Don't Blame UKIP-Blame Cameron!

The Tory Party is in denial, and UKIP is their convenient scapegoat. But let's be perfectly blunt, the reason they are heading for defeat is David Cameron. The man is a totally unprincipled, clueless, uncharismatic chancer who has blown his opportunity. So the Tories blame Farage, a totally unprincipled, clueless chancer who at least has a little charisma, but ultimately is a con man who will be exposed by the glare of publicity heading his way.

Cameron and the Tories claim that they must occupy the centre ground. But all that seems to mean is 'let's piss everybody off, not just the wet pinko liberals'. Ultimately it means trying to be all things to all men and it just doesn't work. Tory activists who try to defend this government increasingly sound like occupants of a certain Berlin bunker in April 1945, or Comical Ali as US troops marched into Baghdad. 'Swivel eyed loons' maybe?

What the Tory Party leadership has done, is what the party has been doing for decades, it has driven solid hard working supporters into the arms of a party whose leadership, not just its membership, consists primarily of swivel eyed loons. Attacking and vilifying defectors from your own party is hardly going to tempt them back. What the Tory Party needs to do is to stop being so arrogant and aloof and look at the real reasons, reasons far deeper than the mere existence of loonies like Farage and UKIP.

It is evident to most people that the desire to be free of the shackles of the EU, and the need to control immigration, are two positions that are based on common sense. A majority in this country clearly have deep concerns about these issues, they therefore represent the centre ground. The more Cameron and company cling to their nice cosy idea of their own peculier centre ground then the more activists and volunteer branch officers will walk away. Cameron seems happier pissing off his party activists than pissing off the political elite in London's trendy bars and tearooms.

You only have to look at the set of daydreams that UKIP call policies to see that apart from leaving the EU, they still have no credible philosophy or practical policies. Indeed, it makes a dedicated anti-EU campaigner like me wonder if membership of the EU would actually be preferable to an independent Britain under UKIP rule. Their policies are every bit as barking mad as those of the EU, Farage and his MEPs have learnt well during their time on the gravy train.

With two years to go there may just be a chance of the Tories changing and taking a common sense approach but that would mean ditching Dave. Even then it would be a tall order, but at least there would be the chance to install a leader who could use common sense and start rebuilding after the defeat in 2015 that looks increasingly inevitable.

Let's face it, Cameron couldn't win the 2010 general election when Brown was the loathed, ridiculed and generally despised successor to Blair. What chance against Miliband in 2015 when you have driven a sizeable proportion of your natural supporters out of the party?  Sitting on the sidelines, playing nicely with Clegg and Cable while blaming UKIP is patently absurd and lazy. It's Dave stupid!

Graduate Social Workers-Oh Shit!

I nearly choked on my Weetabix this morning when I read about graduates being fast tracked into social work here. What a waste of a degree that. Three years studying to end up screwing up peoples' lives as a social worker.

Now, if this government wasn't such a wet, pinko gang of misfits they could help reduce the deficit by abolishing social workers, not fast tracking bloody graduates into becoming mithering do gooders.

Then they could abolish swathes of degree courses, starting with the ones that are so useless you are only fit to go into social work when you graduate.

George Galloway MP

Just in case you ever start taking the sick bastard seriously, above is a reminder. He's the one on the left, naturally.

Yesterday Was Europe Day!

Here's how Europeans marked the European Union and its flag:

 

 

Jimmy Savile, Stuart Hall and Barbara Hewson

Barbara Hewson has been pilloried this week for an article she wrote for Spiked Online.

The gist of her well reasoned argument was that accusations of relatively mild sexual misbehaviour by stars years ago, stars who are now elderly, are being used in a wave of puritanical vengeance by police forces and pressure groups.

She quite reasonably argues that certain investigations in this climate of moral outrage go against the most fundamental principles of our judicial system. The complainant automatically becomes the victim and the presumption of innocence, in cases of alleged paedophilia and other cases of sexual assault, is being abandoned.

The point she makes that caused wild headlines and huge media interest was at the very end when she suggested lowering the age of consent to 13. I recommend reading the article in full and have provided a link below.

The full article can be read here.

Libertarian v Fabian

If a Libertarian doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a Fabian doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a Libertarian is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a Fabian is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a Libertarian sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy.
A Fabian wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.

If a Libertarian is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Fabian is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a black person is Libertarian, they see themselves as independently successful.
Their Fabian counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.

If a Libertarian is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Fabian demands someone take care of him.

If a Libertarian doesn’t like a TV programme, he changes channels.
Fabians demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a Libertarian is an atheist, he doesn’t go to church.
A Fabian non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it’s a foreign religion, of course!)

If a Libertarian decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.
A Fabian demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a Libertarian slips and falls over, he gets up, laughs and is embarrassed.
If a Fabian slips and falls, he grabs his neck, moans like he’s in labour and then sues.

If a Libertarian reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.
A Fabian will delete it because he’s “offended”.

The Centre Ground. What is it?

Modern politicians are grey, bland nonentities. That's not a mind blowing statement, it's actually pretty much a given. The pitiful mess that was the election of Police and Crime Commissioners last year, and the poor turnout at last week's county council elections, wonderfully underline that point. People no longer trust our politicians, and the more disliked they become the more they cry about staying 'on the centre ground'. But what is this sacred 'centre ground'?

The centre ground seems to be a political euphemism for doing very little that anybody could actually disagree with. It is the ultimate in political correctness, don't upset, offend or disagree with anybody. Those on the centre ground are basing their political careers on not rocking the boat by having a firm belief that somebody else may oppose. European Union? We know it's not working so we'll renegotiate. Immigration? We can't do anything about that because of the EU, but we'll pass some minor tinkering legislation that sounds good. Sick of murderers and other serious criminals being released early, often to reoffend? We'll clamp down on criminals, we'll take their tellies off them. And so it goes on. It pisses everybody off.

Increasingly when I see Clegg and Cameron, looking like bland genetically modified versions of Blair, I feel like throwing a heavy object at the telly. They are patronising zombies with about as much passion as a pair of beached jellyfish. If they represent the centre ground it's time we rocked the boat and dumped them overboard.

I have never known a time when politicos despaired quite so much about the mainstream parties in England. I don't include the Lib Dems in that, they have never really been more than political whores prepared top sell their grannies to get a town councillor elected, they epitomise the centre ground, so they don't count. By mainstream I mean Labour and Conservative. Few socialists I'm acquainted with regard the Labour Party as a party they can actively support. Few conservatives I know regard the Conservative Party as a party they can actively support.

John Major garnered 13m votes in 1992, then the Tory Party moved to the centre ground. In 2010, despite being up against a generally loathed and ridiculed Gordon Brown, Cameron's Tory Party could barely muster 10m votes. Welcome to the centre ground Dave. You stay there while the rest of the country looks for something else. Problem is, while you sit on the centre ground the ever growing vacuum you create will be filled by some potentially very dangerous opportunists.   

The Problem with Protest Votes

More and more people seem to be becoming ever more disillusioned with political parties. They seem to trust politicians less and less which is hardly surprising looking at the ever increasing number of broken promises and scandals such as the expenses farago and the Chris Huhne fiasco. But is a protest vote the answer or is abstention the better option? Personally I prefer spoiling the ballot paper, at least you show that you have bothered to turn up and spoilt ballot papers are counted. Not turning up could be seen as not caring or being just too lazy.

In the run up to the elections tomorrow I have seriously pondered abstention but have been told, by several people, that I have a duty to vote, that people fought wars for my right to vote. No they didn't. They fought to protect our national interest, to defend us from invaders and yes, to save our democracy. But that democracy includes the right to vote, it does not mean I have to vote. True democracy means that you have choice. I have the right to stand for election, but choose not to. I have the right do lots of things but choose not too. It is not democratic to merely go into a polling booth and vote for a person or party you do not support just because it is the lesser of several evils, especially because you are forced to or expected to. If I have no candidate I feel able to vote for why vote just for the sake of it?

If we choose not to vote for a mainstream candidate why vote for a fringe/protest candidate we don't know or necessarily agree with? The risk of electing a nutter is far too great. This last fortnight we have seen a stream of nutty candidates exposed, mainly UKIP candidates, but the leader of the Green Party was on the BBC last week and struck me as being seriously unhinged. Indeed I have seen Green Party and UKIP activists at close quarters and the prospect of either running my city or county council is quite terrifying. I prefer not to even contemplate either party actually forming a government.

The problem with minor parties is that they tend to attract either single interest eccentrics, or serious obsessives. Numerous fringe candidates have been exposed this last fortnight and been disowned by their party, mostly too late to be removed  from ballot papers, meaning there is a danger that a disowned fruitcake could still be elected. But if a handful of fruitcakes have been exposed standing for fringe parties, out of several thousand candidates in total, how many loonies have not been outed and could be elected? UKIP have accepted they have not vetted their candidates. Is potentially inflicting a loony on the electorate a sensible form of protest? Is it even true democracy? I don't think so.

Unless you have spent a relatively short amount of time doing a little research I would suggest a protest vote is far more dangerous than abstention or spoiling your ballot paper. Then again, if you can't be bothered spending a few hours researching the people who may spend the next five years representing you, then maybe you get what you deserve.

Gun Control




One law for individuals, another for the state

Another UKIP Scandal

Crampton and UKIP leader Farage

Only this morning I posted about the pitiful election leaflet we have received from our UKIP candidate. I was only out for a few hours but when I came back I heared of yet another reason, far more serious, for not voting UKIP on May 2nd.

One of their candidates in Sussex, Anna-Marie Crampton, has been told to stand down in the election, although her name will still be on the ballot paper, for alleged anti-Semitic remarks regarding the Holocaust. It seems she has also urged people to read 'The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion', a pretty vile hoax written around 1900 by Russian anti-Semites to justify their anti-Semitism. The story is covered in the Jewish Chronicle Online.

The problem with UKIP is that despite an army of staff, funded by their MEPs, they don't seem to use those resources to vet their candidates. Or maybe they just hope the more 'eccentric' ones will be able to survive a campaign without coming out with something embarrassing at best, utterly damning at worst.

Part of the problem is that the amount of coverage a party gets during an election campaign, such as the number of election broadcasts they are allocated, depends on the number of candidates they have. So pressure is put on branches to find candidates, at all costs, so an occasional nutter slips through the net. But it's hard to blame it on that when the photograph of a shamed candidate with her party leader is all over the internet.

UKIP is riddled with people who believe in conspiracy theories, especially Common Purpose and the New World Order. The problem is that people like Anna-Marie Crampton are exposed every now and then, as are other 'eccentrics' in UKIP, but what if the one that flies under the radar gets elected?

More on this story from The Brighton Argus.

UKIP-County Council Elections May 2nd

Nigel Farage-serious politician?

This week I had a UKIP election leaflet popped through the letterbox. I've now had Tory, Labour and UKIP election material. Comparing the three it is quite obvious why people who claim to be voting UKIP to pollsters don't actually vote for them when the real election comes around. To say the UKIP leaflet is amateurish would be an understatement. It is like a fourth formers first effort in the school mock election.

For a start it is only A5, and one side of that is blank. What a waste of space. But I suppose as the party has gone native squandering EU funds like that is now par for the course. But here is the start of the message from the candidate:

"I have decided to stand in this election for UKIP as I am sick of Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour local politicians taking me and my vote for granted and offering nothing in return, preferring to follow orders from their masters in Westminster."

Oh the irony. UKIP's masters sit in the EU parliament, including leader Nigel Farage whose grip on the party makes Stalin's grip on the USSR look tenuous. The party exists merely to keep their MEPs and their staff on the gravy train, hence the lack of serious effort in these UK elections. Just compare their literature this year with the standard they will produce for next year's gravy train elections. But the next paragraph on the leaflet goes on:

"If elected I will never follow a party line to the detriment of our area. I promise to represent your views and will always put our community first."

Well then, tell that to Nikki Sinclaire MEP. Nikki refused to sit with the UKIP group in the EU parliament because of the assorted homophobes, racists and other nutjobs in the group from various EU countries. Nikki was promptly expelled from the party and now sits as an independent MEP for the West Midlands. More on Nikki's treatment by UKIP here.

He then continues:

"Common sense solutions for a Britain independent, free and fair."

There is no explanation as to what the candidate or UKIP's idea of 'commonsense' is or what they mean by 'fair' or 'free'. Just empty rhetoric that means absolutely nothing. But there's more. The leaflet goes on:

"UKIP is a patriotic party that believes in putting people first. To shore up the collapsing Euro and (I think that should be 'the' rather than 'and') EU is now seeking to pull away the props of our national economy-control over taxation and spending.

Only UKIP will give the power to the British people to regain self-government."

Interesting to look at a few of the words in this little offering, or rather a few of the words not in this little offering.

Although the head of the leaflet carries the sentence 'County Council Election' the name of the county isn't mentioned once. It is actually Lancashire County Council.

County Hall is in Preston. This isn't mentioned once but Westminster pops up. As does the Euro and the EU.

Mention is made of the EU taking control from Westminster over taxation and spending. Not once has a service provided by Lancashire County Council been mentioned, let alone a UKIP policy at that level.

Any party that can produce an election leaflet that fails to mention one single policy, that fails to mention one single service that the county council provides and fails to even mention the name of the authority for which the candidate is standing, deserves a sound thrashing on May 2nd.

Happy St George's Day

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountain green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

If You're a Scouser, Look Away Now!

They teach them young in Liverpool

I've been especially busy recently earning a crust, to pay the taxes that keep our bloated welfare state afloat, so I was shocked yesterday to hear that there had been a purge of people I'm acquainted with on Twitter.

Firstly freedom of speech means freedom of speech. There is a hackneyed old phrase that says; 'freedom of speech does not mean the right to shout fire in a packed cinema'. Fair enough, there are logical limits. But causing offence is an integral element of free speech. If I read something that I find offensive I have the freedom to continue reading or to stop reading. That is my right. Why should the writer, who offends me, be stopped from writing? But that is what is happening in our ever encroaching authoritarian, police state. Plod can't come out to deal with a burglary, but offend some oversensitive pillock and Knacker of the Yard will feel your collar faster than you can say.....well, something offensive.

It seems to me that social media is more like attending a football match than attending a heavy duty political debate or debating society. There is a great deal of macho posturing and outdoing of allies as well as opponents. We don't behave at a football match the way we do in the office, and people don't behave on Twitter and Facebook, in the main, the way they would on the hustings in an election campaign. I am speaking here of politicos using social media. Rather than reasoned debate aimed at converting opponents it is much more about trying to grind down opponents and boost your allies. If you don't like people on the right calling people on the left 'leftards', or even worse, then don't read them. If you don't like lefties throwing the word 'fascist' at anubody who disagrees with them, then don't read them. If you do, and engage them, expect it to get bloody but don't cry.

This week several heavyweights of the no nonsense, largely libertarian area of the internet have been purged. They have done nothing terrible. They haven't incited people to riot or to blow something up. They have offended somebody. For causing offence they have been banned from Twitter. In the case of Old Holborn his blog has also been taken down, whether by him voluntarily, or by the authorities forcibly I am unsure. But this link gives a good appraisal of Old Holborn's blog.

So what has Old Holborn done? It seems that he has upset Scousers and their questioned their famed victim status. From what I have found on the censored internet he questioned the accepted view of the Hillsborough disaster and the murder of Jamie Bulger. Old Holborn is hard hitting and controversial. As far as I am aware he put forward perfectly reasoned arguments that you may or may not agree with which, when I was at school, was what free speech was all about. Old Holborn, as far as I'm aware, has been writing on the internet for a few years and has survived. Until now.

Old Holborn may have caused offence but what happened to him says it all about modern Britain. His real identity, and that of his wife and children, were published on the internet as was his address. His mobile number was published and he has received numerous death threats. Threats have also been made against his employer.

But he chose the wrong target this time. He chose Scousers, and one of them complained to the police that he was upset.  You see the problem is that Scousers think they are so hard and tough, but offend one and it cries like a big baby. So the Old Bill felt Old Holborn's collar, for expressing a personal opinion. Old Holborn has been nicked and banished to some kind of internet Siberia.

Other people on Twitter have been banned after lynch mobs of lefties have hounded them after 'being offended'. I'm not aware of anybody on the libertarian right having anybody banned for being offended, although I have seen some appalling abuse fired at people by lefties. Libertarians believe in free speech. But that's for another blog post.

If you sit in your armchair watching TV, never uttering an opinion or taking sides in a debate then you'll be fine. But if you think that one day you might just, possibly, maybe want to say something that another person may not agree with then you should be very worried, you may find yourself nicked.