V And The Office Of The Third Sector

Not science fiction but New Labour in action.

If you're following the debate about fake charities (ie charities funded by the government) then this will help shed more light:

The Office of the Third Sector (OTS) has been set up to drive forward the Government's role in supporting a thriving sector, and brings together sector-related work from across government. The third sector includes voluntary and community organisations, charities, social enterprises, faith groups, cooperatives and mutuals. The sector is diverse in its needs and priorities, and that diversity will be fully reflected in the approach of the Office.

V is the bizarre name of another 'independent charity' supported with our cash by the government. It resulted from the Russell Commission's report, A National Framework for Youth Action and Engagement.

V was set up in 2006. The funding base is as follows:

The Government has allocated £50 million over three years to support the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations. v also has a target of raising £50 million from the private sector. All funding raised from the private sector will be matched on a pound for pound basis by the Exchequer, unlocking potentially an additional £50 million. These figures apply to England only; a further £19.5 million has been made available to the devolved administrations through the Barnett formula.

In other words, this is a charity set up by the government.

However, we live in a country in thrall to the cult of the committee, the think-tank and the report, so there was another consultation: The Morgan Enquiry, which appeared to cover the same ground, ie getting young people involved in volunteer work.

Someone over at the Association of Volunteer Managers couldn't see much difference either. It may have been independent of government funding but it was chaired by a baroness with a New Labour political background and included three MPs. Unlike with the Russell Commission, though, I shouldn't think anything will result from the Enquiry.

It would be interesting to know whether V has managed to achieve its aim of getting a million young people to volunteer within its initial three-year period.

Funtbag Flint In BNP Funk

Minister for Europe Caroline Funtbag Flint shows her shaky grasp of reality:

[The] minister has warned Labour MPs and trade unions they will play into the hands of the British National Party if they continue their campaign against companies they claim recruit "foreign workers" to undercut pay levels.

Surely it would be the other way round? If they refused to listen to people's fears about immigrants and jobs THEN people would turn to the BNP.

This is, of course, what is happening, since New Labour's supremos have told us to get on our bikes and go to Brussels for a job and that we've got to take the EU's laws whether we like them or not.

Same with the Royal Mail. And it's the same problem for the Conservatives. Interesting post about all this over at EU Referendum.

Euro elections in June. The colleagues must be getting jittery.

Informed Stasi Citizen Bolshevik Broadcasting Company

Not content with presenting the public with its highly selective and frequently misleading diet of 'news', the BBC has also embraced the role of Social Engineer and Propagandist on behalf of New Labour, hence this nonsense about 'informed citizenship', which found its way into its last Charter (2004).

I'd be happy if the BBC actually stuck to reporting the facts more often than it does and kept its nose out of trying to mould our attitudes. The BBC has a duty to its public; citizenship does not come into it.

Just how far the BBC has become a political tool of New Labour is further revealed in the fact that has its own 'citizenship' website for children, Citizen X. It's full of New Labour newspeak about 'rights', 'responsibilities', 'identity' and 'diversity', as you'd expect and sounds like a child-friendly version of Every Child Matters. All of which comes at a time when the government is daily depriving its citizens of their freedoms.

There are also sections on government, local democracy, voting and community action. There's irony for you.

EU Postal Elephant Visible In Room

At last! Something I've been banging on about for ages.

The EU elephant starts becoming visible in the room: British Laws For British People. HT Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Delusional Hopelessness and Criminal Ignorance

In a piece about Royal Mail over on the Site of Hopelessness known as Labourhome, I was interested to read this:

DHL for example use desperate people on the unemployed register coerced in to becoming self employed by the Jobcentre. DHL are paying them 60p per package for delivery in a 15 mile radius of their own home. This result is slave labour and an inferior service. The poor exploited fools are expected to use their own vehicles and petrol of course.

This presumably explains why I'd seen a number of men in PO uniforms delivering mail from their own cars about three weeks ago (I checked it - it was Jan 24).

John Frost, author of the article, continues:

Why on earth would Broon and Mandy promote this type of practice?

Well, John, the answer is: it's the EU (for the umpteenth bloody time).

Does anybody in the British political system and media know what the fuck is actually going on? Or are they all in a state of psychotic denial?

You're An Absolute Shower

My early morning blog-reading has been stimulated by Bishop Hill's savaging of David Semple (simple is as Semple does) who talks a load of bull about home schooling.

More BBC blather about Mandelson's push to enforce EU privatisation plans on the Post Office. Though without once mentioning the EU, of course. Not a peep from the Tories on this one, however, since they know they're stuffed by the same legal requirements.

Meanwhile the Tories are making asses of themselves by trying to out-hardman New Labour on juveniles, with talk of curfews and such like. Hint to Dave and the Other Chaps: you have to be different from the others, not just copy their ideas and magnify them.

Dig for Victory. Are we heading for an old-fashioned 'austerity Britain'? My advice to all young people: leave the country as soon as you can.

Note re: title - those of a certain age will recall this as a catch-phrase of the wonderful Terry-Thomas. Any help in locating a sound recording of the old boy saying it would be much appreciated.

The We explains put (Brownian Cant)

The Spawn of the Manse has penned a piece of execrable self-serving nonsense for today's Observer. I thought it would make more sense and be more entertaining to give it the literary treatment by shoving it through a cut-up machine. Hence:

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Petard Hoisting

From today's Observer:

Mandelson presses ahead with Post Office privatisation. Toby Helm (once again) omits to mention what is driving this legislation, ie the EU.

Carole Cadwalladr explains how Jacqui Smith has been hoist by her own fart-bomb. How to turn the Police State against its own instigators. They don't like it up 'em.

Desperation of The Spawn of the Manse becoming an embarrassment. Brown 'signals an end to the excesses of 100% mortgages'. Too bloody late. How many 100% mortgages does he think have been arranged in the last six months? It's also typical New Labour spin: all words and suggestions, no action. Just shut up, you cretin.

Greek media now being targetted as part of the problem. As they are to a greater or lesser extent elsewhere...

Something I'd forgotten to blog about a month or two back: UK border controls will keep foreign artists out. Quite right; can't have these foreign arty-farty types coming here with their unLabour ideas and filthy habits.

More New Labour Bastardry

Another comment on the destruction of our freedoms by New Labour.

And the bastards now want to film us buying our booze. I look forward to giving the camera a Hitler salute should they ever install them in Tesco.

It seems we may not be able to opt our children out of the ContactPoint database. Unless we can persuade the authorities that we are all celebrities.

Various people keep getting sniffy about defining lefties as 'Nazis' because blah blah blah. I'm a pragmatist, so for me the only question worth asking is: what difference is there between Nazism and Communism (or any other version of extreme leftwingism)? Answer: none. They both end up in totalitarianism, the destruction of individual and communal freedom, and lots of dead people. I don't give a fuck about the ideological routes they take to get there; they both end up in the same place.

Funtbag Flint Euro-Army And Cambridge Nonsense Education

EU army or not EU army? what do you think? - Caroline Flint (Labour MP) or the EU itself? Read Hugo Waterfield in The Times. Clue: Caroline Flint is a funtbag.

Education, education, education...the Cambridge Primary report apparently says that primary education in England concentrates too much on the basics.

Frank Chalk provides an adequate response:

Congratulations to Professor Robin Alexander who has successfully proved Chalk's 5th Law of Teaching; which states that whenever an educational academic speaks, you must immediately stick your fingers in your ears and repeatedly shout "La-La-La...".

When I first heard about it on the early news I was rather confused - the idea that schools under New Labour were concentrating too much on the basics seemed surreal. The government appeared miffed - presumably because they were being ticked off for over-testing, etc. Reading a precis of the Report, however, I began to suspect they were pissed off because they were being out-loonied and out-New-Laboured, thus:

The review suggests the primary curriculum should be "re-conceived" with 12 specific aims, which it arranges in three groups:

* The needs and capacities of the individual: wellbeing; engagement; empowerment; autonomy
* The individual in relation to others and the wider world: encouraging respect and reciprocity; promoting interdependence and sustainability; empowering local, national and global citizenship; celebrating culture and community
* Learning, knowing and doing: knowing, understanding, exploring and making sense; fostering skill; exciting the imagination; enacting dialogue.

These aims would be achieved through eight "domains", rather than a small number of subjects.

The domains would be: arts and creativity; citizenship and ethics; faith and belief; language, oracy and literacy; mathematics; physical and emotional health; place and time (geography and history); science and technology.

That's from the BBC website.

There you have it: 'wellbeing', 'empowerment', 'citizenship', 'celebrating', etc, all the usual vacuous buzz-words of the left; it's like reading the government's New Reich Plan for Children (Every Child Matters).

In A Pickle Over Surveillance

Over at Pickled Politics they've had a pop at the people responsible for the erosion of our liberties:

All those people who cheered on the neoconservatives in the US as they used and abused surveillance powers, as stood by New Labour while they talked up ID cards - they are also to blame. The fact that it has become illegal to even take a picture of a police constable is not just the fault of New Labour, it’s also the fault of the apologists on the left and right who went along with that agenda.

Not just Labour, then? Well, things certainly haven't been helped by a supine opposition and a compliant media, but they don't make the legislation - the government does. This sounds like special pleading. The government is squarely to blame: it didn't have to create and pass any of this legislation; it chose to do so.

And it all started BEFORE 9/11, with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) when terrorism was not on the agenda. Labour didn't need any encouragement from anyone else.

Labour Shoots The Messengers

Like all authoritarian, dictatorial, arrogant and out-of-touch governments, Labour likes to shoot the messengers who bring them news of the truth. Hence the disbanding of the Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee.

Draw Your Own Line

H/T Lord Elvis: Michael Badnarik on liberty.

The British Police State - Rimington Confirms

Dame Stella Rimington makes plain what lots of us know, ie that the Labour government is actively turning Britain into a police state, using the threat of crime and terrorism as an excuse.

Dame Stella was the first director general of MI5. In other words, she knows what she's talking about.

The article refers to the collection of all our internet and telephone data, which is going through parliament as the Intercept Modernisation Bill; it fails to mention that this is in compliance with a European Union directive (2006/24/EC). Not that Labour would complain. We have the double threat of an authoritarian government at home and a corrupt authoritarian superstate beyond that.

This is the truth of the matter:

LABOUR = BRITISH POLICE STATE
EU = EUROPEAN POLICE STATE

The Bolshevik Broadcasting Company mentioned it on Radio 4 and briefly on tv. Let's see what happens when it comes to the main tv news during the rest of the day.

And they're not the only ones at it: even the New Zealand government thinks it can deprive its citizens of internet access for suspicion of copyright infringement.

Meanwhile Another Despot In The Making...

Hugo Chavez. How long before Venezuela descends into total corruption, economic meltdown and authoritarian chaos?

Continued Nastiness

Here's another bit of nastiness that came in under the radar (though oddly enough this link is to the BBC website - not that this kind of information ever gets onto the TV news where most people are likely to see it): the National Staff Dismissal Register. Further info here. The database is to contain details of all staff dismissed for gross misconduct.

The nasty touch, typical of anything promoted or aided by New Labour, is the fact that the database also records details of 'individuals who have been dismissed (whether prosecuted or otherwise) or left the company whilst under suspicion'. In other words, you don't have to have been charged with a crime to be treated as guilty. This is similar to the Allegations Management System being operated by various local authorities, and the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

Obviously, fiddling your expenses if you're an MP isn't covered by this system.

The Mail has a pop at DroopersList. A bit easy, but we need something to cheer us up.

Gordon Brown, Destroyer of Liberties. Arsehole.

Which is more corrupt - Bulgaria or the EU?

Burning Burning Burning Burning

Henry Porter: MPs fiddle while parliamentary democracy burns.

And here is a section of the Common Assessment Framework (part of the Every Child Matters/ContactPoint social control project):

Seeking consent
5.3 In most circumstances (but see paragraphs 5.6 to 5.8 for exceptions), you should only record and share CAF information with the informed consent of the child or parent. This should not be a significant barrier if you are working in partnership with them. You should also provide copies of relevant documents to the child and parent as appropriate. For common assessment, it is important that you:

● obtain informed consent;

● ensure that the information shared is accurate and up-to-date, necessary for the purpose for which you are sharing it, shared with those people who need to see it, and shared securely;

● work with children and parents to agree how information is recorded, used and shared;

● where possible, obtain ‘explicit’ consent if the information held or shared is sensitive (explicit consent can be oral or written; written consent is preferable, e.g. through a signature on the CAF recording form) and, if you have ongoing contact, review this consent regularly;

● follow agreed local policies for recording and renewing consent.

5.4 A young person aged 16 or over, or a child under 16 who has the capacity to understand and make their own decisions about what they are being asked, may give consent. Children aged 12 or over may generally be expected to have sufficient understanding. Otherwise, you should ask a person with parental responsibility to consent on their behalf.

I find the quote marks around 'explicit' rather disturbing. It seems to suggest that non 'explicit' ways may be acceptable. 5.4 is repellent; it's the kind of behaviour encouraged by the Hitler Youth and Komsomol.

We are now in a situation where it is necessary not just to remove Labour from office and demand that all of its repressive legislation be scrapped for ever but also to destroy the Labour party and punish those individuals responsible for this treasonable repression.

Jacqui Hamas Wilders

I can't see this getting very far, wonderful as it sounds: Wilders to sue Jacqui Smith for banning him from UK.

Hamas accepts long-term peace deal with Israel (but then fires off a couple of missiles).

Bent Cops EU Style

EU corruption - what's new? Except that this time it's the cops:

EU's Police College suspected of fraud

The European Police College - an agency of the European Union located in Bramshill, UK - has come under suspicion of fraud. The college organises training for senior police officials from across the EU. According to Swedish Radio, EU funds were used to buy furniture, mobile phones and to fund trips for the College's staff. In December last year, the European Court of Auditors said in a report that it had identified cases where EU funds "were used to finance the private expenditure of some of the college's staff". At least £21,000 of the funds are thought to have been used to pay for these items, Swedish Radio reports. The budget for the European Police College was 8.7 billion euros in 2008.

MEPs are now threatening to refuse to approve the 2007 accounts of the College - which would be an important political statement, but not have any legal consequences. Christofer Fjellner, MEP for the Swedish Moderates, is quoted saying "I have to say that the EU's rules are often very complicated and hard to follow. But in this particular case I think it's a matter of systemic flaws, and that they simply haven't followed the basic rules."

Care of Open Europe blog newsletter.

Wilders In The Wilderness And Other Toss

Further protests at foreign workers?

Mark Thomas and the Stop And Search Card: a useful idea that could be extended into many other areas. It's about time to turn the tables on the state and give its goons a taste of their own medicine.

British government bans Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering the country. Can't have any of that freedom of speech malarkey going on here, especially as Wilders is an ugly-looking bastard with wacky hair. Obviously Wilders is not included in Viviane Reding's encomium on the EU Wonderstate: "All citizens have a right to travel throughout Europe as if they were at home...Europe is a space without boundaries, and as a home for its citizens it should create ways for these people to move throughout it in a safe way." Although she was talking about the EU-wide emergency telephone number that has still not caught on in 18 years. It's 112, by the way.

Will Self: for better education we need a better state.

Crosby -> CEO of HBOS (sacks whistleblower for warning that the shit will hit the fan) -> appointed by The Spawn to lead the Government's Public Private Forum on Identity Management; appointed by Darling to head up a Working Group of mortgage industry experts to advise the Government on how to improve the functioning of the mortgage market (stifles laughter) -> gets a gong from Gordon -> appointed Deputy Chairman of the Financial Services Authority -> shit hits the fan, housing market collapses, economy goes down the pan, Crosby resigns.

Blatherbag Blears

Busy day.

George Monbiot can often be a self-important tosser but his article skewering the toxic blatherbag Hazel Blears is a scorcher.

Ecstasy Or A Horse? Fartbags And The Apology Police

Professor David Nutt has been compelled to apologise for using his brains as opposed to towing the PC party line. He had the temerity to point out that horseriding accounted for far more deaths each year than taking ecstasy and that we should think about our reasons for making some activities legal and others not.

Freedom of thought and speech and the right to bring facts into the debate are unacceptable to today's politicians, particularly New Labour. Accordingly the Professor has been made to lick Jacqui's ample boots and apologise to someone or other.

Jacqui Smith, sponger on the public purse and fuckwitted fartbag said:

"I'm sure most people would simply not accept the link that he makes up in his article between horse riding and illegal drug taking.

"For me that makes light of a serious problem, trivialises the dangers of drugs, shows insensitivity to the families of victims of ecstasy and sends the wrong message to young people about the dangers of drugs."

To shine a little more light in this mephitic swamp of canting self-righteousness and ersatz compassion read the Telegraph article.

The Procurement of Apologies is now government policy applicable to everyone except Labour MPs.

Spying On Us Is OK Says ECJ

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled in favour of the EU's data retention directive (2006/24/EC) and against an appeal by the Irish government - on the grounds that it '"ensures that the obligations and costs imposed on telecoms companies are the same throughout the EU, thereby allowing for the “functioning of the internal market”.'

That's funny, considering the directive is supposedly about crime and terrorism. I fail to see how this has anything to do with regulating the internal market.

The directive, which will be implemented in the UK as the Intercept Modernisation Programme compels ISPs to log the details of all our phone and internet activity on behalf of our government (ie the EU). Ireland argue that this sort of legislation should have been decided by national governments. It is already in operation in most member states. The UK government originally estimated it would cost ISPs £25 million to comply. Guess who's going to be paying that bill?

Mass Balls Fascist Photo Depression Ploy

(Photo courtesy of BBC)

Mass photo action against police:

Comedian Mark Thomas is to join with NUJ members in an event to highlight the threat of a new UK law that could be used against press photographers taking pictures of the police.

The Counter Terrorism Act allows for the arrest and imprisonment of anyone whose pictures are “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”.

The union is joining with campaigners to organise a mass picture taking session outside London’s police HQ on Monday 16 February – the day the act becomes law.

Duncan Carswell reckons England is getting angry.

He's right. No doubt New Labour have some feeling of this and want to ride it for their own benefit by diverting attention away from their own catastrophic failing onto the BNP and 'far-right' groups? Is that what's going on behind the Balls speech last night?

Everything that comes out of the mouth of a Labour politician has to be treated like toxic shit because it is always mendacious. Either Balls' speech is a personal manoeuvre for his own long-term career or it's some ploy by the government. I suspect the latter; that it's a play to increase our fears in order to allow New Labour to tighten its authoritarian grip and/or it's a prelude to proposing a National Government. Both are totally unacceptable.

On last night's news round up with Jeremy Paxman they wheeled on the Fat Pie-Man himself, John Prescott, to rail against the greed of the bankers. He had nothing to say about the government's complicity in the economic mess that's been caused. Presumably New Labour hope that the appearance of the oaf will revitalise their old-fashioned working class support. They are desperate to re-re-invent themselves as the People's Party and the guardians of the working class. By conjuring up the phantoms of the right they can claim the ground to the centre and left.

New Labour are committed to one thing alone and that is staying in power. Nothing they do or say is for the benefit of the people of this country. If The Spawn can stand there talking about not rewarding failure (ie the bankers) then he should be the first to resign for colossal failure on his own part, followed by the whole government.

And, returning to the BBC and its bias I note that last night a piece about some bloody football manager being sacked took precedence over news of a poll that revealed the Afghans want foreign troops off their soil - considering our troops are being killed and maimed in Afghanistan I would have thought this was of slightly more importance.

£1000 Fine For Not Renewing Your Driving Licence Photo

Following up on a post by PCJ about the DVLA's licence renewal fiasco, I located this at Directgov which reveals that after 10 years you need to renew the photo on your licence card; in other words, renew your licence, which costs you £17.50. And if you forget, you face a possible fine of £1,000. Nice.

When to renew your licence
• Photocard licences are only valid for up to
10 years, although your entitlement to drive
will normally be valid until your 70th birthday.
• If you hold a photocard driving licence, by law
you must renew your photo every 10 years.
You could be fined up to £1000 if you don’t.

That's from the DVLA's own pdf. It required some poking around to find it.



This image on the Directgov site shows you what to look for on your card. The date at 4b is the expiry date of your photo. I don't remember receiving any information about this when I received mine years ago. I was, however, bemused to read the DVLA's reason for providing me with the old-fashioned bit of paper AND a plastic card: it was part of the government's drive to cut down the cost of paperwork(!).

What they failed to mention was that the move to change driving licences to plastic card format was part of the EU's plans to introduce a European driving licence, which was finally agreed among all member states in 2006. All national licences will have been phased out by 2032. I bet you didn't know that. And the reason for all this? Security and prevention of fraud, of course. What a surprise.

I also recall reading somewhere that when the UK government introduced the cards it didn't have the necessary computer equipment to read them, hence the continued issuing of the paper licence. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Euro Sheep Electronic Tag Revolt

Regulate, regulate, regulate...the European Union's psychotic obsession with legislating for absolutely bloody everything is provoking British farmers who don't want to be compelled to electronically tag their sheep.

The regulations, to be introduced in January next year, mean each sheep must be fitted with an electronic ear tag. The move is designed to track all individual sheep in the wake of the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001. But Britain has more sheep than anywhere else in Europe, and farmers, already under pressure from falling prices and low profit margins, say it is not practicable or even necessary.

Apparently we have 30 million sheep in the country:

The huge costs associated with introducing the scheme - around £5,000-£6,000 for a machine to scan the tags, which themselves could cost between 50p and £1.50 each - would be enough to sink some farms.

It's likely this idiocy will be knocked back but the question should be asked, why was money and time spent on proposing the idea in the first place?

Paying To Stay In The Prison Of The EU

Some costly home truths about belonging to that 'prison of nations', the EU, courtesy of Open Europe:

Business leaders call on the Government to "adopt uncompromising stand" against over-regulation

In a letter to Saturday's Telegraph, 15 business leaders, including Tim Martin and Julian Blackwell, called on the Government to "adopt an uncompromising stand against regulatory overkill." Citing Open Europe's report published last week on the cost of regulation, the leaders argue "Without fundamental reform, the regulation factories in Whitehall and Brussels will produce still further red tape, at a time when businesses are struggling to cope with their cost base or even, in some cases, to survive."

Meanwhile, an article on page 2 of the Sunday Express looked at Open Europe's report, which found that EU legislation introduced since 1998 has cost the UK economy £107billion, equivalent to 72 per cent of the total cost of regulation during that time period and more than the entire annual cost of the National Health Service. If the current rate of legislation continues for the next decade, the report found, EU regulation will cost Britain £356billion - equivalent to £14,300 per British household, or enough to abolish income tax for two years.

The report also found that EU employment law had cost Britain £31billion since 1998 - over 20% of the total cost of regulation - and that new EU health and safety legislation has cost £5.7billion during the last decade.

The article also noted that the report found that a British impact assessment on the EU's Motor Fuel Regulations 2007 estimated the social and economic benefits at £0 a year, the environmental benefits at £18.5million a year and the costs at £400million a year. Despite the huge discrepancy it was signed off by then Transport Minister Stephen Ladyman on the grounds it was "expected to be the least cost means of complying with our EU obligations".

Open Europe Research Director Mats Persson said that small businesses were the biggest losers and the financial sector, where lack of regulation has been blamed for causing the recession, accounted for only five per cent of new regulations.

He was also quoted saying "Our research clearly shows that despite some genuine attempts at reform, the cost of regulation has skyrocketed over the past decade. The Government has simply lost control. We need a tough new approach to negotiations in the EU. A good place to start would be refusing to accept an end to the UK's opt-out from the 48-hour week, currently under negotiation."

Simon Wolfson, Chief Executive of Next, was quoted arguing, "The mindset of government must change. Policymakers must accept the radical idea that the law should only be used to regulate our endeavours where there is an overwhelming case for state intervention. Secondly, Ministers must be far stronger in resisting new regulation from the EU. They must use all the power at their disposal to stem the tide of regulation coming from the EU, regardless of the unpopularity it may cause us in Brussels. In the long run, the whole of Europe will thank us for taking a stand."

Telegraph: Letters Express

The Briefly Broadcasting Company

So, here's the run-down of tonight's six o'clock news from the Beeb:

1 the Australian bushfires
2 Gordon Brown promises 'sweeping' review of bank management: a 'review', please note (and 'sweeping' (that must have featured in the Press Release)
3 Jacqui Smith - bingo! - must have lasted all of ten seconds; blink and you missed a pointless clip of said clone getting into ministerial car; absolutely no follow-up
4 more bad weather on the way; cue pictures of sheep in snowy fields, etc
5 ghost ship Clemenceau on its way to the Northeast
6 sport
7 films
(plenty of time on the last two).

Overpaid Morons

Follow-up on the BBC's coverage of the Lindsey refinery strike: 'BBC apologises for misleading edit of striking worker'. Editing is something the BBC is very good at (see my previous post on Jeremy Clarkson). It's just covering extremely important issues where it's shit.

Will Hutton demonstrates why he's an overpaid moron: he believes The Spawn of the Manse should institute the equivalent of Roosevelt's New deal programme, because Labour believes in 'deploying the state to create a fair society'. Christ, is that what they believe in? Doesn't look like that to me.

Gordon Brown should not be Prime Minister and New Labour should not be in power. They have demonstrated a complete inability to manage the economy, treated the citizens of this country with total contempt and instituted a campaign of destruction of our freedoms unmatched by any government in two hundred years. Anyone who thinks these sanctimonious cretins should continue in power or advocates a National Government that includes them is a moron.

And talking of morons, having read that a couple of bloggers that Tom Harris is one of the better New Labour bloggers, I dropped in on his site to have a look. He's the man who didn't understand the point of the Libertarian Party's campaign to get a copy of 1984 sent to every MP. He still doesn't understand about surveillance. Or quite possibly he just doesn't give a fuck, because he's all right, Jack.

Anyway, to return to the BBC, I look forward to watching tonight's six o'clock news, to see what important information is omitted.

That's Why She's Called 'Home' Secretary

Jacqui Smith in home expenses row. Wonder if the BBC news will feature this?

Government to record all our travel details in and out of the UK: on BBC website, but, again, will it feature on the main news?

And just outside the EU Empire, the Swiss are to vote on foreign workers.

More Bolshie Broadcasting Company Bollocks

Two things I noted about the BBC news last night.

1) Regarding the latest teacup storm concerning Jeremy Clarkson (see link in my previous post): the BBC didn't show the video either in part or whole but presented a sequence of photos of it and played a voice recording - ONLY OF THE FIRST HALF OF CLARKSON'S COMMENT, ie 'in England we have this one-eyed Scottish idiot', thus leaving out the really important bit about Brown lying to us over the economic situation, and thereby directing the PR into Righteously-Offended La-La Land.

2) Regarding the settlement at Killingholme refinery and the 'social dumping' of foreign workers under EU regulations: the reporter on our regional tv interviewed a man from a local engineering company who said we can't afford to be protectionist because his firm did so much trade with Europe. Notice the misleading blurring between employment and trade.

This is not the first time this line has been used when reporting the strikes and walk-outs. The Lindsey dispute is about employment, not the ability to trade with European countries and it may have escaped the notice of BBC journalists that people on these islands have been trading with people on the Continent for thousands of years - with or without regulations.

And Just Journalism have released an analysis of media coverage of the Gaza conflict which proves what was blatantly obvious to many of us, ie that the BBC in particular was biased against Israel.

Its summary includes the following: that the BBC failed to make crucial distinctions between opinion and fact; that it did not differentiate between civilian and Hamas casualties; and that its Middle East Editor's online diary was 'highly partial', 'often emotional' and showed 'a preoccupation with humanizing Palestinian perspectives' to the detriment of his impartiality.

Offensive One-Eyed Clarkson Sarkozy Spawn Bollocks

Even that puffed-up little French tosser Sarkozy reckons The Spawn of the Manse is shite.

As does Jeremy Clarkson, who has 'apologised' for saying ' in England we have this one-eyed Scottish idiot - he keeps telling us everything is fine and he's saved the world and we know he's lying'.

Cue the obligatory indignation.

I'm sick to fucking death of people being fucking offended by one thing or another. Just fuck off and grow up.

End of the week: cue for lager.

The Bolshevik Broadcasting Company

Lord Elvis at 10 Drowning Street accuses the BBC of fabricating nonsense news stories with itself at the centre to avoid real news. I wouldn't disagree. The amount of garbage presented on primetime BBC news is ridiculous - non-stories about celebrities, actors, footballers, and local or foreign news items bigged up as something important. How lucky for them a bit of snow has fallen in the last couple of days.

I have not heard one mention on the main news about the Coroners and Justice Bill, the Data Retention Bill or any of the slew of legislation enacted by the government to destroy our liberties. Nothing about ContactPoint, nothing about the amendments to the Terrorism Bill to allow police to harass photographers, and certainly nothing about the EU (except when it becomes absolutely unavoidable).

I suppose they can get away with it to some extent by claiming that they feature some of this information on their website. An item such as that about Hamas seizing UN aid, for instance. No mention of that on the 6 0'clock news, just as there was no mention of Hamas breaking the recent ceasefire by blowing up an Israeli landrover, etc.

The BBC also makes sure its reporters and presenters mention the word 'recession' as infrequently as possible and use 'downturn', 'credit crunch' or other euphemisms instead. The snap above highlights the 'global' and US element as a means to distract from the fact that the UK is badly hit by the recession and is as much to blame for its own problems as anybody else (that keeps it in line with Brownian thinking).

And yet there goes The Spawn of the Manse himself succumbing to the Freudian slippage and saying the word 'depression' in parliament. Depression is the right word to describe the condition of having to live in the bankrupt, authoritarian shithole this country has become under him and his collaborators over the last 11 years.

British Jobs For British Graduates And Other Labour Fairytales

More government spin to paper over EU jobs diktats: British jobs for British graduates (not). No doubt hoping to confuse people who don't realise the difference between EU applicants and non-EU applicants. I always advise my students and other young people to leave this country as soon as they can (and while they are able to).

Peter Hitchens on British Jobs for British workers. I more often agree with his brother but sometimes he is spot on, as he is here.

New Labour and the countryside.

A very disturbing and premonitory story about ID cards, etc, over at Henry Porter's blog.

Hamas UN Aid Spat

Hamas police seize aid for Gaza.

Lies, Lies, Lies, Delusion and More ID Card Lies

According to Hillier*, the public wants the biometric cards, adding that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is already being asked "When can I get my ID card?". (Silicon.com)

Of course we all do. Thirty quid a pop is not bad for something we don't need, didn't ask for, which will cost the country millions to run, cause untold problems, won't work properly, and be hacked into and abused by criminals.

Jacqui Smith's majority is a slim one (2,716) and there are rumours New Labour are trying to secure her a safe seat come the General Election Massacre. Perhaps we should get her husband to write letters to the local press asking her to quit politics so she can spend more time with her family.

* Meg Hillier (40): another professional (New Labour) politician - university, journalism, local government. According to Wikipedia: 'In March 2008, Meg Hillier voted with the Government in favour of nationwide Post Office closures, including 7 in the London Borough of Hackney of which her constituency forms a part.' Well done, Meg. Good to see you have the interests of your constituents at heart. Her pointlessness has already been noted.

Oily Wildcat Blunkett Database Bollocks

The foreign workers dispute rolls on and wildcat strikes continue. There's no point bringing in ACAS - this is not an arbitration dispute. The government's hands are tied because the rules are made in Brussels.

John Redwood makes the point:

For years the UK government has told us that it influences EU legislation, and had got on well with our partners. The truth has usually been very different. The UK government has found out what the EU plans to do next, and then has told us it finds that acceptable or a good idea. Where it realises that an EU measure is going to be unpopular it either plays it down, or tells us it is going to press for changes. If it manages a minor change it then heralds this as a success and gives in on the bigger principles at stake. As a result of its retreats we have lost a big chunk of our financial rebate successfully negotiated by Margaret Thatcher, we have imported huge quantities of regulation whilst the government has told us it is deregulatory in spirit, and we have adopted the canons of EU labour and migration law.

The EU has been continuously sold to the British electorate as nothing more than a free trade area. It's not: it's a political union, a superstate in which nation states and their governments are merely regional assemblies implementing regulations from Brussels. Once the Lisobon Treaty comes into force all national sovereignty will be effectively abolished.

Here's a turn up for the books:

DAVID BLUNKETT, the former home secretary, has criticised government plans to record every telephone call, email and internet session on a database, saying it could endanger civil liberties.

The Home Office is proposing to install “black boxes” in telephone exchanges to copy phone and web data passing through them and to store it on a central database.

But Mr Blunkett said the multi-billion pound Intercept Modernisation Programme (IMP) may not achieve its aim of defeating terrorism.

“We have got to be very cautious,” he said. “I fear there is no point in having sophisticated data retention if it’s not usable, refinable and therefore applicable in tackling potential terrorism attacks.

“I have strongly advised that the Government should not try to set up a centralised system that it operates itself, because that could lead to difficulties as well as concerns about civil liberties and data exchange,” he added.

“I hope they will be able to attain an alternative way of achieving the same goals.”

Currently, the police and security services draw on records from telephone companies and internet service providers, frequently using the material in prosecutions.

But with changing technology and the demise of itemised phone bills, the Home Office said there was a need for the Government to create its own centralised database.

Special briefings led by Lord West, the security minister, this week will attempt to allay fears over the intercept programme. A consultation paper setting out initial ideas on how the IMP would work is due within weeks. (Sunday Telegraph)

That's a perpelexing thing to read when you remember that Blunkett was not only the early champion of ID cards (or 'entitlement' cards, as he liked to call them) but at one stage was himself proposing that all our phone calls should be logged.

Could it be that he's only against the government having the database, rather than the job being farmed out to private business? Blunkett has at various times had interests in a DNA firm and Entrust, a US company specialising in providing - you guessed it - ID cards. Forgive me suspecting there's more to this than meets the eye.

Mandelson plans a "people's bank" via the Post Office. In other words re-establish the National Girobank, a successful bank that vanished in privatisation under the Tories. A (rare) good idea from New Labour. But will it actually happen?

Baron Mandy's Antoinette Moment - Heads Off Soon

According to reports, Baron Mandelson has suggested that the striking workers at Lindsey oil refinery and other places can go and work elsewhere in Europe. I think that qualifies as a 'Let them eat cake' moment. We all know what that led to.

Jacqui Smith continues to use underhand tactics to make ID cards look acceptable: targetting schoolkids. What utter fucking scum.