Tales Of A Suspicious Society

Tales of a suspicious society | Henry Porter.

UK Government FO Total Fail Thank You

Thanks to the UK government, the Foreign Office (or whatever it's called these days) and the ever-despicable Ministry of Defence, the following:

The final withdrawal (ejection) of British troops from Iraq (expect total silence from the UK media, especially the BBC);

British hostages in Iraq probably dead.

We hope you all sleep well o' nights.

Captain Euro Stasi Shite Hero

One people, one state, one Europe. And you're paying to push it. - Mail Online - Euroseptic: Mary Ellen Synon in Brussels

Captain Euro's own site.

Stasi/Nazi? Same difference.

Count me in with Dr D Vider anytime.

ID Cards Are A Bureaucrat's Luxury

ID cards are a bureaucrat's luxury | Henry Porter | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Dumbing Down Thickening UP Heritage Denominator Trash

Highbrow guides to historic sites rewritten to woo masses.

ENGLISH HERITAGE is to rewrite guides to its properties to ensure they can be understood by visitors with the reading age of a 10-year-old.

Why not ensure that people are educated in the first place? Ah, but that would be elitist.

“We need to go to the lowest common denominator without dumbing down and getting facts wrong. We aim for a reading age of 10-11, and we would put it in a very simple, attractive way, with text that is easy to understand.”

That's what some fuckwit from their 'Properties Access Group' says. Who presumably has a degree in Tourist Bedazzlement and Alternative Weed Remedy Medicine from somewhere or other and is unable to understand that going for the lowest common denominator IS dumbing down.

FFS when can we start killing these people?

Human Equality Cash Rights Bollocks Commission

The Equality and Human Rights Commission.

500 staff, £70 million a year?

Fuck off, we don't need you.

M.O.D. C.U.N.T.S.

Government to cut wounded soldiers’ awards.

Not surprised when people start to react.

Over-excited French Twat Falls Down

Sarkozy falls ill, rushed to hospital - Yahoo!

Local Is Global

Lincolnshire hospital chairman quits over dangerous targets

David Bowles, the chairman of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust, quit on Tuesday after being threatened with suspension when he refused to commit his organisation to meeting national waiting targets.
Mr Bowles accused NHS bureaucrats of attempting to bully him into making promises that would have put the safety of patients in jeopardy.

Noting about this on last night's local (BBC) news.

Spineless UK Cretins Afghan In Out

The big lie of Afghanistan | Malalai Joya A view from the inside. In other words, get out, because you're doing no good.

Matthew Parris: Get out now is a soundbite, not an option. A view from over here. In other words, we're stuck with more deaths.

When we can come out of Afghanistan depends on the Americans. That's it.

For some insane reason our governments are always eager to give away our sovereignty and self-determination to someone else, usually the US and the EU. Why are we governed by spineless cretins?

Health And Safety Smoke Arse

Taxpayer coughs up for a £21,706 Commons smoking shelter - Telegraph

Mandrake hears that they have just given approval for a Pugin-style smoking shelter to be built at the palace during their absence – at cost of £21,706.

It is part of a £3 million facelift that will be given to their "office" during the summer recess when the bars and eateries in the building will also be spruced up. While MPs such as Kenneth Clarke are likely to appreciate the shelter, it is not strictly necessary as the building is a royal palace and is therefore not covered by the smoking ban.

Frank Doran, the Labour chairman of the administration committee, says he had hoped that it would be possible to build the shelter between Portcullis House and Norman Shaw North as economically as possible.

"We started off thinking we could do something cheap and cheerful, but the process had to go through Westminster City Council and English Heritage, which made it more expensive than one would expect. We have a duty to our employees and our staff and we thought it was appropriate to provide them with somewhere they can smoke. All the smoking areas outside Parliament are very exposed and we felt it was a health and safety issue, especially in winter."

Waste of our money at any time but especially during a recession.

Health and safety issue? My arse.

Clarkson Doesn't Get Fired For Telling Truth

Clarkson crashes into trouble with C-word attack on PM.

Brown is a cunt. What's the problem?

All Your Birth Death Are Belong EU

Cradle to grave EU plan scrutiny. EU-state birth and death certificates.

A propos of this, and the EU's intention to abolish nation states and encourage the dispersal of self-defined national and tribal groupings, this quote from Dan Evertt's fascinating book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes

While the Pirahas are very tolerant and peaceful to one another, they can be violent in keeping others out of their land. It also shows us once again that tolerance toward a group of outsiders and coexistence with them does not mean long-term acceptance. The Apurinas had believed that a lifetime among another people could overcome the differences in culture and society that separated them from this other people. They learned the deadly lesson that these barriers are nearly impossible to overcome, in spite of appearances over time – just as residents of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and many other places have learned in the course of history.

Europe is not a nation and never will be.

Shitehawks Die, Windmills Fall, Climate Collapses

An Englishman's Castle: Windmill News

French Twat Receives Prize

VGE reçoit le "Prix pour le parlementarisme et la démocratie", à Athènes - Le blog de Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, pour la démocratie en Europe

Valery Giscard d'Estaing, architect of the European Constitution (revamped as the Lisbon Treaty) has received a prize from the Greek government in recognition of 'his decisive contribution to the construction of the EU and its democratic, political and humanitarian values originating in the Greco-Roman tradition.'(!)

Proof positive that delusion drives out irony.

Enough To Drive One To Drink

RAF officer banned from buying alcohol because he was shopping with son, 17 | Mail Online

And to think pubs where I grew up used to serve me when I was 14.

Norwich North By-Election: Unavoidable Facts

Norwich North by-election: Labour crushed by Tories - Telegraph

Chloe Smith (C) 13,591 (39.54%, +6.29%)
Chris Ostrowski (Lab) 6,243 (18.16%, -26.70%)
April Pond (LD) 4,803 (13.97%, -2.22%)
Glenn Tingle (UKIP) 4,068 (11.83%, +9.45%)
Rupert Read (Green) 3,350 (9.74%, +7.08%)
Craig Murray (Honest) 953 (2.77%)
Robert West (BNP) 941 (2.74%)
Bill Holden (Ind) 166 (0.48%, -0.17%)
Howling Laud (Loony) 144 (0.42%)
Anne Fryatt (NOTA) 59 (0.17%
Thomas Burridge (Libertarian) 36 (0.10%)
Peter Baggs (Ind) 23 (0.07%)

Unavoidable Facts (that the BBC will manage to avoid or spin as best they can):
* Labour lost convincingly
* the Tories won convincingly
* UKIP are on the up, coming only just behind the LibDems
* the nasty Nazis the BNP came nowhere, which leaves the poor media nothing to scaremonger about.

Government Hands Out Free Drugs

The Jobbing Doctor: Oh dear.

More Pointless Authoritarian Shit From The Government

The Standards Site: Home school agreement.

More Of Our Cash Down The EU Shitter

Open Europe blog: Down the plug hole

How To Lose Friends The Brown Way

Britain’s 'gunboat' diplomacy still angers Iceland - Telegraph

Blackout: Violence in France

Blackout: Violence in France | The Brussels Journal

And to think we went out for an Italian that night.

Labour's Killjoy Commissars

Labour's killjoys must back down. New Labour's Campaign For The Suppression Of All Unauthorised Pleasure.

Fuck'em.

No Anti-Olympic Posters - This Is A Democracy

Police given powers to enter homes and tear down anti-Olympics posters during Games.

A great opportunity here for mischief making.

Leaders Bleeders

Eh? You want to see 'the manager'? Prodicus nails 'leadership' tosspottery.

Minger Milburn And Social Immobility

Raedwald on Milburn and Labour's desire for social mobility:

Labour can never resurrect the old working class. They can, however, make middle-classness an object of desire and aspiration rather than the scapegoat for all socialism's failures; only this will encourage the sort of upward social mobility that Milburn tells us he desires.

Comment from The Times: Alan Milburn and social mobility - why he's wrong to criticise universities...with a link to Milburn's report.

More on this later.

Labour's Fake Charities

MELANIE PHILLIPS: Charities are being hijacked and turned into pawns in Labour's class war | Mail Online

Something we've known for a while but still deserves more publicity.

Fake Charities is busy listing as many as can be found, though I'd also take into account those charities either set up by the government and or funded by them that don't necessarily lobby the government but simply implement their agenda.

MPs 'Shattered' - As If I Care

Has the expenses row put MPs at risk? - Channel 4 News

No sympathy.

The only problem is that those leaving at the next election are likely to be replaced by even more useless, self-important clones.

A toxic culture of suspicion is souring our children's lives | Henry Porter | Comment is free | The Observer

A toxic culture of suspicion is souring our children's lives | Henry Porter | Comment is free | The Observer

Twat Jumps On Dance Bandwagon

Harman: Strictly Come Dancing guilty of 'ageism' | Metro.co.uk

No comment needed.

Beatrix Bunny Campbell Fascist

Courtesy of Old Holborn:

OK Beatrix, I am not going to get into a longwinded rant about the assumption of guilt before innocence, the tardy "if you've nothing to hide" argument, the idiocy of your argument that CCTV is good for the "collective safety" or that having your details on a State computer is a "minor interruption of an adult's privacy".
Instead, I am going to show you that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Consider yourself a fully paid up member of every Islamic Extremist organisation in the world. I have just put your name and email address on their mailing lists. You are also now a member of the BNP AND Respect. I have signed you up. You will shortly find your name and photo on Gaydar. You have joined Pro Palestinian and Pro Zionist organisations. You are now a member of the friends of Huntingdon Life Sciences AND an eco warrier. Your email address is the weapon I shall be using against you on the big wide Internet. The one that is closely monitored by the ever so nice State.
Don't worry, you have nothing to fear, do you?

And what has the delightful Ms Campbell done to fire up his ire so much?

Talking a load of leftwing fascist bollocks about the vetting of authors under the govt's new 'we must protect the children' database, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, that's what.

Beatrix Campbell: erstwhile communist, Witchfinder-General of Non-Existent Child Abuse, and fucktard.

The War On Street Photography And A Strategy

The war on street photography | Henry Porter | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

One strategy to stick it to these bastards would be for as many people as possible, as often as possible, to be seen to be taking photographs and filming in public (and especially pointing their cameras at the cops and their associated jobsworths) and then revealing their cameras to be either inoperative or without film/recording cards/disks, etc. Then they can claim they weren't taking pictures at all. As far as I know it's not even remotely illegal not to take photographs.

Presumably the cops would then dream up a new offence of 'appearing to be taking photographs', etc.

All British Authors Are Paedophiles

...or so the government thinks, since it's finally instituted the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

This requires every author visiting a school to have their name placed on a database, to be vetted for suitability and to pay £65 for the privilege. Schools not complying with these requrements will be fined.

And, like all the other database shit set up by this governemnt, allegations will remain on the database even when proved to be untrue.

Philip Pullman and other notable children's authors, are refusing to sign up:

Mr Pullman, who stressed he had a "non-existent" criminal record, said he was prepared to give up speaking in schools to make a stand against Britain's creeping surveillance culture.

He said: "It is insulting and I think unnecessary, and I refuse to be complicit in any scheme that assumes my guilt."

Mr Pullman is being supported by several other children's authors including Anne Fine, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo and Guentin Blake, who object to their names being on the database.

If the police involved in the Huntley murder case back in 2002 had done their job properly - and with the information they already had - then this ridiculous, draconian system would not have been set up.

Miller And The Grinning Twat

"I couldn't bear that grinning, money-hungry, beaming, Cliff Richard-loving, Berlusconi-adoring, guitar-playing twat. I suppose I would say that, at the risk of being inoffensive. No, it's that beaming Christianity and that frightful wife with a mouth on a zip-fastener right round to the back of her head. And both of them obsessed with being wealthy."

Wonder who he's talking about?

Jonathan Miller on the 'money-hungry' Blairs | News | The First Post

Goats In Goats Out Darzi Jumps

Health minister Lord Darzi resigns - UK Politics, UK - The Independent

John Citizen New Labour's Snitch Poodle

New Labour are so obsessed with 'citizenship' that they're set up their own pretend charity, the Citizenship Foundation, whose aim is to 'encourage and enable individuals to engage effectively in their communities and in democratic society at large.' Nearly half of its budget comes from government sources. Get 'em young seems to be the modus operandi.

'Citizenship' is built into the education system and New Labour's fascistic Every Child Matters programme. It's odd, isn't it, that after a decade of all this kind of stuff, supposedly to encourage participation in democracy, we live in an increasingly undemocratic country, within an anti-democratic European Union?

And the minister for 'communities', Hazel Blears, hasn't proved to be a good role model as far as fiscal propriety is concerned. Bad citizen, Hazel: lying, thieving toe-rag.

New Labour are at pains to let us know that when it comes to citizenship (as opposed to just being someone who lives in the country they were born in or have decided to move to) we have responsibilities as well as rights. Firstly those rights are not ones the state deigns to give us - we guarantee them for ourselves through the state. Secondly, the only responsibility any of us has towards the state is not to break the law. The state has no right to compel us in any other way. It has no right to compel us or even encourage us to be 'active' citizens or to take a 'fuller part' in the dwindling amount of democracy left to us.

The New Labour idea of citizenship is akin to that of the Jacobins during the Terror of the French Revolution and of totalitarian states that followed in the twentieth century. The citizen is just an expendable tool of the state. The individual is free only insofar as he or she obeys the state - even if, as one revolutionary said, they have to be compelled to be 'free'.

The active citizen is a snooper for the state, their mission to spy on their fellow citizens. The active citizen is encouraged to be a 'leader' (a la Common Purpose), as if we don't have enough of these useless, self-important bastards as it is. The New Labour citizen is just another apparatchik spouting the accepted mantras of diversity and social justice but doing nothing except following orders. The individual no longer exists; the term 'citizen' already narrows down meaning and importance, slots you into this rigid totalitarian way of thinking, denies you your autonomy and identity. You are only valuable as a member of the state; you only exist as a member of the state; you cannot have any existence outside of the bounds and definitions imposed by the state and its fussy, interfering busybodies.

This is a part of the slow but deliberate strangulation of the very traditions and culture of this country. Look at the change made to the Royal Charter of the BBC, for instance, just after New Labour got into power. Gone is the boring old stuff about providing television and radio programmes, the mission to inform, educate and entertain, etc. What we have instead is a slice of New Labour manifesto social engineering:

The Public Purposes of the BBC are as follows—
(a) sustaining citizenship and civil society;
(b) promoting education and learning;
(c) stimulating creativity and cultural excellence;
(d) representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities;

No. No. No.

Once New Labour are removed from power, the BBC, among many institutions, needs to be purged of this authoritarian idiocy.

Purged - my God, I'm starting to sound like a Stalinist myself. Except, unlike Stalin, once the purge is finished, I'll be happy to leave people alone - because I, too, just want to be left alone.

We're All safe With Woolas

Stung by Henry Porter's criticism of the Government's new border restrictions and the Border Agency's inept handling of them, especially when it comes to artists and writers, etc, Immigration Minister Phil Woolas replies Our Border Controls Are Firm But Fair.

As opposed to being a load of crap.

And let me repeat Henry Porter's intro:

There are no words in the thesaurus of insult that quite do justice to the UK Border Agency and the minister for borders and immigration, Phil Woolas.

Lovely stuff.

harman For Northern Rights (Mebbe)

Now Harman wants to stop bias against Northerners.

Aye, but the daft bitch is nobbut a bossy southerner herself.

Government's £750m Anti-terror passport plan in chaos

Government's £750m ¿anti-terror¿ passport plan in chaos | Mail Online

Somewhat at odds with the EU's 'free movement' of goods, people and services, eh?

Shoot Any

politician who says anything about learning lessons: Labour clashes with army as Afghan death toll mounts - Times Online.

David Crausby, for example:

David Crausby, a Labour member of the Commons defence committee, added: “It is not appropriate to play party politics at this time. Dannatt should just get on with the job. After the conflict, if there are lessons to be learnt, we should do so in a considered manner.”

Afghanistan - Lies, Lies and More Bloody Lies

We do need courage, Bob - the courage to pull out of Afghanistan - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog

It is a true universally acknowledged that anything that the government or its supporters says is untrue, so read the accounts of soldiers on the frontline instead:
'I now know what the blokes in the trenches in WW1 went through'

No Tears For Jacqui Smith

Jacqui Smith talks candidly, for the first time since resigning, to Simon Hattenstone | Politics | The Guardian

No sympathy whatsoever. A bad, bad, stupid, mendacious and dangerous Home Secretary.

Opt Out Phone Crash

Mobile phone directory crashes as public flocks to opt-out | News | The First Post

A useful tactic for the coming insurrection, perhaps?

No Football Without Proper Papers

Father arrested and held in cells for playing football in park with his children without council permission | Mail Online

Good to see the plods being used to clamp down on real criminals for a change.

Hack Away, Say British Plods, It's OK By Us

News of the World phone hacking: CPS to undertake urgent review of evidence.

The police apparently don't think this is worth bothering with since they'd already collared a couple of villains and presumably hit their targets for that year.

The Guardian obviously prefer to spin this politically against Cameron, whereas everyone knows the influence that Murdoch has over New Labour (and anyone else he can buy or bully).

It just goes to show the whole bloody lot of them, politicians, media, business and police, are utterly corrupt.

Further info from the Bolshevik Broadcasting Company.

British Police State v Craig Murray

Craig Murray - Ministry of Justice Blocks My Electoral Address: BBC Changes The Rules: UCU Bars Me From Candidates' Debate

Murdoch papers paid out £1m to gag phone-hacking victims | Media | The Guardian

Murdoch papers paid out £1m to gag phone-hacking victims | Media | The Guardian

Less Equal Than Others (Bent Quango)

Fear and loathing at equality central: the Equality Commission proves to be another bent quango (and is being taken to court by one of its own staff).

HT Ambush Predator.

Telling Little Lisbon Porkies To The Irish

EU Referendum on the date for second Irish referendum on Lisbon Lies.

And also Independence Home.

Lift Up Your Mouth Corners (Or Else)

Workers have daily smile scans:

More than 500 staff at Keihin Electric Express Railway are expected to be subjected to daily face scans by "smile police" bosses.

The "smile scan" software, developed by the Japanese company Omron, produces a sweeping analysis of a smile based on facial characteristics, from lip curves and eye movements to wrinkles.

After scanning a face, the device produces a rating between zero to 100 depending on the estimated value of the fulfilled potential of a person's biggest smile.

For those with a below-par grin, one of an array of smile-boosting messages will op up on the computer screen ranging from "you still look too serious" to "lift up your mouth corners", according to the Mainichi Daily News.

A growing number of service industries are reportedly using the new Omron Smile Scan system for "smile training" among its staff.

Workers at Keihin Electric Express Railway will receive a print out of their daily smile which they will be expected to keep with then throughout the day to inspire them to smile at all times, the report added.

Authoritarian idiocy is truly international.

Run! Run! The Paedos Are Coming!

Parents banned from sports day over paedophile fears. Jesus Christ, how much more of this shit do we have to take?

Voluntary ID Cards Compulsory Fines

£1,000 fines to bolster ID cards as Tories pledge to scrap scheme (Guardian):

MPs tonight approved fines of up to £1,000 for those who fail to tell the passport and identity service of changes in their personal details including address, name, nationality and gender.

The fines are part of a package of secondary legislation being pushed through parliament designed to implement the national identity card scheme, and which will allow sensitive personal data on the ID card/passport database to be shared with the police, security services and other government departments.

The regulations were approved as the Conservative party made clear for the first time their commitment to scrap not only the identity card scheme but also its underlying database.

The shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, told MPs: "One of the first acts of a Conservative government will be cancelling the ID cards scheme. The scheme and the register are both an affront to British liberty and will have no place in a Conservative Britain. They are also a huge waste of money."

The home secretary, Alan Johnson, also made clear that there had been no U-turn over ID cards and that the programme was still on course despite claims that he had ruled out making them compulsory. "We haven't scrapped ID cards, what we are doing is accelerating their introduction," he told MPs. Johnson last week cancelled a compulsory trial due to start in September for 30,000 pilots and airport workers.

The Conservatives' home affairs spokesman, Damian Green, asked how the scheme could be "voluntary" when they were penalties for failing to provide information for the database: "If it is a voluntary card, why are there penalties attached for failing to provide that information?" he said, adding that the government should warn people that once they "volunteer" for a passport or ID card it was then compulsory for the rest of their lives.

Fines starting at £125 and rising to £1,000 are to be levied on those who fail to notify the authorities of a change of name or address, or to surrender an identity card, or to report a card lost, stolen, damaged, tampered with or destroyed.

Total total fucking bastards.

To Quango Or Not To Quango

Cameron says quangos to be more accountable under the Tories:

He said: "There is a lot of money to be saved, but more to the point, we want to make these more democratically accountable, so that people don't feel the rage and anger against the machine that they have no control over."

Mr Cameron's remarks were made as he announced that a Conservative government would cut the number of unelected quangos in "a massive shift in power from bureaucracy to democracy".

Shadow Cabinet ministers have been told to review every publicly-funded independent body within their briefs to determine which should be scrapped or slimmed down.

A list of quangos can be found at the Taxpayers' Alliance site.

On the other side of the divide (such as it is) Matthew Taylor comes up with a number of reasons to beware of 'quango bashing'. He ends

The big challenge for Government is to stop doing things or to do things massively more efficiently. Getting rid of quangos may or may not contribute. Still, neither major party is facing up to the scale of the public sector spending cuts and, as the Sunday Times correctly reported yesterday, despairing civil servants are taking matters in to their own hands. ‘Quango bashing’ is clever politics but, too often, lazy policy making.

He doesn't consider the possibility that many quangos may actually a total waste of time and money, for instance. If they are then they should be abolished, irrespective of how small the saving is.

Mandarins Plan For Doomsday

Whitehall lines up ‘doomsday’ cutbacks:

Secret “doomsday” plans for 20% cuts in public spending are being prepared by senior civil servants, who fear politicians are failing to confront the scale of the budget black hole.

Whitehall mandarins have begun creating detailed dossiers containing reductions in expenditure that are far deeper than the more modest savings being proposed by Labour and Conservative politicians.

Taking the Biased BBC To Task

Licence rebel prosecuted as BBC finally tackles TV fee 'refuseniks':

The BBC is prosecuting a viewer who has refused on principle to pay his television licence for seven years, amid claims the Corporation is fearful of a growing backlash against the fee.

Retired engineer John Kelly was one of several thousand people who have refused to pay since 2002 in protest at what they regard as bias in the BBC's news coverage of issues such as the European Union.

It's not just the EU the BBC doesn't cover impartially (or at all).

Cameron To Cut ID Cards And Identity Register?

Cameron has just said on BBC that things like the ID card system AND the Identity Register need to be cut.

Then he was asked about Tory plans to let private private companies have access to our medical records. Cameron sidestepped by saying this was part of a review that they were still to look at. No doubt they will actually carry on with that, but the BBC presenter failed to mention that this is already happening under New Labour anyway.

It would be ironic if the overwhelming need to cut public spending caused the demise of New Labour's police state plans.

Ash Tosh

It takes an Irish poet to remind us of the grandeur of the European project: Seamus Heaney has raised the debate on the Lisbon treaty. A yes vote would be good for Ireland and the EU – and Iran, too.

That's the tosh according to Timothy Garton Ash, anyway.

In a rare and moving intervention, Ireland's greatest living poet, Seamus Heaney, has come out plainly for a yes to the Lisbon treaty and raised the whole debate to a different level. Recalling a memorable evening five years ago in Dublin's Phoenix Park when Ireland's EU presidency welcomed 10 new nations into the union, Heaney observes: "Phoenix renewed itself, just as the Union was renewing itself and continues to need to renew itself." Before reading aloud the poem (Beacons at Bealtaine) he wrote on that occasion, Heaney says, in a video clip recorded for last weekend's launch of the new Ireland for Europe campaign: "There are many reasons for ratifying the Lisbon treaty, reasons to do with our political and economic wellbeing, but the poem speaks mainly for our honour and ­identity as Europeans." And then he reads his verse, which includes this great line: "Move lips, move minds and make new meanings flare."

Ash seems to have fallen hook, line and sinker for the EU's worthless 'guarantees':

In addition, the Irish government has now secured cast iron assurances on many of the popular concerns that fed into last year's no vote: the spectres of conscription and abortion, the ring-fencing of Irish neutrality and the ­country's ability to set competitive tax rates, not to mention the fact that Ireland, along with all other member states, will retain its European ­commissioner.

As does Heaney.

How sad that a nation that fought for its independence from Britain seems so glad to simply give away its sovereignty to a corrupt, inefficient, wasteful and undemocratic super-state-in-waiting.

Anyway, here is Heaney's poem:

Beacons at Bealtaine
Phoenix Park, May Day, 2004

Uisce: water. And fionn: the water's clear.
But dip and find this Gaelic water Greek:
A phoenix flames upon fionn uisce here.

Strangers were barbaroi to the Greek ear.
Now let the heirs of all who could not speak
The language, whose ba-babbling was unclear,

Come with their gift of tongues past each frontier
And find the answering voices that they seek
As fionn and uisce answer phoenix here.

The May Day hills were burning, far and near,
When our land's first footers beached boats in the creek
In uisce, fionn, strange words that soon grew clear;

So on a day when newcomers appear
Let it be a homecoming and let us speak
The unstrange word, as it behoves us here,

Move lips, move minds and make new meanings flare
Like ancient beacons signalling, peak to peak,
From middle sea to north sea, shining clear
As phoenix flame upon fionn uisce here.

The Roma and plenty of other 'newcomers' have failed to find that 'homecoming' so far in Belfast and Dublin.

A Licence To Teach WTF Balls

'Licence to teach' to be required in schools; by none other than Liar-Balls himself:

Under the plans, teachers will face checks every five years to ensure they are fit to teach under reforms outlined by the government...

To keep the licence, teachers have to demonstrate that they have "up-to-date skills and learning to be effective in the classroom".

What the fuck are 'up-to-date skills'? How many ways are there of teaching? Perhaps they'll introduce Proficiency in the Use of Tasers, for example.

More fannying about by New Labour, as usual, more paperwork, more cost, more hoops to jump through, more shit.

EU Says Bendy Is OK After All

Bendy cucumbers, knobbly carrots return to EU shelves.

Years after jibes against the popular press that they were making it all up, the EU has agreed to scrap the ridiculous regulations governing the curvature of some fruit and vegetables. Regulations that, according to their supporters, never existed in the first place.

Unelected, overpaid Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel

admitted Tuesday that the rules on the curvature and shape of produce were long-standing examples of "unnecessary red tape" emanating from Brussels.

"July 1 marks the return to our shelves of the curved cucumber and the knobbly carrot," she said.

"We don't need to regulate this sort of thing at EU level. It is far better to leave it to market operators," the commissioner added.

No, Commissar Boel, this doesn't need to be regulated at any level.