid and they're waking up to the reality of state sponsored profligacy - that the state is taking their money and dishing out to anyone and anything no matter how unworthy; and in many cases the more unworthy the better. By the time of the next election, these people will be crying out for a party that has sensible, workable policies that involve a far smaller state, with far less government spending and most importantly much less taxes. The Conservative Party should be in that position, with a history of making the case for tax cuts, every week the party should be identifying unnecessary and expensive government spending (quite an easy task) and committing to do away with it. So come the election, when asked where will the tax cuts come from you've got a great long list. In fact Labour won't even dare to ask the question.

As it is Cameron looks like sticking to the Blair formula, and even if he actually starts to realise what people want; it'll be too late for him. He won't have the policies, he won't have the history of the policies and he won't be able to make the case for any policy; not least because he's never done it.

If you put the spadework in now, then come election day, people will trust you, you'll have a history of supporting the policies they'll then want and you'll get the votes. Without the work, it'll be a scrawny Conservative pig at the market.

Tags: taxes, Conservatives, rights, freedom
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Private Schools, No Good?

2006-12-04T08:38:00.000Z

The Times reports here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2485876,00.html (sorry can't link for some reason) on a "study" by a Professor David Jesson, of York University (so from my part of the world as it were).

Apparently he was "... surprised by his own research, which showed very little difference between the state and independent sectors ..." and from there we have our headline of: "Private schools are 'no better for A levels'". If we read on another few words we get: "...in the proportion of the most able students gaining three grade As at A level ...". Note that bit "proportion of the most able", well a cursory glance at the results every year shows us that some pupils in the state sector do obtain good grades, so yes we can conclude that if your child works hard and is dedicated then not even the socialist education system of our state can hold them back.

The professor clearly not overburdened with an analytical mind goes on to conclude: " “This is the demolition of the myth that independent school education is of itself creating better results,”". Well that as maybe, but it only applies to the most able students doesn't it? Also the measurement is finite the A grade is the maximum, but it could be that those from the private sector are scoring higher despite still receiving an A grade. What of the less able students, well conveniently the good professor doesn't look at them, but isn't it possible in fact I would say likely that the independent schooling actually contributes to say an increase of maybe 10% or more to their grades? Which can easily be the difference between a lower and higher grade.

The professor is clearly out with an agenda to prove that private schools are a waste of money. Perhaps they are, but he hasn't proved it, and I know what my opinion is. Amazingly though: "He conceded that independent schools may still produce better results than the state sector in subjects most valued by the elite universities, such as science, maths and languages." Which is most odd as this presumably means that in his comparative analysis he was comparing results from media studies in the state sector with results from maths in the private one. Again although never having undertaken a media studies course or qualification I think I know which is shall we say more academically challenging.

If I'd have come up with a study like this I'd never dare speak about it let alone publish it, for fear of being ridiculed. How can someone with so little analytical grasp be a professor? I'd wager he earns far more money than me, and what for? To produce drivel like this.

With professors like this knocking around we need private universities as well as private schools.

Tags: education, Professor Jesson, state
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More on crime and violence

2006-11-30T08:14:00.000Z

John ap Rhys Pryce the father of murdered lawyer Tom, has an opinion piece in The Times here. Now clearly it gives me no pleasure in attacking an article written by someone who has been through this type of event, but ultimately he chooses to write publicly and I'd be failing myself if I allow some of his assertions to go unchallenged.

Once he gets to the main thrust of his piece, we start to apportion the blame: "The first, and perhaps most obvious, point to note is that if the pair had not been carrying knives, not only would Tom have been spared, but their own lives would not have been ruined."

NO! NO! NO! The knife is inane, it doesn't work on it's own, it isn't evil. The knife in this case was carried and wielded by someone who chose freely to do so. You can say "had this pair not decided to rob", you can say "had they not decided to rob using arms". The pair didn't just happen to be "carrying knives"; they were engaged in a criminal enterprise and chose to arm themselves to better carry it out. The only comment you can make, in my view, is to say: "Had the state not removed the right for my son to be armed then maybe he'd have been able to better fight back; and instead of him being dead perhaps these two robbers would be."

Next up it's the turn of music, films videos, and computer games. I've no doubt some of these do glorify violence, but so do some books, and these are missing from his list. He goes on to refer to a game from Sony, which I'm unfamiliar with, but must say it sounds rather distasteful. It's easy to point to these things (although always excluding books) and shout: "Correlation! Correlation!" This fails to notice one or two important factors, mankind has been violent long before music, films, videos, computer games and even books. If violence was not part of our inherent makeup we would never have survived as a species. If we succeeded in eradicating violence totally from our being, how long would we continue to survive? Not too long in evolutionary terms I imagine.

He moves on quoting approvingly from the song Gee Officer Krupkee from West Side Story: "“We never had the love that ev’ry child oughta get./ We ain’t no delinquents,/ We’re misunderstood./ Deep down inside us there is good!”". There might be an element of this in some cases, but it doesn't account for the criminality of those where this doesn't apply. Also even if this element exists, it's no excuse for crime; each person has to make their own decisions and live with them. A poor childhood is no excuse for murder.

Talking of gang members he says: "What we do know is that they seem to want to celebrate their unique identity and independence from normal society." This to me is I think plain wrong, if they wanted to be as independent as he suggests they'd maybe emigrate, or alternatively attempt to form their own states. I think he's confusing a desire to be an individual and individualistic with total independence; it may be speakcrime (in a socialist society) to say it, but there are many people who wish and try to be individualistic; they seem to manage it without murder. It's only a crime to be an individual in a socialist type society.

He continues: "In London they use Jamaican patois and make up slang that only their friends can understand; they gain street cred from wearing the latest designer clothes and having the most technically hot mobile phones; and they rap about their exploits." I say there's nothing wrong with any of that (it's behaviour I'm unlikely to indulge in, but neither will I condemn it); if those exploits consist of crimes then that's another matter, but none of those other things present, or are even symptoms of any problem.

He moves on and refers to education, which I'll come back to, but then attacks the "instant society" adding: "And when the results don’t come — as is inevitable — they get angry." For me this is just another excuse; we're all subject to these pressures, by now there'd be total anarchy if there was any substance to this assertion.

Going back to education, and he quite correctly defines this in terms of complete bringing up, I think he makes some valid points, but he fails to get down to the essentials of violence. I return to what I said earlier, violence is a natural part of our makeup, and as we're all individuals, some people will be more violent than others. The challenge and where we have failed, is to accept that violence is part of us and to teach people to channel it correctly.

I quote: "What is it about boys — it is usually boys — that makes them reject all well-meaning offers? They want to be their own man, to do their own thing. Perhaps they have been excluded from school, or have a grudge against organisations, or they simply think it is not “cool” to be helped." Firstly it would seem to apply to increasing numbers of girls too, but maybe the "well-meaning offer" simply isn't attractive to the people it's aimed at. Violence is no longer judged on its merits, there is an assumption that all violence is bad, whereas only wrongful violence should be looked on as bad. Even legal sports with an element of violence (such as boxing) are criticised for being violent. If we're going to ostracise people simply for violence without distinguishing between good and bad, then I don't think we can be too surprised when we are visited with the bad.

Tags: violence, crime
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Why they do it

2006-11-29T08:51:00.000Z

The Times reporting on the murder on lawyer Thomas ap Rhys Pryce, have done a side feature called Why they do it here. Basically reporting on a study by the Economic and Social Research Council, which seems to have involved asking muggers for the motivation for their crimes.

Now I'm not one to presume that just because you ask a question you'll get an honest answer, but the five main motives seem to have some kind of "ring of truth" about them:

"To have a good time"
"Keeping up appearances"
"For the buzz"
"A desire to fight"
"Informal justice"

This is of course a blow to leftie criminologists. Surely they were motivated by social inequality? Perhaps being unable to progress in an oppressive capitalist atmosphere, due to a denial of opportunity, they turned to crime as they had no choice. Or maybe it's really a cry for help.

Well in their own words, it appears not so. Let's face it they know what they are doing and they've given us the reasons; which are quite close to what some of us have suspected for some time. They commit crimes to "have a good time" etc, strong harsh punishments are what will deter them, and if the punishment doesn't deter, then it must teach a lesson. The lesson it must teach is that when you are caught you will have to pay for your crimes with interest, and that the crime is your own responsibility, the fault lies with the perpetrator and solely with the perpetrator.

The next time anyone is tempted to think of socialist excuses as reasons for crime, I hope they remember that in the words of the perpetrators, these are the motivations:

"To have a good time"
"Keeping up appearances"
"For the buzz"
"A desire to fight"
"Informal justice"

Tags: crime
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Church and State

2006-11-28T08:36:00.000Z

The Daily Mail reports here on The Sexual Orientation Regulations which should become law in April.

Anyway a great row is brewing between the government and the Catholic Church over the issue; the problem being that so called discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation will be illegal and of course the Catholic Church has always maintained a robust moral stance on this matter.

My personal view is that homosexuality is immoral, but morality is a private matter for the individual concerned. When it comes to business matters, I generally suspend moral judgements, (obviously not fully - I wouldn't trade with an enemy). Likewise in social matters, I don't expect people to pass some sort of morality test before socialising with them, I don't force my morality on others, and equally I expect to be free from the morality of others.

Where the Church is concerned the situation is totally different, they have to follow the theological doctrines. The Church cannot, with authority, approve of homosexuality, but unlike the individual, the Church isn't free to ignore morality, people can be forgiven their sins, but they have to repent. Sin has nothing to do with the law of the land (although there is often overlap), but it has everything to do with morality. This sort of discrimination though is only permissible in areas concerning morality; so say in selling ordinary candles, it would be wrong for the Church to refuse to sell such candles to persons because of their morality.

Looking at adoption, which is where this row is centred, the Church has a duty to ensure the best for those children in their care, and that has to include moral well-being. The Church must always judge it's own morality as superior to that of any state and accordingly cannot and should not allow the state to interfere in these matters. They cannot in all conscience give those children into the care of those whose morality they disapprove of, no matter how many laws are passed.

I find the whole thing rather ironic, especially given this from the report: "The attack is particularly sharp because Catholic bishops in England have traditionally leaned, like many of their flock, towards support for the Labour Party.
They have published guidance on Catholic teaching in advance of elections that has broadly supported Labour. "

I would agree with that statement from my experience, and I've always thought that support to be incompatible with true Catholic values. I hope that some in the Church are starting to wake up what socialism and Labour are really all about.

Tags: religion, liberty, rights, freedom
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A nation of claimants

2006-11-27T08:17:00.000Z

The Times reports here on a report from Reform who apparently are a "think-tank" which promote the liberalisation of public services (so they're overdue a link on the sidebar which will be following soon).

The report exposes the horror of the "welfare state" from the article: "The welfare state cost £79 billion last year, more than is spent on the entire education system, twice as much as on law and order and almost as much as on the NHS. It totals nearly £3,000 a household a year. There are 51 different benefits, with 39 per cent of households claiming one or more."

£3000.00p per annum it costs me, so in real terms that probably means I have to earn £5000.00p p/a to pay my contribution, to say that represents a very substantial part of my income is only all too true. I have to go without, not because I haven't earned it, but because the state takes it from me and gives it to others.

Oh well I suppose it's for those less fortunate, people who'll literally starve to death if I didn't pay. "Households with incomes of up to £66,350 — which puts them in the richest fifth — can be entitled to welfare." Well that's nothing like what I earn, why should I who earn less money be subsidising someone earning all that? What a sick disgrace.

Apparently: "80 per cent of benefits — £64 billion — paid without any strings attached." Well where's my cut of action? I want a slice of the pie after all I'm paying for it. I'm studying a part-time course as well as working; I can't even get tax relief for my course fees. I'm one of those trying to better my position and myself, and what do I get? "...the benefits often end up punishing those who want to better themselves." That's right! I can't claim any benefit, yet I have to pay for the benefits; I get punished twice over, firstly my work is worth less money to me because of all the taxes I have to pay, and secondly the pound in my pocket is worth less because of the that state slush fund (which I've paid for along with so many others) which makes the prices of everything higher. I can't afford to purchase labour, because the labour I could afford is paid by me via the state to sit on its backside and do nothing.

This report really brings home the insidious nature of state benefits. The only surprising thing about them is how they sucker the public. It's high time people wake up to what the reality of the benefits system means, I suspect one day they will and there'll be a terrible price to pay.

Tags: justice, taxes, welfare state
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The World Turned Upside Down

2006-11-23T08:30:00.000Z

The Telegraph reports here, from none other than Boris Johnson on Polly Toynbee.

For those of you readers unfamiliar with her may I suggest you repair to the Devil's Kitchen, Mr Eugenides, or UK Commentators, and search for the same. You will soon find she is a darling of the left and generally advocates some pretty (IMHO) stupid ideas. So even though it might be in the manner of kicking a cripple, in any mention of Toynbee we'd expect to see some kind of attack on her ideas especially from the Conservative Party.

Once upon a time indeed it would have been so, but in today's world turned upside down Boris Johnson sets about welcoming her into the Tory fold. Naturally he comments on her hypocrisy: "... the usual Labour snarling against fee-paying education, and selective education of all kinds. In reality, of course, she is the beneficiary of a highly selective education and also sent her own offspring to one of the most expensive and competitive public schools in the country, an establishment way beyond the means of most people."

"...her lovely second home in Italy, to which she doubtless repairs on so many cheapo flights that she has personally quilted the earth in a tea-cosy of CO2; to which I say, yes, it probably is wrong of Polly to keep calling for higher taxes when that would put such opportunities – for air travel to second homes – beyond the reach of millions slightly less fortunate than her ..."

Boris tells us no we must look to her fundamental behaviour: "At least she's renting the villa out at pretty keen rates" and "...maximised the opportunities of her own children."

Boris then goes on to praise her concern for those less fortunate (although he conveniently omits that some of these might be lazy, or playing the system), which is of itself a sop to socialism; they've just been unlucky after all, you know denied opportunity. Boris continues: "... And if you believe that there must always be winners and losers – as I do – then you must understand that a healthy society will do its best to look after the losers."

Well Boris that's all well and good, but this is the difference between you and I; maybe society should look after the "losers", but it shouldn't be compulsory. It shouldn't be done by the state, if you want to give 25%, or 50% or 100% of your money to look after the "losers", I won't stop you, but you have no right to say that I or anyone else should give up even a penny for them. I may chose to give privately and that is my choice, it is a personal thing; the state has no right to take what I or anyone else has earned and give it to some so called deserving or undeserving person who has fulfilled the state's criteria. Additionally you seem to think that all the hypocrisy is all right, well it isn't.

For reading your piece, I wonder who is in the wrong party, Toynbee or you?

Tags: Boris Johnson, Conservative Party, Socialists in disguise
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Olympian

2006-11-22T08:18:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the latest budget estimates for the Tony Blair 2012 showcase, otherwise known as the Olympic Games. At the time, like many other people, I was rather hoping this event would go to Paris, it promises to bring us nothing but trouble and let's face it, the various millennium fiascos organised by this government including of course the dome don't exactly bode well.

The huge 4 billion pound budget has already jumped by 40% and they haven't even started doing anything much. This increase is despite spending £400 million on a " ... consortium to manage the project and ensure that the Games came in on budget and on time ...". So we're getting superb value there.

The minister in charge (surprisingly and disappointingly not John Prescott) Ms Jowell has started with the excuses: "...£900 million increase had been due to the increased costs of commodities such as steel, which had doubled in price ...". Well Ms Jowell that's irrelevant, you should only be able to rely on price increases which affect the values of the inflation index as used by the government. By referring to price increases outside the inflation index used, you're suggesting the index used as a cornerstone of economic policy is wrong, so under collective responsibility you should resign.

We also have the handy terrorists to blame: " ... Ms Jowell made clear that the security budget of £190 million which was drawn up before the July bombings in 2005 were “totally inadequate”...". Well that's just pathetic, everyone knows (and has known since Munich) that Olympic Games are terrorist opportunities, the prudent organiser will guard against that as much as possible, and if you've done that properly then that is it. There is only so much you can do, it is finite and it costs X; the fact that there might be another terrorist attack elsewhere in the meantime doesn't mean you can do anymore, unless that is you haven't done the job properly in the first place. So which is it Ms Jowell? Incompetence to start with? Or using terrorists as an excuse?

So far thankfully, they're talking about London council taxpayers paying or the money coming from National Lottery "Good Causes". Neither of which I currently contribute to, but if I was a London taxpayer I wouldn't be too happy. As regards the "good causes", most of the lottery money seems to go to politically correct causes anyway, but that aside, people don't play the lottery to benefit the Olympic bunch.

The modern Olympic Games has turned into some kind of perverse curse (at least for smaller countries); if it's held in a large country with plenty of resources such as America, or China or Australia then yes they can compete with each other for a spectacle to stun the world, but we can't. We don't have the public money because we waste it on other things, we don't have the private money because of all the tax, we don't have a cheap workforce or any other natural advantages. For us to stage the Olympic Games we would have to do a much less spectacular event, and that isn't the sort of thing the Olympic Committee want, so instead we should just accept that. Personally I think we've bitten off far more than we want to chew, there's no national will for this, and we'll be lucky if it costs less than 20 billion and if it's ready on time. Although I'm confident it will be a fitting tribute to Tony Blair.

Tags: olympic games, public money, taxes
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Extreme holophobia

2006-11-21T08:17:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the arrest of a retired brigadier and weapons expert who was trying to board the Paris train at Waterloo. In his luggage he had what is known as a "credit card-sized toolkit", we've all seen them in the free catalogues and is the sort of thing I think might be useful, or more likely I'd never use. Anyway said toolkit is reported to contain a 2" (5 cm) blade, which judging from the picture in the print paper is about as much use as a weapon, as the newspaper itself.

None of this of course will stop the police especially with the prospect of both a "crime" and a "detection" in one action. Mr Foulkes found himself arrested, fingerprinted, and his DNA taken and stored on the database. It appears the police were "good enough" to spare him the handcuffing, he attributes this to his former rank.

Mr Foulkes accepted the caution (which means an admission of guilt) "... after the event I realised that the right way of dealing with it would have been to say, ‘I’ll see you in court’, and to have argued it out there, instead of accepting the caution ...". Accepting the caution was foolish of him, but he was probably motivated by a desire to be clear of the whole business; nevertheless I cannot condone his failure to fight the issue. Still he seems to be prepared to take it up elsewhere, but I doubt it'll do him any good.

In any event it shows just how weak and pathetic we are as a society. Here we have a man carrying on his person a small blade (I cannot in honesty describe it as even a knife). He poses no threat or even a potential threat, yet because of a combination of extreme interpretation of the law and a police desire to administratively "detect" crimes, he finds himself as a criminal.

Once upon a time it would have been unusual not to carry a knife, the population weren't all trying to knife each other. Even with these draconian laws, knife crime is hardly non-existent. Like the gun laws, all these knife laws do is prevent the law-abiding citizen from having something, which should be legal. Where weapons are concerned, it's time for a far more common sense approach; the basis of our laws should be that for people without convictions for violent crime, if found with a weapon there should be a presumption of "lawful intent", which can be rebutted with other evidence, but in the absence of any such evidence then there is no crime.

Tags: knife crime, holophobia, weapons
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Falconer's fingers of death

2006-11-20T08:09:00.000Z

The Lord Chancellor is reported here in the Daily Mail on Saturday, taking a tough line not against criminals, but against doctors, who instead of singing from the "Brave New World" hymn sheet insist on clinging to outdated notions such as the sanctity of human life and other such nonsense.

Anyway the matter is so serious that "draconian measures" are necessary and doctors, nurses and social workers (usually the pets of ZaNuLabour) will face jail or, alternatively, big compensation claims if they fail to enforce so called "living wills".

Of course these situations are difficult, but if someone isn't brain dead then as a society we should be on the side of caution. Clearly different arguments apply depending on the age of the person, but here were talking about principles and it should never be that a liability arises in law for failing to take action that would lead to a death.

It must be noted that what we're talking about is the withdrawal of food and water in other words these people die from starvation and dehydration, getting progressively weaker. It's a slow lingering death.

I'm no fan of Falconer, and his futile efforts to abolish his own office would have been laughable, had they not demonstrated that the head of our judiciary is a nincompoop. Falconer clearly wants to turn the law on its head in a most ridiculous fashion, and of course he has no overriding legal principles to replace the ones he's abolished.

The idea that a doctor could go to prison for assault for failing to abide by a "living will" is absurd, where would be the intention to cause harm? The doctor is merely intending to save life, the important intention is missing.

The guidelines neatly absolve the doctor who makes a mistake, provided they err on the side of killing: "The new guidelines make clear that doctors who obey living wills and allow their patients to die will not be faced with prosecution even if it turns out that the living will was not valid or did not exist." That's handy isn't it, draconian measures for preserving life, nothing for killing the patient (which would really be murder especially if no "living will" ever existed).

Strangely, no liability will attach to an attempted murderer, so if say A leaves me £1,000,000.00p in his will, B makes an attempt is made on A's life and fails, 2 years later A changes his will, I can't sue B for failing to get the million. In the case of the doctor though they'll be liable, but which is far worse, the attempted murderer or the doctor?

It will come as no surprise I'm sure that there is no provision for the patient who changes their mind and might wish to cancel a "living will"; also lacking is provision for the patient who might wish to be resuscitated no matter what. That these two elements are missing, show us that it's not about personal choice, but about killing people off who might become a burden to the state, (that they might have contributed all their lives paying national insurance is irrelevant).

Labour clearly regard people as the property of the state and once they are of no use they are to be "allowed to die" by starvation (which is also ironic because in the past I've said that the "right to die from starvation" is the only true universal right) once dead their role can be undertaken by a new worker as we march onwards, victorious towards the new socialist future.

The closer they come to the end, the more Nazi like NuLabour become.

Tags: euthanasia, Lord Falconer
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Some small changes

2006-11-19T14:17:00.000Z

I've moved the blog onto the new version of blogger. All seems to be well at the moment. I've change most of the links so they open in a new window. The Witnagemot ones did anyway and it seemed sensible for them all to.

Tags: blog maintainance
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Sausages

2006-11-19T10:45:00.000Z

The Times reports on Saturday here, about Welsh Dragon Sausages. This is apparently a spicy sausage made in Powys Wales, so far so good, but unfortunately for them a local jobsworth holding a taxpayer-funded sinecure has decided to cast himself in the role of St George and slay the dragon as it were.

Yes Powys County Council trading standards have decreed that they cannot be called "Dragon Sausages" because they contain no dragon. That this is an exercise in abuse of authority can be seen by the fact they have agreed that "Welsh Dragon Pork Sausages" is acceptable, but doesn't this imply either a mixture pig and dragon meat or meat that has come from dragons fed solely on pork?

Of course the company are supinely accepting the situation rather than fighting the council, and logically that's the best thing for them to do, as of course they simply want to produce and sell sausages (and there's a good chance the court case will go the council's way these days). Personally I think I'd have been inclined to force the council to prove they contained no dragon, or alternatively to have bred a new breed of pig called Welsh Dragon thus fulfilling the letter of the law.

Of course (and the article doesn't mention this) there are plenty of products named after things they don't (I hope) contain. A quick search of my sparsely provisioned residence found some empty bottles of Tiger Beer, prior to reading about the dragon sausages I'd always thought this was just a name, but I suppose it must actually contain real tiger, otherwise they'd have to say "Tiger Hop and Malt Beer". It's no wonder tigers are an endangered species.

As an aside, I've never been one to believe dragons were a mere myth, in fact I think they lived in Wales until quite recently as evidenced in "Ivor the Engine". As far as I know they are now extinct, said event being brought on as an unintended result of government welfare policy which resulted in many young unmarried Welsh mothers, thus causing the traditional diet of maidens to dry up. The dragons thus deprived of their source of food, died of starvation. This has been hushed up by the media to save the government embarrassment over wiping out an endangered species.

Tags: sausages, jobsworth
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Nuffield council on bioethics (again)

2006-11-16T08:29:00.000Z

Now the report has been published, The Times fails to mention it in print (haven't checked online). Fortunately The Daily Mail has given some balanced coverage and we have two relevant reports. The first here actually about the Nuffield council report.

From the article: "The report concluded that:

• Doctors should routinely give intensive care for babies with a gestational age of 25 weeks or above.

• For babies between 23 and 24 weeks, parents should get the final say on whether the baby should be resuscitated and given invasive intensive care.

• Between 22 and 23 weeks, doctors should not automatically resuscitate, and it should only be considered at the parents' request following a discussion about the risks and long-term outcomes.

• Below 22 weeks, a baby should not be resuscitated, except for research. "

So between 22 and 23 weeks you need a parents' request and a discussion. This is quite simply ridiculous. At what point is this discussion supposed to happen? At conception? Or when resuscitation is required? I must state that by the time you know you'll need the discussion, I don't think you'll have enough time to have it. So it just seems like an excuse not to resuscitate, I can see them saying: "Oh well while we were discussing resuscitation the baby passed away".

As for the 22 week recommendation, that is just disgusting. It is simply unacceptable that human life be prolonged for "research"; of course if you try to keep someone alive and gain valuable knowledge that is fine, but you are motivated by the desire to save life and the research benefit is incidental. What if a "research" baby survives, do we kill them off at say 30 weeks (the experiment being now ended)? Are the parents entitled to reject the baby? Does the baby automatically exist merely for research purposes and can be experimented on all its life?

This area is in many ways mirroring civil liberties and security arguments. Do we give up civil liberties in order to protect western values? Of course not is the only answer for then we won't be protecting but destroying our values. It is the same here, of course medical science should strive to relieve suffering, pain and disability, but it must do that within a framework of the sanctity of human life. If we cease to value human life for no other reason than it is human life then we lose something of ourselves. Nature provides pain and suffering and it is in the nature of mankind to attempt to conquer nature and attempt to conquer disease and pain and suffering, but we don't achieve that by killing off the patient or "allowing them to die". This argument does change as people get older and the "allowing to die" criteria dealing with an old person at the end of their life is different. It certainly doesn't apply to babies.

The Daily Mail their second story on this issue reported here; have a healthy normal girl born at 22 weeks. The story is one of hope, one of triumph over adversity. This is what life is about, struggle, doing your best, sometimes the story has a happy ending, sometimes it doesn't. The key though is to fight, to try, to strive, it's when we give up without trying that we atrophy into teletubbies. "Oh please take the decision away from us we can't decide, save us from responsibility."

People aren't really like that though; people should not have responsibility taken from them. The state should not be there to take moral or other decisions for them, they might not always make the "right" decisions, but who can really say, and anyway the state or other bodies or doctors have just as much chance of getting it wrong with more far reaching consequences.

For me these sorts of things strike at the essence of humanity, we must always respect the sanctity of human life and people should always be the ones to make decisions affecting their own lives, not doctors or committees or the state. These others can have a role in advising, possibly in recommending, but the decision should be taken by the people affected.

Tags: medical ethics, life
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Nuffield council on bioethics report (leak)

2006-11-15T08:30:00.000Z

The Telegraph reports here on the report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics which looks at giving guidance to doctors "... for dealing with very premature babies whose survival chances are low and in whom the risk of disability is high."

The story in the Telegraph must be a leak of the report, but it seems the report will say that babies born at 22 weeks should not be routinely resuscitated (if the need arises).

According to the leaked report babies born at 22 weeks have a 1% survival chance, whatever that means. One of the problems with this kind of report is that the 1% may be true today, but if we attempt to do our best to keep premature babies alive, then in 5 years time with advances in medical science that might reach 10% or 50% who knows? If we do nothing and simply routinely let them die then will medical science strive to improve in this area?

It seems that at 23 weeks then the "doctors" can consider the wishes of the parents, which is just awfully good of them.

Most of these problems are caused because we have state interference in health care. Although the public, the ordinary person pays for the health care, they do it via the state. The state of course wants to save money (without losing votes) because it mistakenly views our money as its own. Babies born prematurely, requiring expensive treatment and carrying a very high risk of disability will cost the state a lot of money. Secondly babies born at less than 24 weeks and surviving make arguments for abortion, at that late stage, look dodgy to most people. If medical science advances to where a larger life chance exists at below 24 weeks then that will have to be reduced for abortion purposes (in order to maintain the appearance of legitimacy).

Anyway the state always gives over these sorts of decisions to committees in this case one consisting of: "... professors of philosophy, ethics, children's nursing and neonatal medicine...". This is all very well and good, but at the end of the day the ordinary person pays for the state, and the ordinary person has to live with the consequences of state decisions, and I can't help feeling they should have an element of the ordinary person on these committees. It would be a bit like jury service I suppose (an idea to develop later perhaps).

The Telegraph article is far less biased than similar ones in The Times, and they have comments from other interested parties in the debate.

At the end of the day these are terrible decisions to make, but the choice should be with the parents. Although the doctor is employed by the state, the state should be considered as merely the agent of the taxpayer (the patient in this case) and just as a patient can refuse lifesaving treatment, they should be able to insist on it. If you employ a private doctor with your own money to resuscitate a 22 week old baby, the doctor would attempt it, and take the money and no one would say anything. The fact that there is state involvement should make no difference.

Tags: medical ethics, resuscitate, life
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Mentioned In Dispatches Mr Ryan Williams

2006-11-14T08:29:00.000Z

The Times reports here on Mr Ryan Williams who has accrued costs of £7500.00p in fighting a £60.00p parking ticket.

Mr Williams who ironically is a clerical officer for Cardiff Council so no doubt usually on the "handing out" end of officialdom only earns some £280.00p per week so his costs represent a huge amount in terms of his income.

"Mr Williams said: “I stopped for a few seconds to drop off a passenger. I was near the zig-zag lines of a pedestrian crossing but I did not stop on them.

“I was so incensed at the injustice of it that I was determined to fight it all the way.”"

Unfortunately Mr Williams has lost his case as one of his witnesses failed to testify, in addition to his costs he has to pay the £60.00p fine and prosecution costs of £150.00p.

You might think Mr Williams has been stupid to accrue all these costs over a £60.00p matter, and rationally I might agree. In the final analysis though he's spent £7,500.00p of his money over the £60.00p matter, but the state has spent (estimated) £35,000.00p of our money on the same matter to get a return of £210.00p. So who's been really stupid, him whose wasted £7,500.00p of his own money, or us who've allowed the state to waste £35,000.00p of our money? We haven't even had the pleasure of wasting it ourselves.

In order to make up the money, the state will have to issue 500 uncontested tickets, if every unjustly issued ticket was fought with the tenacity and determination of Mr Williams then the state would have to watch it's step very carefully otherwise it would go bankrupt.

Mr Williams, you may have lost money, but if everyone fought like you, officialdom would be a lot easier and pleasanter to deal with.

------
Aside: Rather interestingly in the print edition this story is on the same page as this one about Network Rail not spending £46 million pounds of state (i.e. our) money. The parking ticket is reported in terms of "cost to the taxpayer", but the Network Rail one certainly isn't reported in terms of savings to the taxpayer, I wonder why this difference in emphasis?

Tags: Mentioned in dispatches, Mr Ryan Williams, justice
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Church of Euthanasia

2006-11-13T08:12:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the latest from the old Church of England, which seems to be metamorphosing into a post Christian organisation.

It is now (according to them) acceptable that sick babies should "be allowed to die", and some of the criteria to assess this are the: "economic cost of long-term healthcare and education". This all come courtesy of The Bishop of Southwark, the Right Rev Dr Tom Butler, and he considers when it is morally acceptable to perform a “possibly lethal act”. Unsurprisingly to me he's not talking about defence of self or family or property, but when someone is likely to become a burden to the state.

I wont go through the article (which is rather longer in the newspaper for some reason), but he uses some very perverse "arguments". He most perversely cites Christ "where He over-rode rule based systems". However Christ over-rode these systems because people were following religious rules without faith in their hearts, there is no comparison. Christ certainly did not say it's fine to kill or allow sick babies to die because they might be a burden.

This is the sort of issue there can be no compromise on and anyone claiming to be a bishop should know that. The Christian message with regards to innocent life is clear and consideration of other matters such as economics plays no part.

By adopting this stance, the old Church of England have turned their back on Christ and stepped outside of Christianity.

Tags: life, Christianity
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Keeping you down so you vote for us.

2006-11-10T08:33:00.000Z

The Times reports here on a new attempt by Alan Johnson education secretary to ensure state control for longer in peoples lives.

He does this under the guise of being nice to "children" 16-18 year old children to be precise. It is his view that it is: "unacceptable for children of 16 to be in full-time work," and they should be in full time education, why this is he doesn't say. I'd have thought that if 16 year old people are in full time work and earning money this is a good thing. The Times report goes on, speaking about and to educationists and other experts, but is strangely missing any comment from 16-18 year old people actually in work. I suppose they're considered too young to have an opinion.

What is unacceptable is state interference in peoples lives. Not everyone wants to stay in education, and some people would much rather work. If you wish to be a plumber or a builder what's the point spending another two years in school? What's the point in spending another two years in school if you're not educationally gifted? If you've got no intention or inclination to go to university? I suppose we'll have to dumb down A levels even more so all the 18 year olds can "have prizes" and a "true sense of achievement".

At least if you get two years in prison you'll be out on parole before you can blink. What right does the state have to force you to (what in many cases will be) waste two years of your life in a state institution?

The reality is that people are quite capable of working at younger ages. At age 14 you should be allowed (on your choice) to opt out of formal education and pursue training in practical skills and trades, it would be far more valuable to most people than simply sitting for a "prizes for all GCSE" in which they might "achieve" a grade D if they're lucky. Of course if we actually started to build a nation of people who could support and rely on themselves we're not likely to vote socialist are we. No let's infantilise people and keep them reliant on the "good" state that'll keep them voting Labour.

Labour: Keeping you down so you vote for us.

Tags: Labour, education
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White flag from Ekklesia

2006-11-09T10:21:00.000Z

Christian surrender group Ekklesia (note the right on spelling) are reported in The Times (not online) as wanting to change the red poppy of remembrance into a white one. Unfortunately no article appears to be on the Ekklesia site either, also there appears to be no mention on the Church Times site, which the report refers to. Although they do carry a report about a Yorkshire church selling a 15th Century Processional Cross, I think they'd probably be better to keep the Cross and sell the church.

Anyway according to Jonathan Bartley the director of Ekklesia (salary unknown), white poppies are more in tune with Christian ethics. Really? I thought white poppies were "in tune" with certain poppies from Afghanistan. He then goes on to claim that the "Christian message" ... is that redemption can only come from non-violent sacrifice. I don't know quite how non-violent he thinks Christ's Crucifixion so I just don't know which hymn sheet he's singing from.

At the end of the day you pratt, we have a red poppy because these were growing in the fields of Flanders and other places when we fought in the Great War. During the Great War many ordinary and brave and noble people lost their lives (and lie in those fields) and were injured, for no real great purpose (unlike the Second World War). Since the Great War, the poppy has been used as a symbol of remembrance of those people and their sacrifice. The fact that it was a violent sacrifice in no way diminishes it either for a Christian or indeed anyone else. The red poppy provides a direct link from us today, with those who fought then, and with those who've fought in subsequent wars (as the symbol has been in continuous use).

No one can really now make any claim that the red poppy is somehow inappropriate and certainly not someone such as a leftie director of a self-proclaimed "think tank". You people just take anything and attempt to demean it for no real purpose, what have you done to allow you to determine what form of remembrance should be used for those killed in battle?

You shouldn't wear any poppy, but a white flag is probably what you really want.

Tags: remembrance, ekklesia
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A (previously) free people chant the mantra

2006-11-08T08:31:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the gap between what people say and do with respect to greenie action.

The article linked too doesn't seem as dramatic as that on the front page of the print version, but suffice to say that when asked about "green behaviour", depending on the question, between 54% and 80% of the respondents said they followed the green option. When this is compared with the reality eg actual numbers of products sold, it would appear there is a significant discrepancy between the number who actually act green as opposed to those who answer green.

There are of course two possible conclusions, one being that results of opinion polls are a load of rubbish, which of course is quite possible. An alternative explanation, which I favour is that people now (like in the old Soviet Union) have a public and a private face. No one dares to speak out against the green religion and so when asked, the public simply spin the "right" response. Of course once in private they act in accordance with their true thoughts that are probably like mine, in thinking that this climate change nonsense is a load of old guff. Consequently they don't allow the green religion to affect their true behaviour.

The whole thing is of course laughable for the time being, but once those in power realise we haven't bought into the green agenda, no doubt more pressure will be brought to bear. Stricter punishments for offences against recycling, wasting energy and excessive consumption the list goes on and on.

Whilst it's heartening to see that so many haven't actually been fooled by the greenie guff, it's most saddening to see them chanting the mantra when asked. Show some courage say: "No! I don't recycle because I'm not convinced of the benefits." Once you obediently chant the mantra the next stage will be to make you do the actions with the mantra, and the further down the road they take you the harder resistance becomes.

Tags: environmentalism, liberty, rights, freedom
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Benefits of devolution (If you're Scottish)

2006-11-07T08:13:00.000Z

The Times reported yesterday here on a Scots version of "Megan's Law". A law which would allow you to find out about paedophiles living in your area.

Our masters in England have always been opposed to such a thing for various reasons, but the normally cited platitude goes along these lines: “We’ve got to work openly with sex offenders. We cannot afford as a society for them to be driven underground.” Anyway there's no such law for the whole of the UK and in my view unlikely to be one, but those North British are thinking of going it alone: "The initiative, expected to be included in Labour’s manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections in May, would reveal the location of the worst sex offenders to schools, community councils and, in some cases, local residents."

Now in principle of course I'm in favour of such a law, and in many ways don't blame the Scots for wanting the same, but of course this will mean a problem for England as it: "... raises the prospect of sex offenders moving to England and Wales to escape disclosure and the risk of being attacked by vigilantes."

So with this cunning move the canny Scots will get rid of their paedophiles, by the simple expedient of encouraging them to move here. No doubt the English taxpayer will then have to fork out for their "treatment", housing and other costs. If these "exiles" from the new "oppressive law" show their gratitude in their usual manner by re-offending then we wont just be paying with our taxes.

This is a perfect example of just how poor the constitutional settlement is. With full independence we could (in theory) control entry into England and ensure that such convicted criminals remained in Scotland. Without devolution then such a law would have to apply to the whole of the UK so they'd be no incentive to move anywhere. Instead our Scottish masters have given us a mish-mash that always puts England at a disadvantage. If the Scots want devolution then let them have it, who cares? What we mustn't do is allow ourselves to be disadvantaged, but instead we always pull short straw.

Tags: devolution, England, Scotland
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Killing children for the family

2006-11-06T08:35:00.000Z

In The Times today, but online here as a Sunday Times report. We have more of those brave lifesaving doctors seeking to kill our children.

Yes they want the power to kill: "...seriously disabled newborn babies." These arguments are of course phrased in the nicest possible way and we're told it's for the "good of the families" makes a change from telling us "it's for the children" I suppose, but it's the closest thing they could get to without spelling out that final irony.

Somehow the article appears on Sunday, but the "story" has been placed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology, which I suspect doesn't work over the weekend. So for me the placement of the story over a weekend as opposed during the week is also cynical manipulation. I can see some "PRO" being delighted with this one being argued over the Sunday roast.

The report in the paper is itself seriously biased: "Geneticists and medical ethicists supported the proposal — as did the mother of a severely disabled child — but a prominent children’s doctor described it as “social engineering”." So all geneticists and medical ethicists support the proposal do they? However one single doctor is against. He must be mad.

"Initially, the inquiry did not address euthanasia of newborns as this is illegal in Britain..." makes it sound like Britain might be the only country in the world where this medieval attitude to life exists, as opposed to the fact that it's probably illegal in most of the world and most of the civilised world. Whereas the exceptional county the Netherlands is reported as the norm and is described as "mercy killing". Why not describe it as our legal system would describe it? In terms of criminality.

Despite very little balance in the article, trouble has been taken to get an opinion from a Dutch "doctor". "Dr Pieter Sauer, co-author of the Groningen Protocol, the Dutch national guidelines on euthanasia of newborns, claims British paediatricians perform mercy killings ..." Really? Well if he has information on crimes (especially serious ones) being committed in this country we should issue a european arrest warrant, get him over here, find out what he knows and see if there's evidence to bring charges.

When all's said and done, no one can decide what life is worth living and what life is not. The essence of being a living person is that you are an individual, as an individual you might rate a certain experience as brilliant, someone else might think it rubbish or stupid. All this "euthanasia" talk and "mercy killing" boils down to is killing people with the potential for different life experiences; should we nuke the third world who have nothing but starvation and poverty to look forward to? Surely it would be merciful? It seems to me there are some members of the medical profession who seek to have this ultimate power over people, the power to legally kill them. It's one thing to kill a criminal convicted by due process of law and justice of for which he knows the penalty, but here we're looking at killing people for having the misfortune to be different. No one can judge it and no one can decide. It certainly isn't a competence for any "doctor".

Tags: euthanasia, abortion, killing, life
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A Church of England leader finally gets it

2006-11-06T08:17:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali; he is the leading authority on Islam in the Church of England and has quite a bit to say that will no doubt put him at odds with his fellow Anglican "authority figures".

“Their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, and always wrong when the Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists, as with the Taleban or in Iraq.” Seems pretty much that way to me too.

"Failure to counter these beliefs had allowed radical Islam to flourish in Britain, and stricter checks should be made to exclude extremist clerics from the country, he said." No arguments so far, he seems almost too intelligent and too much of a realist to last.

Even the report writer seems to have grasped some fundamentals for a change: "His carefully timed intervention is at odds with the usual, equivocal utterances from Anglican bishops at pains to preserve interfaith harmony at almost any cost, even that of their own faith and Gospel commitment to evangelism." That's right usually Anglican "leaders" bend over backwards to appease even those who would destroy them.

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to my readers that: "... the bishop’s comments have provoked alarm among Muslim leaders, facing a surge in Islamophobic attacks ..." is this more of the same backlash fears?

Tags: Chrurch of England, Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, Islam
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Priorities of opposition.

2006-11-03T08:06:00.000Z

Today in The Times we have two important stories. The first here reports on the parlous state of our overstretched armed forces. Of course this is a disgrace, and it's not like we haven't known for some time now about commitments, so there can be no excuse.

The second report here highlights the million pound salaries of our public ~~servants~~ masters. I quote: "... second-highest earner is Adam Crozier, the group chief executive of Royal Mail, on £1.038 million last year. (He) ... has turned Royal Mail from a loss-making enterprise to a profitable one, (by) ... increasing the price of stamps and cancelling the second delivery." Yes well in a market with no competitors, any fool can turn a profit by increasing price and cutting service.

The Times report concentrates on the big figures, but don't think it doesn't affect you locally too. I reported here on a director of the local council being paid £98,000.00p. Note the figure, just below the magic £100,000.00p so as to keep it off the radar, but not enough to make any significant difference to the lucky recipient of public (our) largesse. I'd wager my salary against any one of theirs that if a report were to be prepared on public salaries between ninety and one hundred thousand pounds we'd probably find quite a lot fitting snugly into this bracket.

Anyway with all this ammunition, what's the leader of the opposition doing? Well I'm sorry to say it's more "hug a hoodie" time. Look Cameron, I'll make it simple for you, come the next general election I'll be voting, I expect our troops to be supported, I expect low taxes, as for teenagers and other children it's nothing to do with the state so it won't even figure in my calculations of who to vote for - unless I'm thinking about which politicians prattle on about irrelevancies.

Winston Churchill once famously said, "give us the tools and we shall finish the job". Labour are giving you so much ammunition to attack them with but you sit back and worry about teenagers who think you "don't know your a*** from your elbow". You don't have much chance of getting their vote anyway, so you may as well try for mine.

Tags: Cameron
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"Arise Sir Crote, I invest you with the order of the ASBO"

2006-11-02T07:59:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the runaway success of the ASBO (Anti Social Behaviour Order) criticised by many right wingers on their introduction (due to the low evidence threshold required to receive one and the fact that they are pointless as they carry no effective sanction for their breach) these are proving exceedingly popular with young people. Specifically yobs.

Apparently there's been a "study" by the Youth Justice Board (no doubt more a cardboard than a hardboard and one which could be abolished without anyone noticing). It will come as no surprise that the government-funded (sorry taxpayer-funded) board fully endorses ASBOs and says how good they are. Of course any problems (like all socialist problems) are due to incorrect implementation; Rod Morgan chairman of the board said: "They can — and do — work incredibly well. ... But for ASBOs to reduce the likelihood of future antisocial behaviour, they need to be used correctly. That means exhausting every preventive measure in the community first, and ensuring that youth offending teams are not excluded from issuing the orders." Don't ask me what he means; it looks like he's passing the buck, but now I'm sure it should be Youth Justice Bored.

This seems somewhat different to some of the evidence given to the board, from the article:

"One magistrate told the board: “It’s being used as a badge of honour.”"

"Parents and carers of young people handed the orders said that they were viewed as a “diploma” and boosted a child’s “street cred” because “villains are often looked up to”."

"A district judge told researchers that young people who breached their orders were often not being properly punished. “The danger is that you would increase the (prison) population enormously if we . . . enforced ASBOs fully,” the judge said."

"Many youth workers and some judges and magistrates have serious reservations about ASBOs. They believe that they are being overused because they require a lower level of evidence than bringing a full prosecution in court"

So good to see none of those pre-introduction criticisms of the ASBO have come true then. Crazy these right wingers.

Even though 90% of ASBOs are given to males, no one seems to have commented on what must be disgraceful inbuilt institutional sexism. Why should females be excluded from this honour? Women stand up for your rights demand an ASBO NOW!

Michael aged 12 the lucky recipient of an ASBO said: "I don’t mind not carrying lighters but I was bothered about not being able to go to school because it was in the exclusion zone". Quite right too! What's the point in having an ASBO if you can't take it to school and show it to your pals?

Tags: justice, ASBO, yobs
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Lambs to the slaughter

2006-11-01T08:00:00.000Z

The Times reports here on a city lawyer who was stabbed and killed in a robbery.

For a change, instead of the usual platitudes about a broken home, deprived childhood and discrimination we get to hear about criminality as motivation for crime (mind you the defence isn't reported as yet). ""The motive was greed"" No! Surely not, it must have been caused by the injustice of capitalism with some having more than others.

"“It didn’t matter to them that this man had worked hard for his position in life. He had a promising career in the legal profession ahead of him. It didn’t matter to them that he was planning his wedding . . . All that was best in life was ahead of him. To them he was a means to an end and they treated him accordingly.”" Why should any of that matter to them? It's not as if they're responsible for their own actions or anything.

Of course the substance of the matter is brutally addressed: "the two robbers attacked him . . . It was two against one, they were armed and he, of course, was not." Indeed he was not armed; we learn: "Mr ap Rhys Pryce, “a proud man”, probably put up a fight,". So it might be reasonable to conclude that had arming himself been a legal option in the UK perhaps he might have been legally armed and the story would have had a very different ending.

The phrase "of course he was not" (armed) sticks in my head, I wonder what he would have done with hindsight had he had an opportunity to arm himself. Lets us say he knew that at some point in his life he would be attacked by knife and (if he couldn't defend himself) killed. He also knows he cannot legally posses a weapon such as a handgun and if one is found upon him it's 10 years in prison. An opportunity is presented, he is able to arm himself illegally, and for the sake of this scenario he can also practice and train in shooting (albeit illegally). What would you chose? What would I chose? Of course, you cannot chose, it's an unfair scenario, you're condemned to death (for no crime) unless you risk prison for 10 years.

That is the reality of our gun laws. We condemn a law-abiding proportion of our number to violent death because we refuse to allow ordinary people the tools for self-defence. As for the robbers, if they get killed good! It stops them re-offending and saves a fortune on their keep. Who would I rather see armed on the streets people like the Mr ap Rhys Pryce or those who killed him? The only arms we can prevent from being on the streets are those in the hands of people like Mr ap Rhys Pryce, the rest we have no control over. Until we grasp these simple facts and start to trust law abiding people to be armed unnecessary tragedies like these will continue.

Tags: self defence, handguns
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Blue Labour joins attack on family

2006-10-31T08:18:00.000Z

Not to be outdone by Labour's attack on the family yesterday, today David Cameron leader of Blue Labour joined in. Here is the report from The Times.

Apparently he's proposing what I can only assume is a state endorsed/controlled/sponsored "formal “rite of passage”, marking the transition from childhood to adulthood". This would take place at 18 and the legal ages (for politically incorrect activity such as smoking) raised to this age. It will come as no surprise that he has no plans to raise the age of homosexual consent to 18.

Under his proposals, if you complete a course at a younger age then you'll be given the adult "rights" early. Quite how early he doesn't expressly say, I think the age of 17 is what he's got in mind, but why not at age 10 if you've completed the course?

Cameron then attempted to justify it by saying that different legal ages for different activities was "confusing" well if he can't work it out, how does he expect to run the country?

"He said that many societies had rites of passage marking the transition from childhood..." Yes, but they're not state sponsored or controlled, this is an area which has nothing to do with the state.

You can see the poor quality of his "argument" on the one hand he criticises: "...the closest thing to a rite of passage is going out and getting hammered on your 18th birthday”." On the other "... the scheme would be voluntary, but young people would be encouraged to do it because they would win the rights of adults earlier, such as being allowed to have a drink in a pub at 17." Well which is it? Drinking bad at 18, but good at 17?

One teenager (demonstrating at least the basic competence to vote) said to him: "“You do not know your arse from your elbow, you b******.”"

This sort of thing is nothing to do with the state, we've got huge taxes, rubbish "public" "services", and massive apathy amongst voters and the leader of the "opposition" is turning out this tosh. We want less tax, less state, less laws and less government. It seems to me there is a ceremony that all aspiring politicians submit to these days it's called castration.

Tags: Blue Labour, state, freedom
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Labour targets the insidious family (Again)

2006-10-30T08:07:00.000Z

The Daily Mail reports here on the latest initiative against "child poverty" quite what is meant by this in the UK is a mystery to me and the proposal isn't to send children to work so they might earn some money.

My reading of the "initiative" is that apparently two-parent families have been getting along "under the radar" as it were and haven't come in for too much attention from the benevolent state. Shock horror, it appears as if some parents have been not working in order to look after the children when as everyone knows, the state is best entrusted with this task.

"...mothers will be encouraged to hand over their children to state-run nurseries and go out to work under Labour's latest drive combat child poverty." Yes, well most of these mothers will be working in low paid jobs, which may then lose them entitlement to other benefits so quite how this is an attack on child poverty I don't know. Of course if you define poverty as lack of interaction with the state then I suppose it fits, and if that is the definition I wish I was far poorer.

Unsurprisingly, there's no assumption in the report that mothers might actually want to look after their children, possibly regarding it as far too an important task to entrust the state with whilst they go an work on Tesco checkouts.

The socialist infatuation with work once again surfaces in this report produced for Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton. I can't be bothered to go through the article, but even the Daily Mail seems to have adopted some of the presumptions as the reporter allows a lot of what is said to go unchallenged.

The whole thing is very wrong. The state has no real role in childcare at all. Nil, nothing, not even in education, the state should not be involved. It is up to parents to make necessary choices. There are strong moral arguments that the community should provide say in the case of orphans or other hardship cases and I don't disagree with that, but that doesn't make it the task of the state.

This is a thinly disguised agenda to reduce the influence of the family in bringing up children. Statists like Hutton want everyone to be free from any influences they cannot control, the Orwellian nightmare approaches.

Tags: family, liberty, freedom
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They don't like it up them

2006-10-27T07:20:00.000Z

I've been sitting on this due to other pressures, but the local "news"paper reports here on a police van burnt out by some "yobs".

Of course any sort of attack on private property is out of order, but isn't it the job of the police to prevent this sort of thing? I remember when my car got stolen and I phoned it in, from the tone adopted I could easily imagine the gallic shrug and the "Je regrette ... there is nothing we can do". The reluctance to issue a crime number as let's face it there was never going to be a detection. I went out looking for the car myself and indeed found it, it hadn't yet been burnt out. I phoned the police again who told me that it was up to me to get it recovered and no they weren't interested in attempting to obtain any fingerprints.

So one of those things I suppose, stuff happens and you have to get on with it. It wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that we actually pay for this police "service".

So what happens when the police van gets torched? "... police, in a massive show of force, descended on the area with up to eight vehicles and blocked the road". What happened to "Je regrette", the gallic shrug, and the massive show of indifference? These police officers so stupid as to lose their van could have gotten a taxi back to the police station (like I had to do when my vehicle was stolen) and despite what I suspect is a token arrest being made, my money is on this going undetected. What could possibly have justified sending eight vehicles? It's just another burnout vehicle, the public will pay, "forgive, forget life is full of misfortunes".

This didn't go unnoticed by the locals: ""It's hard enough to get them down here when anything is going off but when it is one of their own they come down in force.""

"Sergeant Lee Pointon, of North Yorkshire Police, said: "It's absolutely disgusting behaviour and we will do what we can to trace the offenders."" No it isn't any more disgusting than it happening to a member of the public, you don't treat it specially then and you shouldn't do so now.

Here is an article about one of the paper's readers filming the event, a link to the video is provided (I don't know what it's like as I haven't watched it).

Here (on the same day as the original article) is another article from the same source about car crime soaring in York. So that gives you an idea of the priority this normally has for our local police.

Here from the next day is an article laughingly called "A force to be reckoned with" telling us how good North Yorkshire Police are and how great they are at meeting governemnt targets.

Here is a link to the story of the £28,000.00p shower for the Chief Constable by the excellent Ken Frost at Nanny Knows Best. Here my own poor efforts.

In any event no doubt soon they'll decide the old fashioned Yorkshire Rose has no role in "modern" policing and they'll want to change their logo. May I be the first in suggesting a showerhead?

Tags: police, shower
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Dr Williams Stick to what your good at!

2006-10-27T07:04:00.000Z

In what seems to me like an attempted atonement for the bad figure cut on Tuesday Dr Rowan Williams returns to the press here with a criticism on banning religious symbols.

I'm far from convinced; in any event he doesn't exactly have a history of effectively standing up to anything, so I'm not sure just how much I want him on my side. Dr Williams stick to what your good at, being nice and uncontroversial to nasty evil lefties like the Chinese government.

Tags: religion, Dr Rowan Williams, freedom
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Brave New World

2006-10-26T07:29:00.000Z

I've always been sceptical of things like sex-change operations. I mean just how is it possible to say that someone born one gender is in fact a different gender? Let's face it if someone is born and they appear different by some arbitrary standard which someone has set as the "norm" how do we know it's soemhow wrong as opposed to merely evolution at work.

If years ago we'd blindly stuck to some recognised norm then today, we'd still be monkeys in the trees.

My view has always been OK let people do what they want, so if someone wants to have a "gender reassignment" fine provided they are compus mentis and they pay for it, however we should not pretend it's somehow about a medical condition or treatment. Modern society makes it harder to form lasting relationships, the ease with which divorce is available undermines the security of any marriage which in turn affects all relationships. Given this, it's not surprising that some people have problems, if you've got problems them you might seek advice and some people will go to so called professionals such as doctors.

The Times tells us here and here about a Dr Reid who has it seems been advising his patients to have "gender reassignment". He is now up before the GMC, one patient has said: "I find life very difficult because I don’t want to be female any longer. I am not gay and I will never be able to have a full relationship with a female again, and I don’t want a relationship with a male.
I get very confused whenever it comes to even simple things such as choosing which conveniences to use. It is very hard."

How can this be? Surely he was suffering from a recognised medical condition, he was surely really a female, "gender reassignment" could only have improved things. The fact that this sort of thing happens shows us firstly (which we already knew) that people are susceptible to stupid things especially at low points in their lives (when else will you go and see a psychiatrist?). Secondly it casts doubt on whether there can be any medical condition involved at all. What of successful "gender reassignment"? Well could it not just be that other things in people's lives got better anyway and they've attributed it to the "gender reassignment" when in fact their lives would have improved anyway?

My view is that "gender reassignment" is really about controlling people, by attempting to ensure that there are no certainties in life socialist forces (if I may paraphrase my little Toni) attempt to establish control over individuals and over families. If you cannot be certain about what gender you are, something which you are clearly born with then how can you be certain of anything at all. George Orwell didn't consider the potential of "gender reassignment" when writing 1984 otherwise no doubt Julia would have ended up becoming a man, and not just for the present but for the past as well. Just as in 1984 insidious forces ensured there were no certainties in life in order to ensure control, today liberal socialist forces attempt to ensure the same thing to achieve the same ends.

Tags: socialism, control, freedom
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Know your place!

2006-10-25T07:23:00.000Z

The Daily Mail reports here on new "house tax" proposals, enforcement and assessment.

You can see for yourselves just how insidious socialism is. ZaNuLabour want to tax what they call "site positive" features (none of which are government provided) including double-glazing, the view, gardens, patios, conservatories, number of bedrooms and number of parking spaces. In order to assess this information: "Parliament today would pave the way for council tax inspectors to have new powers to enter and assess properties. In an alarming addition, residents who 'fail to give reasonable assistance' or do not cooperate with the inspectors will be fined £1,000 and be recorded on local police and court records. "

That's right you must show us around, let us poke our noses into your property and tax you for every little thing you have. You might be trying to improve your lot and that will never do. Don't you know the socialist revolution will be fermented by the suffering workers? They won't be suffering with double glazing and scenic views will they?

This sort of proposal shows us just how evil socialism is. Instead of encouraging people to look forward and to strive for greater things, it tries to keep them in their place (by use of unnecessary taxes and inspections) with greater certainty than feudalism.

It speaks volumes of the supine nature of our national character that the government can even think about doing such a thing. Had this been proposed by a king there would have been an outcry, so why should an apparatchik master be allowed to get away with it?

The government must be reduced to a servile status; it must be made to serve the people, those who should be the masters in a democracy. The government should have no rights to enter upon private property, (except for the police with a warrant or in chasing a criminal). It shouldn't be the government telling us to know our place, but us telling them, and the place for the government is in servitude to the people.

Tags: taxes, liberty, ZaNuLabour, freedom
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Pathetic

2006-10-24T07:22:00.000Z

The Times reports here on a visit to China by Dr Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In visiting a such a repressive state where the only permitted religion is state sponsored you might expect that such a figure (who is firstly the de facto head of one of the religions so oppressed, secondly is in no danger himself of being arrested, imprisoned or tortured or killed and thirdly claims to be a Christian so should be prepared to follow the example of Christ who suffered death on the cross at the hands of a statist authority for mankind) might actually criticise the oppressions suffered not just by Christians, but by all religious. In his particular case I accept it might be difficult for him to criticise state sponsored religion per se, but even for the Church of England, the interference by the state is non-existent and it can only be described as nominally state sponsored. Sort of like how religion can be described as nominally free in China "Beijing officials say that religious freedom is enshrined in the constitution and citizens are free to attend ceremonies at churches, mosques and temples under state control" precisely.

In any event, I'm sure it'll come as no surprise; this so-called Christian leader spent his time sucking up to the communist atheist state. You can go and read the article if you want for the full stomach churning surrender, but suffice to say there isn't even a straw of resistance from the archbishop.

I wonder what would have become of the Church of England had it been led in earlier times by people such as Dr Williams instead of this fellow. Whilst as a Catholic, I'm sure all Protestants are theologically in error; I know that many are fine people and sincere in their belief and this sort of "leadership" I wouldn't wish on anyone. I know how bad I would feel if it were the Pope coming out with all this guff, and yes sometimes the Pope does come out with guff (but not when preaching ex Cathedra), but it's never yet been as bad as this.

Tags: religion, Dr Rowan Williams, freedom
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One rule for one...

2006-10-23T07:37:00.000Z

Following on from last weeks posts about our wonderful police, today here in The Times we learn of a Mr Darby, the area commander for East Surrey Police who was spotted by a motorist using a hand held mobile phone whilst driving. This has been an offence for most of us subjects since August 2003; of course the offence was introduced with a cry of the usual platitudes you know "road safety", "for the children" etc etc; and although someone like myself can be cynical about these, presumably Mr Darby whose job it is to enforce draconian laws whose purpose is for the above platitudes, actually believes them. This of course makes his transgression even more heinous because he isn't simply (in his mind) flouting a draconian law, but actually endangering children and road safety.

Anyway I digress as I said he was spotted by a motorist who realising he was a police officer I quote: "“I saw he had a fluorescent police jacket on. I was not that bothered at first because I thought he must be on important police business,”" "“But as I followed him I realised he was talking on his mobile phone as he drove along. I was horrified because the weather conditions were hazardous...""

Mr Donohue followed him to a police station where: "“I stopped and approached the policeman as he got out of his car,” he said. “But he was blasé to the point of rudeness. His reaction was as if to say, ‘I don’t know what you hope to achieve by this’.”" No surprise hey? The accountable police service it's like they say: "Little man you obey the rules we enforce or we'll be on your back, but don't you dare expect us to do the same we're untouchable you know we're the police."

Mr Donohue to his credit made a formal complaint (he can probably expect increased police attention to his vehicle and activities) an investigation followed and apparently: "Mr Darby was later interviewed about using a mobile phone while driving, which has been banned since December 2003. He admitted the offence and was given a formal written warning that will remain on his file for a year."

Oh is that all? No wait there's more: "The officer, who earns up to £80,000 a year, (worth every penny to the taxpayer) was reprimanded by his force and ordered to pay £30, the equivalent of the fixed penalty fine for the offence, to charity."

So Darby didn't actually get a conviction, I wonder why not, I think anyone else would have, from the article: "The force was unable to issue a formal fine because the offence can be detected only by a police officer." This is simply a weasel excuse, as once Darby confessed to the offence in front of a police officer surely that counts as a detection? Alternatively, Darby as a police officer confessing has detected the offence himself so there's no reason for him not to be properly charged and fined, with appropriate records made against his character.

The last paragraph tells us of the confession itself to none other than the Deputy Chief Constable: "A spokesman for Surrey Police said: “When Mr Darby was confronted by the motorist he went straight into the police station and telephoned the Deputy Chief Constable to confess what he had done.”" Surely a "detection" for the DCC. We're not told if Darby wore brown trousers for the rest of his shift.

Tags: justice, police, rule of law
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£28,000.00p Police shower.

2006-10-20T07:12:00.000Z

The local radio station reported today that apparently the Chief Constable Of North Yorkshire has had £28,000.00p spent on a private shower accessible from her office.

I know my readers will be pleased to read that it was originally estimated at £6,000.00p so that's all right then.

Looking at my post yesterday about the police failing to turn up let alone actually do anything like chase (and heaven forbid) apprehend the criminals, I was initially stuck as to why anyone as exalted as the Chief (no danger at all of making an arrest) Constable would need a shower during working hours. Still I suppose with police "performance" as it is, perhaps the Chief Constables are starting to feel the heat and need to cool down.

Compare the £28,000.00p for a shower with the salary and job description for this public facing job advertised today on the North Yorkshire Police web site:

Post: Operational Support Officer, Full time

Department: Scarborough Police Station

Location: Scarborough

Reporting to: Operational Support Team Leader

Scale: Scale 3 (SCP 15-18) £14,856 - £15,870

You will be the first point of contact for many members of the public and will need to be able to project a positive customer focussed image of North Yorkshire Police. Hours of work are based on a shift pattern to cover front office opening times 8.00am – 00.00pm Monday to Sunday.

You will have excellent customer relationship skills, particularly in face to face service to the public, have good team working skills, being flexible and adaptable to meet business needs and be computer literate, with working knowledge of Microsoft Office with the ability to work on your own initiative, with minimum supervision. You will have experience of clerical work, with evidence of working accurately and at speed to process administrative tasks. The ability to plan effectively and remain calm under pressure to meet specific deadlines is essential.

In return you will receive a full benefits package including, 24 days annual leave plus bank holidays, final salary pension and opportunities for personal development. There may be a requirement to work at other Police Stations in the area.

Relocation is not applicable to this post.

Yes that's right the cost of the shower nearly pays for two full time operational support officers.

It's no wonder the police just don't have the resources to actually turn up, with spending priorities like this (Remember whose money it was? Ours) they'll never get to grips with crime.

What a shower!

Tags: police, shower
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Armed citixenry not needed!

2006-10-19T12:34:00.000Z

One argument often used against proponents of the right to be armed is that it is unncessary, after all in any emergency the police will always come.

Of course this depends on being able to call them, so if you can call them, then the police will always come. Right?

This report here in the Daily Mail tells a different story, but don't worry it wasn't an emergency as it was only burglars. Well actually we don't really know that, because they made off before doing anything.

I quote from the intended victim: ""I can't think of a time when I have needed the police more and they were not there for me and my children. They totally let me down.

If you call 999 because you can hear someone trying to get into your house when you are alone there with your two small children and they don't come, on what occasion can you be sure the police would come? ""

She could have added and had I or my children been injured or worse, there would have been no liability attaching to the police for this basic failure in their duty, and I still have to pay money and taxes to support the police when they do nothing for me. What is more if I want to take effective steps to protect myself and my family that same police would come down on me like a tonne of bricks and I'd be subject to the full vigour of oppressive and unjust law.

Still let's not form the impression the police have done nothing, no, again from the article: "Superintendent Roger Smalley of Camden police said: "We are fully investigating the circumstances and are in contact with the lady concerned. In addition we have arranged visits with a crime prevention officer to establish the facts and address concerns."" Oh that's OK then I'm sure if it were I, a visit from the crime prevention officer would "address my concerns".

What a waste of money, resources and space our once great police forces have become; this is the legacy of Labour, a system designed to oppress the individual, whilst insidiously rotting away at institutions that were once the envy of the world.

Shame on the police and shame on Labour.

Tags: police, self defence, guns
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Don't be afraid

2006-10-19T07:18:00.000Z

Possibly picking up on the art of spin, it appears that Conservative proposals for tax cuts were inadvertently published on their web site yesterday. (See The Times here).

The proposals are both overdue and excellent proposing to reduce government revenues to the tune of twenty one billion pounds and totally exempt two and a half million people (those on low incomes) from paying tax altogether.

The article says: "Fears about Conservative tax policies have cost the party dearly in the past two elections." This is rubbish, what has cost the Conservatives, is a failure to make the case for tax cuts, and they must take care not to fall into that trap again. It should be easy to make the case especially with a profligate government spending money like it's going out of fashion. See here for a story in the Daily Express telling us about Gordon (I want to be Prime Minister) Brown spending fifty six million pounds of our money on hotel bills for government apparatchiks.

So Conservative party members and leaders yes I'm talking to you: Don't be frightened of tax cuts! Go out there and make the case for tax cuts when they ask what public services you'll cut back on? Say None! Say we'll cut back on government hotel bills, on unnecessary levels of mismanagement, point out how "public" services haven't got any better despite the increased billions being supposedly spent on them. Don't accept Labour lies lying down, for example Ed Balls(up) in the article saying: "“These are tax cuts for the few. This is the same old Conservative Party." Say: No! these are tax cuts that exempt the lowest earning two and a half million people in the country from paying tax, and for other low earners, a tax cut in the basic rate from 22% to 20%, how can this be a "tax cut for the few"?

Margaret Thatcher would never have allowed such a perfidious misrepresentation of a Conservative position to go unchallenged and neither should you. If I as a pathetic little blogger with no resources can do this; how much easier for you? Trust your instincts and trust the people, go for tax cuts. Let's put Labour on the run.

Tags: tax cuts, Conservatives
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Will the Conservatives resurrect repatriation of fishing?

2006-10-18T07:46:00.000Z

The Times reports here on the parlous state of cod in the waters around Britain.

Despite EU rescue plan after rescue plan, it appears the situation is now so bad that a complete ban on cod fishing is needed. To be truly effective, this would also means a ban on fishing for other species too as it is impossible to fish for haddock and whiting without catching cod. According to the figures, last year a 26,500 tonne quota for cod was in force, but 50,000 tonnes was caught "accidentally" by fishermen fishing for other species. This 50,000 tonnes had to be thrown back dead into the sea as it is classified (by the EU) as an illegal catch.

So a quota of 26,500 meant a catch of 76,500, but 50,000 was thrown away, not even eaten. It doesn't take too much brain to realise the farce this is. Remember officials who work with fish quotas and the like should know how fishing works and that a total catch of this magnitude could not be avoided and therefore they should have accounted for it last year.

Of course, we shouldn't even have been in this situation to start with and years of EU sponsored mismangement are to blame. Here we have an example of an unpopular and failed EU policy, (you can't blame the previous Conservative government for the cod collapse now so you can force Labour to take the rap), not so long ago the Conservatives were talking about transfer of powers back to the UK from the EU including fishing policy. What will they do now? They say they want power and government, here is a good opportunity to put clear distance between themselves and Labour, attack both Labour and the EU, and put forward some good sensible policy, pointing out the rather obvious failures of the present policies.

Will we see this happen? Well I'm not holding my breath. What's more important to the Conservatives? Supporting the EU? Or providing policies and government for the United Kingdom? Until or unless they "grow a pair", and start standing up for themselves, and for the people of the UK, it doesn't matter how many logo changes and jingle jangles they do they'll always be in opposition and quite honestly they'll deserve it.

Tags: EU, Conservatives, fishing policy
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