Thursday 31 December 2009

Jack Inflammatory Straw Disses Da Cops

BBC News - Jack Straw 'sceptical' about overworked police

Oh, you just couldn't make it up!
Justice Secretary Jack Straw has told the BBC he is "sceptical" about claims by some police that they are overworked and spend hours filling in forms.

He said some officers "quite enjoy" being in the station "in the warm" and some forces did better than others.

Often the difference was due, not to resources, but to the "discipline and culture" within the force, he said.

But the Police Federation, which represents officers, said the remarks were "irresponsible and inflammatory".
PD James interviewed Straw this morning on the Today programme.

Sunday 27 December 2009

Thick Intelligence

Airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was on terrorist ties list for 2 years - NYPOST.com

Says it all, really, doesn't it?

So, instead of pulling this guy out for special examination at the airport, the intelligence 'community' just let him get on board. What happens now is that millions of innocent travellers are going to have to go through extra pointless security checks, suffering delays, inconvenience and cost for the next couple of years.

What a dozy bunch of tossers.

A copy of the fact sheet about the US TIDE list (Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment) is available at our Scribd site.

Thursday 24 December 2009

The Rotting Fruit of Multiculturalism

The American Spectator
European's politicians need to be held to account for what has come to pass. Under the fatefully misguided doctrine of multiculturalism, new arrivals into Europe are not only not encouraged to integrate into their host country, they are actively encouraged to separate themselves off from it. Governments speak to minorities through unelected, self-appointed community "spokespeople." There is no such thing as society: just different "communities." It is almost a textbook example of how to split a nation apart. And since Islamic terror came to Europe it has begun to dawn on some people that multiculturalism has provided more problems than it has solutions. Even those on the left who used to champion the policy of anti-integration have started to notice where it leads, as urban ghettoes grew into ghetto cities and completely parallel societies develop.
This is a warning of what is to come not just in the UK but throughout the whole of the EU. The deliberate destruction of nation states and the attack on national cultures and identities will end in strife.

One thing is assured: our political classes will have learnt nothing.

Wednesday 23 December 2009

Hillier ID Card Cretin

Identity minister forgets ID card.

Yes, Meg Hillier, the latest Labour apologist for the ID card scheme, proves yet again what a bunch of fuckwits they all are:
Identity minister Meg Hillier arrived at a photocall to promote identity cards, but then realised she left her own at home.

She travelled to Liverpool to announce a further roll-out of the controversial identity cards across the North West.

Ms Hillier checked her handbag for the card before putting the slip-up down to the demands of looking after her baby.
Meanwhile, over in Hull, a man and his wife are prevented from boarding a ferry after their ID cards are refused:
A man has received an apology from the Home Office after his ID card was refused as he tried to board a ferry to Rotterdam.

Norman Eastwood, from Salford, and his wife Jeanette were planning to travel from Hull on P&O Ferries on Saturday.

The new ID card, introduced in Manchester, can be used instead of a passport across Europe - but the travel firm said it did not know this.

A Home Office spokesman said it "seems to be an isolated experience".
What I want to know is why have Mr and Mrs Eastwood got these damn cards in the first place. Did they sign up voluntarily? Do they realise what they've let themselves in for? Why the hell didn't they just bring their passports?

Even poor old Kosmoplito, Euro-luvvie, has had problems with his Belgian ID card in Sainsburys.

Tuesday 22 December 2009

A Decade Of Unfreedom (Spiked)

Labour's attack on our liberties.

Tim Black on the destruction of liberties under Labour during the 2000s.

Romanian Minister In EU Mould

Controversial minister to oversee EU funds in Romania.
A glamourous former advisor to the Romanian president has been nominated as minister for regional development, in charge of billions of euros in EU aid to a country struggling with corruption and maladministration.

In a skyrocketing career, the 36-year-old Elena Udrea is currently minister of tourism in a caretaker government led by Romania's Emil Boc.

Following Mr Boc's upcoming re-appointment as prime minister, Ms Udrea is to add the regional development portfolio to her tourism job, putting her in control of €3.7 billion from the EU budget for 2007 to 2013, for the sake of improving housing, infrastructure and tourism.

Seen as a protégé of Romanian President Traian Basescu, Ms Udrea was the subject of a parliamentary inquiry in September, which recommended opening a criminal investigation into the way she had used public money to fund media campaigns.

Germans To Inferfere In British Politics

According to German-Foreign-Policy.com The German Institute of International and Security Affairs is advising their government to neutralise British Euroscepticism, particularly with the prospect of a Conservative government in the near future: "German government advisors are insisting on concerted efforts to politically neutralize British EU-skeptics."

The text of the article, "The End of Sovereignty" (yes, they do admit it, unlike our politicians!) can be found at German-Foreign-Policy, and the document by the German Institute can be read here.

Bastards.

This is all going to end in tears. Theirs.

Friday 18 December 2009

UK E-Borders Crap Illegal Under EU Law? Hahahahahahahaha


U.K.’s Plan to Track Visitors May Be Illegal, Lawmakers Say
Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s 1.2 billion-pound ($1.94 billion) plan to track passenger movements in and out of the U.K. probably will be ruled illegal under European Union law, a panel of British lawmakers said.

The Home Affairs Committee said the so-called e-Borders program, which allows authorities to check passenger data supplied by airlines against a watch-list of suspected criminals, probably won’t be legal to operate on routes between the U.K. and European Union.

The panel said the program, which brings together the U.K.’s immigration agency, customs, police and visas authority, would interfere with both EU data protection standards and a rule that citizens of the 27-nation bloc can travel freely as long as they can show an identity document. The lawmakers want the program put on hold until its validity can be tested.

“The major stumbling block, and a very disappointing oversight, is that we are sure that what the program requires will be illegal,” Keith Vaz, a lawmaker from the ruling Labour Party who leads the panel, said in an e-mail. “It is shocking that money has already been spent on a program which could never be implemented.”

Damian Green, a member of Parliament who speaks on immigration for the Conservative opposition, said “it beggars belief that after so many years of pursuing this project, the government still isn’t sure whether it is even legal.”

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said the program is “fully compliant with EU law and has been confirmed by the European Commission.” The program has screened 137 million passengers and led to 4,700 arrests since 2005, he said.
Fuckwits, the lot of them. Woolas being one of the biggest fuckwits ever to hold office.

EU Justice Bent As Buggery

Eurojust chief quits over power abuse scandal:

"The head of Eurojust, the EU's anti-crime agency, resigned on Wednesday after he was suspended for 30 days for having put pressure on Portuguese prosecutors in order to stop a corruption probe involving Prime Minister Jose Socrates."

That about says it all with regard to the EU.

Tuesday 15 December 2009

Blair Is A War Criminal - Reg Keys

Reg Keys, father of one of the British soldiers killed in Iraq shows more honesty and courage in berating Blair than any of our paid representatives.

Hans Blix, on the BBC website, talks of Blair's 'lack of sincerity' in the latest instalment of this saga.

Trafigura Trafigura Carter-Ruck Trafigura BBC

New Statesman - BBC removes Trafigura story after legal threat.

The bastards are at it again.

Watch the orginal video on Charters & Co Youtube: Trafigura.

Monday 14 December 2009

Polishing Blair's Halo

Matthew Taylor on Tony Blair's admission about regime change in Iraq:
I was going to post about my former boss’s interview with Fern Britton. Tony Blair said that even if had not thought there were WMD he would still have tried to make a case for regime change in Iraq. Whatever we may think of this opinion, it is simply wrong to claim, as many commentators seem to, that this is the same as saying ‘I had decided to invade and made up the WMD threat as a pretext’.
Well, yes, it is. Some of us don't have problems understanding the English language since it is completely clear that this is exactly what Blair has admitted. Here is what he said:
"If you had known then that there were no WMDs, would you still have gone on?" Blair was asked. He replied: "I would still have thought it right to remove him [Saddam Hussein]".

Significantly, Blair added: "I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat."
Being politic in his choice of words he may have been, but the import is undeniable, especially when you take into account Blair's self-regarding opportunism and his reverential attitude to the sanctity of his own conscience.

Saddam had no WMDs; Blair and his advisers knew it; the Americans knew it and most of us knew it. It was perfectly obvious to many people (perhaps the majority) that even if Britain did not join in the Americans were going to invade Iraq whether they had justifiable reasons or UN resolutions or not.

For years now we have had to put up with this charade conducted by the politicians and the media that there were reliable justifications for the war. Blair lied and lied again about it and the lickspittles in parliament and the civil service gave their assent to this criminality.

It's sickening to watch the spectacle of a moral derelict such as Blair parading his self-justifications in public, being 'interviewed' by someone like Fern Britton (surely as rigorous as playing roly-poly with a Dulux puppy) when so many thousands of people have died and suffered as a result of his vanity.

Saturday 12 December 2009

Ever Had A Real Job? Moi?


QUENTIN LETTS: Buttoned-down vocal delivery. Clipped manner. The warmth of Capt Scott's tent.

Quentin Letts decribes the encounter between 'Dame' Suzi Leather, boss of the Chair of the Charity Commission, and Tory MP Liddell-Grainger in a parliamentary committee:
All of which was too much for Mr Liddell-Grainger. During the first 45 minutes of yesterday's hearing he fidgeted while listening to the Dame's dulcet tones.

But there is only so much talking-down a shires Tory can take, and yesterday Mr Liddell-Grainger reached breaking point at 10.51am. That was the moment volcano Grainger blew.

'Have you ever HAD a proper job?' he asked her loudly. He raised the membership of the Charity Commission's board. 'Have you got ANY one who's come from industry? Every single one of you seem to be quango queens.'

Committee chairman Tony Wright (Lab, Cannock Chase) tried to restrain his colleague. 'Ian!' he said. Mr Liddell-Grainger ignored him.

He started to run through the commission's board members, noting their various sins - two having a BBC background ('that's bad enough!'), one having toiled for an NHS trust, another coming from a social development outfit.

It was a glorious rant. Dame Suzi and her sidekicks reacted like ants under attack, diving for pieces of paper, recoiling, their faces filling with alarm and indignation.

At which point Mr Liddell-Grainger stood up, folded his tent, and departed for the Chamber of the Commons to pursue other matters, the day's happy little act of vandalism done. Great sport. Though not for Dame Suzi.
Charities and voluntary organisations (or 'The Third Sector' as it is officially desginated by New Labour) have been deliberately corrupted by this government as a means of spreading their 'values' without public scrutiny or awareness, and the Charity Commission itself has not been exempt.

Public life is infested with Labour's professional apparatchiks like Leather. The sooner we get rid of the lot of them the better.

Thursday 10 December 2009

No Action Taken Against Common Purpose

Common Purpose to face no further action from Information Commissioner
The Information Commissioner's Office has decided not to take any further action against leadership training charity Common Purpose despite upholding its initial assessment that the charity had probably breached data protection principles.

The ICO ruled in October that the charity was unlikely to have complied with the provisions in the Data Protection Act 1998 on processing personal data when it compiled a list containing the personal details of people who had made requests under the Freedom of Information Act relating to its dealings with public authorities.

The list was sent to public authorities receiving new Freedom of Information Act requests to demonstrate the view of Common Purpose that the requests were vexatious.
Not that I'm being paranoid, you understand.

Other links: What Do They Know?
Common Purpose

Wednesday 9 December 2009

A Very Good Idea

A very good idea from A Very British Dude:
Due to the bankruptcy of Great Britain Plc I suggest we make the following cuts. Fire anybody with the words “Diversity”, “Community”, “Communication”, “Engagement”, “Environmental” (with the exception of Rat Catchers who can go back to being called Rat Catchers), “Ethnic” or “Liaison” in their job title.
To which I would add the words "Equality", "Empowerment", "Policy", "Strategy", "Wellbeing", "Quality", "Safeguarding" and "Pathfinder", even if these are just in the job description.

Research, Information and Communications Unit

The Research, Information and Communications Unit is part of the HO's Office for Security and Counter Terrorism.

I'm still looking the text of the list of 'banned' words issued to ministers, as mentioned by The Sun and others.
MINISTERS have been BANNED from using words like Islamist and fundamentalist - in case they offend Muslims.

An eight-page Whitehall guide lists words they should not use when talking about terrorism in public and gives politically correct alternatives.

They are told not to refer to Muslim extremism as it links Islam to violence. Instead, they are urged to talk about terrorism or violent extremism.

Fundamentalist and Jihadi are also banned because they make an "explicit link" between Muslims and terror.
All to be expected.

Also picked up by The All-Seeing Eye.

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Scarlett's Dodgy Munition Weapons Lie

Iraq inquiry: Sir John Scarlett says he was not put under pressure by Number 10 over 'dodgy dossier' And if you believe that...

Sir John also conceded it would have been better if his report had been more specific about the 45-minute claim to make clear it referred to munitions not weapons.

But he said there was no 'conscious intention to manipulate the language or to obfuscate or to create a misunderstanding'.
...which is an obvious and disgraceful lie. Using the word 'weapons' when they meant 'munitions' is a blatant attempt to mislead.

Scarlett also said he had seen a draft of Blair's foreword
and knew what it said but had never considered it his role to alter Mr Blair's wording.

'My memory at the time was that this was something which was the Prime Minister's and was going out under his submission so it was different from the attention that I had paid to the wording of the dossier,' he told the panel.

He admitted that it might have been better if the political argument had not been put at the start of the report, which gave rise to the claim that Saddam could launch WMDs against British bases within 45 minutes.
Weasel words - the claim about the 45 minutes was either true or not; it had nothing to do with the political argument.

Considering that we were about to embark on an unjustified and disastrous war, Scarlett should have shown more integrity and courage, but that would have been too much to expect from the current political classes.

Just in case your memory needs refreshing on Blair's own words to the House of Commons on this matter, this is what he said:
I am aware, of course, that people will have to take elements of this on the good faith of our intelligence services, but this is what they are telling me, the British Prime Minister, and my senior colleagues. The intelligence picture that they paint is one accumulated over the last four years. It is extensive, detailed and authoritative. It concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population, and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability...

The Government dossier confirms that Iraq is self-sufficient in biological weapons and that the Iraqi military is ready to deploy those, and chemical weapons, at some 45 minutes' notice.
A heap of festering lies.

Monday 7 December 2009

Britain Shafted For French Farmers

Stitch-up? Now France excludes Britain from special talks on EU farm spending.
The French government has summoned a meeting of what it called the "G22" - senior ministers from 22 European states - in an attempt to influence a rethink of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

However, it has not invited Britain or other so-called "reform nations" - the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Malta - all of which have argued for a full overhaul of EU farm subsidies.
Watching our incompetent ministers and officials being outwitted by our EU 'colleagues' in France and elsewhere is an ambarrassing reminder of why we should pull out of the whole damn show. Blair and Brown surrendered a big chunk of our rebate a couple of years back in exchange for 'promises' made by those colleagues to review the Common Agricultural Policy. In believing EU lies they showed themselves to be inept and spineless.

The French are not our colleagues or our allies. Neither are the Germans. The EU is a Franco-German stitch-up. The French in particular are keen to destroy London as Europe's financial capital, while all the Eurocrats are keen to see Britain reduced and dismantled. And they want our money as well.

We have our politicians to thank for this shameful situation.

Sunday 6 December 2009

The New Labour Jugend

Demos have released a new publication, Service Nation, which has (of course) found favour with the commissars of New Labour (Ministers back 'national service' from age seven).
citizenship is not just about individual rights and legal status, but about participating in communities with a view to securing the common good: we are citizens not only of a polity but of a community.

Thus civic service encapsulates the idea that there should be an expectation that citizens contribute to their communities by ‘giving something back’ at one – or several – points in their lives. It differs from volunteering, which is more commonly perceived as an add-on to citizenship: something that is morally desirable but not an integral or implied expectation in return for the benefits that citizenship confers.
So there you have it: compulsory civic service, courtesy of the state. Nothing to do with differing or more traditional views; nothing to do with individual responsibility, freedom or choice; just pure statism at its most nauseatingly self-righteous and authoritarian.

New Labour's 'citizenship' agenda is nothing more than state propaganda and indoctrination, an attempt to create a passive, compliant and uncritical populace. What that citizenry will be serving, though, is not their own country, but the state and its apparatchiks.

(The Demos publication is available on our Scribd site).

Booed In Normandy, Shunned In Brum

Our great leader doesn't have the common touch, especially when it comes to the miltary.

Having been booed by veterans in Normandy earlier in the year, he has now been shunned by wounded soldiers at home:
Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him.

More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.

The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as “opportunistic” and a “waste of time”.
Brown: deluded, dangerous and in denial.

Reverse Cultural Suicide Revolution

Peter Hitchens in the Mail:
Yet again we are told that the schools don’t teach and the police don’t go out on the beat. When will people grasp that this is because of the Left-wing dogma that has us in its grip? Leftists are opposed to proper teaching on principle and think crime is caused by poverty and abuse. We need a reverse cultural revolution to put these things right. We won’t get it from the Tories.
It is quite obvious to many of us that there is a deliberate policy of destroying education as most of us have understood it. That's why so many young people leave school knowing nothing, having read nothing, unable to write, unprepared for life - and all despite the government's continuous prating about equipping them with up-to-date 'skills' for a 'fast-changing world', as if no one had ever had to cope with change before.

Saturday 5 December 2009

Toy Guns Will Frighten Cops Into Shooting Kids



Police warn parents against buying toy guns as Christmas presents.
Parents are being warned by police not to buy their children realistic looking toy guns this Christmas as it could lead to them being shot by armed marksmen.

Senior officers are becoming increasingly alarmed at the amount of calls they are responding to that involve young people innocently playing with imitation firearms.

Most children, parents and teachers are unaware of the risks generated by toy and imitation guns, officers say.

As well as children playing in the street, student film-makers have been warned about using fake guns in their productions.
Just the kind of police we want: hysterical, armed wimps frightened of kids with toys.

Wednesday 2 December 2009

198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

Courtesy of secession.net via Voice of the Resistance et al.

Take your pick. Let's get going.

Treason Complete

Daily Express | UK News :: Lisbon Treaty: EU takes charge of Britain

The Lisbon Constitution is now in force. Our politicians have succesfully surrendered our sovereignty to a bunch of unelected foreigners in Brussels. Our media have been guilty of colluding in this by refusing to talk about it.

Gordon Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty. He is a traitor.

Any politician who is not opposed to this monstrous action is a traitor.

Monday 30 November 2009

General Wants Blair In Court

Why I believe Blair should stand trial - and even face charges for war crimes | Mail Online

General Sir Michael Rose thinks that the Chilcot enquiry should apportion blame over the Iraq and that Tony Blair should stand trial.
With respect to Sir John, there is really no point in holding a further inquiry unless it does apportion blame, unless it does hold to account those who led us into this unnecessary, unwinnable and costly war in Iraq.

The inquiry should be the first step in a judicial process that brings those responsible for the disasters of the Iraq war before the courts - and could, as I shall explain, ultimately result in Tony Blair being indicted for war crimes.
Sounds like a good idea to me.

Official Behaviour Change Propaganda

COI - Press release - COI reveals new five step plan for behaviour change.

I wonder if they take into account intemperate behaviour provoked by social fascist intrusion into private life?

Wednesday 25 November 2009

Government Hides ContactPoint Report

UK.gov rejects calls to open up on ContactPoint security • The Register
The UK government has turned down an opposition request to explain why it has refused to publish a full security report into ContactPoint, the controversial child protection database.

Deloitte carried out of a security audit of the scheme but the government only published an executive summary, rather than the whole report, back in February. Repeated requests by the opposition Conservatives to publish the full report were turned down, so the Tories put in a Freedom of Information request, seeking to uncover the rationale behind the decision to keep the details of the report secret.

This request has also been turned down on the grounds that advice to ministers ought to remain confidential or else advisers would hold back from giving their honest opinion in future. The Tories rejected this justification.
What a surpise.

Sunday 22 November 2009

Balls Builds Loony Schools

Ed Balls's plan to replace traditional subjects with 'thematic' lessons | Education | guardian.co.uk

Ed Balls continues New Labour's 'progressive' plans to completely fuck up education in Britain. Here are some of the things his new bill will introduce in 2011:
• Introduce a new license to practice for teachers, which they will have to reapply for periodically in order to prove their fitness to teach;

• Give schools greater flexibility in spending their budgets and encourage them to set up federations to share resources;

• Allow the introduction of a new school report card setting out the quality of services and pupils' achievements in each school to give parents better information than is currently available in exams-based league tables;

• Introduce a new register for home educated pupils run by local authorities.
Not even home schooling will remain out of the clutches of the incompetent state.

That won't matter, though, because:
There is greater emphasis on children's happiness and wellbeing. The bill also makes personal, social and health education – including sex education – mandatory in primary schools for the first time, though parents will still be allowed to opt their children out of lessons until they turn 15.
Ah, that 'wellbeing' bollocks again.

At primary level subject-based teaching will be eliminated in favour of thematic areas of learning:
The bill will legislate for the new primary curriculum, starting in September 2011, to reorganise traditional subject areas such as history and science into thematic areas of learning, such as "historical, geographical and social" lessons. The aim is to try to ease the pressures of the cumbersome curriculum on schools and give schools more freedom to do cross-subject thematic lessons.
Best thing most concerned parents can do is make sure they stock up on old-fashioned books full of unfashionable facts and get their kids to read them at home, because they sure as hell aren't going to learn anything in school in the future.

Baroness Ashton: EU couldn’t make it up

Baroness Ashton: EU couldn’t make it up - Times Online
The plotting and bungles that led to an obscure British bureaucrat heading the EU’s foreign service were even greater than first thought. She now commands staff in 130 countries.
Quite an extensive article on the scretiveness and duplicity of the EU.

The bit that made me laugh, however, was the following:
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president and “framer” of the EU’s constitution, was also dismayed at the insignificance of Ashton and van Rompuy, saying that he would have preferred a figure of the stature of George Washington as president.

“When the Americans in Philadelphia sought a personality to lead their new state, they chose ... the conqueror in the war of independence, as their founding president,” intoned d’Estaing. “I would have preferred a strong president corresponding to this profile.”
It just shows how delusional the EU regime and its supporters are - just where does D'Estaing think they could find anyone of the stature of Washington among the European political classes?

Saturday 21 November 2009

Cuts Ahoy At Cap'n Mandy's Universities!


Cuts will cost British universities their international reputations British universities can look forward to hard times under the stewardship of Mandelson:
Universities are facing a new funding crisis with looming public spending cuts and intense competition from overseas, according to the man employed by the government to allocate money to higher education in England.

Sir Alan Langlands, head of the university funding council and a former chief executive of the NHS, warned that the UK risks losing its international reputation for higher education as other countries pump cash into universities to try to train people out of the recession.

It comes after research by the lecturer's union this week suggested that universities are already making widespread job cuts in anticipation of a decrease in public funding. In the last year 1,318 academics have been laid off and a further 5,097 are threatened, it found. Cardiff University has lost 50 jobs, City 65 and Salford 150 through voluntary and compulsory redundancies.
Again, it's good to see the British government coming up with positive solutions, particularly when it relates to the possibility of raising cash:
Mandelson, the business secretary who is also responsible for universities, has launched a new plan for universities which suggests that funding would be increasingly skewed in favour of science and technology subjects. That has already been happening in some areas over the past year meaning that many arts and humanities areas have suffered. There has been a series of high profile closures of language departments in universities.
Mandelson, mind you, studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford, so maybe getting rid of all this airy-fairy humanities stuff would be a good idea after all.

Please Pay Polly To Shut Up


Public pay is bloated. But don't forget the virus source | Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | The Guardian

Nice to see Polly Toynbee toeing the government line on public servants' pay. Just a few days ago Harriet Harman was blaming the private sector for the high rates of public pay.

Toynbee reiterates this nonsense:
Harman wants a clampdown on mushrooming public pay – and she quite rightly identifies the cause of the problem: "The huge salaries in the private sector have fed across into the public sector in a way that has got to be pulled back." Liam Byrne, the Treasury chief secretary, is conducting a review of public sector top pay, but as Harman points out, this is a virus caught from the greed in the private sector. Overpaid public officials are still paid less than their private sector equivalents – despite the propaganda of the Taxpayers' Alliance to the contrary. There is a limit to how far public salaries can fall behind. Eventually these would become disrespected jobs for disrespected people, second class, depressed and despised.

This umbilical link between the sectors means Byrne's review of public pay will be meaningless if it has nothing to say about private salary scales. The weak promise of a bill to curb future bank bonuses will not calm public fury as this year's bonuses of some £6bn are announced.
And who, pray, established this 'umbilical link' if not the government itself? And is not the real virus in this country people such as Toynbee and her ilk?

So, having shed responsibility for the government what does Toynbee then suggest is the answer?

A new quango! Of course!
That is why the government needs a high pay commission that, as well as defining reasonable top-to-bottom ratios for public pay, can set guidelines for the private sector too.
Toynbee is well remunerated for writing this cobblers every week and people in the media village are thick enough to think she's worth listening to.

No wonder the country's fucked.

Friday 20 November 2009

Mandelson Gets Hold Of Nominet

Mandelson to get Nominet reform powers • The Register
Ministers have revealed new legislation that will allow the government to take over and reform Nominet, following a boardroom battle over the .uk registry's future.

The reserve powers are included in the Digital Economy Bill, published today by Lord Mandelson's Department for Business.

Officials said they believed it is unlikely the powers will be used, but they were necessary to ensure Nominet took account of the interests of wider public and business interests, and not just those of its members.
I blogged about this a year back, when Mandelson first made moves on Nominet, which is an independent private company that issues domain names in the UK. A copy of Mandelson's letter to Nominet at the time is available on Scribd.

Mandelson's move was obviously intended to increase the state's power over the internet. Now it looks like they're given themselves the right to step in and take over whatever they want, whenever they like.

The ISP's next, if they don't tow the line on file-sharing, perhaps?

Thursday 19 November 2009

Then Come The Vaguely Threatening Letters...

Re: the School Entry Wellbeing Report.

Already the reminder letters are being sent out to parents in Lincolnshire:
Dear parent/carer/guardian

A short while ago we wrote to you about the school nursing service and enclosed a health and wellbeing questionnaire.

This questionnaire has not been completed and returned school. Please complete and return this within the next 7 days so that an assessment can be made about the health and well-being of your child.

If you have any concerns or issues you wish to discuss, please contact a member of the school health team on the above number.
Nothing about it being voluntary.

No information about this whole thing has been made available to parents. There are just vague statements about making "assessments".

How is the information going to collated? Is it on a database? How is the information organised? Who does the collating? What criteria are being used to make these assessments? Who decides to act upon an assessment? What happens when action is to take place? Do parents have any say in it? How long is the information going to be retained? Who gets to see it? Will all or parts of it be made available to other government departments (Social Services, Inland Revenue, etc?)

Bin it and complain, because they are going to harass you with reminders.

Big Brother Child Snooping Shit Storm

Big Brother quiz for new school parents: Officials launch 83-point probe into families' lives | Mail Online

Ha! The Mail's got it. That's fucked them. Now everyone knows.

More on School Entry Wellbeing Report

Firstly, a correction to my earlier post: the organisation mentioned was Big Brother Watch, not Statewatch. This has been corrected in the relevant post.

Secondly, the story headlines this morning's Lincolnshire Echo:
Parents of Lincolnshire children who have just started school have been sent an 83-point Big Brother-style questionnaire probing into family life.

Lincolnshire Community Health Services has begun sending out questionnaires to parents of every child who entered reception class in September.

Along with routine health questions, parents are asked whether their child lies, has temper tantrums, steals from home or has at least one good friend.

Other questions directed at parents include "did you enjoy school?" and "how does your child engage/connect with strangers?"

Lincolnshire Community Health Services insists the pilot questionnaire is confidential and will only be viewed by school nurses.
To repeat: it is not compulsory to fill in this questionnaire.

It is intrusive, unnecessary and impertinent.

If you get one, bin it - and complain.

Wednesday 18 November 2009

BBC Only Get Child Snooping Partly Right

Just watched Look North dealing with the School Entry Wellbeing Report.

Fairly even-handed, with a guy from Big Brother Watch putting the case against; although the presenter kept making the mistake of talking about the information on the form going to the school and the education authority, when it's actually destined for the Health Service.

And the guy from Big Brother Watch missed a chance to make the point that many of the questions were directed at the parents and were concerned with personal, non-health issues.

Cookies: More Mad EU Bastardry

EU: no cookies without consent. Will EU affiliate programs be killed?
Earlier this year, I wrote about an EU plan to require that internet users consent to cookies before they're placed on their computers. At the time, I called the plan "absurd".

Which must be precisely why the Council of the EU has approved a directive amending legislation to do just that. The announcement of this potentially horrendous action? Well-hidden in an 18 page Council press release.

More On State Child Snooping

The School Entry Wellbeing Report, another piece of intrusive and impertinent state interference, is being trialled in Lincolnshire.

The questionnaire is issued by Lincolnshire Community Health Services, who now seem to have taken on responsibility for social engineering as well.

A copy of the document can be found on the Charters and Caldecott Scribd site. A better quality reproduction may be forthcoming.

This gives a good representation of the questions being asked of parents:

Are you in paid employment?
Is your partner is paid employment?
Is the house overcrowded?
Did you enjoy going to school?
Did you achieve all the qualifications you hoped to achieve?
Have you attended any further education courses?
How does your child behave when you leave the room?
How does your child behave when you return to a room?
Do you get help and support from family members?
Does your family provide you with any financial support?
Do you have friends you can talk to?
How many times a week does your child eat red meat?
How often does your child eat a take away meal?
How often does your child drink plain water?

All of this dovetails neatly with ContactPoint, of course, the big database that most parents haven't heard about, which went online earlier this year and whose purpose is to collate information on every child from year zero to 18. For their own good, naturally.

Completing the 'Wellbeing' Report is voluntary but it is being presented as compulsory, and the authorities will doubtless try to bully non-compliant parents.

I know what my answer would be.

Tuesday 17 November 2009

Labour Stasi Hoover Up Data On Five Year Olds

UK.gov hoovers up data on five-year-olds • The Register

Linconshire seems to have chosen as the guinea pig for another state surveillance scheme, this time of five-year olds.
The government obsession with collecting data has now extended to five-year-olds, as local Community Health Services get ready to arm-twist parents into revealing the most intimate details of their own and their child’s personal, behavioural and eating habits.

The questionnaire – or "School Entry Wellbeing Review" – is a four-page tick-box opus, at present being piloted in Lincolnshire, requiring parents to supply over 100 different data points about their own and their offspring’s health. Previously, parents received a "Health Record" on the birth of a child, which contained around eight questions which needed to be answered when that child started school.

The Review asks parents to indicate whether their child "often lies or cheats": whether they steal or bully; and how often they eat red meat, takeaway meals or fizzy drinks.

However, the interrogation is not limited to intimate details of a child’s health. Parents responding to the survey are asked to provide details about their health and their partner’s health, whether they or their partner are in paid employment, and even to own up to whether or not their child is upset when they (the parent) returns to a room.
As if ContactPoint and all the other databases aren't enough.

If you're a parent of a five-year old I think your reply to this kind of interference and bullying should be robust, to put it mildly.

Labour Queen Vermin

New Labour candidate calls the Queen vermin:
A Labour candidate has been forced to apologise after describing the Queen as 'vermin' and a 'parasite'.

Peter White, who is standing in next year's local elections, posted the republican diatribe on the social networking site Facebook.

His offensive outburst came as he expressed his opposition to a campaign launched last week by Tory MP Andrew Rosindell to have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, in 2012, declared a public holiday.

Last night Mr White was forced to issue a humiliating apology by Labour high command, and was threatened with deselection as election candidate.
Well done, that man.

A few lost votes for New Labour and a few extra for the BNP and Conservatives.

These people really are clever, aren't they?

Monday 16 November 2009

Cancelled Manchester ID Cards Itself


Manchester is first to get ID cards

Some minor aparatchik was shoved in front of the media this morning to announce this. It's embarrassing reading the pathetic excuses New Labour's underlings have desperately scraped together to try to justify ID cards once again.
They can now directly apply to attend appointments from November 30 to have their photograph and fingerprints taken for the £30 cards at Manchester's passport office.

Junior Home Office Minister Meg Hillier said the cards would be particularly useful for students and young people as they would "save the cost and hassle" of getting into clubs and bars.

Anyone over 16 in the city with a UK passport can apply for a card.

Ms Hillier told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Really for a lot of people it's a day-to-day convenience thing.

"For a lot of young people ... they often take their passports to prove their identity in nightclubs and bars and the Passport Service sweeps these up every week. So for a lot of people it'll save the cost and hassle of taking your passport, risking losing it and instead you've got this very convenient little credit-sized card. I've got one and it's very useful."

The ID cards are very hard to copy and are very secure, with biometric information stored on a database, she added.

"This is not a database that can be downloaded onto disks," she said.

"It's going to be held in different places so there'll be fingerprints and your picture on one database and your biographical information (on another), which is I must stress just the same as what's held by the Passport Service anyway ... and they will be linked together by another database."

The database would only be used for "serious crime issues" or identity concerns at a border.
The mini-witted former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced in May that Manchester had been chosen as the country's first idiot trial area for ID cards, and so it comes to pass.

Which is a bit funny because I'm sure I read Gordon Brown recently saying that ID cards were off the agenda.

Mind you, he said that a couple of years ago.

Could it be that he's a total fucking liar?

Non-Existent Manchester ID Cards Itself

Manchester is first to get ID cards

The mini-brained former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced in May that Manchester had been chosen as the country's first idiot trial area for ID cards, and so it comes to pass.

Which is a bit funny because I'm sure I read Gordon Brown recently saying that ID cards were off the agenda.

Mind you, he said that a couple of years ago.

Could it be that he's a total fucking liar?

Frattini Italian Joker EU Army Hoot


Italy's Foreign Minister says post-Lisbon EU needs a European Army - Times Online

Well, we already know that the EU plans to have its own armed services, since this is included in the Lisbon Treaty Constitution - that thing nobody in Westminster or the British seems to have read. In fact, we already have a kind of 'European Navy' in the form of EU NAVFOR, patrolling the seas off Somalia.

The fact that it's an Italian minister calling for an EU army must be causing sniggers throughout Brussels, considering the Italians' recent less than admirable history in the military department. Is this not the same country whose troops were recently found to have been paying the Taliban not to attack them in Afghanistan?

Now that the Eurocrats have been given the green light with the final ratification of Lisbon they're wetting themselves at the prospect of implementing all the mad ideas they've got for further federalisation.

Just think what will happen if the Belgium numpty gets the position of Council President -
At a dinner in Brussels on Thursday, the leaders of the European Union will choose the first President of the European Council. The signs are that they will vote for Herbert Van Rompuy, the prime minister of Belgium and – as we reveal today – a committed believer in just the sort of European federalism that the people of Britain loathe. Mr Van Rompuy is the architect of his party's manifesto, which calls for the abolition of "national symbols" in favour of EU licence plates, identity cards, sports events – and the imposition of a European anthem, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, ripped out of its proper setting in his Ninth Symphony. Britain thought it had won the battle over the national anthem when the compulsory singing of the Ode was removed from the draft constitution. But, with Mr Van Rompuy installed in this new office, we can expect it to form part of a massive extension of the presence of the EU in our town halls, schools and at sporting events.
Oh, we are going to have so much fun fucking these bastards around.

Sunday 15 November 2009

Harriet Harman Is A Cretin Shock

Public sector fat cats' pay should be cut, says Harriet Harman

Ms Harman shows what a hypocritical cretin she is (yet again):
In an interview with the Observer, Harman said the pay of the highest ranking public servants, many of whom earn more than £200,000 a year, should be cut to well below the level of Gordon Brown's wage. "The huge salaries in the private sector have fed across into the public sector in a way that has got to be pulled back," she said.

"There are many public servants who are paid more than the prime minister – with the pay rate and bonuses – and that is just evidence of how it has got out of hand."
So the private sector is to blame for public sector salaries? That's a good one.

Who decides what to pay these public sector salaries?

Oh yes, the state.

Nothing to do with people like Harriet, then.

Fake Charities Total Political Corruption Bonanza

How the government buys the silence of charities | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer

Nick Cohen makes the surprising discovery that the political class (for once New Labour are ousted, the Tories will continue the process) of suborning charities for their own ends.
In 2007, thinktank Civitas produced a report which revealed the growing dependency of apparently independent institutions. Save the Children, Oxfam, Shelter and the British Red Cross received between 30% and 70% of their money from government. Barnardo's was 78% state funded, Action for Children 88%, while the National Family and Parenting Institute was almost a fully owned subsidiary.
Melanie Phillips was onto this a few months ago.

For many bloggers, however, this is old news and should have been outed in the MSN years ago.

A quick trip to fakecharities will reveal the depressing truth. Unfortunately the site only includes charities that are funded by and lobby the government, whereas there are just as many charities funded by or even set up by the government which don't qualify on those criteria and don't get included.

The only difference between New Labour and the Tories is that the latter have signalled they will do this openly.

Secret or not, it's corrupt and unacceptable, so I humbly suggest you check before you hand over any money to a charity.

The Charity Commission
itself has, of course, been corrupted by New Labour. You can examine the accounts of all registered charities at their site.

Inept Immigration - Help Us Create Total Chaos

British Election Campaign: We are Inept Over Immigration. Help Us Create Total Chaos » Euro-med
As previously described on this blog, the Danish Social-democrats and the British Labour party have declared among themselves to radically change the old society by making it multicultural. This is a decision to commit cultural suicide. Of course, this was a secret agreement – although its disastrous consequences are obvious to every one: increasingly violent parallel societies.
'Cultural suicide' is a disturbingly apt description.

The Danes can go and screw their own country if they want, but this is my country, our country, and we should be calling the shots.

It is up to us to stop this.

Saturday 14 November 2009

Dutch Drivers To Be Taxed On Road Time - The EU Future

The Associated Press: Dutch drivers to pay tax on road time, not on car

AMSTERDAM — Dutch drivers will pay less to buy a car but will be charged tax for every mile on the road, a system the government says will reduce traffic jams, fatal accidents and carbon emissions.

The Cabinet approved a bill Friday calling for drivers of an average passenger car to pay a base rate of euro0.03 per 1 kilometer (7 US cents per mile), beginning in 2012. Drivers of heavier, more polluting vehicles will pay more, and the cost will go up for driving in peak hours.

GPS will track the time, hour and place each car moves and send the data to a billing agency.

But the annual road tax and purchase tax for new cars will be abolished, reducing the price of a new car 25 percent, the Transport Ministry said.

Nearly 6 out of 10 drivers will benefit under the system, the ministry said, but government revenue would remain the same. Public transportation, including taxis, will be exempt.

The kilometer tax has been debated for several years, amid concerns that it would unjustly raise the cost of car travel and intrude on privacy.

The ministry said, however, the travel information would be protected, and the data would not be accessible to the government for other purposes.

The ministry calculated that overall traffic will drop about 15 percent, peak-hour congestion will be halved, traffic deaths will fall 7 percent and carbon emissions from road travel will be cut by 10 percent.

The tax will increase every year until 2018 and could be adjusted if it fails to change traffic patterns.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
That would work a treat here in the UK, wouldn't it? I can just see our government 'protecting' our data. And I certainly wouldn't be happy with being tracked everywhere I'm driving.

This is the future of driving in the EU - road pricing is one of the things the colleagues are keen to establish whether we want it or not.

How Britain Can Win In Europe

How the Tories can still win in Europe | The Spectator

Fraser Nelson spells out some obvious points about how to deal with the EU, points that the British political class and its supine civil servants should acquaint themselves with:
A practical Euroscepticism can be deployed not as a strategy for summits, but as a day-to-day policy for dealing with Brussels. It is time, in other words, to go rogue.
Because if they don't, we will.

MoD vessel 'watched yacht hijack'


MoD vessel 'watched yacht hijack'

The kidnap of two Britons by Somali pilots was watched by British sailors, who were apparently told not to open fire.

Interesting both for the content and the way this has been reported (or not reported in the main news).

The first reports failed to mention that "the RFA Wave Knight had come within just 50ft (15m) of the couple's yacht, the Lynn Rival, at one point" while the kidnap was taking place.

This report describes the vessel as an "MoD" vessel and as a 'British military ship". The Wave Kinght is actually a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel and so presumably would be manned by civilians from the MoD. It is a refuelling ship, so I would think nobody would want any shooting going on near it.

Another point to bear in mind is that British vessels are now operating off Somalia as part of the new European (EU) Navy - EU NAVFOR.

So the pirates basically have nothing to worry about.

Thursday 12 November 2009

Secret State Cretin Traitors Government Inquests

Secret inquests battle at an end

So, Jack Straw finally gets his way.

Conservative peers abstained, instead of voting against it.

The state has now put itself and its aparatchiks beyond the law and has made the law an instrument of its own will.

The safeguards included by the government are worthless; as worthless as everything else they say and as worthless as the 'guarantees' offered by their EU masters.

The Justice and Coroners Bill, of course, is a result of having to fit in with EU laws.

Governed by cretins AND traitors.

Wednesday 11 November 2009

The Clarkson Mandelson Show (Here's The Rope, Jeremy)


Get me a rope before Mandelson wipes us all out | Jeremy Clarkson - Times Online

Jeremy Clarkson has a go at Mandelson and a thousand and one other things (and nations). Classic read.

Then read Puddlecote's comments and you'll get the impression that something is definitely brewing.

EU Referendum: Spin And Double-Speak

EU Referendum: Spin and double-speak

Thanks to EU Ref for clearing up the confusion about whether the auditors did or did not 'sign off' the EU's accounts.

They did both, in a manner of speaking.

Tuesday 10 November 2009

Cameron's As Bent As Blair And Brown

Cameron to give charities cash in drive to beat welfare ‘failure’ | News
David Cameron attacked the “moral failure” of state-run welfare today as he announced radical plans to use taxpayers' cash to fund charities helping the poorest in society.

The Tory leader pledged to match Labour's commitment to eradicating child poverty but said that a Conservative government would use community groups rather than the state to mend “broken Britain”.

Mr Cameron revealed that he would award welfare franchises across the country to charities which proved they could help the jobless into work or give other assistance to the n
Further proof (though none was actually needed) that Cameron and his 'progressive' Conservatives are exactly the same as Blair, Brown and the New Labour social fascists.

This policy is just a continuation of New Labour's suborning of what they call the 'Third Sector' to further their own policies and 'values'.

Fuck you, Cameron.

Ministers cancel 'Big Brother' database NOT


The Independent proves that it's staffed by idiots.

The headline and attendant article give the misleading impression that plans for surveillance of all our phone and internet activity have been abandoned.

As any fule kno, all that's been 'cancelled' is the government's plans for its own central database to store (and lose) the data gathered by the ISPs in accordance with EU law. The collection and retention of the data is still going ahead.

Give me strength.

Soviet Gordon Wall Database State Bastards


Every phone call, email and internet click stored by 'state spying' databases - Telegraph
All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer's personal communications, showing who they are contacting, when, where and which websites they are visiting.
We know. Why weren't you talking about this three bloody years ago when the EU was finalising the plans? Directive 2006/24/EC, for anybody for whom the Euro hasn't yet dropped.

And these same bastards poncing around in front of the Berlin Wall, spouting about freedom and democracy, are the same bastards who eagerly agreed to it.

And this article has been written by the bloody 'Crime' correspondent. Why the fuck isn't being covered by the political correspondents?

Monday 9 November 2009

Miliband Rejects EU Foreign Affairs Job


While Miliband's trip to Berlin suggests to some commentators that he's definitely up for the job of EU Foreign Minister, others over the water think the opposite is true.

Jean Quatremer, via his colleague Thomas Meyer, thinks that Miliband will renounce the offer, having been asked by Gordon Brown to stay with him to help him in the coming election. The truth, however, may be rather different. According to Quatremer, Labour party chiefs are planning a coup against Brown so that they can replace him with Miliband as a better candidate to offer the electorate.

Whatever the truth, either prospect is a bloody nightmare.

Johnson Immigration Minister Cack Brain

Johnson: we need a debate on migration - UK Politics, UK - The Independent

You should have thought of that before. Still, we know what New Labour's 'debates' and 'consultations' are worth, ie precisely nothing.

And definitely a bit late given Immigration Cat Bag Shit Fan, ie Andrew Neather's revelations about Labour's immigration policy.

Alan Johnson proves once again what a wretched little shit stain he really is.

The Flame That Was Snuffed Out By Freedom

The flame that was snuffed out by freedom | Roger Scruton - Times Online
The EU has facilitated the transition away from communism. It has filled the legal vacuum — indeed, filled it to bursting. It has offered easy routes to cross-border trade and incoming investment. It has led to an exchange of expertise and — in Poland’s case — to a mass escape of the working population.

But those countries today bear no resemblance to the liberated nations that were dreamt of in the catacombs. For when the stones were lifted, and the air of freedom blew across the underground altars, the flame that had been kept alive on them was instantly blown out.

Sunday 8 November 2009

Identity What Identity French Boy?


(Photo courtesy of The Observer)

France is torn asunder by great debate over its national identity | World news | The Observer
Ever since its launch by Eric Besson, the minister for immigration and national identity, Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to hold a national discussion on the elusive quality of what it is to be French has been greeted by protest – much of it over whether the question should be asked in the first place.
It's not just in Britain that the politicians have been conducting a massive experiment in 'multiculturalism' by allowing mass immigration without consulting the people, and then trying to generate and control 'debate' about national identity.

I'm sure that most people in France are quite comfortable with their identity and don't need interfering politicians to start buggering things about by goading them with stupid questions. Immigrants should integrate, full stop, wherever they are (and that includes Brits in foreign countries). This process of integration and assimilation is what has worked in the UK over centuries and it must continue to work, irrespective of and despite government intervention. By thoroughly Anglicising and Britannicising immigrants into the UK we can both cope with the change and destroy the government's intention to turn us into a divided 'multicultural' country.

EU Arrest Warrant Tories Observer Panic

Tory hostility to EU extradition law 'risks new Costa del Crime' | Politics | The Observer
The Observer stoops to tabloid tactics in its attempts to find something with which to attack the Tories.
The Tories are to consider pulling out of the EU's fast-track extradition scheme, which helped bring failed London bomber Hussain Osman to justice, as part of their battle to resist further transfer of sovereignty to Brussels.

Such a move would please the party's Eurosceptics, after David Cameron denied them a referendum on the Lisbon treaty last week, but alarm police chiefs and law enforcement agencies, who believe the European arrest warrant is vital to tackling domestic and cross-border crime.
Anything that is referred to as 'fast-tracking' by the media is always a load of bollocks, in the same way that describing the Lisbon Treaty as being intended to 'streamline' the EU is bollocks.

The article also omits to look at the argument from the other side, ie that other EU countries have different legal systems in which some things are illegal there that aren't crimes in the UK. There have already been cases of British nationals having to be extradited to foreign countries under the warrant when they would have been safe under British law.

It's also disgraceful and rather sad that a paper like the Observer can make the following statement without for one moment considering the momentous implications:
But from the moment Lisbon comes into force, justice and home affairs matters will gradually be brought under full EU control over a five-year period. Experts say that, because amendments will soon be needed to the way the warrant operates, it will probably be switched to full EU control long before 2014.
Britian may or may not have an 'opt-in', but since the EU are not to be trusted and have given themselves the right to change the rules at any time under the self-amending Lisbon Constitution, that may not last.

The police (or rather ACPO) are really keen, as you'd expect, loving the possibility of more power:
Both the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) have welcomed the role the arrest warrant has played in helping to track down criminals who have fled abroad. The Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, Edward Davey, accused the Tories of putting their ideological opposition to the EU above the pursuit of criminals and terrorists.

"Anyone who has looked at the facts knows that, before the arrest warrant, co-operation with many EU countries on catching these serious criminals was at best patchy, at worst impossible. British police simply couldn't rely on Interpol or any bilateral arrangements to deliver justice, even when the offences were as serious as murder, rape or child abuse, Davey said.
They're as deluded as all the rest if they think that the very people upon whom they couldn't rely are going to do any better with extra legislation and administration.

As for Alan Johnson, he's a traitorous little shit-stain.

(I note that Toby Helm is one of the co-writers of this piece. Interesting, he has remained utterly silent about the role of the EU in the chaos at Royal Mail when he's written about that. Couldn't be that he's not being objective, could it?)

Will Hutton Is Still A Tit

Gordon Brown backs radical plan to transform global banking system.

Whoopee! Gordo to the rescue once again!

Global, global, global, doesn't Gordon love the sense of his own importance? Not just a national fuck-up but a global one as well.

According to Arch-Tit Will Hutton,
Campaigners for a global tax on financial transactions to reduce the size and volatility of Big Finance, and to encourage development in the world's poorer countries, are today blinking in disbelief. Over the years, they have been mocked for their impracticality, ridiculed for their intellectual inadequacy and attacked because they would damage the financial markets. And now they have woken up this morning to find that the radical proposal that could transform the global financial world is on the table – put there by Gordon Brown. His speech to the G20 finance ministers in St Andrews yesterday was a refreshing surprise, and potentially game-changing – though his bolder suggestions faced immediate flak.
How very dare they?

TrEUble Ahead For Dave?

Barking Spider: THINK AGAIN, DAVE!

We've been sold down the river by all our political leaders ever since the arch-traitor Edward Heath dropped us in the European Trap. There's no reason to suspect the next bunch will be any different.

It really will be a case of us having to do something ourselves.

Surely there must also be other like-minded people right across Europe?

BBC Not Biased Surely G20 Tax Levy What?


(The acceptable face of BBC bias)

On the latest BBC tv news I caught last night the pouty Silverton reported that the Great Gordon Brown at the G20 meeting was proposing a financial transaction levy (ie a tax) on banks to help the global economic recovery, blah, blah blah. There followed clips of Brown making (yet another) bid for fame, Geithner being less than positive and Angela Knight of the British Bankers' Association giving the idea a firm slap.

This was odd because at least six hours beforehand I had watched interviews on Sky News with Geither of the US, a minister from Canada and Strauss-Kahn of the IMF. All soundly despatched the idea of a tax to the dustbin where everything New Labour and Gordon Brownish should go. Geither said it was something the US 'was not prepared to support'; the Canadian minister said they didn't want it and Strauss-Kahn repeated the same. Unless something radical happens, that would seem to me to be a firm block against Brown's idea.

The pouty Silverton made no mention of Canada or the IMF. Presumably they're not big enough players?

Or would that just make Brown look like the pathetic Master of Catastrophes that he is?

Saturday 7 November 2009

Beaten To The Thompson White Filth Predator Punch

I was beaten to this piece of social-fascist PC bull by Ambush Predator. La luvvie Thompson, presumably along with many of the left-liberal consensus, don't seem to realise that there are large swathes of this country populated mainly by white people.

And they probably don't realise that the ancestors of these folk also lived in this country, some of them going back hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Unfortunately, because they aren't recent immigrants, that makes them bad, and they're doubly bad for having the temerity to be white. That doesn't make them all racist, however. Here's the whole BS:
The actor Emma Thompson has urged a university to work to stamp out racism after her adopted son endured "unpleasant" experiences while studying there. Thompson says Rwandan-born Tindyebwa Agaba suffered because of the colour of his skin during his first year studying politics at Exeter University.

Speaking at a diversity event at the university, Thompson claimed the leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, would "love" the area because of its relative lack of racial diversity. She urged staff and students to carry on trying to drive out prejudice.

The Oscar-winning actor had been taking part in a project at the university called One World, aimed at celebrating diversity. She led a drama workshop, and joined a creative writing session and a debate.

On Thursday, during the debate entitled All Africans Now: Artistry and Activism, a member of the audience raised the issue of the BNP and comments by its leader that London was no longer a British city because of its racial diversity.

Thompson replied that Griffin "would feel very comfortable here". The questioner asked: "What can we do to change the whiteness of Devon and Cornwall? How can we expand our university?"

Thompson replied: "This is how we're doing it [by talking about it]. It's depressing when people think nothing is being done about it.

"Tindy had his experience and now we're having a big week of educational events to try and help it. Please understand you're already engaged, give yourself small goals. You must understand you have a staff who want this university to be the most humane, safe place it can be.

"You're not going to get hundreds of black students here overnight, but what you can do is make them more comfortable. Visitors are never the ones who come up with the solutions, it is up to you."

Opening the event, Agaba said he had suffered problems in his first year. He said: "I studied politics and international relations here and had a beautiful time, especially in my second and third years. I had some problems in my first year."

Sam Miles, an organiser of the One World project, said the event had been very positive. He said no one had been shocked by Thompson's comments about the BNP, but had taken them as criticism of Griffin's inability to live in a multicultural community.

A spokeswoman for the university said Thompson had said Griffin might feel more comfortable in the south-west of England because it is not as ethnically diverse as London.

The spokeswoman said: "This was in response to Mr Griffin's reported comments that London can no longer claim to be a British city because of its diversity."

She added: "Emma Thompson spoke in very positive terms about the university's efforts to encourage equality and diversity. We have a zero tolerance policy towards racism on campus. There are very few incidents: out of more than 18,000 staff and students last year there were five reported incidents of this nature on campus."

The university says about 12% of its student population consisted of black and minority ethnic students, compared with 3.2% in the Exeter region.

Agaba was a former child soldier who met Thompson and her husband, the actor Greg Wise, at a Refugee Council party in 2003. He is now studying for a master's degree, but while at Exeter University expressed surprise at the low number of African students. He wrote: "I find it incredible that I am the only African student in the entire politics department."
Also in The Times.

Friday 6 November 2009

Lisbon Treaty Provides The Exit Route

Do you think those unelected, lying, devious bullying bureaucrats in Brussels had the UK in mind when they put this clause in the Lisbon Treaty?

Article 50 [49a]
1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

The EU is corrupt and authoritarian: people who believe that it can somehow be reformed from within are living in a fantasy world.

This clause gives us hope, because sooner or later the British people are going to demand that our government press the exit button. Sooner would be better. The longer it is left the greater the damage that will have been done.

Meanwhile Tim Worstall also has an interesting thought.

Thursday 5 November 2009

Leviathan Is Born: The Annexation of Europe by Brussels

Leviathan Is Born: The Annexation of Europe by Brussels
Now, with Mr. Klaus’s signature, the game has drawn to its close and a treaty, so despised by the people that it was never put to them, has turned 500 million Europeans into citizens of a genuine supranational European State which is empowered to act as a State vis-à-vis other States and its own citizens. The EU will have its own President, Foreign Minister, diplomatic corps and Public Prosecutor. Henceforward, the only remaining sovereign power of any significance in Europe is Russia. Apart from Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, the EU leviathan has a grip on every other nation, whose national parliaments are, in accordance with the Lisbon Treaty, obliged to “contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union,” i.e. further primarily the interests of the new Union, rather than those of their own people.
- Paul Belien.

Those Russkis Know What The EU's Up To




Twenty Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the EU is a Reincarnation of the Former Soviet Union. 04.11.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru

Now that the Czech Republic has announced it will ratify the Lisbon Treaty, the EU will be even closer yet to becoming a unified monster state, with more than half a billion inhabitants. Inhabitants is the correct term, since “citizens” would indicate a set of political rights. The people living in the EU should rather be called “subjects,” since they have no influence whatsoever on the constitution of the centralized European government, the “European Commission.” The Europeans are allowed to vote for members of the European Parliament, but this body has about as much political power as the ineffectual German parliament meeting at Frankfurt in 1848. Political power in the EU is firmly in the hands of the European Commission, which is set to obtain even more power under the Lisbon Treaty. This infamous treaty does not hold the peoples of Europe in high regard. As a matter of fact, it is only halfway through the treaty (originally presented as a “Constitution”) that one finds the first references to the people.

The first impression one gets while reading through Chapter III of the Lisbon Treaty (the so-called reader-friendly text), is a rather favorable one. This so-called Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union “ places the individual at the heart of its activities, by establishing the citizenship of the Union and by creating an area of freedom, security and justice.” That really sounds grand and reassuring, does it not? Reading on, one clause seems even more impressive than the other.

For instance, article 1 is wonderful: “Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected.” So is article 3:1: “Everyone has the right to respect for his or her physical and mental integrity.” What about article 6: “Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.” And look at article 8:1 “Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her.” Or what did you think of article 11: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”

The list goes on and on. The Lisbon Treaty obviously is an effort to put together the most enlightened elements of all existing European constitutions. Therefore, as far as these “fundamental civil rights” are concerned, the Lisbon Treaty may be regarded as having taken effect already, at least in most of the EU.

It is quite enlightening to take a look at the way the lofty articles cited above are being put into practice. Take “human dignity,” for instance. As a result of the benefits Neoliberal Capitalism has been showering on Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall, by day the streets of most European cities have become a living room for increasing numbers of homeless. At night these streets are transformed into open-air bedrooms, with the homeless making themselves comfortable on mattresses made out of flattened cardboard boxes. The streets seamlessly convert into dining rooms whenever the homeless are hungry. Then they go about scavenging for leftovers among the rubbish in dustbins and garbage containers.

And what about the CIA rendition flights to secret torture centers in EU member states Poland and Romania, with most other EU member states giving clearance for these flights through their sovereign airspace? So far, some 80.000 individuals are believed to have been abducted in this way, many of these with the full collaboration of the EU and its member states.

Clearly in the EU, “human dignity” is not inviolable, nor is it being respected or protected. The treatment meted out to EU citizens suspected of terrorism is a violation of articles 3:1 and 6. Their physical and mental integrity is not respected in any way, and their right to liberty and security of person is trampled on, courtesy of all 27 EU member states.

All talk about human dignity, physical and mental integrity, and liberty and security of person is empty. It is empty because the security of the state (the EU and its member states) is deemed to have priority. You can find proof in the Lisbon Treaty, Title II, article 67:2 “ The Union shall endeavour to ensure a high level of security through measures to prevent and combat crime, racism and xenophobia, and through measures for coordination and cooperation between police and judicial authorities and other competent authorities, as well as through the mutual recognition of judgments in criminal matters and, if necessary, through the approximation of criminal laws.” The clause seems bland, but it means state security (however defined) takes precedence over the rights of individuals.

Article 8 is also very interesting. It would seem to state that one's personal data are safe. But are they? Under current EU regulations, member states are required to keep records of all e-mail traffic and all telephone conversations. In fact it is as if the government would be reading all your letters. Many EU member states, the government can enter your computer at will and change data and records on your computer without your knowing it. All this snooping and spying is, of course, in the interest of state security, to “fight terrorism!” It all looks as if the Nazi slogan “Du bist nichts, dein Volk ist alles!” (You are nothing, your people is everything) were put into effect in today's EU.

Ah, and then there is, of course, freedom of expression. Article 11 establishes this unequivocally. Currently, all 27 EU member states have such a provision in their constitutions. Yet on at least two issues, EU citizens do not enjoy this freedom of speech. In a number of member states (Germany, Belgium, Austria, France, the Czech Republic) it is a criminal offense to publicly wonder whether six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War II. Even if you would believe that, say, no more than 4.5 million Jews were exterminated, this could land you in jail for years. It is effectively prohibited to conduct research into this topic (to try to establish how many Jews were killed during WW II), because it makes you a “Holocaust denier.”

Nor is it allowed in some states to make any sort of remark criticizing islam. This will immediately cause you to be prosecuted for what in the US is called “hate speech.” This is happening to Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who will be put on trial next January for making allegedly disparaging remarks about islam, whereas what he really did was assemble a movie using available footage, to demonstrate the violent nature of islamic teachings.

Free speech, or freedom of expression is really a very simple issue, a clear-cut case. Either you have free speech, in which case you may say ANYTHING at all, or you have no free speech. It is like being pregnant: either you are, or you aren't. It is impossible to be a “little bit pregnant,” just as it is impossible to have “some free speech.”

Thus in the EU today, there is NO free speech. Nor will there be any when the Lisbon Treaty takes effect. The EU crackdown on “illegal” downloads, threatening anyone caught downloading copyrighted items more than three times with lifelong exclusion from internet access, can be interpreted as an indication that a major offensive against one of the few remaining vestiges of freedom is underway.

I am afraid the EU “constitution” (rejected by European voters wherever it was subjected to an honest, fair referendum) in its warmed over version called “Lisbon Treaty” is no more than a useless piece of paper. It is about as meaningful as the old Soviet and East German (GDR) constitutions which, come to think of it, are surprisingly similar to the Lisbon Treaty.

Article 50 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution granted all citizens freedom of speech. But whoever dared voice criticism of the system in any coherent, vocal way, was severely punished. Punishments included loss of job, domestic exile (nuclear scientist Andrei Sakharov), and assignment to a mental hospital. There was no free speech in the old Soviet Union, like there is no free speech in Europe today.

Similarities between the Lisbon Treaty and its communist predecessors are quite remarkable, for instance in the clauses on equality before the law.

Article 34 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution proclaimed full legal equality for all: “citizens of the USSR are equal before the law, without distinction of origin, social or property status, race or nationality, sex, education, language, attitude to religion, type and nature of occupation, domicile, or other status.” The East German Constitution echoes this. Article 20:1 reads: Independently of his nationality, race, religious ideas, social background and position, every citizen of the German Democratic Republic enjoys the same rights and duties. Freedom of religion and belief are guaranteed. All citizens are equal before the law.” Coincidentally, the Lisbon Treaty is strikingly similar: “ Everyone is equal before the law ” (article 20), and “ Any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation shall be prohibited” (article 21).

And just to remind you, in the former communist world of Europe, basic human rights such as these were formulated in the Soviet and East German constitutions, were violated on a daily basis. Henckel von Donnersmarck's shocking movie “The Lives of Others” (2006) shows this in a most penetrating way. The Stasi, inheriting brutal, effective Gestapo methods, was keeping tabs on most of the East German population. Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, it listened in on all telephone conversations, opened all envelopes and read all letters. It kept controls on anyone entering or leaving the country. An army of almost 100,000 secret agents, helped by 200,000 civilian collaborators, spied day and night on East Germany's 16 million citizens. Most European governments today are using time-honored Stasi techniques to keep their citizens under surveillance. However, technology has advanced so impressively since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, that today's government spooks glean more information on unwitting civilians than the most fanatical Stasi agent would have hoped for in his wildest fantasies.

As recently as 2006, a most eloquent and insightful warning against the EU and the Lisbon Treaty's precursor, the ill-fated “constitution”, was given by former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. Traumatized by the experience of living in the Soviet Union, Bukovsky noted the deeply disturbing similarities between the old Soviet Union and the blueprints for the EU super state. The European Commission, he noted, was the exact equivalent of the old Soviet Politbureau, in terms of the secretive way power was exercised, the recruitment and personalities of its members and the scope and reach of its decisions. The “European Parliament” today (and under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty) is a mere rubber stamp institution, just like the “Supreme Soviet” of the old USSR.

As a matter of fact, there are so many similarities between the old Soviet Union and the EU that mere coincidence is unlikely. Bukovsky argues the EU was designed to be like the old USSR. The architects of the EU? Mostly social democrats, whom Stalin quite aptly called “Social Fascists.”

Most Europeans have not yet understood this. Most are still indifferent, but their indifference will soon vanish when the full weight of repressive EU policies and EU taxation doing its destructive work will be felt.

Sooner than anybody now thinks, the only way to vent criticism of the EU will be in the form of jokes. No doubt many of the characteristic old Soviet jokes will be dusted off and given an anti-European Commission twist.

By that time, all Europeans except for the privileged class of “eurocrats” will be prisoners in the EU. However, they will certainly have a wonderful Constitution.

Hans Vogel

Granted that Russia isn't exactly a beacon of democracy and freedom even now, that's a chilling reminder - and warning - from people who know.

Also worth reading is this interview with Vladimir Bukovski, a former Soviet dissident.

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