Political Scrapheap Challenge

We now enter the final section of this year's Political Scrapheap Challenge. Witness 3 teams - Red, Yellow and Green, no!, Red? No! Blue try to win by pulling together some vaguely plausible contraption using a junkyard full of old policies, discarded ideologies, worn-out concepts and broken promises.

Currently, no matter how pathetic their efforts or bankrupt their thinking is, someone will win or a tie will occur. What is equally absurd is each team will be paid just for attending and will continue to be paid because they have been attending in the past.

Once a winning team has been chosen, the population will, figuratively speaking, turn up at the newsagents and find out that for the next 4 or 5 years they have to pay for Pepsi instead of Coke and have no chance of an alternative until the majority change their mind.

Andrew Neil Mauls New Labour

Some well aimed punches at New Labour by Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics. He managed to expose their racism in shortlists, their theft of Conservative initiatives that they had at the time rubbished and Mad Hazel Blears was (as usual) trying to justify her poisonous hate-filled and frankly class war nonsense about Boris Johnson.

All the Labour throats were spouting a stream of non-sequiturs. I really do think they have lied enough to themselves to believe it, and think we will to.

Hospital Superbugs: DotBO Again

At last some sense. The Lancet has burst the pustulent boil that is government spin over hospital bugs.

Deep cleaning and, wait for it, wearing short sleeves were blamed targeted by the government over the conference period to deflect critcism.

Frankly, I see the attack on doctors' coats part of the general self-loathing mentality of discarding the secure and familiar to make everyone insecure and more open to manipulation and coercion.

Wearing uniforms on the bus or in their cars is more likely. How many times are car seats or buses disinfected?

I would not be surprised if the rise of superbugs are not down to at least three things:

1. People's hygiene standards, including proper washing of hands in bathrooms is falling on average. I wonder why.
2. Security passes and ID cards. These things dangle about and are constantly handled. How many times does one disinfect a proximity pass or ID card? Hospital workers need to use these things innumerable times a day. There is no point disinfecting your mits if you promptly have to grab hold of a grubby proximity pass and slap it against a reader that has been previously slapped by innumerable other grubby proximity passes.
3. Less use of decent disinfectant in routine cleaning - Forget "deep cleaning", which a cynic might suggest is a neat way to pay yet more money to your useless mates cleaning contractors to do the job they were supposed to do anyway.

Glad to see some common sense and support for empiricism from The Lancet.

Failing Schools: Stating the obvious

Hot off the press from The Department of the Bleedin Obvious (DotBO) is the news that failing schools could harm the economy. "Could" is not the term I would use - "almost certainly will" is how I would phrase it.

Failing schools mean failing pupils. It then suggests failing adults and failing parents leading to more failing pupils. Some will climb out of this ongoing train-wreck, but many more will not. Many DO not.

The State should not get in the way of opportunity. The State should work to remove barriers to opportunity it has created. The State monopoly on education, LEAs and the shortage of good places and good schools created by this system is standing in the way of opportunity, in the way of anxious parents and potential talent in our young people.

It is counter intuitive to create more capacity than you require, but that is precisely what is needed in schools. We need a surplus of good schools and good school places to enable parents to pick a good school near to home, with enrolled siblings or their child's friends. A surplus of good schools will make parents happier about moving home to seek work or be closer to work to avoid extended commutes. A State monopoly will not go about creating new schools when existing school capacity of whatever standard is sufficient for the pupils enrolled. Bad schools will always have children under such a system because all the other schools are full. The incentive for the school should be "improve or die", i.e. improve or find yourselves turning up to empty classes and ever declining funding. To peform this, a surplus of good schools is the simplest and organic way. Enable more schools to be formed outside the State system, not "permit", not "allow" but not stand in the way of more independent schools and the parents will have more choice and the worst schools will empty by themselves. The best teachers will be paid more and more kids will end up at a good school near to home, nearer to their parents workplaces, which cannot be a bad thing for home life and thus further improve the prospects§ for young people.

Vouchers are one way to achieve this.


§ Don't you DARE say "life chances".

Wisdom of the ASI

They used to say that if you owe £100 that's your problem, but if you owe £100,000 that's the bank's problem. Trouble is, if you owe £100m it's now the taxpayers' problem. - Dr Eamon Butler, Adam Smith Institute.

Person collides with Fence Panel

A good samaritan is not just arrested, but brutally so on the M67.

Graeme Deacon was on the M67 near Hyde, Manchester, when he saw the accident on the opposite carriageway. He crossed over and helped the driver to safety. Then a second car drove into the back of the first and caught fire. Mr Deacon helped to free the young driver. Police arrived and offered to drive him to his vehicle. But Mr Deacon said: “The carriageway was empty. I could have crawled across on my hands and knees. There was absolutely no risk. A police officer said, ‘You’ll wait as long as it takes, whether it’s five minutes or two hours. You’ll stay there.’ I went to walk off and three of them pushed me face down in the gravel, hit the back of my legs with a baton and handcuffed me. One said, ‘Shut up or I’ll spray you with CS gas’.”

This is an example of when a fence panel is slid in place between the fence posts we are now surrounded by.

Many thanks...

...to the judges who have voted me 85th in Iain Dale's Guide to Blogging 2007: Top 100 Right of Centre blogs.

You are most kind!

Tory defector Judith Symes

Now, I have no axe to grind per se for the Tory Party. This defection by Judith Symes (hat tip Guido Fawkes) to me say as much about her as it does about the shortcomings of Dave's reforms.

Ms Symes, 43, told The Argus about her decision to defect at Labour's annual conference in Bournemouth.

She said: "The Conservatives badly needed reform and David Cameron presented himself as the reformer but he is not succeeding.

"He has not gathered together a cross-section of society. Instead, elitism and exclusivity are at the heart of the party and I am not as close to that heart as I would like."

Explaining her new-found fondness for the party most likely to gain her a cosy life and fat pension Labour, she said: "The same old tired lies and spin from a Labour mouthpieceWe have had ten years of record investment in public services and the highest employment ever, as well as a new prime minister who was the most competent chancellor, creating stability and a growing economy.

"I see the positive changes and the great opportunities available for me to more people of all backgrounds - and I want to work to keep the Labour party in government so I can get my backside onto those green benches and maybe a ministerial post."

In other words Ms Symes wants to be on the winning side. She appears to be a classic example of the Political Classes. She is cleaving to the winner.

The fate of the nation, its citizens, party loyalty, principles and any concept of her own political values appear to come a distant second.

Strength To Change Britain?

I do not want "change", just as I do not want "choice" or "spending"

I want to see IMPROVEMENT.

Got that? Labour has changed Britain. Labour have sometimes "modernised" it. Yes, the Allegro was a "modern" version of the great old Austin 1100, but it was a mess. All it could do well was not rust! It was "change" but a change for the worse, just like Labour have been doing.

Stop "changing" things and start IMPROVING them.

Do you not see how they will never promise improvement, only change.

Bloody Socialists.

"A Stronger Fairer Britain", Mr Brown?

I posted the following here over that The Telegraph at 10:35, 24th September. The T had the decency to post it up:

A stronger and fairer Britain? No, A safer, efficient and free Britain, please.

We need less government and more personal freedom. Personal freedom comes hand in hand with personal responsibility and accountability, the reverse of the infantilisation, "rights" and compensation culture of Socialists (e.g. Labour, Lib Dems, recently the Conservative Party and the daddy of them all, the EU). Disband State or State-sanctioned monopolies, strengthen Rule of Law and dramatically reform Welfare.

We need a Libertarian Party of Great Britain!

Ways forward

1) Health. Evolve NHS into a first rate insurance-based scheme provided by a plurality of companies as they have in Switzerland, Germany, France. People can swap providers, but providers are legally bound to accept policies.

2) Education. Remove the State monopoly on Education as presided over by the LEAs. Vouchers are one way forward. Any competent organisation should be able to set up a school where they wish. Result is likely to be a surplus of good or better places = parents' heaven, as happens in Sweden.

3) Disband the raft of QANGOs which execute government policy in private and without parliamentary scrutiny and cost us £160bln+ pa. Throw out Regionalisation, which is a stalking horse for the EU to disband England.

4) Flat tax plus significant personal allowance (e.g. £12k pa) so the poor do not pay income tax, nor are they forced to beg for tax credits. The rich cannot and need not bother with tax accountants. Each person is taxed fairly. No need for a vast administration.

5) Law and Order. Repeal vast amounts of useless, fascist and nannying legislation that has occurred in the last 30 years. No wonder our legal aid bill is astronomical! Build significantly more prisons and lock up persistent offenders for longer.

6) Reform Welfare. No benefit or housing increases if a person expands their family. The Welfare State can then help those who fall into poverty, as opposed to those who decide it is a lifestyle. Cut down the Welfare Hammock and replace it with a net. Evict disruptive families and cut off their benefits. Word will spread and most people will reform themselves.

7) Decriminalise the consumption of drugs. Distribute drugs for free from registered outlets for consumption on the premises. Result: Gang and drug barons have no money. No money source, no power, no motive for crime.

8) Asylum claims need to be made at port of entry. All others and those who are "discovered" should be rejected out of hand as illegal immigrants. Introduce points system to welcome skills and talent. Illegal immigrants and asylum seekers who cannot prove a solid case (e.g. they could just as well have moved city in their original country) repatriated. If they refuse to disclose country of origin, use language experts to determine country of origin and deport anyway - they refuse to cooperate, so it will be their responsibility of they are repatriated to the wrong country.

9) Do to all the above, it is necessary to step back from political union in the EU and become a member of the EFTA.

More power to the Libertarian Party!

UPDATE: Roger gets two (or is it 1 and 1/2?) nods in the comments.

The Sun is on Gordon's Ass...

It seems via Guido Fawkes The Sun has used an image of Churchill to tease Gordon.



I prefer my previous take on it, for Brown is a Chamberlainesque appeaser, not a defiant leader of a nation:




...but then I would, wouldn't I.

One thing that worries me is the "Dads Army" "Little Englander" inference in the Sun's imagery and the link between Churchill and stuffing the country. I prefer to focus on the delusional, dogmatic, irrational betrayal angle and not pollute the Churchill meme.

Men In Black read supermarket tabloids...

...and Roger notices trends in loan tv ads.

Latest innovation is not to offer secured loans, but to offer to take the property off the owner, "clear the debt" and then offer a tenancy agreement to enable them to stay in their own home.

The lender thus gets the hard asset and regular income, not just the interest income from a fiat loan secured against an asset that others may have a claim on. I suspect the deal will be horrible, "legal fees" will be, erm, not cheap and the rental will be pitched at least at market rates or more, for there is value in pandering to laziness.

I suspect we will see more of this kind of "offering". Harbinger of mass repossessions and a downturn in the property market.

Glad to see...

Brillo Pad Andrew Neil giving James Bartholomew's book "The Welfare State We Are In" a silent plug during his coverage of the LibDem conference, picking it up from a bookstall in the Conference and holding it face forwards to camera for some time while talking about the broken society.

For some reason I am detecting a more Libertarian cast to the shadow of Daily Politics. Maybe this is because it is being seen under the lurid, bilious glow of the Lib Dem conference.

We shall see how this progresses as we move to the other conferences.

France and Iran

Don't be fooled. France is not aligning itself with America over Iran by it warning of war over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

France is just pointing out that its National Interest is now, by pure coincidence, in alignment with America's, much as Cancer can be in alignment with Uranus - and when that happens you need to be just as concerned.

France jealously guards its force de frappe and this is just part of that move. Iran having nuclear weapons dilutes that significantly. Please do not think that this is some selfless act or a realisation of realpolitik.

No, France is doing what it did during the Iraq war - protecting its National Interest. For France, realpolitik IS defending their National Interest. They have not just realised it.

In this aspect, France is very sensible. It is an utter disgrace that the UK and its F&CO are chock full of self-loathers on one hand or naive do-gooding imbeciles on the other.

Vive La France!

Blogger Now Thinks I am German

Maybe the title has confused the poor thing. I do not know.

Haabensie eine doppelzimmer mit balkon unt baad?

I know my German is a little rusty (like Rick), but although I could do with the practice, I prefer to operate my blog in English...

Not Left or Right, but Authoritarian

Today I have been painting the walls. In an attempt to make that task more interesting and to make me feel glad I was at least watching paint dry doing that, I turned the TV in the background to the Parliament channel that was showing the dead live broadcast of the Fib-Dums.

Now I have descended from my paint bespattered ladder and rinsed out my rollers, I see The Devils Kitchen has as usual beaten me to the chase in posting on a very interesting dichotomy the Lubberals have got themselves into - basically on trying to be Liberal whilst being the Liberal Democrats.

We have Ming The Merciless talking about "not left, not right", with the assertion that they were Liberal and not Authoritarian like the others (a common theme in the identity of being a Lubber is to "not be like the other two", I have noticed). No. The Liberal Democrats so WANT to be Liberal, but cannot help themselves being what they really are - authoritarian, redistributing do-gooders who have also not so just swallowed the Green Religion (of Unthought) but gone on to regurgitate it up and hand it around as canapées.

It was not just Ming who was banging the drum. The Lib-Dem's Vince "Vin Biodiesel" Cable - threw a Pollyesque canard about Executive Salaries while moaning about Northern Rock. That juicy envy-laden bone was eagerly snapped up by the audience.

We had Steve Webb getting all Facebook and promising "to enable you to decide about your health and education". Yeh right Steve. If he were serious, he would be suggesting we step away from State Monopolies in Education and Health, but no, he only wants the scope of decision making that a prisoner would have - do you want green veg or orange veg? People would be "allowed" to "decide" from a false dichotomy via "consultations" managed by a whole new raft of QANGOs and bureaucrats.

During the day we had more hints at a push to PR, which would result in a totally weak, ineffectual and deadlocked National Government, which, I suspect is precisely where these Eurobitchesphiles want to see the UK end up, i.e. more power to Brussels.

Oh, and BTW, the Liberal Dumboldtwats have voted NOT to have any more Nuclear Power Stations (i.e. we will be in hock to Putin or Sarkozy) and to promote Biodiesel (i.e. we will starve tens if not 100's of Millions of the poor and pump even more CO2 into the atmosphere).

They really are daft.

To cap it all they had Barroso on stage acting like a Borgia while Ming jostled to "touch cloth" in more ways than one. What an oleaginous reptile that man is.

In stark contrast, Jenny on BBC's Daily Politics suddenly became almost Libertarian in her questioning. Quite aggressive. Paddy Pantsdown was in the London Studio and Brillo was on site primed to enjoy the entertaining and fleshpots at Blackpool. Paddy came across as a pompous ass. I think all the recent attention has gone to his head. He tried to brush away the Treaty Referendum in such perverse ways it was obvious Paddy has a fat, cushy EU job in the pipe and certainly would not risk his guilt-gilt-edged pension. "Sold out" really does not do that man justice.

"General" Franco Speaks Again: EU Immigration Laid Bare

Not content with wishing to censor and limit our access to information, "General" Franco Frattini is at it again, by proposing the EU allow 20m more immigrants in. We know the intention - to dilute the concept of the Nation State while keeping people insecure in their jobs or dependent on the State for housing and benefits, thereby drawing more power to the EU Superstate.

This is linked to the EU's idea of a common immigration policy. Once an immigrant is in, after 5 years they will be able to shop around move to another country at will, with disasterous results.

I do not blame the immigrants. If I were in their shoes, if I had the nerve and luck I would be paddling my way to the UK to try and make a better life for myself. That is not the point. Europe and specifically the UK cannot provide for all who would want to come. It just cannot. The least-worst situation is that the UK filters economic migrants on merit and National requirements. That way, the immigrants that do come are truly improving their lives and improving the UK in turn. People will not feel as threatened, immigrants in turn will not feel as threatened and more harmony will result. Before we begin to discuss further significant immigration, we need to review the Welfare State to ensure that people are not being incentivised into idleness. Once this is in place, the skills and potential demand for skills can then be more rationally assessed.

With a filtering system in place, the UK would then have to have a very strict, no-nonsense and rapid handling of illegal immigrants with NO AMNESTIES. This is to ensure the Rule of Law (specifically consistency) is upheld, as is the feeling that due process applies to all and that following the law of the land is an advantage, not a needless inconvenience.

I have for a long time considered the best way to deal with asylum seekers is to fix the country that they flee from. This is the long term, sustainable answer.

Blueprint for a Groan Economy

The report is a beast (500+ small font dense pages). It would be great to get some bullet points from somewhere to see what exactly the report really suggests to do.

That there is no summary is a monumental red alert. Management Summaries are ESSENTIAL to enable the document to have structure, if only the for the benefit of the authors to see the overall message and to act as a framework for their thought. The readers need it to. It is all part of conveying the message - tell 'em what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you have told them, as the mantra goes.

By having such an inaccessible tome, the authors indicate that they do NOT want people at large to access their thoughts. They do NOT want wide scrutiny or to have to defend their views to all comers. They want this document to remain within a clique and to be discussed only by a select group. They want to spare themselves the trouble of raising the drawbridge by not bothering to lower it in the first place.

In trying to locate summaries and bullet points, the tips of the icebergs I perceived indicate rampant expansion of Statism, stifling bureaucracy and meddling interference. Moving authoritarianism from the centre to the regions or to localise authoritarianism is not to remove it, but shove it even closer into the faces of the population and hand power to amateur yet no less petty and zealous dictators. If this document was about freedom or liberty, about opening up and not about regulation and interference, it would not be so detailed and would almost certainly contain broad statements on intent.

An example is the document bemoans the lack of multi-use communities, you know, those sorts of places that were created BEFORE the State got involved in interfering in our lives and planning housing, towns and cities. This report seems to think that to reproduce them needs either more or a new kind of planning. Has it occurred to them that it happened in the long past because the State was NOT involved? Has it occurred to them that heterogeneous communities form organically and by themselves and have done so for millennia without Town Planners? No. When the patient is suffering, their remedy is more disease.

I smell a whiff of 1946, the heady aroma of Town Planning. Great for the control-freaks and those wishing to remain arbiters within the Establishment presiding over the spending of Other Peoples' Money.

In contrast, an example has popped out over the domestic flight tax as an indication of the "mutton headed factor" that is contained therein.

Too many domestic flights, they say. Bad for the environment they say. They suggest...tax the flights. This means UK efficiency goes DOWN. You are punishing taxing people who want to move faster and cheaper. This is plain daft.

The Roger way is: build more high-speed rail capacity so people CAN move faster and cheaper between centres. Europe has done this and seen domestic and short-haul flights dwindle. Precisely when the State could do some good - building large infrastructure projects to improve national efficiency and productivity and they prefer to pander to the rabid frothings of the retrograde lobby.

The document thus appears to be something from the 1940's and '50s but using the excuses and trendy language of the Green Religion of Unthought to give further force to its mindset.

That whiff and heady aroma appear to have been combined and cunningly obscured in this document by the pungent farmyard pong of the environazi's waterless privy. The document is not discussing "if" the State is involved everywhere, only "how".

p.s. see the Taxpayers Alliance for a sound response to the reports findings.

Conservatives Report: Restoring Pride in Public Services

Before I look a the green issues, I just wanted to finish up with the above report.

The section on Heath was a bit flim flammy, frankly.

The Policy Group proposes the freeing up of local decision-making and a new enabling partnership with clinicians.

You do not "restore pride" by introducing a universal labelling strategy, an NHS Board or tinkering with health policy organisational trees. Oh, and the GP cat is out of the bag, Dave, courtesy of the numpties at New Labour. The best solution for healthcare is to unhitch the monopoly totally from the State and create a proper pluralistic solution using compulsory insurance.

Education is ok - more power to exclude, for example. This might free up the resources to enable remedial education to be performed as suggested. Extending setting is a tricky one as I believe you really have to go the whole hog and once you get sets you really need to have enough kids in each school to make it work properly.

Social Housing section is flawed deckchair shuffling and vague talk about local decision making, which for housing means either "nimby" blocking or a tyranny of the masses. The point about bribing giving share of equity "for good behaviour" shows naivety in the extreme and is an insult to all those working hard to have their own home and pay a mortgage. When will politicians learn? The reward for good behaviour must be simply the continuation of a roof over your head. The consequence of bad behaviour should be eviction, pure and simple. The State has to stop being "landlord of last resort" and ditch the "Duty of care" fraud that has crept into our systems.

The Conservatives talk about reforming the housing benefit system. In Roger's Manifesto there was a very clear statement on this which should deal with the whole issue. This can be summed up thus:

State housing and/or benefit must be a safety net, not a hammock. Once begun the allocation will not increase even if the tenant increases the size of their family by whatever means, such as birth, marriage or cohabitation with dependents regardless of their country of origin.

This way people who fall into poverty can be helped but people should not consider State housing as a life-long and ever expanding resource. They are, in effect, "home blocking" people who fall on hard times.

This report is a big disappointment. How it can be described as a means to "restore pride" I do not know. The authors should be ashamed.

I'm going green...

..cos I'm about to hurl my breakfast:

From the Sunday Times:

Zac Goldsmith inherited his concern for the environment from his Uncle Teddy, his political zeal and fortune from his father James and his looks from his mother Annabel.

Shame he ran out of relatives in the common sense, wisdom and brains departments, then.

The report is out. I will be reading it before commenting further.

That Iranian Interview in Full...

Snow: Hand on heart - you do not want a bomb?

Dinner: "Americans and British - if they have it {nuclear facility} - what is the issue? Why have it? We don't need it {a bomb}."

Roger's Translation: "We don't need it, but we want it."



Snow: Can you say that no Iranians are involved in the killing of British solders?

Dinner: "I should say this to the good British people about the things that happen .. {unclear} .. We are sorry for your soldiers to be killed, we think that peace should exist. Why should there be invasions so that people are killed? We want friendship. Our message is friendship to all - all nations all human beings - anybody who is killed, we are against that. Your soldiers, poor soldiers, they don't know where they are to be sent, they don't know which part of the world, why should they be killed? British youths should be in their own country, serving their own people. We want peace and friendship for all. We should help. This war should finish."

Roger's translation: "(of course) I cannot say that no Iranians are involved."

If X bureaucrats take money from a bottomless pit for N months...

The Devil's Kitchen is the appropriate place to give the latest tripe boiled up by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills the roasting it deserves. The BBC were serving up the State Propaganda this morning, too.

So they think that some cookbooks require GCSE English do they? The Reptile immediately and quite rightly nails the fact that the Department of Irritation, Uselessness and Skiving have plenty of other things to do, like FIX THE EDUCATION SYSTEM YOU MUPPETS!§ Instead, they conveniently find a reason to fill their bookshelves with all the latest and trendiest titles research cookbooks. I want to see all those books donated to a library. I want evidence.

To be honest I do find Deliah's recipes irritating and presumptive. I do not think that is about GCSE levels at all, but just about good writing and clarity. Asides do not matter to me, as long as they are not the kind that says "and using the [undocumented preparation stage] which you made [long time] earlier". Long sentences do not phase me, for, it must me said, I am guilty as any other for creating long and multi-clause sentences which, I suspect, has something, if not everything, to do with my taking Latin. Big words and complex adjectives are not the issue either, for I like such things and relish the opportunity to expand my vocabulary (I suspect that someone could pass GCSE English these days and not even have the word "vocabulary" in their vocabulary...).

Somehow I suspect this is a subliminal attempt to make people think GCSE is "difficult" and so shore up the reputation of the exam.

Deliah's guff is harder to read not because it requires GCSEs, but because, if you ask me, Deliah is a crap writer who faffs about, who introduces her undocumented preps halfway through and presumes you know how to do it. Lets be honest about this: Ramsay is a chef, Deliah is a cook, or should we really say a writer about cooking. Deliah washed up, waitressed and "helped" in a kitchen before, I suspect, some mate at The Mirror threw her a lifeline. I can help in a kitchen. I am pretty good at prep, in fact (YES CHEF!). I do think I could write a better cookbook that our Deal. A cookbook for blokes. But why bother, cos Ramsay has done it already.

I wonder if there is any pattern here - some say womens' cookbooks are more confusing than mens'. Do you think this may be down to the fact that if a man writes a cookbook, he is almost always a professional chef, whereas it is not the same case for the women? Professional chefs require speed, simplicity, efficiency, order and consistency. As does any bloke in a kitchen. Deliah is either Labour or Lib Dem, I am certain. She is a Ladder-Kicker, but we cannot have the Government report on Ladder-Kicking, can we? Oh no.

§ you should be working towards ensuring our Universities are not incorrectly incentivised to produce narrow, specific, time-limited and, frankly, training-course substitute "Degrees" like "Golf Management" to pigeon-hole people and make them easy to manipulate.

Just a thought

I LOVE Europe, but I HATE the EU.

The Queen is my Sovereign, but Gordon Brown is my employee.


He has been insubordinate and guilty of gross misconduct. Can I fire him yet?

FencePost No.3: EU Firewall

Another Fencepost. via Nation of Shopkeepers and The Croydonian.

General Franco Frattini EU Commissar for Dictatorship Justice, Oppression Freedom and Butt-covering Security wants to undertake a study with OUR money so he can pay HIS mates to see how OUR freedoms can be curtailed to HIS advantage.

Of course, all this codswallop is dressed up in the clothes of preventing people from understanding how to make bombs and such. Maybe General Franco is right to be worried. When the citizens of the late and no longer free Nations of Europe realise what he and his fellow parasitical, pimply-arsed, thieving, lazy, pompous, bureaucratic, authoritarian, sociofascistic scumbags have done to their lives and freedoms, I think about 250m people's minds would turn to how to blow the corrupt dogs up. Not that I would be one of them, y'understand - explosive devices are far too messy and clumsy, if you ask me. One would not wish to damage infrastructure, would one? General Franco would have to ban the search term "Turkish disemboweling cutlass" to prevent me from researching the means to take pustules like him out of circulation. He will know I mean business when I also buy a pair of PVC sewerman's gauntlets from Screwfix - I am not getting my hands dirty with the festering contents of that bloated carcass.

It is a fencepost, pure and simple. Once the mechanism is in place they will be itching to use it to control thought or filter out ideas. As soon as their rancid, unsustainable, broken system is exposed for the lie that it is they will have no option than do it other than just flee.

The EU cannot be reasoned with. England must leave it now. If NI, Scotland and Wales want to tag along, then great.

Brussels Throws a bone: Beware.

Brussels has decided not to pursue its fanatical obsession with eradicating Imperial weights and measurements...for now.

I suspect this is just to try and diffuse the EU Treaty issue. Once signed, I suspect metrication will be enforced more brutally and the UK will be unable to do a thing about it, seeing as Sovereignty will have been ceded by the Traitorous Scumbag Gordon Brown and his lickspittle party of spineless, imbecillic, toadying, no-nothing 'kwits.

As far as I can tell, Gordon Brown must be lined up for the head of the ECB AT LEAST, or even something greater in return for his "loyal service" in not having a Referendum. Mark my words, he is on a promise. This control freak would not risk the control he has over the UK if he were not in line for an even BIGGER fiefdom.

Gordon Brown, you Communist, authoritarian, insecure, vain, bone-headed villain. YOU, Gordon, are ceding from the UK. Fine. If YOU want to, YOU go, YOU cede YOURSELF, alone, but you have NEVER had the mandate or could EVER have the authority to cede MY Sovereignty unless I personally and explicitly agree to it, nor the Sovereignty of any other individual who has in turn not explicitly and personally agreed to it. You do NOT have the authority to offer up the nation to that craven, duplicitous, sociofascistic rabble in Brussels. Your "red lines" are a joke. They are Maginot Lines. They can and WILL be outmaneuvered in a trice and I know you know that they can be. Even you, you dandruff-encrusted, snot-mining baboon are not THAT stupid, but you ARE stupid enough to think that we are ALL fooled.

However, congrats to you and all politicians and media parasites since 1945 in creating a population mostly made up of dependent sheep who are more concerned at the outcome of next week's Corrie than the fate of their nation and who have the critical reasoning of a bacterium and the self-responsibility of a 2 year old. Yes, infantilisation: Job done, Socialists, you utter venal, parasitical scum.

Martin Amis on Islamism

Cut past the totally irrelevant waffle on 9/11 and 7/7 naming and get into the meat of this article.

Very much in agreement in that Islamism is a death cult with much in common with Nazism and Bolshevism.

Have the BBC sold an hour...

...of Sunday Morning to some daytime television production company?

First it was the hijacking of "Heaven and Earth" by that self-important daytime incompetent and egotist Gloria Hunniford. A programme about spirituality and religion becomes a vehicle for her personal aggrandizement and nobody seems to see it and nobody does much about it.

"Heaven & Earth" becomes "Gloria Hunniford's Heaven & Earth". Q: WHY? A: Ego. Rant from Roger and others I suspect means it ended its days as "Heaven & Earth with Gloria Hunniford" but the intro credits were remained a vomit-inducing parade of self-centred, smug, sanctimonious, patronising posturing with one aim: "Look at MEEEEEEEE".

So, finally Gloria Hunniford in Gloria Hunniford's Heaven and Earth with Gloria Hunniford presented by Gloria Hunniford Gloria Hunniford (I swear this is almost how it was introduced each day to the sound of used fivers being stuffed in the sweaty mit of the announcer) is now replaced by some Kilroy-Silk wannabe doing a Kilroy format "discussion" about vaguely faith-related issues. Daytime seems to have established a bridgehead on Sunday mornings at 10am, meaning there is an hour break between the Politics slot and Countryfile (harmless enough - a sort of rural adult Newsround) then the Politics Show where Jeremy Vine tries to Paxo people and fails - I wish he would get stuffed most of the time.

This gap is annoying, as it sometimes coincides with my having a piping hot, fresh cup of tea and some bacon sarnies. I want to have something reasonable to look over my Times at now and again and not to choke on my hard-won bacon. If you are going to do a discussion on religious and faith-related issues, get a decent format and get a decent presenter, like Jeremy Clarkson...

Electric Motor Buses: An old story shows how little we travelled

The Economist has an interesting article on the introduction of Electrobuses in London. These were battery fed, not via overhead catenary, like Trolleybuses. The buses were introduced in 1907, decades before the first Trolleybuses.

The vehicles were highly reliable (lasting years, not the months that combustion-engined vehicles did then), silent and clean. They even had a mid-day battery swap-out taking minutes to enable vehicles to keep running all day with no downtime for charging.

I am a fan of Trolleybuses and electric traction in general and such news always amazes, delights and yet frustrates - for so long electric traction has been there, yet it did not move forward. Jay Leno has an electric car - the Baker Electric Brougham made in 1909 - 50 mile range then and now it has 110 mile range on modern lead-acid batteries, it still works and needs little maintenance beyond what a Kwik Fit could do on a modern equivalent (brakes, shocks and tyres). Full NYT article here. Toyota Pious is, by comparison, an over-complicated excuse to keep engine and transmission mafias in a job, if you ask me. I posted earlier about a neat Mini and Porsche's series hybrid 4x4 of 1904. Imagine this scaled up to buses. Imagine the reduction in noise, heat and diesel fumes. Have cabs the same way and the roads in central London will be quiet, and the desire to get noisy diesel trucks and vans out of our faces will grow once we realise what an infernal racket and pestilential fug these things make.

The Chin goes for a Spin.

In a related incident in West London, the disastrous and inappropriate West London Scam to pay construction companies £0.5bln of OUR MONEY in 7 years of unnecessary roadworks Tram seems to have been finally abandoned by TfL§. Had TfL proposed an Electrobus or, better still (in my view considering the stability of the route) a Trolleybus, both of which could have provided almost all, if not all of the advantages of a tram (advantages that did not actually mean, in truth a disadvantage, e.g. demanding a clearway all along the Uxbridge Road) we would not have had the opposition it did and we would be on the way to seeing it put in place by now.

The Uxbridge Road had trolleybuses running every 90 seconds in places. There is no reason for such a service to return apart from boneheaded ignorance, stubbornness or corruption. Some people in TfL think that double deck trolleybuses and trolleybuses themselves are "untried". This is what happens when organisations get staffed by no-nothings.

Picture of a 655 Trolleybus at Hanwell Broadway, feeder service for the 607
(hat tip, Trolleybuses for West London).

§ note to Turpin for London: it was Wittington who became the great Mayor, OK?

The State as Dystopian Pimp

In a followup to the Alan Johnson vote buying scandal, I have long had a view that H.G. Wells got it wrong in "The Time Machine". Now might be a good opportunity to replay my view.

H.G. Wells got it wrong. We will not evolve into "Eloi" and "Morlocks".

Instead of beautiful, lazy, inert but pretty people (Eloi) being preyed upon by the hard-working, violent industrial and ugly (Morlocks) we seem to be heading for a future with a mass of ugly lazy people preying on the hard working, with the State as pimp and enforcer.

March of the EU Superstate: Attack on Passports

From the Devils Kitchen - the EU plan to eradicate any reference to the Queen in our passports and replace it with soulless dirge that only Socialists and Sociofascists can curl out.

This is the EU all over. They presume that the Constitution will get signed and then, mateys, that will be that and the Nation State will be replaced by the Superstate.

We need to leave and leave NOW. It is like being at the world trade centre after both planes have hit and we are still poncing about answering the phones!

I am a citizen of the UK, English and the Queen is my Head of State and I am very much aware that ol' Liz and the role she plays is most certainly the least-worst option available.

It is tempting to scan in the old wordings from my existing passport and paste it over the attempt by Brussels to subjugate us.

Housebuilding is not housebuilding if you knock them down.

We have a laughable, no, tragic situation with the news that Labour targets are bribing encouraging corrupt, amateur gangs of incompetent yet busy buffoons local authorities to "build" more homes. What do the Local "Authorities" do? Knock down Victorian terraces and replace them with rancid, pokey, ugly cardboard boxes modern houses that are unlikely to see out a decade without major repair.

That is not "building" you IDIOTS! It is called "replacing". In typical New Labour style, they destroy what is wanted and what is good and replace it with "modern" which is low quality, expensive, flimsy and unwanted, except by the parasites who cream off their wedge from the whole sordid business.

The source of all this lunacy: Prescott. It could be any of the New Labour incompetents. It occurs in Mad Hazel's patch, but that is no surprise.

Winners: Construction industry and 'House'-builders and I suspect a percentage goes to the useful idiots at the council - why else would they do this?
Losers: Taxpayers, residents, the environment (both in terms of energy used and the fact that new housing is almost always UGLY).

We know from Andrew Gilligan's recent television report that Council numpties are being led by the nose to enable 'house'-builders to grab prime sites containing viable owner-occupied properties so they can redevelop them, even though these areas are outside the zone containing previously council-built decay.

How many more times do we need to be shown that State Housing is a recipe for disaster?

Al-Sadr spinning like a top

In an interesting twist to the "ceasefire" of the Mahdi Army:

The Mahdi Army, led by the radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, put a different spin on the talks [between British Forces and the Militia]. “It was the British who came to us in the first place to strike a deal,” a senior official said.

“They wanted us to stop attacking their compounds and troops. It was not the Mahdi Army that went to them. It was obvious to us that they had suffered enough attacks and could not deal with more.”

Either the decision to let the British step away is a ruse to get the British to let down their guard ready for a "kicking out" ceremony, a realisation that the real enemies are al-Qaeda and other factions requiring a husbanding of resources or that they know they will get a pasting if they try an all-out attack.

To think that the Mahdi Army are letting the British go just as an act of rational and peaceful negotiation? I leave that to the useful idiots, self-loathers etc. found in their co-religionists, Guardianistas and others willing to believe irrational lies. If the British were on the back foot truly and the Mahdi Army were in any fit state to exploit that advantage, they would. Such exploitation could be as a means to grab the "rational alternative" high ground by being civilized in the withdrawal of British troops to reinforce his claim to being the legitimate authority in the region, usurping the Iraqi government. That might be good if it were not for the fact that the Mahdi Army has some very strict "religious police" elements within it, so bye-bye freedom. As I say, al-Sadr or his puppeteer is no dummy.

I do think a "kicking out" ceremony is planned and this is also a useful way to overtly display force and power. The calm before the storm could be seen as a lull.

Alan Johnson: Vote buyer.

Alan Johnson is out buying votes.

£120 for each pregnant mum to buy whatever takes her fancy such as booze, fags, twizzlers and take-aways vegetables and healthy food. Note it will be available in 2009. I wonder when the next election will be? I wonder if this "announcement" will be re-announced?

This mentality - throwing other peoples' money around with no guarantee of a result is just New Labour writ large. The mentality of using other peoples' money to buy votes is just New Labour all over. It not only attempts to buy the votes of the pregnant women, but their partners and their "mam"s.

Of course, the knee-jerk class-war criticism comes out because it is also being given to "middle class mums". At least middle class mums are likely to be amongst those households PAYING for it, so for them to get it is hardly a SIN!

The whole thing is daft. If you want to make sure pregnant mums at least have a chance of getting the right food, have a voucher, coupon or just arrange for Occado to deliver an organic crate or two to all mums-to-be who sign up for it.

I must declare an interest: Mrs T is pregnant (no, not THAT "Mrs T"!), yet I still think the whole thing is a cynical vote-buying mechanism.

Polly: Almost made it...

Polly almost made it through an appearance or article without being a twisted Sociofascist. This time it was on the breakdown of "morals" and a reduction in politeness on BBC Porridge Breakfast this morning. Most of what she said was fine, but right at the end she just had to lob in a snide, disingenuous and envy-seated statement about charitable giving - that the rich only give 1% vs 3% by the poor. Of course, Polly likes to talk in percentages when it suits, but not absolutes. The rich give MORE in terms of cash value, which she did very quickly and quietly acknowledge, but Polly has to find a way of moaning about the rich and keep the utter fallacy and entropic mindwarp of "class war" going.

From where does this seemingly endless font of envy and hatred come from? I have a pretty good idea.

How True

HofC Speech - Confidence in Her Majesty's Government, 22 Nov, 1990.

On Europe...

The Prime Minister

Indeed, what sort of vision does the Labour party have? None, according to the Leader of the Opposition. Labour Members want a Europe of subsidies, a Europe of socialist restrictions, a Europe of protectionism. They want it because that is how they would like to run—or is it ruin?—this country.
Every time that we have stood up and fought for Britain and British interests, Labour Front Bench spokesmen have carped, criticised and moaned. On the central issues of Europe's future, they will not tell us where they stand. Do they want a single currency? The right hon. Gentleman does not even know what it means, so how can he know?—[Laughter.]

Mr. Kinnock

It is a hypothetical question.

The Prime Minister

Absolute nonsense. It is appalling. He says that it is a hypothetical question. It will not be a hypothetical question. Someone must go to Europe and argue knowing what it means.
Are Labour members prepared to defend the rights of this United Kingdom Parliament? No, for all that the right hon. Gentleman said. For them, it is all compromise, "sweep it under the carpet", "leave it for another day", and "it might sort itself out", in the hope that the people of Britain will not notice what is happening to them, and how the powers would gradually slip away.

Need I say more...

Why Roger's Manifesto Needs to be Implemented pt.94

A dimension to the Welfare Hammock: lifestyle choices at our expense.

Single gran (45 going on 65) five teenage daughters and 4 sprogs from 2 of them who are still in their teens.

These people are the result of the Welfare Hammock (tm).

As existing State dependents, under Roger's Manifesto they would not be eligible for additional/larger state housing if they expand their families. Taking it to its logical conclusion, they would still be in their mum's studio apartment to start with, and no prospect of a Council flat on the horizon. If they wanted a "babbers" and to get their own place, the first thing that would enter their heads would be "make sure the bloke can afford it", presuming that their heads are capable of thought (which I think, 90% of the time, it would be, faced with such a harsh reality)

This has got to stop. (hat tip, DK)

Fatuous, disingenuous response to a No10 petition pt.94

In regard to this petition:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to prevent the BBC from making its iPlayer on-demand television service available to Windows users only, and instruct the corporation to provide its service for other operating systems also."

Details of petition:

"The BBC plans to launch an on-demand tv service which uses software that will only be available to Windows users. The BBC should not be allowed to show commercial bias in this way, or to exclude certain groups of the population from using its services. The BBC say that they provide 'services for everyone, free of commercial interests and political bias'. Locking the new service's users into Microsoft Windows whilst ignoring those members of society who use other operating systems should does not fit in with the BBC's ethos and should not be allowed."

No10 replies:

The Government set up the BBC Trust to represent the interests of licence fee payers, and to ensure good governance of the BBC. The BBC Trust has responsibility for ensuring that the correct degree of scrutiny is given to all proposals from the BBC Executive for new services (such as the iPlayer) and any significant changes to existing services. To fulfill this duty, the Trust conducted a Public Value Test on the BBC Executive's proposals to launch new on-demand services, including BBC iPlayer. This included a public consultation and a market impact assessment by Ofcom. In the case of the iPlayer, following the consultation, the Trust noted the strong public demand for the service to be available on a variety of operating systems. The BBC Trust made it a condition of approval for the BBC's on-demand services that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the BBC meets this demand as soon as possible. They will measure the BBC's progress on this every six months and publish the findings.

No you bunch of idiots! The point is some BBC goon needs to be reprimanded or SACKED for going ahead with what is basically a proprietary service (using Microsoft DRM). The point is not just to sit down and measure, but to KICK SOME ASS!

Microsoft has form stretching back to the beginning of the PC industry for nicking "standards" and sabotaging the operation of services or protocols on other platforms. Dracula and bloodbank spring to mind.

Gordon Brown says he is a Conviction Politician

Yep, if I had my way he would be - convicted of FRAUD, TREASON and THEFT.

Age of Criminal Responsibility

There have been callsto increase the age of criminal responsibility to 18.

Considering the nature of crimes and attitude of some very young feral children, this could not come at a worse time. It is an inversion. It is a further attempt at infantilisation and rejection of consequence. At least some people are against it .

I have a solution: If you want to make under 18's immune, then have the parents, absent or not, in the dock instead, as they are responsible for their child's actions if they are to be considered a minor in the eyes of the law. It could even be up to the parents to decide.

NHS: Some voices of reason...

Here.

A good start, but it does not deal with the thorny (sic) issue of evolving the NHS, as I have.

You know you are a Libertarian when...

Further to The Devil and Guido's theme...

You know you are a Libertarian, when...

...you realise a "tax cut" is not the State "giving", but just "not taking so much"

...you realise the purest form of Democracy is in every transaction we make with our own free will.

...we should form a party called "None of the Above".

...you realise all the State wants to do is draw power to itself or take a percentage.

Pandering and Appeasement Continues.

In the trial of the feral scrotes boys who senselessly attacked and killed a father playing cricket with his son we now see the blatant fecklessness, disconnect and mock-sentiment of the perpetrators and family, while the court, wrongly in my mind, appeases them further:

A jury found the five, now aged between 12 and 14, guilty of manslaughter and violent disorder. They cried as the verdicts were given, clinging to their mothers.

Diddums. Why were their mothers to hand?

However, it can now be revealed that during their trial, during which they were accompanied by a parent in the dock, the five had to be warned about their unruly conduct.

Warned? While on trial. Where is that key? - I wish to throw it away.

Judge Warwick McKinnon was forced to order the parents to keep the boys under control after complaints from court staff about their behaviour.

12 years too late, methinks.

Two of them had been seen hanging out of windows and the behaviour had been causing court staff "concern or worry".

If they want to be hung outside of a window, I am sure a queue will rapidly from to assist them. I am sure someone will also have the presence of mind to bring a rope or two or point out a nearby lamp-post.

On trial were two brothers, aged 12 and 13, and three boys aged 14. Because of their age the judge and barristers did not wear wigs and gowns for the case.

Appeasement. This is just "modernist" pandering. Familiarity breeds contempt. No wonder criminals scoff at the law. What do they think it is - a visit to Margaret Hodge the nit lady?

Only one of the 14-year-olds gave evidence at the trial, admitting that he spat at Mr Norton and that it was "stupid", "revolting" and "appalling".

Yeh yeh yeh. Bit late now, sonny jim.

He said he was only throwing stones to try to knock over stumps and wreck the cricket game, for a "bit of fun".

If anyone believes that, I have some tempting shares in a jelly mine, if you are interested - we have just struck a seam of raspberry.

The boys had ended up at the leisure centre, he said, because there was "nothing else to do".

In the words of the Great Bard: bullshit! "Nothing to do" is not an excuse. Bored people are bored because they are boring, not because there is "nothing to do". Being bored is no excuse for violence, intimidation or criminality.

Judge Warwick McKinnon was forced to apply new bail conditions in the middle of the trial after their antics were reported to him by worried staff.

He told the court: "It has been brought to my attention that the defendants are wandering around unaccompanied and conducting themselves in the same way they have been all their misrerable lives such a way that staff members are worried that they may well get up to mischief."

And their parents were supposed to be there...oh, forgot, feral yoof. Parents in body, but not spirit, maybe.

He ordered that they should be accompanied by an appropriate adult or solicitor while in the precincts of the court.

How about being raised by an appropriate adult?

During the trial, one of the scrotes 14-year-olds had fallen asleep in the dock after a long night on his PS3.

Nicholas Valios QC, defending the youngest boy, had urged the jury not to be swayed by the genuine public concern over gang culture. He preposterously claimed the boys were not a "gang of anti-social youths", as he said the prosecution had sought to portray them but a gang of anti-social feral scumbags.

"Every day one has read something about gangs of people killing innocent others, people kicked or knifed to death or shot dead by youths who have been terrorising estates. That really isn't this case," Mr Valios said.

No, they used rocks instead.

The five were remanded on bail pending being let off for sentencing on October 19.

I want to know how much Taxpayers money the State has thrown at and continues to throw at the so-called parents.