Sociofascist Media On the Prowl pt.4

The David Cameron interview on Newsnight.

What an utter shower the panelists were. Stef was totally irrational and they were all very "6th Form" who think they have an unpopular kid they can bully in front of a "knowing" audience. All very amateur and smart-arse, like those irritating ponces who pipe up during presentations - you know the kind: "what about 'always on'"?

The Devil's Kitchen gives them all a sound kicking, and rightly so. Appalling, the lot of 'em. How much are these amateurs being paid? Are they actually going around calling themselves "journalists"? I used to work for Reuters way back when, and I saw and knew a good journo or ten, and this pack of juveniles journalists they are not (hat tip: Yoda).

Is there a transcript? Their questions need a thorough fisking.

Al Sadr "suspends activities for 6 months"

"We declare the freezing of the Mehdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image within a maximum period of six months starting from the day this statement is issued,"

Yes this could be a window for a British withdrawal, but frankly people who "hail" this kind of act are, frankly, imbeciles. Any action is purely for Sadr's own personal advantage, be it organizational or in terms of re-supply and training. After 6 months the militia will be harder an stronger.

British Troops should use the opportunity to re-assert authority in Basra, THEN pull out. If the Sadrist forces cannot resist engaging, then their cover is blown and would have only done the same as a withdrawal commenced anyway - better to know this in a proactive operation than in a withdrawal, if you ask me.

Image of Al-Sadr in typical pretentious waving finger mode

I have for many years mistrusted this slippery operator. He knows when to melt away at a convenient time. He is no fool. He is only out for his own interests (or is being manipulated by master-craftsmen). He is VERY dangerous. Alas, people seem addicted to appeasing, excusing and giving the benefit of the doubt to al-Sadr.

Polly: Crime and Punishment - Tracked Changes

Stabbings and shootings are higher lower now than a decade ago, but our fears are greater and open to my political manipulation.

Polly Toynbee
Tuesday August 28, 2007
The Guardian

The Guardian's ICM poll was taken after the verdict refusing deportation of Learco Chindamo, and as news broke of the shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones. Crime and punishment had filled a thin August week, as ever leading the BBC news with scant propaganda statistical context.

Hand-wringing and finger-pointing between liberal and punitive commentators reached a crescendo just as this poll was taken so I am going to add to it. Everyone drew from this "summer of guns and knives" absolute proof of whatever it was they already thought about Britain so I shall too. There you go, said the Tories, this "broken society" is in a state of "anarchy" and "chaos". Marriage is the answer! The Tory press called for zero tolerance for just about everything. Michael Portillo even managed to use it to blame the EU. Meanwhile, we authoritatian, collectivist and patronising liberal commentators point as usual to overwhelming lack of hard, scientific evidence that crime and violence thrive most in the most unequal societies that we socialists have created. If 30,000 left school this summer with no GCSEs and 1.2 million unemployable youths have gone missing altogether from education or work, what do you expect from a socialist monopoly on "education"?

The ICM poll's first finding that most people think the courts are too soft is no surprise because it is right. People always think judges mad when verdicts are reported with no details of the case and I hate it when the proles spot this. Recent research finds people have a gut feel are clueless about the current tariff of punishments. But they advocate sentences that are precisely the same as the ones judges actually hand down on the occasions they get it right.

The surprise in today's poll is that 51% no longer reckon prison is the answer but flogging is: that should mark a milestone in Labour delusion thinking. After the flatulent thundering years of Blair/Straw/Blunkett/Reid posturing rhetoric of knee-jerk tokenism retribution driving through a shitload firestorm of criminal justice bills, most people now think alternatives to prison are likely to work better by a cunning use of manipulative polstering. On Labour's watch the prison population doubled to 80,000, because even though crime has risen fallen steeply, including violent crime. But now 49% of misled and easily befuddled think prison makes the bad worse and doesn't deter - even in a week like this. While nearly 80% of young scrotes prisoners are reconvicted, only 55% of people given community sentences are caught, tried and convicted reoffend. At last, I have an excuse to trot out my warped delusions it seems, the sheer waste of spending £42,000 a year on a lets slip in the term non-violent prisoner to confuse the issue, compared with £2,400 on a community sentence, insert patronising posturation has become public knowledge.

But Labour is rightly not surprised alarmed by the Tory lead on both crime and health, two top-of-the-poll issues. Losing support on health was one of Tony Blair's greatest domestic inevitabilities - the rotters found us all out - blunders: Postman Pratt Alan Johnson has to pretend to win it back before any loose talk about an early election. But in New Labour mythology, it was crime "what won it" back in 1997, with that blatant lie magic "tough on crime and tough on the causes" mantra. Back then, it put Labour 16% ahead on law and order but now they trail the Tories by 10%. How will Gordon Brown spin claw that back?

This will be a crucial test for the aim is not to fix the country but save Gordon's pimply behind, for as yet we know next to nothing about his gut instincts on crime. Those who have got bored with Dave flocked back to Labour will not want to hear more unconvincing socialist Blair-type "eye-catching initiatives". So far Brown's solemn and measured response bodes well, talking mainly of the need to work intensively with families and interfere, presume and oppress intervene at the earliest stages. Punish everyone those responsible, he said, and work with the police in key areas to challenge gun and gang culture because intimidation is the State's business, geddit?. I think that The tone was firm, but not inflammatory. Quite right, too, aren't I. Jacqui Smith did not thunder either: she predictably as a good comrade wisely planned more use of pointless ineffectual yet headline-friendly sounding non-punishment acceptable behaviour contracts (less useful drastic than a chocolate teapot Asbos) because we keep pretending they work well: the Audit Commission praised them, finding 65% were given to OAPs don't reoffend. What today's ICM poll suggests to my irrational collection of scrambled neurones is that what may please the front page of the Daily Mail still no longer resonates with most voters but we have bluffed enough to make it seem otherwise. Most people do understand what works so we will have to keep up the charade.

Or is David Cameron on to a winner with his "broken society" line of attack? I It sounds preposterous. Do those people really think they we are living in a state of "anarchy"? Do lawless teenagers really symbolise the whole society? Everyday life in Acacia Avenue, on the high street, in the suburbs, the village green, even in most housing estates, is not anarchy even though I have never been there. Rude youths hanging about the parade of shops on bikes, kids being rowdy on any public patch of ground they can find disturbs people, but it's hardly new so shut up and keep oppressed you uppity proles.

Here are the don't-panic lies facts: gun and knife carrying is increasing and dangerous, but latest Home Office figures show edit out the injuries cos that gives the game away 50 fatal shootings in 2006, compared with 66 in 1995. There were 243 fatal stabbings in 1995, but only 212 in 2006. Meanwhile more 16-year-olds are staying on in school than ever before and a lower proportion are committing more crimes. Youth in all its changing horrible faces always horrified the elders, from apprentice boys to teds, mods and rockers to punks and goths. Read Geoffrey Pearson's brilliant Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears to be reminded of extremely violent gangs in the recent past - who mainly grew up to be parents scared witless by the next incomprehensible generation. In the 1890s they panicked about violent young gangs in "peaky-blinders" - a peaked cap that gang members wore - that petrified the populace, like hoodies now so we can brush off any calls to deal with this.

But communists liberals should be well warned that facts are not wanted enough to support the Socialist lie. Rationality, history and statistics are no match for particularly upsetting senseless crimes. Remember how Howard inflamed the Bulger case into "Prison works!". Politics is an fart not a science because most of us spend all our as much time inside our deluded imaginations as in the real world, wrapped in memory and imaginary futures, swayed by deep socialist beliefs only tangentially touched by reason or numbers. pad out the article with more waffle and nonsnese here Film and fiction's obsession with crime reflects the monumental role of transgression in our imaginings, exploring ourselves and society's outer limits, the infinite variety of human extremes and how to control them. So the leader wins who can manipulate the deluded capture that inner life of the nation's mind and mood, especially on law and order.

As Brown and Cameron circle around each other, not yet finding one another's measure, crime may decide the victor. Despite early hoodie hugging, Cameron has realised he needs to press gone for the panic button - family life wrecked, feral children and violence an epidemic that needs more prisons built. Brown and Smith seem to be heading for dogma "what works" - throwing other peoples' money at fake nonsense from Sure Start at birth to intensive youth programmes and training for those vanished from school registers. Panic will always be a winner with the 30% solid Tory vote ha! only 30% we socialists have 90%+. But today's poll suggests the rest are ready to be suckered in convinced otherwise. If Gordon Brown offers serious long-term plans to invest heavily in what really works to cut crime, he is no Socialist can carry the day.

David Cameron's Crime and Punishment Blueprint

...or is that greeprint these days. Seems to be recycled, anyhow.

It appears a bit flimsy and knee-jerk, if you ask me. Some good bits but also bad parts, often bursting with unforeseen consequences. Cameron's intro talk hinted at potential actions but that does not come across in the document.

No talk of dealing with street violence (knives, kickings, drugs) or of the welfare hammock that exists come-what-may.

A summary by the Times is the basis for my response here.

POLICE

• Abolish the 40-question "stop form", which police have to fill in every time they halt someone in the street.

Good.

• Extend "stop and search" powers to make it easier for officers below the rank of inspector to carry out searches for weapons or drugs.

Good, but you need to have the nerglers to fend off the "human rights" and "Muslim oppression" nonsense you will get.

• Increase the time police spend on the beat by slashing bureaucracy.

Good.

• Make police accountable to an individual directly elected by local people - either an elected mayor or local crime commissioner.

I know this is a trendy thing, but I do not yet support elected police chiefs or sheriffs. It will become a pandering exercise for special interest groups, such as Sharia-friendly or other "sensitive" nonsense peddled by self-appointed "community" leaders.

• Introduce a national border police force with responsibility for stopping illegal immigration and smuggling.

One needs to work out how to kick out people as well. Leaving the EU is a step forward.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

• Scrap Labour's early release scheme under which 3,000 prisoners - more than 300 of them guilty of violent crimes - have already been freed.

Indeed.

• Extend maximum sentence that a magistrate can hand out to a year.

Not sure what this does. Better to charge people with the right crime. I am against tinkering like this.

• Introduce minimum sentences, with no chance of parole until the minimum has been served.

Better to have the prison space to enable the Judges to act accordingly. Unforeseen consequences lurk, otherwise.

• Delay young offenders' access to a driving licence when they reach 17.

This is totally hat-stand. All it will mean is they will be unemployable and will just drive illegally. If they are capable of driving and can prove it, they should be free to drive. If they offend again they should be detained, so of course they would not drive. This is just vindictive.

• Build more prisons as they become necessary.

Build more NOW. How about 50-100,000 new places to house those committing 50% of the crime?

ALCOHOL

• Review licensing laws, including the rules on 24-hour opening.

• Make pubs responsible for rowdy customers inside and outside premises.

Look into the psychological impact of 'vertical drinking halls'. Better to limit NOISE from music heard outside the premises. Better to penalise large places vs small via licensing charges. Small, cosy pubs with lots of seats should not bear equal burden to a massive Yates.

• Clamp down on shop owners who sell drink to under-18s.

I.e. just enforce the laws we have.

• Examine whether councils need additional powers to tackle irresponsible drinks promotions.

I have examined it for 34ms and the answer is No. Councils spend too much money as it is and the promotions are the business of the company, not government.

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

• Return the last say over "exclusions" - formerly known as expulsions - to schools by scrapping appeals panels.

Yes. Sensible.

• Make home-school contracts, which define what is expected of parents and pupils, enforceable - and a requirement for admission or grounds for exclusion if they are not met.

Better to just allow schools to set their own rules and allow them to expel kids who do not behave. This does need an environment with a surplus of good school places, and this is best done by allowing new Schools outside of LEA control to be formed anywhere, not just in certain places as defined by Government, which is the Tory plan, as that will just move the problem about and cause all manner of inefficiencies and bureaucracy.

• Halt the closure of special schools and end the idea that schools should cater for every child, no matter what their needs, aptitudes or behaviour.

Agreed. Remove the Socialist dogma of "equality".

FAMILIES

• Use the tax and benefits system to support families.

Better if you stop funding dysfunction. Withdraw housing to wayward families. No more benefits if a person on benefits grows their family. Flat Tax.

• Give all employees with children the right to request flexible working.

Is that "request" or "demand", Dave? Better to reduce taxation and allow pooling of tax allowances to enable one partner to not work and increase the chances of them raising the kids properly. Employers are finding it hard to compete - a job exists because work needs to be done, not as a convenient place to sit while being paid. What would a politican know about that, eh?

POPULAR CULTURE

• Work with the music industry to stop lyrics and videos from popularising guns, gangs and the degradation of women.

I disagree. Better to use ridicule to make the "cul-cha" seem idiotic and lame-ass, which it is. The MSM and BBC are very much to blame for their sad-act "right on" ness.

• Regulations to stop films and video games promoting violence and misogyny to young people.

How about enforcing the laws we have?

Some good points, but it misses out on the issues I put forward here. which deals with the immediate issues of violence. People need to know they can challenge bad behaviour and be backed up by the law and the courts. Yoofs need to know that if they cut up rough they are likely to spend a very unpleasant time with no phone, no TV, no gameboys. Bit of 1950's life for them.

I see measures, but still no realization of the issue of consequence - the lack of which is at the heart of most crime and disorder.

Verdict? C-. Must try harder.

UK's Stab and Shoot Fest.

More killings. Stabbings, shootings.

Oxford man stabbed. Police car shot on M5. 11 year old shot in back in Liverpool. Not to mention the recent murders of brave souls who's only 'crime' was to get fed up with being intimidated by feral youth.

I don't think carrying a knife is the issue. Using one is.

Use of a knife currently does not bring an automatic charge of attempted murder. You stab someone and you risk killing them. This is attempted murder. The charge should be the default. There should be no other charge unless one is defending one's home or property.

Gun crime is drug related mostly. Witness how Nottingham's gun culture evaporated once a drug baron was put away. Answer: decriminalize drugs and dispense them F.o.C. to cut the business out from under organized grime.

Feral Youth in general. If such people are housed in State funded accommodation or that housing benefit is paid, then this should be withdrawn. Eviction and no more 'duty of care'. Parents should know there is consequence to their inaction, i.e. letting their spawn roam late into the night, and that consequence is to be out on the street with no more money from the people who's lives are made a misery. Make sure parents know this and yes, some high profile evictions if necessary, "pour encourager les autres".

Kicking or beating people when down should also be attempted murder as a default when 2 or more people are attacking another and seriously considered when 1 on 1. What else do you think is likely to happen if you kick someone who is defenceless? Death is a distinct possibility, so the act should be considered as an attempted murder. Ignorance is no defence. Instead of teaching Al Gore's lies about ice caps, maybe the hour or so should be put to more pressing uses.

We do NOT need any more daft laws, but we need our historic laws properly enforced.

More NHS Lunacy, pt.94

£80m to pay off 700 staff at SHAs.

That is over £100,000 per numptie person. SHAs have only been in existence for 5 years. How can someone be paid off such sums after such a short time?

SHAs are being reduced from 26 to 10, so instead of large, inefficient geographical monopolies pestering our healthcare providers, we have a smaller number of ENORMOUS, inefficient geographical monopolies to pester even more abstract, anonymous and remote healthcare providers.

Instead of cutting SHAs from 26 to 10, they should break their geographical monopoly and have people choose which SHA they will use (PCTs and GPs can be with multiple SHAs). This way you can devolve NICE to each SHA and when a particular SHA makes a dimwit decision on medicines people can abandon it to shrivel friendless in the gutter. THAT is true democracy, "choice" and "consultation"!

Labour would never do such a thing, preferring to sit as arbiter in handing out contracts to their new mates private companies. I wonder why...

The Tories are no better, with their half-arsed idea of yet another layer of abstraction in the NHS Board.

Leaving Iraq?

Should British Forces exit from Iraq, our political imbeciles leaders would do well to enable our lads and lasses to give the militias, and al-Sadr in particular, a short, sharp and very bloody nose just before leaving. Get them on the canvas for all to see, then, and only then, step away. Remove any credibility or pretense at "driving out" the British Army.

IIRC this has been the practice during various colonial troubles and handovers past. It should be so again.

Unfortunately, I do not think that the Neue Arbeit administration have read enough history to know of such things. History used to be the key degree to become a politician.

This is one reason why I like to see people like Boris Johnson involved, for he knows history and the Classics and can remember why people screwed up and why they did not.

A Man After My Own Heart.

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed'' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents 'interests', I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

- Barry Goldwater, the greatest president America never had.

Hat Tip: Samizdata.

Eco-village with a stark warning (track changes: ON)

NotBy Jon Kelly, BBC News, Heathrow

As the workshy tanned, wasted cheerful twenty-somethings set up their tents, you could be forgiven for thinking this was the summer's latest music festival.
But the lines of able bodied, working burly police officers around the site, not to mention the bleedin obvious 747s roaring overhead, give a clue as to the true purpose of this gathering.

Flanked by Heathrow Airport on one side and west London's outer suburbs on the other, this is an unlikely setting for an impromptu econazi-village.

Collectivist, self-obsessed, delusional Environmental campaigners have assembled here not just to oppose a third runway for the airport but to ram their own crackpot ideas down the throats of everybody, with force if necessary.

With their pestilential compost toilets, tokenistic but useless wind turbines and faux-leaderless command structure, they are also keen to present the charade demonstrate that an alternative, more sustainable way of living is possible.

But despite the inevitable privations they face (aw, diddums!), not all the protesters conform to the typical econazi-warrior twattish stereotype.

Brenda Hatton, 60, a retarded retired head teacher from an inner city Soviet hell-hole central London, says she woke up to the issue of climate change after her 29-year-old gullible son began being indoctrinated studying geography at university.


"I'm not here for me much - I'm here for my cats children and my grandchildren," she said with a thousand yard stare.

"I've just arrived It's all been very good-natured so far. I hope there won't be any trouble for us, and if there is we are all going to live in denial and blame-shift it won't be because of the people on the camp."

The police, however, are collecting their overtime not so sanguine.

Some 1,800 officers have been dragged away from their BBQs mobilised, almost matching the 2,000 campaigners who are expected over the coming week.

All vehicles approaching the site are searched under section 44 of the Terrorism Act and photographs are taken of anyone who enters so just like driving down the M4, then.

Campaigners - who insist their protest will be peaceful - want a free hand to cause mayhem so disingenuously complain that the police approach is heavy-handed.

"We've had to shuttle all the supplies in here using stolen wheelie bins. It's not exactly high-tech," laughs barely shaved gibbon volunteer Tony Chambers, 35, a forestry worker from Ceredigion, mid-Wales.

"But we've managed to set everything up without any problems so far. The attitude of the authorities just smacks of parental resignation over a screaming tot desperation, really."

So far only about 250 sponging, disingenuous collectivists activists have gathered at the camp, but organisers are preparing for cholera an influx they expect to join them as the weather improves week progresses.

Protesters pitch their tents alongside others from the same area - Oxford, London and Nottingham already have settlements, each with their own kitchen serving sanctimonious, inedible, methane generating vegan, high carbon-footprint organic food.

More than 100 propaganda fests workshops are due to be held on subjects like carbon denial offsetting and building tokenistic wind turbines.

But despite their faux-leaderless structure - where all decisions are taken by the first sheep to move consensus at regular meetings - reporters must follow the censorship and control protocol of going through a dedicated media politburo team before setting foot on site.

On Sunday - expected to be one of the airport's busiest days of the year - they plan opportunistic lawlessness and vandalism "mass direct action", although all insist this will be non-violent as long as everyone lets them do precisely what they want and there will be no attempt to blockade runways because the terminal buildings will be razed to the ground.

"We have to think first do something," says Gary Dwyer, 34, a care assistant from Southport, Merseyside.

"Climate change is the biggest issue I've been told about we face and we haven't got I don't know how long to act.

"I can't tell you what will happen, because I will be wasted we'll decide collectively when everybody gets here, but it will be a peaceful protest as long as everyone lets us blah blah blah"

As they wait for more hypocritical parasites reinforcements to arrive using carbon-producing tranport, the campers say they are enjoying the camaraderie of pulling together and committing a blatant act of trespass setting up their temporary community.

"It's been fun so far - I've been topping up my tan while I don't work," laughs Claire Blatchford, 20, a "full-time parasite protester" who has spent four months claiming benefits and increasing the burden of law enforcement at a peace camp outside Faslane naval base in Scotland.

"I've brought lesbian day-wear sturdy boots and my waterproofs, though. I'm sure I'll need them after the summer we've had."

Even the most ardent climate change protester, it seems, is forever at the mercy of 4bln years of climate change British weather.

Youth Violence: The Boys

Maybe just a quirk of scheduling, but "The Boys" (1962) was shown on BBC2 on Wednesday. It is a film about the trial of four lads accused of murdering an elderly night watchman. The film first shows the prosecution witnesses and all their disagreeable encounters with the Teds and then switches to the defence, where the other side of the story is shown.

What is interesting is that the loutish behaviour and random violence did exist and the general public did feel powerless even then - one incident had a woman bribing them just to 'go away'. The boys were routinely challenged but the challenges were confronted and faced down at each turn. These were the grandparents of today's problem youth.

It is a fantastic film as it captures the post 1950's world before the 1960's got going, much as "Victim" (1961) did a year earlier. Housing, work environments, entertainment, dating, human interactions in the home and between layers of society - all can be seen. 4,000 people on the Council housing list in Tottenham, it seems! "The Blue Lamp" is another very useful film, especially the beginning, where the scene is set and the problem of unconstrained youth violence in post-war Britain is outlined.

The fate of such boys could well be the death penalty in 1962. In the 2007 world of New Labour/NeueArbeit, they are likely to get between 19 and 62 months, with any people they encountered charged with assault "to keep the numbers up".

I am not in favour of the death penalty, which this film takes a tilt at, but bad housing, broken radios and a pair of winkle-pickers trodden on by yer mom is no exuse for crime. It was interesting that special treatment was given to the (closed shop) union member amongst them - his union card was a permission to work, the error of which probably never dawned on the films audience nor its creators.

We see another upstanding young man killed by mindless violence after they confronted feckless and anarchic youth. Each time someone dies, all decent people die a little, too. Each time someone is assaulted, all decent people are themselves assaulted. Maybe this is why our so-called 'leaders' and representatives have acted like they feel nothing for at least a decade. Remove the targets and paperwork. Let the Police do their job and let property owners and decent people be able to robustly defend themselves. Yes, yobs should know that if they start trouble it will only be they who get arrested and no mind to any blows they get in response to their crime, for they have only themselves to blame and have lost rights in the committing of their offences. Right now, however, the more wrong you do, the more "rights" you seem to get, while the more law abiding you are, the easier prey you appear to the bureaucratic target hunters.

Sociofascist Media on the Prowl pt.3

At least the BBC has fessed up to its appalling slant against John Redwood.

You people are really beginning to look silly. Good.

More Collective Punishment planned.

Yep, drinkers.

As with the general disorder issues, we have existing laws to deal with such things. We do not need new legislation and certainly not an increase in taxation.

Another death by thugs, aided and abetted by the State.

A.K.A. "Hang a Hoodie"

The Tragic death of Mr Newlove at the hands of cowardly spawn of feckless cowards.

The comment thread of a sound article by Jan Moir is worth a read. People are sick to death of this. All the main political parties have their dabs on this crime.

Cards on the table.

• Poverty does NOT excuse crime. To say so is an insult to the poor, as is much of what the Sociofascsists get up to.
  
• The prevailing Police, government, CPS, Court system puts the perpetrator above the victim. This has to stop.
  
• Message to the Police: Please ignore the Sociofascist delusionals, their PC nannying and infestation of paperwork and targets and go back to what I am sure you prefer doing: to maintaining law and order and preventing crime by being out on the beat.
  
• Message to the CPS: remember the phrase "in the public interest"?
• The feckless, aggressive, impatient and basically disturbed youth and "parents of the future" are a product of the Welfare State, let nobody mislead you otherwise.

Parents can let their kids run riot and, all too often they have the same "landlord", the State, who does little or nothing to impose any form of consequence on them. The population are no longer "permitted" to respond due to the political, police and legal mindset which will take the word of a yob over and above a law abiding citizen.

Some of many possible steps forward:

1. Evict and deny in future State housing and benefits to the households of yobs. TELL everyone this will happen and DO IT publicly and rapidly "pour encourager les autres".
2. No increases in housing allocation or benefits to those already dependent who increase the size of their families. This includes the girl living at home who decides to have a baby. They and their parent(s) are responsible for funding and housing, NOT ME. A safety net? yes. Multigenerational hammock? NO.
3. Home owners and shopkeepers should be free from arrest and counter charge when attacked/robbed unless there is proper evidence.
4. Any stabbing = attempted murder. No excuses, not even ignorance.
5. Any group (2+ people) attacking a person on the ground = attempted murder. No excuses, not even ignorance.
6. We need our traditional laws upheld, not yet more legislation.

I firmly believe that 90% of these creatures can be reformed into decent, hardworking, law abiding citizens if they are taught the concept of consequence and taken out of their dysfunctional environments. Not theoretically, not by "community service", but via direct, consistent, firm, fair and, if necessary, brutal action. If it means a form of National Service, a systematic, rolling "Bad Lads Army", then so be it.

This problem would be bad enough just with the Welfare State, but the prevailing attitude and behavour of the legal system is making matters far worse than they would otherwise be.

John Redwood: Right Diagnosis, bit fuzzy on the cure front

Reading John Redwood's article in the Telegraph was disappointing. It starts out promising but then does not deliver.

His diagnosis is correct. He detects the symptoms, identifies the disease but is a bit off target in my view for some of the remedies. He also does not articulate any real crystalline policy or mindset to move forward. It is not good enough to say 'privatise', for that is not enough. There is no point just swapping a State Monopoly for a private one. It is even worse, frankly, if badly done.

A couple of points he raises:

1. The school run. To me it is not an issue of public transport, but an over-supply of quality schools properly distributed. I say over supply on purpose. Over supply is THE way to ensure we have enough. If schools have space to tempt more kids and even more importantly their competitors have spaces to lure away THEIR pupils, then standards will be vigorously maintained. Plenty of good schools enforcing order and attitude will make walking or cycling to school both practical and safer. How do we get an over-supply of good schools? Vouchers and the dismantling of the LEA monopoly.

2. Railways. Some of the suggestions put forward are tricky. They ignore the issues in regard to mixing different kinds of rail traffic. Our trains are heavy because they share tracks with very heavy freight vehicles. This is for safety reasons. Imagine a road bus being shunted - a 14m double-deck crumple zone, or even a light rail car. The ideas presented would work on a new, isolated network. If you are going to isolate it, better to have a guided busway or a frieght version, both powered by electricity. If properly designed, such systems will allow buses and freight to easily move from the guided to normal roadways. Our ports should be the hubs for such guided freight routes, preventing the need for diesel tractor units to drag freight all the way to the port on the roads. With the right tractor units, they could perform the last miles from a 'guide rail head' on battery and/or series hybrid power.

3. Airports. I think I have outlined my view on what we need to do with England's main international hub here.

To me, the argument for privatisation does need to begin with showing where State monopolies cannot work effectively and to be brutal in showing where Private monopolies, PFI and other experiments do not work effectively. We need the "least worst" option. John Redwood's article does not land the punches I was expecting.

Still, I have not read the full report yet. Let us see what meat and what bones lie within.

p.s. I have a sneaking suspicion poor old JR is being lined up to be shot. Let John talk in the silly season, get slated, dent the polls, blame him and so Cameron the Cuckoo can oust another chick from the nest.

Climate Camp My Aunt

A Unisex Greenham Common for the current decade has finally sprung up outside Heathrow.

Right off the bat it is a cynical, disingenuous act of spin. They are against the expansion of Heathrow, they say, and are duping getting local groups to support them. I pity these local protest groups - talk about spoiling the pitch for them! Well, I suppose if a major hijack is to occur, where else than an airport, eh?

What is not said is how many of these people are against flying, the consumption of hydrocarbons and even electrickery.

Protester Gary Dwyer, 34, said "there are many carbon criminals to think about who are driving climate change."

"Carbon Criminals" - a manifestation of the whole carbon footprint irrationality. Creation of "the other". Creation of nameless, faceless enemies. Guilt by association. Collectivist authoritarian newspeak.

Fact is, I am against the expansion of Heathrow, but my answer - building a new Airport on an artificial island in the middle of the Thames estuary - is equally abhorrent to these people. Forget that such an airport would remove the need for vast numbers of planes to fly right over the Capital. Forget that it would be easy to defend from terrorism compared to the current location. Forget that the fumes from the airport would be blown out to sea instead of right across the streets of London. Forget that the lack of housing and a sea approach could permit near 24 hour operation. Forget that the site of Heathrow has good communications and would be a very viable location for desperately needed new housing. Forget all that. Forget it, for we must HATE travel, HATE consumption and place our recycled organically smelted tin-foil hat on our heads and curse the global conspiracy of "carbon criminals".

I want this "Climate Camp" to fess up to what it really wants to do - restrict air travel to all but essential movement. I wonder if that would be their kind of holidays in "outreach" or "aid" trips or to visit other "climate camps" elsewhere? I wonder if the likes of Gore will be permitted, or "Aid Workers"? First to go would be cheap holidays and air flown produce and they would not have even started yet.

The protesters are, at heart, collectivists. I oppose them, not just for that, but for their duplicity and disingenuous sanctimony. They are not even juvenile - this is ab-dabs on the supermarket floor, toddler ranting, red in the face "I want my way" childishness. Any more of this and I might even call them Islamic.

p.s. climate campers, Roger is no "right winger" but is a Libertarian and thus anti-collectivist. If you can't tell the difference, you should be ashamed.

UPDATE: The NUJ are upset about media restrictions, which I also found irritating but not surprising, given their mindset of collectivism. Media control adds another pillar to the Fascist tent. Being militaristic and violent? We shall see.

I am Glad it is Gore

...because it makes it more obvious what a total fraud AGW is.

Climate change? Yes, for the last 4bln years or so.
Global Warming? Maybe...or maybe not, depends on your timeframe.
Anthropogenic Global Warming? Possible.

What do do?

a) Tax people into the stone age, oppress them with "Sactimoaning" and control their lives even more.
b) Subsidise feeble, impractical "alternatvies" like biofuel (10x the land needed to fuel the car than feed the driver...) and ugly windmills?
c) Invest in research for Fusion power - e.g. the Bussard electric containment system
d) Build the infrastructure and arrange the nation to cope with the consequences of climactic unpredictability.

I am a c) and d) man, myself.

Over at the Telegraph, they report some Gore Sanctimoaning. In the comments I noticed this gem:

Al Gore reminds me of a second hand car salesman and a fairground shouter!
Want an easy answer? too stupid to understand the complex issues? are you a guilt ridden self hating middleclass handwringer? Are you jelous of people who have more than you? Then Al Gore is the man for you! He will tell you all you need to know in easy to understand words! He will tell you who you should blame and persecute! Roll up, roll up folks, come and see the greatest con on earth, all you have to do is listen and obey without question and good ole Al will save you all from the evil capitalist swine who swan around in their big cars and fancy homes! CO2 is to blame for all your woes he shouts! If someone is not convinced, heretic he cries!
Al Gore will stir up the mob and tell them who to blame as long as you DO NOT question his wisdom and he will lead the huddled masses to a socialist utopia and paradise just as long as you do exactly what he says with no questions asked! Hail the great and all knowing Al Gore! Hail the greatest scientist the world has ever seen! Vote for Al and you need never bother to think for yourself ever again because he will do all your thinking for you! HOORAY! - Stephanie Clague, 10:18AM.

Well said, Stef.

Gore and his ilk know how religion works. They want a piece of that mind-control pie.

Tapestry Nails the Sociofascists

On Iain Dale's Diary there is an interesting, if rather long, comment thread connected to a post about the scandalous slurs thrown at Boris Johnson by racists and manipulators of the vulnerable (i.e. Sociofascists).

Tapestry responds to the multiple posts of one commenter, Peter Horrie who appears to be a Red Ken sockpuppet, thusly:

Only if we abolish humour totally will Horrid and his kind be able to begin to understand. Their world runs entirely around accusation, threat, blame and demands. They wouldn't recognise one where the likes of Boris flow their creative talents around. And they are not likely to do so at any time in the future.

Spot on. This is why Sociofascists feel so at home with their kindred spirits, the Islamofascists, a.k.a. Islamists and their running dogs at the MCB.

The Chinese have a saying "A man must silence his own dogs". It is up to the Muslim community to silence their dogs, or people will be even more convinced they like the sound of their barking. Same for New Labour and the vile, spiteful maggots that crawl out of every crack and cranny.

p.s. I have long enjoyed "the tap"'s comments - take a look at his blog.

Its not a real offer of a peerage, only a Miraj

I am no flag waver over Cameron or the Tories, but there was a very fishy and slippery article in the Sunday Times by Ali Miraj.

Others have fisked it soundly, but to me what stood out on Sunday as I read it was the beginning of each paragraph...

I am Ali Miraj...I had hoped...I was elected...I managed...I have fought...I backed...Cameron asked me...The question...But...First...My article...Desperate...So what...No “demand"...What is...I myself.

This guy does not nail the accusation but appears to try and give the impression he has. Disingenuous double talk.

I expect Gordon Brown to be asking him to join his "Government of all the Troughers" any day now.

David Davis MP, hits the nail re: "innocents"

I think this is a first. For once a senior politician has hit the nail I have been banging away at soundly on the head. The nail in question is the issue of weasel words from self-appointed "Muslim Leaders" who always use such terms as "we condemn attacks on innocents". I have blogged on this before. Such spokespeople clearly think their doubletalk will fool the population at large while confirming their jihadi credentials with the hysterical, self-righteous, carpet-munching, book burning muppets who seek to overthrow our society and subjugate the population.

For those that do not know what I am on about, the term 'innocents' is widely meant to exclude non-Muslims and any Muslims who are not pious or have been marked as such by Allah - who writes all their destinies, according to some. Thus, when a spokesperson says "we condemn attacks on innocents" they actually mean "we only condemn attacks on pious Muslims" and by that you can safely interpret to mean "we only condemn actions of non-Muslims on the Muslim community".

At last, David Davis MP and Shadow Home Secretary has said it:

In response to the recent attempted attacks in London and Glasgow, HuT confined itself to this general legalistic comment: “We reiterate our position that Islam does not allow the harming of innocent civilians.”

So were those targeted at Glasgow airport and the Haymarket “innocent” or “guilty” civilians? This deliberate ambiguity is telling.

Absolutely bang on. It is not just HuT jabberings, though. The MCB and others also trot out this disingenuous line. They are truly beyond contempt.

DNA on demand, while serious crime goes unchecked.

An interesting article by Sam Leith in the Telegraph on the moves to collect DNA as if it were our telephone number.

Sam Leith does not think the Police or the Government are pro actively gloating over the prospekt of a vast database to oppress the population. I think he is only a quarter right at best. I do think the Government is gloating over the prospect, not only for the immediate power of arbitrage they gain by the commissioning, tendering, evaluating and selecting of such a system, but because far too many therein actually believe they own the citizens, who are inconvenient biological infestations cluttering up their plans for a perfect society.

Of the Police, I am not so sure, but it is sure looking that way. One can have your house vandalised and the police only wish to ring you up to take details for their records. Yes - your property is damaged, your home violated and your safety threatened and all you get is a telephone call. No visit. Nothing.

Vandalism, robbery, mugging, disorder, abuse, threatening behaviour. These are the crimes needing attention, acts that should be nipped in the bud, not collecting DNA for speeding and littering.

Hattersley views Liberty through a glass darkly.

It is amazing that Socialists still think they have a bead on things, that their worldview has any credibility left. Roy Hattersley has spoken about liberty.

Others have commented about what Roy has said, but I wish to see what he says in the Guardian.

The Liberal Democrats - understandably preferring to recall established achievements rather than speculate about dubious future prospects - are holding a contest to decide who, in popular estimation, is the most important Liberal in British history. Asquith (rightly) and Campbell Bannerman (wrongly) have not been included on the shortlist. The final choice is among Gladstone, Mill, Lloyd George and Keynes. And I am told that John Stuart Mill is the favourite to win. That should surprise nobody. He is, like the party itself, comfortingly worthy but out-of-date.

As are you and your Labour Party, don't forget.

Mill's libertarian philosophy is based on two precepts that - despite having written an admirable essay on women's rights - he always expressed with the use of male pronouns.

Why is that an issue? "Man" and "he" is legitimate shorthand for "he/she". You are just trying to sow the unjustified seeds of antipathy. Stop it.

The first principle asserts that "all errors which (a man) is likely to commit against advice and warning, are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good". Only cranks believe that now. If it were a generally held view, we would not prohibit the use of recreational drugs or require passengers in the back seats of motor cars to wear safety belts.

Well, I am a crank by your reckoning, then. Your examples are pretty bad if you are trying to talk to a truly Liberal audience. Or maybe you are just talking to the faux Liberals and wish to bury Mill?

I was a member of the cabinet that first discussed the desirability of making back-seat safety belts compulsory. Millite ministers initially objected. They were reconciled to the "infraction of liberty" by the argument that a passenger flying through the windscreen might injure the pedestrian whose life had initially been saved by the emergency stop.

Now can we see those stats on pedestrians who have been injured by a flying back seat passenger? I am sure front seat passengers have been hit aplenty, but then again the front seat passenger and especially the driver are in a pretty good position to either correct that situation or absent themselves from the vehicle.

And Mill's second precept makes a distinction between "the part of a person's life which concerns only himself and that which concerns others". In short, we are free to damage ourselves but are not at liberty to behave in a way that harms other people.

The distinction was easier to make in Victorian Britain than it is today - though even in 1859, when On Liberty was written, subscribers to the cult of the individual grossly underestimated how much one human is dependent on another. Put aside for a moment all consideration of complicated questions about what pressures - economic, social and psychological - induce men and women to encompass their own destruction. They were rarely asked in Mill's time. Just accept the incontrovertible fact that today, almost everything we do for good or ill has an effect on the rest of society. Progress has made us members one of another.

Welfarism most certainly has. People are allocated housing and healthcare and as such are not permitted to absent themselves and chose another provider. It is not progress but creeping Communism that has done this.

Our interdependence has increased with every economic and scientific advance and it now embraces matters both general and specific, from conduct that is likely to destroy the whole planet, to the sickness caused to publicans by tobacco smoke drifting across the bar. Some of those detriments would be dismissed by Mill as "contingent injuries...which society can afford to bear". That is because he did not know that greenhouse gases existed or that tobacco smoke was carcinogenic. The philosophy for our time ought to concern a consensus about civilised conduct, not extol irresponsible individualism.

The 'conduct likely to destroy the planet' is presently coming from places like Iran. NO PROOF of AGW exists. The real threat of Global Warming comes from the imbeciles who are busy faffing about with taxes, restrictions and inadequate alternatives when the first thing should be to mitigate the potential effects and create a robust economy to afford it all (hint: we do not have one). If Mr Hattersley were TRULY in favour of his point about tobacco smoke, he should ban it outdoors first. I object to the desperate puffer at the bus stop far more than at a bar. It is my choice to go into a bar, but I have no option but to be in proximity of the bus stop. But then again to try and ban it outdoors would expose the entire notion for what it is - authoritarian codswallop.

Oh, and that word 'consensus' pops up. It is not about consensus, but reason and logic. Since when has philosophy been about 'consensus', Roy? You are confusing it with disingenuous politicking.

And it ought to be based on a definition of liberty that is far more meaningful to the majority of mankind than Mill's notion that freedom is no more than the absence of restraint. The right to do something that circumstances prevent us from doing is not a right worth having.

But we are not talking rights, but freedoms, and not circumstances but legislation borne from irrational thinking. It is not circumstance that prevents people to ride without a seatbelt, but legislation alone unless the other passengers exert their superior rights within reason to force them to buckle up, or their other right to absent themselves. The pedestrian on the street is in truth not at risk from the flying passenger. With smoking the option is always there to leave the bar or not work there. You cannot arrange things to say "because of X we have introduced your freedom Y is of no use, so why are you bothered by Y?". That is like saying "we have decided you no longer have freedom of speech, so why are you bothered about being prevented from exercising it?".

Liberty, we have learned since Mill's day, is the practical ability to enjoy the choices of a free society, not the theoretical chance to take advantage of opportunities which we cannot afford. Mill's philosophy was great for the 19th-century middle classes. He would have rejected outright a more positive view of liberty since it required the freedoms of the few to be constrained in order to protect the freedoms of the many.

Well, Roy, you should know about the "theoretical chance to take advantage of opportunities which we cannot afford" - it is called the Welfare State and Socialism.

On the other hand, William Ewart Gladstone came to accept that necessity. His first administration merely promoted the idea of merit - important enough in its time. The purchase of military commissions was prohibited.

What on earth makes you think this is against what Mill has said?

The civil service was recruited by examination rather than interview.

As above.

The universities were opened to dissenters.

And again. What is with you Roy? This is just disingenuous hogwash to paint the picture that Liberals and Libertarians are somehow conservative and so 'against' the pretence that Socialists want to delude themselves with that they are somehow the guardians of true liberal thought.

The Education Act pressed forward with the idea that the state has responsibilities towards the welfare, as well as the physical protection, of its citizens.

IIRC The Education Act was more about stopping child labour. In terms of education, it was about demanding that the individual attend school. Hardly a 'responsibility towards the welfare of citizens', more an authoritarian diktat.

But, most important of all, his two Irish Land Acts accepted that sometimes the privileged (in this case the landlords) must have their rights restricted so that the poor (in this case the tenant farmers) can live in comfort. If Liberal Democrats are as radical as (in some parts of the country) they claim to be, there is no doubt he will come top of their poll.

How about restricting the rights of the local councils so that freeborn Englishmen and Women can live in their own homes in comfort, Roy? Oh no, the State is not about limiting power over people per se, but drawing it in towards itself. The State has not wanted to abolish the power of the Elite and Establishment - it only covets it.

Health And Safety: A mental poison spreads.

I am sure many have seen the appalling decision to convict a headmaster of a school at which a child died jumping down steps and various posts by others in response.

While it is routinely absurd that the H&S ricebowlers were all over this, it is no surprise as that is their function, just as a cockroach will walk across your freshly cut sandwich.

The real worry here is that this ever made it to court. Further, that a jury would convict.

Four layers of failure have occurred.

Parents. H&S. CPS. Jury.

The child was just being a child and Mr Porter was not to blame in any way.

The fact that the parents felt "relief and satisfaction" over this is disgusting, even taking into account the distortions of grief. They said that the Headmaster "had a duty of care". Uttering that phrase should bring a 6 month supervision order for diminished responsibility.

The parents should never have brought this case. Period.

The Health and Safety cockroaches are just being cockroaches. They need to be exterminated just for being what they are. There is no point discussing this vermin further.

The CPS should have seriously considered not proceeding. Why is this kind of prosecution in the public good? We are beset with infantilising, blame-shifting compensation hounds and the CPS irresponsibly feeds the beast.

The Jury should hang its head in shame, though I suspect Blair, Cherie and all the authoritarian infantilizers out there would consider this a result for their poisonous "educational" and media apparatus which seems to be churning out people with no critical reasoning or common sense.

What is amazing is that the child took so long to die. Could it actually be that the healthcare given was not adequate or well executed? Did anyone not consider that the accident was not in itself grave or a result of any fault? The hospital even said the injury was "relatively minor".

I am struggling to find any angle in this case that has not been obfusticated by some barking-mad piece of blame-shifting or weasel words to irrationally spoon the responsibility to the School. The kid fell. He died in hospital. The steps had no hidden dangers. Could it be a pet hate of non-State education? Who knows.

The parents are not content with destroying this man once, they want a second pound of flesh, it seems, as part of a further private prosecution. "Scumbags" hardly expresses the depth of my contempt for these people, even taking into account the effects of grief.

The father said: "he’s been found guilty today but in my eyes he’s been guilty thousands of times".

Hate will eat you up. For sure.

Gordon Brown: In the Act of Betrayal

There will be plenty of blogging in regards Gordon Brown's act of betrayal in signing the EU Constitution Treaty. In the meantime, I have produced a few images that sum up my feelings towards the situation and the person who has had the unique opportunity to break with the brass neck of his predecessor and fulfil the promise of a referendum.

Four images I put to you. Your comments and preferences or alternate wording suggestions would be appreciated.


If anyone knows how to make the table work properly on this system, I'd appreciate it. It does not seem to obey simple rules, e.g. why is the first image skewed? and why the large gap between text and table? Daft.