Charters & Caldecott

Scandinavia going down the Islamic tubes?

2010-12-12T17:22:00.003Z

Explosions in Stockholm 'terrorism', but nobody's yet willing to say if they're Islamist attacks.

"Danish MP Jesper Langballe pleads guilty to hate speech after being denied the right to prove his case. " That's right; in Denmark you're judged guilty without evidence or defence.

The political war becomes visible in cyberspace. Operation Payback.

2010-12-07T18:26:00.005Z

The war waged by the political classes on the people, supported by their friends in big business, has started to become visible in the actions of Operation Payback, a group of individuals keen to preserve the freedom of the internet and to attack those it considers the oppressors. Recent targets of their ire have been those companies involved in trying to suppress WikiLeaks and freeze its accounts (Visa, PayPal, etc).

All power to them. It's about time that people started fighting back against these bastards. However, it's not just in cyberspace that this war needs to be pursued. There will come a time when all those who support and further the institutions of the state in its encroachments on our liberties will have to be targeted individually. That includes the undemocratic commissars in Brussels.

Ed Miliband. My God, what a wanker.

2010-11-27T07:54:00.003Z

John Humphrys interviews Ed Miliband. With a leader like this Labour is guaranteed to wither in the wilderness. Thank God.

And then we kill them - when do we start?

2010-11-22T17:27:00.002Z

Is this not inevitable? And how we do we make sure the right people get it in the neck? From European Referendum:

"The full extent of the police and criminal prosecution powers that the European Union has over British citizens can be revealed today," writes Mary Ellen Synon.

This is the result of a Mail on Sunday investigation, which has "uncovered an alarming array of new EU controls over justice and home affairs for which no one has voted, and most are unknown to the public."

Of course, the reason why most are "unknown to the public" is because the media rarely talk about them and, when they do, "no one seems to care". More specifically, no one in parliament seems to care for, as we wrote when that plaintive statement was made, in legislative terms, "the parliament has collectively lost the will to live".

Parliament is no longer really interested in its primary functions, we wrote, and has turned in on itself, to the extent that its internal, petty politicking has assumed an overweening importance, to the exclusion of everything else.

That was over two years ago, when Philip Johnston was railing against the creation of "a powerful new EU interior department, called the Standing Committee on Internal Security (COSI)." He had devoted some space to then home secretary Jacqui Smith's failure to mention it.

But then, as now, this was our old friend the Hague programme, about which we were sounding the alarm in 2004. But, if you had then asked the average British political blogger or MSM political correspondent about it, they would have thought you were referring to young William's last television appearance.

But since then, more than enough has been written about it for those who wanted to know about to keep themselves informed, not least the European Union - Tenth Report of 15 March 2005. And therein lies another part of the problem.

This does go back all the way to 2004, when we saw the European Council reaffirm the priority it attached to "the development of area of freedom, security and justice", claiming, as always, that it was "responding to a central concern of the peoples of the States brought together in the Union". Despite our concerns, nothing happened then and, six years later, as the Mail on Sundayraises the alarm (and not for the first time), precisely nothing will happen now.

Therefore, the real problem is that, unless the issue can gain political traction, and there is a felling that this is an issue that can get resolved, there is and will be nothing to drive it forward. People, and the media – in the short-term, at least - will take a lead from the politicians. And if the politicians do nothing, the issue dies.

But that is the short-term. As Booker reveals in his column today, more and more we see the "authorities" working to their own agendas, which have nothing to do with the principles of justice or good administration.

When it also dawns – as it eventually will – that the authorities are also working for an alien power (not "foreign" - but alien), as is increasingly the case with the police through the Hague Programme, then the last vestiges of consent will break down. The divide between "us" and "them" will become a permanent breach. And then we start killing them.

This is not a warning, nor a threat, nor a prediction, nor indeed an instruction. It is simply an observation. When the compact between the people and their rulers breaks down, the result is always the most extreme form of violence.

In Britain, however, having been tolerably well administered for several centuries, we have become slow to turn to serious violence. Thus, our rulers have got lazy and complacent and they think they can continue along the route they have taken. They can't. The worm will turn eventually. When it does, people will die. That now is the only certainty.

Education, grammar and the squealing of the Left

2010-11-22T09:42:00.004Z

The Telegraph reports "Pupils will be penalised in exams for poor spelling, punctuation and grammar under a sweeping overhaul of the education system."

Just listen to the lefties squealing about this. Learning grammar, punctuation and spelling is obviously soooo hard. Amazing how someone like my late mother, who left school at 14 before the war and who had no other formal education, could write English that was grammatically correct and properly punctuated. Many of our young people lack these basic skills. And they get to university. Believe me, I have to mark their papers.

Teenagers will lose up to five per cent of marks in GCSE examinations if they fail to display high standards of written English.
The rules, which are likely to apply to all subjects, including mathematics and science, follow claims that thousands of children leave school without being able to compose a sentence, spell difficult words or write a coherent letter or email.
The move, to be outlined in an education White Paper next week, would reverse a Labour decision seven years ago to scrap rewards for good literacy.
Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said the building blocks of English had been "demolished by those who should have been giving our children a solid foundation in learning". Business leaders such as Sir Stuart Rose, the Marks & Spencer chairman, have complained that too many young people leave school "not fit for work".
Last night, the change was backed by educationalists who suggested it would give schools a greater incentive to train pupils in the basics of spelling and grammar. The written English requirements will be among a string of radical reforms designed to restore rigour to the examination system in England and promote the study of traditional subjects.
Next week's White Paper will also propose:
A return to traditional A-levels by moving away from bite-sized "modular" courses in some subjects in favour of tests at the end of two years of study.
Allowing universities to script A-level exams and syllabuses to ensure sixth-form courses act as a better preparation for a degree.
The introduction of an "English Baccalaureate" that rewards pupils for gaining five good GCSEs in English, maths, science, foreign languages and a humanities subject.
A ban on schools using vocational courses as "equivalent" qualifications to boost their ranking in GCSE league tables.
A review of the National Curriculum to outline the key "bodies of knowledge" that children should master at each stage of their education.
A reading test for all six year-olds to identify those struggling the most after a year of school, ensuring they receive extra tuition.
The Coalition reforms are being billed as an attempt to reverse 13 years of "dumbing down" by Labour. Mr Gove has been critical of changes to the exams system which he claimed had widened the gulf between independent and state schools. Many fee-paying schools have shifted pupils towards alternative exams following claims that mainstream tests are too easy.
In a speech, Mr Gove attacked Labour's decision to abandon requirements for pupils to spell correctly and use proper punctuation and grammar in GCSE exams.
In the past, five per cent of marks in all GCSE exams were ring-fenced for high standards of written English. But the rules were scrapped in 2003.
Good spelling and punctuation is still rewarded in some exams, but the number of marks available differs between subjects and often candidates are only rewarded for good English in certain questions. They are usually told which questions these are.
Mr Gove said: “Thousands of children – including some of our very brightest – leave school unable to compose a proper sentence, ignorant of basic grammar, incapable of writing a clear and accurate letter.
“And it’s not surprising when the last government explicitly removed the requirement to award a set number of marks for correct spelling, punctuation and grammar in examinations.
“The basic building blocks of English were demolished by those who should have been giving our children a solid foundation in learning.
“Under this Government we will insist that our exams, once more, take proper account of the need to spell, punctuate and write a grammatical sentence.”
The move, which will not at first apply to A-levels, was given a cautious welcome by examiners. Jim Sinclair, director of the Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents exam boards, said: “The previous system fell into disrepute because of cases where candidates were writing competently, spelling flawlessly and using correct grammar – therefore picking up the five per cent – but the subject content of their answers was rubbish.”
He added: “I wholeheartedly support the desire to ensure that when young people leave formal education that they are functionally
literate and numerate but I would caution against using crude instruments to disproportionately reward spelling, punctuation and grammar.”
Prof Alan Smithers, the director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: “Clear expression is evidence of clear thought. It is reasonable to expect accurate spelling and good use of grammar in an exam.
“The results mean less if the examiner is trying to project on to a poorly written answer what he or she thinks the candidate was attempting to say.”

Was it for this? Ireland shafted. Now they realise.

2010-11-18T20:32:00.003Z

From The Irish Times. At least it shows that there are people in Ireland who've realised what shit the EU really is. Their political class sold them out, just as ours have.

IT MAY seem strange to some that The Irish Times would ask whether this is what the men of 1916 died for: a bailout from the German chancellor with a few shillings of sympathy from the British chancellor on the side. There is the shame of it all. Having obtained our political independence from Britain to be the masters of our own affairs, we have now surrendered our sovereignty to the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Their representatives ride into Merrion Street today.
Fianna Fáil has sometimes served Ireland very well, sometimes very badly. Even in its worst times, however, it retained some respect for its underlying commitment that the Irish should control their own destinies. It lists among its primary aims the commitment “to maintain the status of Ireland as a sovereign State”. Its founder, Eamon de Valera, in his inaugural address to his new party in 1926, spoke of “the inalienability of national sovereignty” as being fundamental to its beliefs. The Republican Party’s ideals are in tatters now.
The Irish people do not need to be told that, especially for small nations, there is no such thing as absolute sovereignty. We know very well that we have made our independence more meaningful by sharing it with our European neighbours. We are not naive enough to think that this State ever can, or ever could, take large decisions in isolation from the rest of the world. What we do expect, however, is that those decisions will still be our own. A nation’s independence is defined by the choices it can make for itself.
Irish history makes the loss of that sense of choice all the more shameful. The desire to be a sovereign people runs like a seam through all the struggles of the last 200 years. “Self-determination” is a phrase that echoes from the United Irishmen to the Belfast Agreement. It continues to have a genuine resonance for most Irish people today.
The true ignominy of our current situation is not that our sovereignty has been taken away from us, it is that we ourselves have squandered it. Let us not seek to assuage our sense of shame in the comforting illusion that powerful nations in Europe are conspiring to become our masters. We are, after all, no great prize for any would-be overlord now. No rational European would willingly take on the task of cleaning up the mess we have made. It is the incompetence of the governments we ourselves elected that has so deeply compromised our capacity to make our own decisions.
They did so, let us recall, from a period when Irish sovereignty had never been stronger. Our national debt was negligible. The mass emigration that had mocked our claims to be a people in control of our own destiny was reversed. A genuine act of national self-determination had occurred in 1998 when both parts of the island voted to accept the Belfast Agreement. The sense of failure and inferiority had been banished, we thought, for good.
To drag this State down from those heights and make it again subject to the decisions of others is an achievement that will not soon be forgiven. It must mark, surely, the ignominious end of a failed administration.

Bailouts battering the bastard EU

2010-11-16T15:54:00.005Z

Ireland crisis could cause EU collapse, warns president

Herman Van Rompuy, president of the EU, has warned it faces a 'survival crisis', with the risk of contagion spreading from Ireland across the continent

Oh, if only.

The Greek Bailout Crackup Is Here, As Austria Refuses Payments

Still, that's a bit of good news.

Then there's Portugal to come.

Well happy being index nudged

2010-11-15T17:19:00.003Z

Happiness index to gauge Britain's national mood

This is the kind of squit-brained nonsense you'd expect from the last government, but it's no suprise the new lot are just as interfering, autocratic and intellectually vacuous.

One thing that would guarantee most of us feeling just a little bit happier would be to have politicians (and the whole bloody cabal of think tanks, advisers and pressure groups - as well as the fucking Civil Service) just bloody leaving us alone.

The Taliban ain't your mates, lady, even if you do convert.

2010-11-07T13:11:00.001Z

WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- A Canadian freelance journalist kidnapped in Pakistan has died, an Indian newspaper reported.

Khadija Abdul Qahaar, 58, of West Vancouver, British Columbia, "died following prolonged illness in the custody of the Taliban somewhere in northwest Pakistan or Afghanistan," The Indian Express reported.

Her death was not independently confirmed and the newspaper did not name its source or sources for news of her death, nor did it indicate when she died.

Qahaar, known as Beverley Giesbrecht before converting from Catholicism to Islam, was frail when she and two Pakistani men were kidnapped in November 2008, The Vancouver Sun reported Thursday.

Her unidentified captors demanded a $150,000 ransom for her and released video footage of her pleading for her life.

The Pakistani men were eventually released, but Qahaar was not heard from after August 2009.

Before the kidnapping, she was interviewing Taliban leaders in Pakistan's violent Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, or North-West Frontier province, for a documentary, the Sun said.

Qahaar changed her name and converted to Islam in response to the U.S.-led "war on terror" that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.

She gave up her career as a magazine and Internet publisher, sold her assets and April 21, 2002, and started a Web site called Jihad Unspun with a stated aim of presenting uncensored reporting of global anti-terrorism activities and news from several Islamic Jihad groups.

Its articles were often highly critical of U.S. foreign policy, and critics accused it of being a hate site.

United Press International was not able to access the Web site Thursday.

Should we tell Lauren Booth?

More statist shit - National Citizen Service

2010-11-06T14:22:00.003Z

First we had Gordon's Brownshirts, not quite getting off the ground; now we have Cameron's Commandos, implementing the Big Society via National Citizen Service.

Fuck 'em.

Useless ex-Labour Twat Lands Big Job

2010-10-31T15:31:00.002Z

Jacqui Smith, useless ex-Home Secretary and now ex-Labour MP, has just landed a plum post with KPMG. Nice to have contacts, isn't it? Especially when you're a talentless, useless twat.

Fat Arsed Talentless Labour Minger Fucks Ginger Vote

2010-10-30T15:59:00.003+01:00

The unspeakably abhorrent Harman calls LibDem Danny Alexander a ginger 'rodent'.

That's fucked the Ginger Vote.

Labour lost the election in May, if you remember. You can tell, can't you?

Irish Resistance Blarney Bollix Elite EU What?

2010-10-30T08:09:00.002+01:00

Lecturer Geraldine Moane suggests the Irish people should learn from their colonial past how to resist the impositions of the 'elite of financial and political decision-makers' who have wrought such economic damage on the country.

She talks of Ireland as being 'postcolonial'. Obviously she hasn't taken into account the fact that although Ireland is no longer a British colony it is now a colony of the European Union. The political class of the country is completely bound in with its EU masters, as evidenced by the cowardly and undemocratic behaviour of Cowen in caving in to Brussels bullying over the re-run of the Lisbon Treaty referendum.

With traitors like that what chance have you got? Your enemy there, as here, is your own government, your own political class. The financiers and business people are only part of that elite.

Bastard puritans alcohol whinge

2010-10-26T17:54:00.002+01:00

I can hear it now, drifting in from the tv in the other room - 'young people...alcohol consumption...'

When will these interfering, statist, puritan fascists just fuck off and leave us alone?

Publish Post

Every bloody week there's something in the papers or on tv about drinking. Most of the time the figures they provide can't be trusted. A lot of the time it's OldNewLabour's fake charities still peddling their dogmas.

FOAD, the lot of you.

State Snoopers - Data Retention Revived in UK (on the orders of the EU)

2010-10-26T09:44:00.003+01:00

The previous government's Intercept Modernisation Programme has been revived by the new Coalition. This is,in plain language, the reintroduction of a plan to spy on all our telephone calls and internet activity - although, at the moment, that spying does not cover the actual content of communications.

This moves clearly contradicts claims by both Coalition partners that they would cut back on Labour's surveillance state.

Why, then, are they reviving this programme?

Simple.

They have no choice. This is an EU requirement. Directive 2006/24/EC. Not that you'll get the British media mentioning the fact.

What's worse is this: Clarke warns on phone terror plan. That's the jug-eared Labout twat, not the cigar-smoking twat now back in office.

Labour were very keen to push this programme through the EU. For which they ought to be strung up.

Pity they didn't ask us about it.

Pity the UK media couldn't be bothered to tell us about it either. One thing you can be certain about - neither the politicians nor the useless twats in the media are going to admit the truth.

Gaza, the prison camp with a university, shopping mall, leisure parks, etc.

2010-10-25T16:43:00.002+01:00

I'm surprised that The Observer printed this article ('Gaza hardliners launch arson attack on family leisure park') after all the progressives' descriptions of Gaza as a prison camp and a humanitarian disaster in the making, etc. Presumably too much of the truth has started to leak out and they've decided to change tack. Now they acknowledge the existence of leisure parks and restaurants, but it's not Hamas who are setting fire to them or shutting them down. No, it's hardliners.

Not to forget, though, that in the end it's really the fault of the west and those pesky Jews in Israel:

For some, the west, and Israel, must shoulder some of the blame. "The broader picture of isolation in Gaza – international sanctions and closure – is a recipe for extremism to flourish," said Shaqqura. "We are gradually moving to a monolithic society as interpreted by the ruling party. Their ideology flourishes in poverty and isolation. You can see the impact of this clearly."

That's presumably the west that pumps billions of dollars and euros of aid into Gaza.

The multikulti cockup. Multiculturalism cracks.

2010-10-17T11:30:00.004+01:00

Angela Merkel has said the multicultural experiment has failed: German Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany's attempt to create a multicultural society has "failed, utterly failed."

Merkel, speaking October 16 at a meeting of her Christian Democratic party in the city of Potsdam, said decades of allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to live side by side without integrating into mainstream society has not worked for Germany.
"In Frankfurt on the Main, two out of three children under the age of five have an immigrant background,” Merkel said.
“We are a country which, at the beginning of the 1960s, actually brought guest workers to Germany. Now they live with us and we lied to ourselves for a while, saying that they won't stay and that they will have disappeared again one day. That's not the reality. This [multicultural] approach -- saying that we simply live side by side and are happy about each other -- this approach has failed, utterly failed."
Merkel called on immigrants living in Germany to do more to integrate, including learning quickly to speak German.
Merkel's remarks come as she faces pressure from within her party to take a tougher line on immigrants who don't show a willingness to adapt to German society.
Her comments are also the latest from a mainstream German politician warning of problems allegedly connected to immigrants.
compiled from agency reports

Unfortunately, this is probably just a sop to the growing number of people angry about immigration, since Merkel's government are unlikely to restrict immigration or do anything about the problems they already have. But we can hope. What with Sarkozy also deporting Roma, and the Sweden Democrats breaking through in the elections, there may be signs that the political elite of Europe are having to realise they were wrong to ignore their electorates over this issue.

Geert Wilders Not Guilty

2010-10-16T07:53:00.002+01:00

Interesting to see if the BBC can bring themselves to mention this news on their main programmes:

Wilders not guilty on all counts - Update

Friday 15 October 2010

The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.

Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.

They said comments about banning the Koran can be discriminatory, but because Wilders wants to pursue a ban on democratic lines, there is no question of incitement to discrimination 'as laid down in law'.

On the comparison of the Koran with Mein Kampf, the prosecutors said the comparison was 'crude but that did not make it punishable'.

Dealing earlier on Friday with incitement to hatred, Van Roessel and Velleman said some comments could incite hatred against Muslims if taken out of context, but if the complete text is considered, it can be seen that Wilders is against the growing influence of Islam and not against Muslims per sé.

On Tuesday, the prosecutors said the MP should not be found guilty of group insult.

The public prosecution department was forced to take the case by the high court after anti-racism campaigners protested at its refusal to prosecute Wilders.

© DutchNews.nl

Or, indeed, how most of the main broadcasters deal with it.

The NUJ Can Go Fuck Themselves

2010-09-14T16:22:00.002+01:00

Journalists call for 'internet tax' to rescue media

The main journalist trade union in Europe and the UK wants citizens to be given 'European Democracy Vouchers', funded by internet service providers, which can be used to buy newspapers and pay for online media subscriptions.
The vouchers, which would work in the same way as restaurant vouchers currently used in several countries, would be funded through a levy on internet service providers (ISPs), according to the National Union of Journalists in the UK (NUJ).

The idea was aired in a submission to the European Commission's consultation on creative industries, published in April (EurActiv 30/04/10).

Faced by the fact that their industry can't adapt by itself to changing market conditions, ie the internet, journalists are now demanding the taxpayer fund them (via a levy imposed on ISPs). If the arts can receive public subsidy then so should journalists, they argue, among other things.

Anyone familiar with the jourmalism produced by the British media will be aware that many of these goons are not worth being paid at all.

It's such an insane, ridiculous idea that the EU will probably give it serious consideration.

Kelvin MacKenzie does the business.

2010-09-10T18:56:00.002+01:00

I used not to like Kelvin MacKenzie particularly but I've warmed to him after this:

Cameron's nudge.

2010-09-10T18:43:00.002+01:00

David Cameron has a 'behavioural insight team', tasked with the purpose of showing us how we can be made to do as we're told without beating us with a big stick (like New Labour). He got the idea of 'nudging' from a book from an American (where else?) Richard Thaler.

David Cameron can fuck off. And his team can fuck off, too, and get themselves useful jobs cleaning toilets with toothbrushes.

And Richard Thaler can fuck off as well.

Roma expulsion must stop NOW: EU parliament stamps its useless feet.

2010-09-10T18:40:00.002+01:00

Bad Frenchies! The EU toy parliament has demanded that France stop the 'illegal' expulsion of gypsies back to Bulgaria and Romania.

This report is so full of delicious ironies I wouldn't know where to begin. Let's savour the sight of our Europhiliac 'colleagues' arguing among themselves.

Royal Mail and the (deliberately) concealed hand of the EU.

2010-09-10T18:22:00.003+01:00

Privatisation of the mail has resurfaced, as it was bound to do.

No mention anywhere, though, of the primary cause of this, ie EU directives requiring 'liberalisation' and 'full market opening' of postal services. Not in the BBC, anyway, though I don't suppose any of the rest of the British media will have the honesty to mention it, either.

Strange, too, that the media dutifully follow the falling profits/too much competition line they've been given, despite the fact that for the two previous years the whole group has actually been making a profit.

Service has noticeably declined here in Lincolnshire over the past five years. Most of what gets delivered is junk mail, different posties seem to appear every week and there is no consistency in time of delivery (except that it is always late morning at the earliest). Many items either sent to us or posted by us now take a week or more to arrive.

All our politicians conspire to keep the truth from us and the media aid them, irrespective of party bias. The unions oppose the changes but also refuse to point the finger at the EU (they can't, can they? because they support the Labour Party, who are as firmly wedged up the EU's arse as the LibDems).

So you can look forward to higher prices and lower standards. And you can kiss goodbye to six-day delivery as well; EU directives only require a five-day minimum service.

Wallstrom - another pointless professional politician.

2010-09-08T19:01:00.005+01:00

I had the misfortune to see an interview on BBC News tonight with Margot Wallstrom, who is the UN's Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. I shit you not. I thought the name sounded familiar - Wallstrom is one of the EU's apparatchiks, having been the (unelected) Commission's (unelected) Environment Commissioner. Among other things. Wikipedia lists her outstanding career.

Wallstrom was talking tough about chasing down and bringing to justice the perpetrators of regular mass rapes taking place in the Congo - some of which seem to have happened when UN troops were a mere 20 miles away. Well, of course, 'we' won't do anything of the sort. The UN has proved increasingly useless in its peacekeeping activities over the last 20 years (witness Bosnia) and the idea that anyone will be brought to justice over these crimes in this God-forsaken part of Africa is pathetic.

What makes this more disgusting is the fact that the politicos are so in love with themselves that they create these well-paid, ineffectual, self-important positions, with our money, and constantly share them among themselves. I shouldn't think a single useful thing has ever resulted from all their talks, papers, committees, investigations and communiques.

Wallstrom's career is that of a model 'progressive'. These people are the bane of our lives and a danger to our freedom. How can we get rid of them?

The anti-drink lobby can fuck right off.

2010-09-04T17:07:00.004+01:00

Various righteous journos are aboard the minimum pricing for alcohol bandwagon. Today Patrick Collinson signs up with the puritans in the Guardian.

The Scottish Executive (to give the pretend 'government' its proper title) floated this idea over a year ago and had to back away from it because it would most likely break EU law on competition. Presumably that remains the same. If this is the case and it prevents minimum pricing it will be the only time the EU has done anything remotely useful.

Whatever the outcome, I am vehemently against this for one very good reason: the price of booze, who drinks what and how much is no business of the state; the state can fuck off out of my life.

The leftover New Labourites and their quangos and fake charities are busy complaining about binge drinking and the fate of the homeless, etc. Binge drinking is obviously not good, but the problems caused are law and order ones to be dealt with according to existing legislation. If you drink till your liver explodes then it's a heath problem. Good job you've been paying huge amounts of tax to pay for your health care, then. It's also quite possible that binge drinking (no doubt exaggerated by the media) will prove to be a passing fad and will become less of a problem. As for homeless alcoholics, I'm sorry, but until I'm one of them I don't care. Putting up the price of booze will just make them poorer and probably drive them to worse alternatives (didn't they used to drink meths because it was cheaper than decent alcohol?). Does Mr Collinson and his self-righteous colleagues really care about alcos and the homeless? I doubt it. One thing is certain: they've got no right to increase the cost to me just to sate their ersatz concern for a minority.

Mr Collinson quotes Sweden as an exemplar of reducing alcohol consumption, etc. Well, this is not Sweden and I'm not Swedish. Mr Collinson can fuck off.

Add to this the fact that according to official figures we are drinking less in the UK than before, and you begin to see the impetus behind my ire. And we're paying more in duty than anyone else into the bargain.

It's the incessant fucking self-righteous preachiness of this that's pissing me off. Already this week alone we've had two big media stories about alcohol.

Leave me alone, you twats, and fuck off.

Meanwhile the progressive gypsy Roma love-fest continues.

2010-09-04T09:29:00.004+01:00

Young gypsies to film their way of life.

Fie on you, BBC, for using racist out-of-date terms like 'gypsy'.

What you won't hear on primetime BBC - Blair and the threat of radical Islam

2010-09-04T09:18:00.001+01:00

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has described radical Islam as the greatest threat facing the world today.

He made the remark in a BBC interview marking the publication of his memoirs.

Mr Blair said radical Islamists believed that whatever was done in the name of their cause was justified - including the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Alan Grant talks about how Mega City One is like Fascist Britain on Vimeo

2010-08-26T18:39:00.001+01:00

Alan Grant talks about how Mega City One is like Fascist Britain on Vimeo

The best bit is actually right at the end, where the interviewer asks Grant if he thinks Britain is a fascist state. He says yes and then explains.

Multiculturalism and Its�Discontents

2010-08-26T18:38:00.000+01:00

Multiculturalism and Its�Discontents

It's not just within the area of religion that multiculturalism is wreaking havoc, but everywhere.

Read the comments, just to remind yourself of what the enemy thinks.

EU popularity plunges right across the bloc

2010-08-26T18:27:00.001+01:00

You mean that the EU was actually popular with some folk?

EUobserver / EU popularity plunges right across the bloc

Strange, then, that the EU thinks that 75% of its 'citizens' want it to have more economic control. I don't remember being asked about this. Do you?

France deports hundreds more Roma

2010-08-26T17:48:00.000+01:00

AFP: France deports hundreds more Roma

Good 'colleague' and major partner of the EU Axis plays fast and loose with the spirit of the EU and its laws in deporting EU citizens, many of whom will be back in France within months. That's what happens within a single 'state' with no real borders - you can't keep the 'citizens' out.

In addition, the policy of destroying the reality of the nation state, combined with the elevation of certain groups to untouchable victimhood, ensures that in the long run there will be racial and national conflict.

BBC Bias Must Be Taken In Hand

2010-08-26T09:15:00.003+01:00

The BBC's pro-Labour bias is well documented in various blogs (notably Biased BBC), and yet it is amazing that the new coalition government has done nothing yet, as far as we know, to eradicate it. Last night I watched Emily Maitlis interviewing a Tory spokesman about the report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies which asserted that the poor would be worse off under the Coalition's cuts. She constantly interrupted him and was persistently aggressive in her manner. None of the other talking heads lined up by the BBC supported the government.

This approach was in stark contrast to her interview with Labour MP Tom Harris about complaints that MPs were being abusive to IPSA staff over expenses claims. Not for him the aggressive interruptions, the harrying. No, at one point she even called him 'Tom'. How sweet. No mention that this incompetent system was set up by his boss, Gordon Brown, who, as it happens, is still leader of the Labour Party, although he hasn't made an appearance for 3 months.

No mention, either, that the Institute for Fiscal Studies is part funded by the BBC - and the EU - and various government departments.

I have no complaints about interviewers being tough with politicians - but I do resent the fact that the BBC, a publicly-funded body, subjects Coalition MPs to the kind of aggression that it rarely applied to any Labour MP during the 13 years of the last government's rule, and hardly ever covered some of the most egregious pieces of legislation (a lot of it from the EU) passed since 1997.

Time for a purge of BBC mandarins, time for the BBC's Charter to be rescued from New Labour's political interference, time for the Coalition spokesmen to be more robust with interviewers and time for government and others to stop paying attention to think tanks and other similar bodies, etc.

7th July Bombings (Apparently Committed By No One With A Reason)

2010-07-07T19:26:00.003+01:00

The BBC News at 6 o'clock recalled the bombings in London on 7th July 2005. All well and good, except they omitted two vital words - 'terrorist' and 'Islamic'. Don't know how the other channels reported it but I assume it was the same.

Back when the IRA was busy murdering people and blowing things up they weren't quite so chary about saying who was responsible.

How The EU Works - By Threats

2010-05-12T17:16:00.001+01:00

Europe tells Britain not to ask for help in a crisis - Telegraph

Our lovely colleagues in Brussels have turned sulky and nasty because we didn't simply roll over and commit billions to bail out their crappy euro.

This is how the EU works - lies, deception and bullying.

Eu Wants Total Economic Control

2010-05-09T15:37:00.001+01:00

Germany backs Greek bail-out as EU creates 'economic government' - Telegraph

Talks are under way about the Greek bailout package and so not much is making it into the media. Apart from the distinct possibility that our 'colleagues' will invoke Article 122 of the Lisbon Treaty to compel the UK to stump up to help bail out Greece.

This is what's disturbing (though not, of course, unexpected) - the use of the crisis for a power grab by the EU over the economic governance of member states:

The breakthrough comes as this week's summit of EU leaders in Brussels rapidly evolves from a policy workshop into an historic gathering that may catapult the EU across the Rubicon towards fiscal federalism and a de facto debt union. The EU's top brass are seizing on the crisis to push for a radical extension of EU powers, saying Greece has exposed the deep flaws in the structure of monetary union.

Herman Van Rompuy, the EU's new president, has submitted a text calling for the creation of an "economic government" that shifts responsibility for economic planning from national authorities to the "EU level".

In a parallel move, Commission chief Jose Barroso said Brussels has treaty powers allowing it to take the reins of economic management."

This is a time for boldness. I believe that our economic and social situation demands a radical shift from the status quo. And the new Lisbon Treaty allows this," he said.

"Economic policy isn't a national, but a European matter. No modern economy is an island. When a member state doesn't make reforms, others suffer because of that."

Luckily for our friends in the EU, everyone here is too engrossed in the flimflam about PR, etc, to take any notice of what's happening.

A Referendum On The Lisbon Treaty After All?

2010-05-04T14:16:00.001+01:00

England Expects: A Good Day to Bury Bad News?

Ever since the Lisbon Treaty (Constitution) was ratified it was clear that something would have to be done about the extra MEPs that it had created (but without actually allocating them 'seats'). In order to sort this out, changes will have to be made to the Lisbon Treaty soon. This will require all 27 member states to ratify it again.

Any chance Mr Cameron (for it seems likeliest he will be PM by then) will honour a previous promise to give us a referendum on whether to sign it or not?

No, thought not.

The Black Hole We're Going Down

2010-05-03T10:11:00.001+01:00

Burning our money: Tackling Our Fiscal Black Hole - People Ain't Dumb

Unfortunately, they are. Just like our politicians.

Care of Burning Our Money, a disturbing presentation of the UK's financial wasteland.

What we've had for the last year and a half is like the Phoney War: everyone knows the shit is coming but is pretending it won't. Here it comes.

Election Winner To Be Out Of Office For A Generation

2010-04-30T07:09:00.003+01:00

According to the Governor of the Bank of England whoever wins the next election will have such a tough time enforcing austerity that it will be out of office for a generation.

Except if it's Labour, of course, because if they get in they'll make sure they can never be removed by election again. You better believe it.

How Gordon Brown Fucked Your Pension

2010-04-18T17:23:00.001+01:00

The man who stole your old age: How Gordon Brown secretly imposed a ruinous tax that has wrecked the retirements of millions.

Labour to create veterans' ID card

2010-04-17T15:27:00.001+01:00

Defence Management

No end to Labour's authoritarian wastefulness, it seems.

The Labour Party have pledged to provide free ID cards for forces' leavers if re-elected to government.

The pledge was made in the party's manifesto, launched on 12 March.

"A veterans ID card will help veterans access their improved benefits and will be free to service leavers," says the manifesto. "We will continue to strengthen mental health provision in partnership with the Combat Stress charity, and roll out our Welfare Pathway to give personnel and their families better support and advice."

The manifesto also reiterates promises made during the last parliament, including pledges to cut waste within the Ministry of Defence.

"We are reforming defence procurement," states the manifesto, "making further reductions in civilian staff, and cutting lower-priority spending on headquarters costs, travel and consultancy."

'Free' to service leavers - I like that. 'Free', as in 'free - until it becomes necessary'.

Bankrupt! But Don't Talk About It In Front Of The Electorate.

2010-04-11T18:46:00.001+01:00

Don't let the voters know we face bankruptcy - Telegraph Christopher Book on the crisis which our politicians won't face up to in public.

And this, of course:

A third, closely related shadow which the political class has been only too keen to hide away has been the still barely understood extent to which it has handed over the running of our country and the making of our laws to that vast and mysterious new system of government centred on Brussels and Strasbourg. Nothing better exemplified how our politicians are caught by this system, like flies in a spider's web, than the shifty means whereby each of the three main parties weaselled its way out of keeping the manifesto promises of the last election that it would give us a referendum on the EU constitution, otherwise known as the Lisbon "reform treaty". Here was another great surrender of Parliament's power to decide how our country is run, and the MPs of all parties were not only happy to agree to it, but treated us all with contempt as they lied about it.

As I have often observed before, one of the consequences of this abdication of their responsibilities by our politicians has been the way in which vast tranches of policy-making which used to be the stuff of debate have simply passed into a limbo, where they are no longer properly discussed or even explained. Farming and the countryside, the fate of our fishing industry, our immigration rules, our laws on employment and how businesses are run, on the environment, on food safety, the regulating of our financial services, including the operations of the City of London – the key decisions in all these areas, and many more, have been handed over to a form of government which is unconcerned with our national interests and almost wholly unaccountable, with consequences which in almost every case have proved disastrous for Britain.

Yet on all these hugely important issues our political class remains virtually silent, because it no longer has any power to decide what happens. All our political nonentities are left to bicker over at election time is that ever shrinking area of policy-making still under our national control: schools and hospitals, crime… that's about it.

BBC Labour Bias In Little Ways...

2010-04-08T12:06:00.003+01:00

Comment by Biased BBC on this morning's interview with Sir Stuart Rose of M&S:

It seems to me that like Labour, the BBC does not understand why an increase in NIC is a tax on jobs.Perhaps Statism erodes the capacity for clear economic thinking but I listened in amazement to the BBC "Today" interview with Sir Stuart Rose, he of M&S fame. When Rose pointed out that the NIC increase with Brown and Clegg think so virtuous is a direct impediment to business growth, he was ignored on the substance of that argument and instead presented with the Labour attack line that IF government does not jack up NIC it will have to increase VAT. A false choice and talk of reducing Government efficiency was dismissed. Rose rightly pointed out that if VAT did rise, it would be a tax on consumption and therefore one has the choice to avoid it by limiting expenditure whereas an NIC increase hits all, this was met with silence. Then, most disgracefully, Humphrys suggested that Rose was saying these things because he would be offered a peerage to the Lords. Rose denied this but the impression was aimed at listeners, not Rose. More BBC attack dog stuff dressed up as news.

I caught a little of this exchange and was pissed off to hear the tit of an interviewer (whoever he was) asking Rose if he wasn't being selfish criticising the government yet not coming up with any alternatives himself. Rose rebuffed him quite robustly, but I would have added that it's the job of government to come up with alternatives. That's what we pay the useless bastards for.

The BBC, Those Pesky Rapist Jews And The Silent Palestinians

2010-04-07T16:58:00.001+01:00

Robin Shepherd Online » Post Archive » A tale of Israeli “rapists” that has enraged the Palestinians but won’t make the BBC

An interesting story via Biased BBC.

Baroness Scotland Couldn't Be Lying, Could She?

2010-04-07T11:36:00.003+01:00

Baroness Scotland, who broke a law she had been instrumental in introducing, has been accused of lying:

The Attorney General was accused of lying yesterday when she gave evidence at the trial of her cleaner.

Baroness Scotland falsely claimed to have seen a passport and Home Office letter showing that her Tongan maid had the right to work in Britain, a court heard.

But according to the Tongan's barrister, the Labour peer saw no such documents - and her claims that she had done were a lie.

The astonishing accusations were made repeatedly at the first day of the fraud trial of the cleaner, Loloahi Tapui.

Baroness Scotland was only fined half the full amount applicable under the law she herself steered onto the statute books.

She also kept her job.

Baroness Scotland is unelected.

Baroness Scotland votes Labour.

Tories Stop Cider Tax

2010-04-07T11:23:00.001+01:00

A smidgin of good news among the horse-trading badness of it all:

The Conservative Party last night forced Labour to drop three planned tax rises in a victory on the first day of the month-long election battle.

The 10% increase on a pint of cider will be scrapped, with prices dropped again on 30 June.

Plans for a new 50p tax on phone lines to help pay for rural areas to receive improved access to broadband were also dropped.

These measures were announced by chancellor Alistair Darling just weeks ago in his Budget.

Plans originally announced last year for tax relief on holiday homes were also scrapped. The plans would have put the tax treatment of furnished holiday lets on a par with that for other property rental businesses. The travel industry had warned that the changes would have cost tourism millions of pounds with the loss of thousands of jobs.

The Labour party needed Tory approval to rush through the finance bill before the dissolution of parliament. The bill turns the Budget into law. The Tories would not sanction the fast-tracking of the legislation unless the three tax hikes were abandoned.

Phillip Hammond, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said it was a ‘major victory for businesses and consumers across Britain’.
The scrapping of the taxes marked a coup for the Tories on the day that prime minister Gordon Brown sought approval from the queen to hold the general election on 6 May.

From citywire.

Democracy - EU-Style, ie NOT

2010-03-31T17:15:00.002+01:00

Commission sets out rules for citizens' initiative

Commission sets out rules for citizens' initiative
By Constant Brand
31.03.2010 / 16:46 CET

One million signatures needed from nine countries

The European Commission today (31 March) set out the rules for using a “citizens' initiative” which allows one million people to ask the Commission to propose new laws.

Using the initiative, which was introduced by the Lisbon treaty, will require at least one million signatures from at least nine of the 27 member states.

Organisers will also to make sure they get a minimum number of names from each country, based on the so-called digressive proportionality system, which is used to divide up seats between member states in the European Parliament.

Maroš Šefčovič, the EU commissioner handling the “European Citizens' Initiative”, said the measure will mark “a real step forward in the democratic life” of Europeans.

Šefčovič presented a draft guidebook on how the initiative will work on Wednesday. “It should not be too difficult, not too technical or complicated for citizens”, he said.“It is a concrete example of bringing Europe closer to its citizens and it should foster a lively debate about what we are doing in Brussels”.

The plan, which still needs the backing of the European Parliament and member states, will give citizens across the 27-nation bloc their first direct say in setting the EU's legislative agenda, a procedure which could lead to gridlock in EU decision- making.

But it will not go as far as other similar direct democracy instruments like those in Switzerland or California, where citizens can bypass parliaments to pass new rules and regulations via ballot initiatives or referenda.

Šefčovič acknowledged the initiative would also allow interest groups and political parties to launch signature drives, raising doubts about how effective the initiative would be in bringing citizens closer to the EU.

“We are trying to be as open as possible, we would not like to limit who would be the organisers ... so political parties clearly fall within the remit,” he said.

The initiative opens the door for people to voice their position on an array of contentious issues, including the use of genetically modified crops to Turkey's entry talks, all of which fall under the remit of the Commission, which has powers to draft and amend EU rules and regulations.

Under the proposed rules, those wanting to change EU legislation will have to organise and collect at least one million signatures from at least nine of the 27 member states.

Added to those requirements is another complex one that will force organisers to make sure they meet a minimum number of names from each country, based on the so-called digressive proportionality system, which is used to divvy up seats between member states in the European Parliament.

At least 72,000 signatures will be needed from Germany for example, 54,750 from the UK and only 4,500 each from tiny Malta and Luxembourg.

The initiative will have to be formally filed via a special Commission website, after which organisers will have one year to collect the signatures.

Šefčovič said he had introduced several safeguards to prevent extremists or other “silly” initiatives from hijacking the process. An initial check will be done once an initiative is filed on the website to see whether the proposed signature drive abides by European rights and values.

A second check is done once organisers reach 300,000 signatures to see whether it falls under its legislative powers and is viable.

The names collected either online or on paper will have to be verified by national authorities and the organisers of the initiative will have to disclose who finances their campaign.

A group representing thousands of EU-based non-governmental organisations, including Greenpeace, the European Trade Union Confederation and the European Women's Lobby welcomed the proposal calling it “an important new step to increase public participation in EU decision-making.”

Seventeen member states already have similar initiatives at national level.

So there you have it: instead of just voting directly for the people who make your laws, you now have the ability to go through a complicated and ridiculous procedure, which will be vetted by unelected officials - all on the off-chance that the (unelected) commissioners think it's worth bothering about.

Welcome to democracy, EU-style.

How about starting an initiative to get the UK expelled from the EU? I'm sure we could make ourselves so disliked that we could easily get 1,000,000+ signatures.

More Communitarian Shit From The Political elite

2010-03-31T13:54:00.001+01:00

BBC News - David Cameron promises to create 'neighbourhood army'

David Cameron has said that a Conservative government would train a 5,000-strong "neighbourhood army" to set up community groups.

The Tory leader said in a speech this offered a "positive alternative to Labour's big government" approach.

"Our aim is for every adult citizen to be an active member of an active neighbourhood group," he said.

Meanwhile, Labour is promising communities more powers to take over the running of local services.

More proof that there's really little difference between the major parties, all of whom are hung up on this communitarian 'progressive' approach.

We don't need - or want - citizen groups. What we want is local councils to do the jobs they're always done and to do them well - so we don't bloody have to.

Why don't you just fuck off and LEAVE US ALONE.

Newsmen Wearing Lip Gloss

2010-03-28T21:29:00.001+01:00

MARTIN BELL: Beware of newsmen wearing lip gloss | Mail Online

Martin Bell on how tv reporters have become celebrities and fakes - and sacrificed their trade in the process. Worth quoting in full.

One day at the height of the banking crisis I was so concerned about my few diminishing investments that I watched the BBC News Channel doing a live report from the City. It was eight o'clock in the morning and broad daylight. The reporter, venturing out of the cocoon of the TV studio, was standing in the street outside the Bank of England - and he was wearing lip gloss. In my book, real men don't wear lip gloss, not even inside TV studios, never mind outside them. There is something deeply untrustworthy about it. It gives a journalist the look of a snake-oil salesman.

But that's the way the TV news world has been going since, about 15 years ago, it started abandoning the standards and values that it inherited. It wasn't just a matter of accuracy - although I was shocked to hear an executive on one of the rolling news channels defending the broadcasting of a falsehood in the heat of the moment as 'part of the unfolding story'. It was a matter of substance. I recently wrote an introduction to a new edition of William Howard Russell's Despatches From The Crimea. I was impressed by their authenticity. He was there, and what he wrote about was what he saw. It wasn't easy for him. He had his tent cut down. He was threatened with censorship. But he persisted. And, reading his reports, I concluded that readers of the Times in 1854 were better informed about the Crimean war than readers of any newspaper today, or viewers of any TV network, about the war in Afghanistan.

Television is especially at fault. What it lacks in substance it tries to make up for in style. In TV, as in politics, presentation is now paramount. Spin is king of the hill. The BBC led the retreat from the real world into the froth and fluff that masquerades as it. The Corporation was worried about a decline in audiences for all of its mainstream news programmes. It commissioned a mass of audience research and concluded that what was needed was less reporting and more story-telling. Its journalists were re-branded as performers.

All the world was a stage and they were the strolling troupe of players who would be the actors on it. It was not enough to stand there and explain what was going on. They were expected to walk and talk and wave their arms at the same time. The BBC even hired a style coach from Iowa to teach them how to do it. A veteran correspondent was told to acquire a new set of hand signals. It was known - heaven help us - as 'being in the moment'. And all the networks, not just the BBC, went down this road with results that you can see every day on every programme - not so much the TV news as Strictly Come Reporting.

I was once told by one of the practitioners of these dark arts that if I learned them I too could become a wealthy and high-profile anchorman. Fame and fortune, a six- or even seven-figure salary, would be within my reach. 'All you need, Marty,' he said (he was from NBC News of America), 'is sincerity - and if you can fake that you've got it made!'

So the TV news business, which used to be a sober-sided affair, became entwined with the culture of celebrity. There was a pecking order; and to become a TV news celebrity you needed a title. You started as a reporter. You then became a correspondent (a correspondent is a reporter who has lunch). Then an editor or special correspondent. And then maybe a programme presenter. And this was the point of it. You wouldn't just be where the news was. You would actually be the news. And the stories that you told would be at least in part about yourself. John Simpson is a master of this art.

Even now the BBC News Channel runs a regular promotional video showing some of its leading players at the heart of world events. The message is that wherever news breaks the BBC is there, the first and the best. One of the images is that of Huw Edwards, the estimable presenter of the Ten O'Clock News, wearing a flak jacket and talking to soldiers within the relative safety of the Basra Air Station. That was more than two years ago, but it is re-run every day as if it were yesterday. The real story of the defeat and debacle in southern Iraq, and the breaking of the spirit of some very fine soldiers, was never told, by Huw or anyone else.

If you ask why not, I think I know. For all kinds of reasons, mostly understandable, the journalists have retreated from the real world into the comfort of green zones and well-protected hotels. They are seldom on the scene any more. They are doing their stuff on rooftops or in front on video walls. Some of them are very good journalists, but they can no longer report from the thick of things because it is just too dangerous to do so. A warning shot across everyone's bows was the fate of the BBC's Frank Gardner, a brave and brilliant correspondent, who was singled out and gunned down in Saudi Arabia in 2004 - and that was not even, technically speaking, a war zone. His cameraman was killed. Gardner is still reporting, but from a wheelchair.

The terms of trade were changed by 9/11. After that the danger was not of being caught in the crossfire but of being kidnapped, ransomed and executed.

One of the last to try it the old way was Stephen Farrell of the New York Times, who was captured last September by the Taliban when he travelled, without military protection, to the scene of a Nato bombing in Kunduz, Afghanistan. He escaped, but his interpreter and a British soldier were killed in the rescue operation. It is hard to think of anything more damaging to military/media relations than the death of a soldier trying to save the life of a journalist.

So reporters are either 'embedded' - attached to and travelling with a military unit - or they never leave Camp Bastion. I know about embedding. I was a pioneer of it, and keep on my files an identity card, serial number 001, issued by the MoD as Authority For A War Correspondent Accompanying A British Operational Force. This was for the first Gulf War in 1991. I traded freedom for access and went to war alongside the Queen's Royal Irish Hussars. It was a privilege to be there, although in the end it wasn't that much of a war.

Afghanistan, by contrast, is one hell of a war - and the only access to it is through embedding. Some of the coverage has been vivid and in the best traditions of the business. Bill Neely for ITV News, Vaughan Smith for Channel 4 News and Ross Kemp for Sky deserve all kinds of medals for terrific coverage. But it is fragmentary. What is missing, when the shooting starts and the Nato rockets and bombs go in, is the sight of any Afghans and the news of what has happened to them. In a war being fought to win their allegiance, it is a black hole in the coverage.

Embedding can also benefit the journalists, if they choose to learn the lessons in front of their eyes. Soldiers do teamwork, because their lives and operations depend on it. But TV people do not do teamwork. News is like politics: it tends to attract driven and frantically ambitious characters who believe that they can only succeed at each other's expense. (The fiercest competition, as with political parties, is not between organisations but within them.)

This leads to some very strange practices - and malpractices. Those of us who have been in TV a long time know that the work of some of its legends, which we whisper sometimes among ourselves, includes reports that were outright frauds. They looked and sounded like news, and one of them won a prestigious award, but they were from start to finish the most disgraceful and appalling fabrications. These included staging certain scenes, passing off reconstructions as the real thing, topping up the soundtrack with extra gunfire, peppering a script with falsehoods and using counterfeit cutaways to suggest that the reporter was at the front line when in fact he was nowhere near it. Most of these characters have retired - but one of them at least is still in action and doing rather well. He works for one of the major broadcasters. I hope that he has changed his ways. They certainly needed changing.

It may be, of course, that the frauds are rare and most reporters are decent and honourable people. We used to think the same of our MPs.

I believe, from where I've been and what I've seen, that we live in the most dangerous times since 1945. Something wicked this way comes - if not from Helmand and the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, then from Jihadist training camps in Yemen or Somalia. But the conflicts there go virtually unreported.

And TV is increasingly retreating into an easy, soft and anaesthetic news agenda. Jordan is not a country but a celebrity. Gordon Brown weeps on prime-time. Politicians are learning the arts of reality television. Their safest haven is the GMTV sofa. Everything becomes a journey to tug at the heartstrings. Even Tony Blair's book is to be called The Journey.

My former profession has also been on a journey. It has been seduced by celebrity. It has loitered too long in la-la land. It has taken wrong turns and worshipped false gods. But when events in the real world come to strike us - the world that it has so assiduously ignored - it will have to return to its roots in serious journalism. That will wipe the smiles from the presenters' faces. And maybe the lip gloss too.

Europe Saves Our Time

2010-03-28T11:04:00.002+01:00

All three main UK political parties are apparently in agreement about when to change the clocks and by how much. You can read details here.

I've managed to annoy Mrs ChartersandCo by suggesting that the hidden hand of the EU may be at work here.

Which, of course, it is. The proposed changes bring us into line with Central European Time. Nothing wrong with it in this case, but I just wish the British politico-media would be a bit more honest about things.

Mrs ChartersandCo rounded on me by saying that groups such as RoSPA were in favour of it, so it had nothing to do with the EU.

Except of course, RoSPA gets stacks of funding from the government and its agencies, so they're obviously going to be called in defence. Go check its accounts. Kerching. Fake charity.

I'm not telling the Mrs about that one, though. I want a quiet life. I think I'll keep schtumm from now on.

Labour Aspirational Hit The Rich Claptrappery

2010-03-27T10:50:00.003Z

Labour want to hit the rich for being, well, rich.

They also want to encourage people to have aspirations, to become successful and, well, rich, I suppose.

No contradiction there, then.

How Gordon May Stop Squaddies Voting Against Him

2010-03-21T17:50:00.002Z

British Soldiers Unable To Vote In General Election - “No Helicopters, No Equipment, No Vote”, says Dan Byles | Dan Byles

Blogged about the possibility of this happening a week or so back.

We all know what's going on here, don't we, Gordon?

Wonks Wonking In Wonkdom

2010-03-21T09:25:00.001Z

Do unto others: on the appropriation of citizen empowerment - Neighbourhoods

Kevin Harris takes a pop at those bossy, interfering wonks and politicos who decide what 'we' need for 'our communities', in this case Matthew Taylor and his current vehicle, the RSA:

I posted some musings last month about the way empowerment has become an industry: its recognition as an issue in policy is welcome but its neutralising assimilation distasteful.

Meanwhile I've been watching as that well-known authority on local activism, the RSA, plans to follow up on its idea for a 'new community development qualification' by toying with notions of 'citizen power' as if it were a conceptual plaything. I was invited to the launch of this project recently, but I still haven't understood why a local project required a London 'launch' with Triffickly Important People speaking.

The invitation noted:

'With political disengagement on the rise and public services feeling the squeeze, it has never been more important to realise the potential of people to affect change at a local level by shaping the identity and direction of the places and public services they use.'

OK, I'm with you so far, how you gonna do that? 'The potential of people': any particular people?

'This pioneering project led by the RSA in partnership with Peterborough City Council and Arts Council England East, will experiment with different ‘models of social change’ across a range of spheres including civic behaviour, education, local enterprise, rehabilitation and treatment services.'

Ah I see, not led by local people then. But experimenting with their lives and their place, how thoughtful. Well you wouldn't want to risk increasing political disengagement, would you?

The text went on to explain the RSA's belief that 'the goals of individual fulfilment and social progress require an ambitious model of citizenship'... It has to be a model, because the wealthy elite like to play with things and then go off and do something else, leaving ordinary people to, er, well tidy up and make do afterwards I suppose.

David Wilcox has been trying to inject some sense of responsibility and offered a couple of comments here, with a gentle irony that seems either too subtle, or too late, or both:

'I know that there's a strong theoretical commitment to citizen engagement, empowerment etc. But isn't there a slight danger that without some evidence of citzens at the heart of the project this will look like social architecture designed in John Adam Street?'

The rhetoric ('We do want to involve people in all aspects of the project') isn't hard to find but sounds as hollow as always. When I started to wonder about the '.co.uk' url, it struck me that not only is this an audacious attempt by wonkdom to appropriate, govern and direct citizen empowerment from the top-down; it also implies it can be turned into a project of social entrepreneurship.

It may seem trivial to be pricking the RSA's pomposity (although they seem to work hard at it). But I'm more concerned with a growing suspicion that one of the legacies of new Labour will be the erosion of the validity of radicalism by treating it as intellectually fashionable and appropriating its language. If you do unto others and call it empowerment, what will residents call real empowerment when the time comes to get you off their territory?

Why can't these people just fuck off and leave us alone?

One Database You CAN Opt Out Of - NHS Summary Care

2010-03-18T18:20:00.004Z

Kept quiet by the state, of course, but here's one database you can request an opt-out from: the Summary Care Record. There's a link to a printable form at the bottom of this page.

W Anchor Mann

2010-03-15T19:12:00.001Z

Seconds Out, Round One « MANNISMS >>

Labour MP John Mann threatens to sue blogger.

Uses House of Commons notepaper. Is that legal?

Anyway, I don't care whether Mr Mann is in the right or not in this matter. He's a Labour MP and is therefore a cunt. Sorry, wanker.

Will The BBC Report This?

2010-03-15T18:48:00.001Z

EU to recommend more cuts for Britain | Reuters

According this report the European Commission's view coincides with that of the Conservative Party, ie that more cuts need to be made sooner rather than later. A view not shared by Labour and the Lib Dems, both of whom are more heartily committed to the EU project than the Tories. Nice irony.

Bet it doesn't appear on BBC, though.

By Marcin Grajewski

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission will tell Britain to do more to cut its ballooning budget deficit in the medium term, saying the country's fiscal programme lacks ambition, a draft from the EU executive showed on Monday.

The draft, obtained by Reuters two days before publication, said the programme failed to guarantee Britain would meet a European Union deadline of 2014-15 for cutting the deficit to below the bloc's cap of 3 percent of economic output.

"The overall conclusion is that the fiscal strategy in the convergence programme is not sufficiently ambitious and needs to be significantly reinforced," said the draft, expected to be approved by the Commission on Wednesday.

"A credible timeframe for restoring public finances to a sustainable position requires additional fiscal tightening measures beyond those currently planned," it added.

Britain's plan envisages cutting the gap to 4.7 percent of gross domestic product in the fiscal year 2014-15 from 12.1 percent planned for 2010-2011. That means it will fail to meet the deadline given by EU finance ministers late last year.

But even this target may be missed because British economic growth could turn out lower than the government expects, the draft said.

"The achievement of the consolidation forecast by the UK authorities, is further clouded by the likelihood that the macroeconomic context could be less favourable than envisaged by the authorities, as well as the uncertainties relating to the banking sector loans and investments insured by the government."

The programme forecasts economic growth at 2.0 percent in 2010-11 and then 3.3 percent each year until 2014-15.
Brussels has little leverage to force Britain to follow its recommendation made under the 27-country EU's budget discipline rules. Britain is not a member of the 16-nation euro zone so cannot be fined for breaching the deficit limit.

Still, the assessment may prove embarrassing for Prime Minister Gordon Brown ahead of this year's general election.

The Commission will also publish on Wednesday its assessment of the fiscal programmes of Austria, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Slovakia.

They will then be studied by EU finance ministers. The ministers in theory can change the Commission's recommendation, but this happens rarely.

Budget deficits are swelling across the EU as the economic crisis undermined government revenues and fiscal stimulus programmes boosted spending.

The draft said Britain's fiscal plans for 2010-2011 appeared adequate but those for subsequent years seemed lax.

Britain should publish this year "the detailed departmental spending limits underlying the overall expenditure projections" for the period after 2010-11, it added.

(Editing by Dale Hudson)

What Odds On Terrorist 'Outrage' or Incident Before Election?

2010-03-15T18:35:00.003Z

Not that I'm cynical or believe that Labour will stoop to just about anything to stay in power, but what are the odds on a major terrorist 'incident' happening between Easter and the general Election? The sort that shows Brown playing at being the Great Leader and Protector of his country? And then being re-elected by a grateful electorate.

The Progressive Mulgan UK Australia Fuck-up Connection

2010-03-13T16:17:00.004Z

Doing a bit of poking around on the interwebs to chase up info on the imminent publication of Making Good Society by The Commission of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society (yes, that is correct), ie the Carnegie Trust, and its Chair(man), the leftishly-ubiquitous Geoff Mulgan, I discovered that among Mulgan's many jobs is 'part-time adviser to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Australia'.

Not content with contributing to the continuing fuck-up of the UK he is now helping to do the same to Australia. The Aussie political class seem to have generated their own bunch of fucknuggets who are trying the same tricks as here, eg censoring the internet, etc.

I hope the Aussies show more gumption and guts than the British public and tell the government and its advisory lickspittles where they can shove their ideas.

Gordon Knows They Won't Be Voting For Him, So...

2010-03-11T16:56:00.001Z

Gordon Brown asked for assurances that soldiers overseas can vote in the General Election - Telegraph

During Prime Minister's Questions, Richard Benyon, a Tory MP and former soldier, said postal trials by the Army Families Federation had revealed limitations in the current arrangements.

He warned that a ''perverse situation'' could arise where the armed forces were fighting for people in foreign countries to have the vote but could not cast a ballot themselves.

''It is unlikely that the vast majority of our armed forces serving overseas will be able to vote in the coming election,'' Mr Benyon said.

''Will you intervene to ensure that we don't have the perverse situation that we have people fighting abroad for others to have the right to vote but we are denying that right (to them).''

Mr Brown said Justice Secretary Jack Straw was making the ''best arrangements possible'' to ensure service personnel overseas would be able to cast their vote.

And he said: ''It is absolutely right that everyone should have the chance to cast their vote in every election.''
Members of the armed forces are able to register as a ''service voter'', linking them to a fixed address in the UK for three years to allow flexibility when posted overseas.

Those abroad on election day can apply to vote by post or proxy, though the Electoral Commission recommends service personnel to appoint a proxy.

The body's website says: ''If you're based abroad, you need to be aware that, due to election timetables, you may not receive your ballot paper until shortly before election day.

''Depending on where you're based, there may not be enough time for you to return your ballot before voting closes (10pm on election day), so voting by post may not be the best way for you to vote.

''In these circumstances we would encourage you to appoint a proxy in the UK to vote on your behalf.''

Interesting. Given that this administration is one of the most corrupt and contemptible ever, it would come as no surprise to find that service personnel in Afghanistan were somehow 'unable' to cast their votes in time. How many of them will be voting for Gordon, do you think?

Conservatives Will Inherit EU Merde-Sturm

2010-03-11T11:24:00.001Z

Conservatives may by forced to call early EU referendum - Telegraph

I wonder if Dave and his mates have decided they'd rather not be running this country after the next general election.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has raised the prospect of new EU treaty only months after the Lisbon Treaty took force.

Mrs Merkel said that a new EU accord would be required to create a new European Monetary Fund able to bail out crisis-hit members of the euro like Greece. “We would need a treaty change,” she said.

Talk of a new EMF has led to warnings that power of tax and spending could be centralised in European institutions.

When the Lisbon accord was proposed, European leaders said that it would be the last attempt to change the EU’s basic rules for many years.

But some European politicians have taken the recent financial crisis as an opportunity to suggest more changes. The European Commission has said the crisis is a chance to improve Europe’s “economic governance”.

Britain is not a euro member, but it is a signatory to the Maastricht treaty that created the single European currency. Maastricht bans one euro member giving direct financial aid to another.

EU rules mean that any change in the union’s fundamental rules must be approved by all EU members in a new treaty.

Any new treaty that creates a “gouvernement économique” based in Brussels and Frankfurt would face stiff opposition from Eurosceptics across the British political spectrum.

Both Labour and the Conservatives signalled they would oppose any new EU treaty, and the issue has the potential to be a political embarrassment to both.

When David Cameron dropped his commitment to hold a referendum on Lisbon last year, he reassured voters and Eurosceptic Tories that a Conservative government would put any future treaty to a referendum.

Conservative officials confirmed that the referendum “lock” would be applied to any new EMF treaty.

Mark Francois, the Conservative shadow Europe minister, said: “A European Monetary Fund must create no financial or legal obligations on Britain.”

However, the Conservatives are wary of letting Europe become a major issue at the general election, fearing that Labour could use the subject to portray them as an unreformed right-wing party.

Labour promised a referendum on the European Constitution, the forerunner of Lisbon, but then dropped the commitment.

Mr Brown told the Commons in 2007 that he would not accept any change in Europe’s rules for another decade.

Downing Street confirmed on Tuesday that the UK would oppose any new treaty brought forward to set up an EMF.

Downing Street said: “The Government opposes further institutional change in the relationship between the EU and member states for this parliament and the next.”

Asked about Mrs Merkel’s remarks, No 10 said: “We don’t actually expect further institutional change.”

Mats Persson, director of Open Europe, a think-tank, said that any new treaty could be a move to centralise power over tax and spending policies.

He said. “This will be seen, rightly, as a step towards fiscal federalism. That would be a step in the wrong direction for the UK.”

Even though Britain is outside the euro, Mr Persson said it was “not inconceivable

that the UK could take part in some way” in a new European bail-out fund.

As an example, he said, the UK pays to help fund the running costs of the European Central Bank, despite not being a member of the European single currency.

Nigel Farage, a UK Independence Party MEP, said: “British participation in a European IMF will prove to be a bottomless pit down which taxpayers’ money can be poured in an attempt to save a lost cause.”

The Germans Are Getting Restless

2010-03-02T13:36:00.001Z

German court overturns law on phone, e-mail data - Yahoo! News

BERLIN – Germany's highest court on Tuesday overturned a law that let anti-terror authorities retain data on telephone calls and e-mails, saying it posed a "grave intrusion" to personal privacy rights and must be revised.

The court ruling was the latest to sharply criticize a major initiative by Chancellor Angela Merkel's government and one of the strongest steps yet defending citizen rights from post-Sept. 11 terror-fighting measures.

The ruling comes amid a European-wide attempt to set limits on the digital sphere, that includes disputes with Google Inc. over photographing citizens for its Street View maps.

The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the law violated Germans' constitutional right to private correspondence and failed to balance privacy rights against the need to provide security. It did not, however, rule out data retention in principle.

The law had ordered that all data — except content — from phone calls and e-mail exchanges be retained for six months for possible use by criminal authorities, who could probe who contacted whom, from where and for how long.

"The disputed instructions neither provided a sufficient level of data security, nor sufficiently limited the possible uses of the data," the court said, adding that "such retention represents an especially grave intrusion."

The court said because citizens did not notice the data was being retained it caused "a vague and threatening sense of being watched."

Nearly 35,000 Germans had appealed to the court to overturn the law, which stems from a 2006 European Union anti-terrorism directive requiring telecommunications companies to retain phone data and Internet logs for a minimum of six months in case they are needed for criminal investigations.

Civil rights groups had fiercely opposed the law, arguing that even excluding the content of phone calls and e-mails could allow authorities too deep a view into their personal sphere.

"Massive amounts of data about German citizens who pose no threat and are not suspects is being retained," Germany's commissioner for data security issues, Peter Schaar, told ARD television.

Security experts argued the information is crucial to being able to trace crimes involving heavy use of the Internet, including tracking terror networks and child pornography rings.

While the court upheld the EU directive as necessary to fight terror, it took issue with how the German law had interpreted it and ordered further restrictions on access to the data.

Changes ordered by the court included granting access to the data only by court order and only in the event of "concrete and imminent danger." The court further insisted the information be stored in the private sector so it was not concentrated in one spot.

Germans, in particular, are sensitive to privacy issues, based on their experiences under the Nazis as well as the former East Germany's Communist dictatorships, where information on individuals was collected and abused by the state.

Can't see our courts taking that much interest in our rights, can you?

EU - Hidden Disaster

2010-02-23T08:49:00.003Z

Already flagged up by various blogs and papers, etc, Hidden Disaster, the EU's expensive propaganda comic aimed at children. This time about the Commission's Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO). Written by Erik Bongers (yes, it is a 'g', not a 'k').

Should you have the slightest interest in reading and ridiculing this piece of rubbish, either check out the copy over at our Scribd site or pop along to the EU's own online bookshop for a free pdf.

Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation Toes Labour Bully Line

2010-02-22T18:59:00.004Z

Good to see the BBC following the Labour spin-line on the Gordon Brown bullying story. The 6 o'clock news sidestepped anything to do with the sources of the stories, ie Peter Watts in January and now Andrew Rawnsley in favour of concentrating on a suitable diversion, ie Mrs Pratt and her National Bullying Helpline.

Mrs Pratt is indeed a useful idiot, a) for (ultimately) exposing those who called her helpline and b) for not realising the Labour monster and the media whores would be all over her and her past in an attempt to smear her.

Fortunately in this case, shit sticks, and there'll be enough residue clinging to Brown right up to the election, however new Labour try to spin it.

New Labour Britain - Guilty Even When Proven Innocent

2010-02-21T10:31:00.001Z

Innocent people could have lives wrecked by 'Big Brother' vetting checks - Telegraph

No surprise to find that New Labour's policies are a police-state nightmare:

Workers judged to be lonely and to have a chaotic home life could be barred from working with vulnerable people, even though there is no evidence that they pose a risk, according to guidelines from the Government's new vetting agency.

Decisions about staff will be taken by officials who have never met them, based on details passed on by their employers.

Experts claimed that the "Big Brother" approach meant innocent people could have their careers wrecked on the basis of cruel rumours or ill-informed moral judgements.

The row is the latest controversy to hit the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), which was set up to vet millions of people working with vulnerable people.

The Government announced a watering down of the scheme in December in the wake of a public outcry over plans to force adults who give other children lifts to clubs and sports events to undergo criminal records checks and register with the ISA.

Since October, employers have been under a legal duty to refer staff to ISA for assessment if children or vulnerable adults who they work with are considered to have been harmed or put in danger.

Controversially, managers have also been told to pass on names of staff they have prevented from working with vulnerable people for fear they could "pose a future risk" - even though no incident has occurred.

Guidance seen by The Sunday Telegraph, which has been given to more than 100 case workers at the ISA reveals that those referred could be permanently blocked from work if aspects of their home life or attitudes are judged to be unsatisfactory.

It says case workers should be "minded to bar" cases referred to them if they feel "definite concerns" about at least two aspects of their life, which are specified in the document.

It means, for example, that if a teaching assistant was believed to be "unable to sustain emotionally intimate relationships" and also had a "chaotic, unstable lifestyle" they could be barred from ever working with children.

If a nurse was judged to suffer from "severe emotional loneliness" and believed to have "poor coping skills" their career could also be ended.

ISA's case workers, who have no minimum qualification or experience, make their decision about whether someone should be barred from working with children or vulnerable adults without ever seeing the person.

They are expected to establish the person's relationship history and emotional state based on the file passed on by their employer.

Psychologists, professional regulators and health and teaching unions last night expressed horror over the guidance.

Harry Cayton, chief executive of the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, which oversees Britain's nine health regulators, said: "My concern is that judgements are being made not on the basis of facts but on opinion and third party perceptions."

Dr Mike Berry, a leading forensic psychologist, described the system as "incredibly dangerous" and open to error.

The expert in criminal profiling said: "These tests are so subjective; plenty of people are lonely, while others have what some might call a chaotic lifestyle. It depends who is judging."

Dr Berry, a senior lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University added: "This tool is based on a stereotype of paedophilia, based on social inadequacy, but there are plenty of people who are quite self-contained, a bit of a computer nerd, and perhaps a bit isolated who present no danger to society. Meanwhile Rose West would pass this test with flying colours."

He said the dangers in the scheme were compounded by the fact case workers had no direct contact with the person they assessed.

"I think it is a major problem that the person making this decision is so distant from the case, and to the consequences of what they are doing.

"They are essentially sitting in a call centre, following an automated system, and dependent on information from third parties. That in itself is very worrying," said Dr Berry.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said: "This Government is creating a society where everyone is treated as guilty unless they are proved to be innocent.

"These changes contravene any principles of natural justice and will destroy the lives of decent innocent people. Gordon Brown is creating Government by "thought police"."

Gail Adams, head of nursing at Unison, said: "We are concerned that it is a paper process, that it is subjective.

"Of course we want to protect children and vulnerable adults, but you have got to get the balance right. This is more like Big Brother."

Amanda Brown from the National Union of Teachers said the union was "extremely worried" about the operation of the system.

Adrian McAllister chief executive of ISA said no one would be barred purely on the basis of their lifestyle or attitude, given that all referrals had to identify either harm done, or a "future risk of harm".

He said: "One of the understandable concerns we have heard from people is that they could be barred for private interests like pornography, or liking a drink. That isn't the case.

"We only look at these risk factors if relevant conduct [actual harm] or a risk of harm has been identified."

Mr McAllister said he expected the "vast majority" of its cases to involve incidents where actual risk or harm has occurred, based on evidence such as a police caution, "rather than cases based on a feeling or suspicion".

The organisation was unable to explain the reasoning behind its instruction to staff that definite concerns in two areas should be sufficient to be "minded to bar" staff.

It would only say that the protocol follows advice from a forensic psychologist.

I blogged ages ago about the forerunner of the ISA, namely the Allegations Management System, which was being implemented quietly through the county councils, doing exactly the same insane policing.

What an irony, though, that we can't apply the same procedures to the people in charge with regard to their psychological suitability for the job of running the country.

Truly these people deserve the rope.

Why British Journalists Are Shit

2010-02-14T09:09:00.003Z

The deliberate refusal to acknowledge to influence of the EU in everyday life is a disgrace in most of the British media, particularly in the left-wing journals such as the Guardian and the Observer.

Hence this in the Observer's Business section today on Home Improvement Packs ('Will estate agents shake the Hips?'):

Hips were introduced in England and Wales in 2007 to provide more "up front" information for buyers. Before them some 28% of sales fell through, often because of problems discovered late in the purchase process.

Wrong. Hips were introduced to comply with the EU's Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. Typically, though, whereas the original legislation demands only one document, the British government demands nine.

Check that out here.

As for Mr Norwood's second statement, I doubt very much that sales he said had fallen through because of 'problems discovered late' had anything to do with energy concerns.

Misleading, incorrect and uninformed. Since these journos are paid to investigate and check sources I can only assume it's deliberate. A bit like Toby Helm covering the problems at the Royal Mail without once mentioning the direct effect of the EU's Postal Services Directive.

Aussie Hackers Fight Back

2010-02-12T20:14:00.001Z

Internet Censorship Protest Shuts Down Australian Government Websites

Kevin Rudd's government may have shown some initial decency and strength by shutting down the previous administration's ID card scheme but they're proving to be just as much a bunch of authoritarian wankers as Howard's lot when it comes to the internet. Read on and learn, because this is what is going to happen everywhere - not just China and Iran:

Hackers protesting government censorship of the Internet have shut down several Australian government websites in a demonstration against the announcement that filters would be imposed to block access to websites deemed offensive by the authorities.

'Deemed offensive by the authorities'? Fuck the authorities. Prepare to fight back.

Power Cuts, Rationing And High Energy Bills Ahead

2010-02-03T17:20:00.001Z

British households risk unaffordable energy bills, Ofgem warns - Telegraph

The realisation that the government is about to drop us back into the 1970s when we had blackouts and energy rationing is just dawning on the media and the populace.

In a wide-ranging report into the future of Britain's energy market, Ofgem said that there is a risk that bills could rise by up to 25pc over the next decade unless measures are taken.

Ofgem said that the unprecedented combination of the global financial crisis, tough environmental targets, increasing gas import dependency and the closure of ageing power stations has combined to cast reasonable doubt over whether the current energy arrangements will deliver secure and sustainable energy supplies.

The Telegraph neatly omits the fact that 'tough environmental targets' and 'closure of ageing power stations' are both enforced by the EU.

The original press release from Ofgem can be read here.

Britain has only 3 weeks of energy reserves, as against four months for the Germans. And the EU still wants the ability to take British energy 'in solidarity' with other other member states if they have a shortfall, ie if Russia has another spat with Georgia.

In the meantime the government expands the number of windfarms, which are inefficient and expensive.

The next decade is going to dark in more ways than one.

Using State Weapons Against The State

2010-01-30T08:02:00.001Z

Thanks to Dick Puddlecote for picking this up and signposting it. Right on the nail.

Alex Deane: How the march of officialdom is destroying cherished ways of life.

Alex Deane of Big Brother Watch talks about how we need to turn the tables on the state by using its own tactics against it. Continuous harassment and challenging of all officials, from bottom to top will become more and more necessary. It must reach the stage where, if government does not repeal the countless stupid and repressive laws that have been passed over the last decade, we will have to make the lives of everybody implementing these laws so uncomfortable, so difficult, so distressing, so unbearable that the system will break down. We have to declare war on the jobsworths as well as the politicians.

Yesterday I saw in the town centre four of these jobsworths talking together: two police community support officers and two City Heritage Wardens (wtf?). Not a sight of a proper copper, of course. And none of them would be any bloody use to you if some oaf were beating the shit out of you in broad daylight.

Labour Says Always Look On The Bright side Of Life

2010-01-28T09:09:00.001Z

Treasury employees given stress advice and told 'it's ok make nmistakes' - Telegraph

Treasury civil servants grappling with the recession and record deficit have been given a 71-page document to cope with stress which includes messages such as “learn to laugh at yourself” and a six-point lesson in how to “relax your thighs".

Top ten tips for coping with the stress of living and working under a Stasi Labour government are:

1.Do not put up with something that does not work correctly. Ensure it is repaired.
2.Look on the bright side.
3.Learn to say no – you have this right.
4.Avoid chaos
5.Write down thoughts and feelings.
6.Control aggression.
7.Learn to laugh at yourself
8.Deal with unpleasant tasks first
9.Shelve problems until you have the capacity to deal with them.
10.Ensure you’ve had enough sleep.

No 3 is touching: nice of Labour to acknowledge people have rights, even as they're methodically destroying them. Do you think they'd like it if we said NO to them on a continual basis?

World Delusions of Politicos And Their Media Whores

2010-01-25T22:06:00.001Z

The UK's world role: Great Britain's greatness fixation

Britain has no such potency [ie as important world power]. Yet we still struggle to adjust to our reality. We can propose, as we shall be doing in three important London meetings this week, but we cannot dispose. Every day, the descant of the Chilcot inquiry reminds us of where the refusal to recognise this truth can humiliatingly lead. Our national interest should be to play our important role as a true, trusted and committed European partner on the world stage. No longer the greatest. Just one great among others. Good enough ought to be good enough. The people get it. If only the politicians did too.

'We can propose...'? 'We'? - what 'we' is this? We, the people, won't be proposing anything at all. We are not struuggling to 'adjust' to any reality. The 'we' of those sentences is the corrupt political class, which has no relation to the populace of the country.

I'm pretty sick of being told Britain has lost its role because it is no longer an imperial power. I'm even sicker of idiots telling us we should drown our sovereignty and identity within the EU in some sort effort to retain our international standing.

This is the waffle of vain politicians and their toadies in the media. As far as my own experience goes, the people don't give a fig for the loss of imperial power or for Britain's 'importance' or role in the world. Gordon Brown is but the latest in a line of Prime Ministers bloated with vanity who strutted around on the world stage proclaiming the greatness of Britain when all they were really doing was saying 'Look at me, aren't I a great world statesman?'

This country would be better off if our politicians concentrated on domestic matters and improving the lot of the people and let the rest of the world get on with its own affairs and wars by itself (especially American wars). That includes the EU. There is no such thing as a European identity. And Europe will never be a nation, whatever the EU does, whatever its apologists say.

The people aren't deluded. The politicians are.

BBC Paid By EU

2010-01-25T18:57:00.001Z

Fears of bias as BBC gets £141m in EU loans - Times Online

No wonder the EU rarely figures much in news reports - and never in documetaries or current affairs programmes.

Britain Heads For Power Cuts

2010-01-20T07:15:00.003Z

E.ON chief: Preserve coal plants to keep lights on.

Ageing coal-fired power stations should be exempted from environmental regulations and kept open to stop the lights from going out, the chief executive of E.ON UK has urged the government.

Paul Golby told the Guardian that some of the coal and oil-fired plants due to close this decade because of European pollution regulations should remain operational and ready to come online during periods of peak demand such as those experienced in recent weeks. The Guardian revealed this month that almost 100 large power users had to switch to alternative sources when National Grid triggered clauses in their interruptible supply contracts.

And just because we are run by cretins who obey their cretin-masters in Brussels, we are going to suffer longer and more frequent power cuts in the very near future - and for a long time.

The green lobby are already whingeing, but even they must have noticed we are getting interrupted supplies. Not that they need worry, since no British government will have the guts or the intelligence to do anything about it.

Driving Licence Stealth Tax Fine Scam

2010-01-14T09:04:00.003Z

Wife receives driving licence 'photo renewal' form; ie licence renewal, plus a demand for £20 with a threat of £1,000 for non-compliance.

I mentioned the cock-up over this 'not the licence but the photo' renewal scam last year, because the DVLA had forgotten that it needed to tell people with the new EU licences when it first issued them ten years ago. That would have come as a surprise to people with older licence because prior to New Labour there was no need to renew a full licence once you had obtained it. Neither was there a demand for cash and the threat of a fine.

The DVLA, as other bloggers have pointed out, has been turned into another money-making stealth-tax-collector for the government.

The legislation is driven by (of course!) the EU with its Directive on Driving licences (also here), but it's probably correct to asssume that the interfering, bullying cash-grabbing elements were added by our very own caring New Labour scumbags.

I would also like to know whether the government is legally allowed to make threats of a fine in this way.

Don't expect anything to change once the Tories get in, though.

EU Needs To Fiddle Its University Rankings

2010-01-06T11:00:00.001Z

EU to test new university ranking in 2010

The European Union is developing a new worldwide ranking system of universities to rival currently established league tables in a bid to improve the ranking of European universities and improve Europe's economic power.

National league tables have been common since the 1990s but as higher education has increasingly become globalised with many students opting to take part of their studies abroad, the focus has shifted to worldwide university rankings.

This means the rankings are increasingly receiving more attention for different specific purposes: Students use them to short-list their choice of university; public and private institutions use them to decide on funding allocations; universities use them to promote themselves; while some politicians use them as a measure of national economic achievements or aspirations.

Europe's around 4,000 higher education institutions have over 19 million students and 1.5 million staff. However, European universities have time and again failed to make it big in the current world university rankings.

In other words, not enough of the EU's universities are making the grade, so they'll have to devise a way of pretending they are. A bit like the UK's exam system.

Iceland Suffers Democracy

2010-01-06T09:13:00.003Z

Iceland's referendum decision provokes angry UK and Dutch response

Iceland's EU membership bid was seen as at stake on Tuesday after a shock decision by the country's president to block legislation on paying billions of euros to Britain and the Netherlands to compensate investors in the collapsed Icelandic bank Icesave.

In a televised speech, President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson acknowledged the strength of popular opposition to the deal among ordinary Icelanders, many of whom are questioning why they have to pay for the actions of their country's banks. His move means the issue will now be put to a referendum.

Last June, Iceland made an agreement with London and the Hague to pay them back €3.8 billion they used to compensate British and Dutch savers who lost money in October 2008 when their accounts with the online savings account Icesave were frozen, following the collapse of the parent company Landsbanki.

The president said an "overwhelming majority" wanted a direct say over the issue after a petition objecting to the terms of paying back the loan gathered the support of one fifth of the population.

Under the terms of the agreement the loan will be paid back over 15 years with interest, with estimates suggesting every household will have to contribute around 45,000 euros.

Feelings in Iceland have been running high, particularly after the heavy handed tactics at the height of the crisis used by Britain which invoked an anti-terrorism law to freeze the country's assets in the UK.

"It is the cornerstone of the constitutional structure of the Republic of Iceland that the people are the supreme judge of the validity of the law," said Mr Grimsson.

The president's decision, which comes just a week after the parliament narrowly approved legislation to pay back the loan following months of wrangling, has prompted an immediate and angry response.

Fitch, the international rating agency, downgraded Iceland's longterm foreign currency credit rating to junk status on the back of the move and called it "a significant setback to Iceland's efforts to restore normal financial relations with the rest of the world."

The Times newspaper reported that Britain's financial services minister Lord Myners said that if the referendum decision was allowed to stand then Iceland would be frozen out of the international financial system and would not be able to join the European Union.

"The UK Government stepped in to ensure that all retail depositors with Icesave were fully paid out, and now we expect the Icelandic Government to ensure that we are repaid that amount which Iceland owes us," he said.

The Netherlands has also reacted with anger.

"We are very disappointed about the decision," said a Dutch finance ministry spokesman, according to the Wall Street Journal. "Iceland has the obligation to pay back the money."

With recent polls showing that Icelanders would likely reject the terms of the repayment in any referendum, the country's EU path is also set to be affected.

Each member state may veto an attempt by another country to join the European Union. Iceland submitted a formal application for membership in July 2009. Once hailed as a probable EU member shoo-in, the banking situation as well as Icelanders more ambivalent feelings about joining the 27-nation bloc is likely to complicate the negotiation process.

Good.

No EU Stars On A Car Of Ours

2010-01-04T22:16:00.003Z

I have ordered these UK union jack bumper stickers for the wife's little car, which unfortunately has the EU flag on the number plates - can't have that.

Bono The Bollix

2010-01-04T12:38:00.002Z

Bono calls for control over Internet downloads.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Irish rock star Bono called Sunday for tougher controls over the spread of intellectual property over the Internet, arguing that file swiping and sharing hurt creators of cultural products...

The singer pointed out that the US effort to stop child pornography and China's effort to suppress online dissent indicate that it is "perfectly possible to track" Internet content.

Not a good idea invoking a totalitarian state to bolster lame arguments.

Cretin.

Bloody BBC News Beauty Pageant Crap

2010-01-03T11:39:00.004Z

Harriet Harman attempts to claw back electoral advantage by criticising the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation over its ageist agenda. It's the kind of desperate schtick you'd expect from a talentless New Labour cretin.

But this is what caught my attention:

In 2007, BBC Director General Mark Thompson denied the corporation's decision to remove then-58-year-old Moira Stewart from her regular news slot on Sunday AM was motivated by her age.

He told MPs on the culture select committee that Ms Stewart's "traditional" news reader's role, as opposed to a correspondent or presenter, had "virtually died out".

This one policy alone - replacing newsreaders with 'presenters' or (God forbid) 'correspondents' has guaranteed the dumbing down of BBC news. These news 'presenters' are lamentably ignorant of current affairs, politics or just about anything else. If they stuck to just reading out a script they'd be bearable, but the fact that they're required to 'interview' people and talk intelligently about topics of which they have no knowledge is insulting.

Thompson tries to weasel his way out of any responsibility for this change by making it sound as if it were a natural process (ie 'had virtually died out') when it is quite clearly management, and indeed industry, policy.

The other result is that news has become just one more branch of entertainment, with increasing emphasis on celebrities and sport. The female newsreaders have to be young and pretty and their male counterparts fairly unblemished, because it's all a bloody beauty pageant now.

Jack Inflammatory Straw Disses Da Cops

2009-12-31T13:24:00.001Z

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.

Thick Intelligence

2009-12-27T11:18:00.001Z

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.

The Rotting Fruit of Multiculturalism

2009-12-24T11:11:00.001Z

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.

Hillier ID Card Cretin

2009-12-23T08:12:00.002Z

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.

A Decade Of Unfreedom (Spiked)

2009-12-22T20:35:00.001Z

Labour's attack on our liberties.

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

Romanian Minister In EU Mould

2009-12-22T17:58:00.001Z

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

2009-12-22T15:31:00.005Z

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.

UK E-Borders Crap Illegal Under EU Law? Hahahahahahahaha

2009-12-18T17:04:00.001Z

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

2009-12-18T16:46:00.001Z

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.

Blair Is A War Criminal - Reg Keys

2009-12-15T19:40:00.003Z

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

2009-12-15T19:39:00.001Z

New Statesman - BBC removes Trafigura story after legal threat.

The bastards are at it again.

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

Polishing Blair's Halo

2009-12-14T19:31:00.004Z

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.

Ever Had A Real Job? Moi?

2009-12-12T10:24:00.001Z

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.

No Action Taken Against Common Purpose

2009-12-10T16:01:00.001Z

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

A Very Good Idea

2009-12-09T21:29:00.001Z

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

2009-12-09T07:51:00.000Z

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.

Scarlett's Dodgy Munition Weapons Lie

2009-12-08T20:12:00.001Z

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.

Britain Shafted For French Farmers

2009-12-07T19:35:00.000Z

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.

The New Labour Jugend

2009-12-06T13:31:00.003Z

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

2009-12-06T09:33:00.003Z

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

2009-12-06T09:18:00.004Z

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.

Toy Guns Will Frighten Cops Into Shooting Kids

2009-12-05T11:34:00.001Z

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.

198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

2009-12-02T19:09:00.000Z

198 Methods of Nonviolent Action

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

Take your pick. Let's get going.